Federico Jiménez Losantos

Template:Short description Template:BLP sources Template:Infobox person Federico Jorge Jiménez Losantos (born 15 September 1951), also known by his initials FJL,Template:Refn is a Spanish radio presenter and right-wing pundit, being most known for his successful radio talk show Es la mañana de Federico. He is also a TV host and literary and non-fiction author. A member of extreme-left organizations and participant in Barcelona's counter-cultural scene in the 1970s, he experienced a radical rightward drift, eventually becoming a journalistic guru for a far-right audience.Template:Sfn

Early life

Born in Orihuela del Tremedal, Teruel, on 15 September 1951,<ref name=nuevaalcarria /> to a family of educators.Template:Sfn He studied at a high school in Teruel, where he was a student of José Antonio Labordeta (who reportedly considered Losantos "like a son" at the time and later wondered about his personal "transformation") and José Sanchis Sinisterra.<ref name=nuevaalcarria>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> He was a resident at Colegio Menor "San Pablo", and earned a silver medal of Student Merit and the third class of the "Colegio Pizarro" literary award.Template:Sfn

Jiménez Losantos arrived to Barcelona at age 20, and he studied Philosophy and Letters (section Romance Philology) at the University of Barcelona,<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> earning a licentiate degree by reading a dissertation about Valle Inclán.<ref name=nuevaalcarria /> He was a member of Bandera Roja and the PSUC during his spell in Barcelona.Template:Sfn Disenchanted as result of a journey to Maoist China and the reading of The Gulag Archipelago, he distanced himself from communism in 1976.<ref name=nuevaalcarria />

Together with Alberto Cardín, he founded Revista de Literatura (1974)—the "most Lacanian" publication at the time in Spain—Template:Sfn and Diwan (1978).<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Literature and language teacher at a high school in Santa Coloma de Gramenet and one of the promoters of the so-called Template:Ill denouncing the alleged "intention to make Catalan the only official language of Catalonia", he was kidnapped by Terra Lliure in 1981; after being gagged and shot at the leg by Template:Ill in a wasteland in Esplugues de Llobregat, Losantos was left abandoned and tied to a tree by the kidnappers.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

He left Catalonia and moved to Madrid after the attack.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> He worked as a literature teacher at the Instituto Lope de Vega high school in the Spanish capital.Template:Citation needed

Career in journalism

He was hired as Op-Ed Editor of the Diario 16 newspaper. He then worked for Antena 3 Radio, and later for the COPE radio network of the Spanish Catholic church. After a year in Miami, he returned to Spain and took charge of La Linterna, a night programme on COPE radio. In 2003 he became director of La Mañana, also on COPE, and became increasingly popular in the morning radio. With La Mañana he became one of the most listened-to radio talk show hosts in Spain until he parted ways in July 2009.Template:Citation needed

He was one of the founders of La Ilustración Liberal magazine.Template:Sfn

In 2000, together with the likes of Javier Rubio Navarro, José María Marco, Alberto Recarte, Carlos Rodríguez Braun and Pedro Schwartz, Losantos helped to create Libertad Digital, a markedly partisan right-leaning and anti-socialist online newspaper.Template:Sfn Half of the seed capital was provided by the Grupo Intereconomía.Template:Sfn

He is also a regular columnist for El Mundo and has written several books, mostly on political topics. He also debuted in poetry with a book of haikus. In 2005 he started 'The Spain Herald', an English-language digest of articles from Libertad Digital which has been off-line since June 2006.

He has been successfully prosecuted on a number of occasions for defamatory pronouncements. Including a quarrel filed by Alberto Ruiz-Gallardón,Template:SfnTemplate:Refn and being legally prompted, along with his employers COPE, to pay compensation of 60,000 euros to Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> In 2009, after the discomfort that Losantos' outspoken and uncompromising editorial line was creating in the COPE (deeply critical of the former Spanish premier Zapatero, but, somewhat surprisingly for Spain's partisan politics, equally critical of the conservative opposition, which he chastises as being bland and lacking a real alternative project), he did not accept the new role he was offered by this radio station and announced he was moving, among others, to create his own radio station, esRadio, to be launched in September of that same year.Template:Citation needed

Losantos received the Antena de Oro award in 2022.

Ideology and views

Template:Conservatism in Spain He was one of the figures from among the Conservative camp (along, for example, José María Aznar) who tried to vindicate the figure of Manuel Azaña in the mid 1990s, partially justified by the bad feelings of the republican politician towards the so-called "peripheral nationalisms".Template:Sfn

He has acrimoniously derided the left-wing political parties in Spain for an alleged renouncement to the "idea of Spain" and lack of State project.Template:Sfn A harsh opponent of Catalan nationalism, he has decried language policy in Catalonia as a "cultural genocide".Template:Sfn He has fiercely criticised the cultural policies implemented by the regional administrations of the autonomous communities of Spain.Template:Sfn

He was among the leading public figures promoting the conspiracy theory about the authorship of the 11-M terrorist attacks in Madrid in 2004, and he even got to the point of purging critics of the conspiracy theory off from the informative services of COPE.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

He endorsed Rosa Díez in the campaign for the 2011 general election.Template:Sfn

He has declared to be an atheist.Template:Refn In 2021, he had a row with the anti-vax movement whom he deemed as "{{#invoke:Lang|lang}}" (roughly translating to 'ultra-fuddy-duddy bleach drinkers') and claimed that "murderers" are "those who do not vaccinate their children and deny that vaccines save lives".<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Style

His style has been described as "vehement and aggressive".Template:Sfn He has been noted by his ability to create hurtful nicknames to deride his "enemies".<ref name=ceballos>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> He regularly uses the stylistic device of relating the meteorological situation at a given time to the ongoing affairs in Spain.<ref name=ceballos />

Works

Essays

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References

Informational notes

Citations

Bibliography

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