Truth and Freedom. Listening to José Ramón Pérez Ornia

Professor Anto J. Benítez presents a book that covers, in the form of an interview, the professional career of José Ramón Pérez Ornia, one of the professionals with the longest career in Spanish audiovisuals.

Starting from an interview format, Professor Anto J. Benítez presents the book Truth and Freedom. Listening to José Ramón Pérez Ornia. This work is outlined as a biography of Pérez Ornia and, particularly, his career as a television critic in El País and Diario 16, director of Telemadrid (1991-1994), director of Communication of the Ministry of the Presidency of the Government (1994-1996), editor and director of GECA and its Television Yearbook (1996-2004) and first general director of the regional radio and television station of Asturias, RTPA. (2005-2011).

En El País, Pérez Ornia comenzó a escribir información y crítica de televisión –y también de vídeo- a partir del 19 de septiembre de 1976. En Diario 16 fundó la primera página diaria de la prensa española dedicada a la televisión el 12 de diciembre de 1977. Perteneció a la plantilla de El País hasta finales del verano de 1987.

Dirigió para RTVE en 1989-1990 la serie documental El arte del Vídeo (14 capítulos de 30 minutos cada uno) y fue comisario de la Primera Bienal de la Imagen en Movimiento del Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía.

He has been a professor and professor of Audiovisual Communication and Advertising at the Complutense University of Madrid (UCM) and currently co-directs, together with Jesús Verdugo, the Master's Degree in “Making and Design of Television Programs and Formats” at the UCM and RTVE, which he founded with Miguel Ángel Ortiz Sobrino thirteen years ago, in the 2002-2003 academic year.

As for the author, Anto J. Benítez, he has worked as a television producer for more than fifteen years, especially on the Telemadrid network. He currently teaches Filmmaking and Technology classes at the Carlos III University of Madrid and carries out his research work in the Tecmerin group of the Department of Journalism and Audiovisual Communication of this university. One of his latest publications is the manual Realization of Sports on Television (RTVE Institute, Madrid, 2013).

This book is edited by Television-Cinema Research Group: memory, representation and industry (TECMERIN). This group, founded in 2006 within the Carlos III University of Madrid, is made up of teachers and researchers from the Audiovisual Communication Area who have sought over the years to delve into aspects that have been underdeveloped by audiovisual analysis methodologies in Spain in aspects as diverse as television and film studies, political economy, audiovisual geopolitics, social representations and image technologies. It has the collaboration of the RTVE Institute.