Vicent Partal (; born 1960 in

Bétera Bétera () is a Municipalities of Spain, municipality in the Comarques of the Valencian Community, ''comarca'' of Camp de Túria in the Valencia (autonomous community), Valencian Community, Spain. With 23,647 inhabitants, it is the second most pop ...

Valencia Valencia ( , ), formally València (), is the capital of the Province of Valencia, province and Autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of Valencian Community, the same name in Spain. It is located on the banks of the Turia (r ...

) is a Spanish journalist and director of VilaWeb. He has also worked in

El Temps ''El Temps'' (; 'The Times') is a weekly newsmagazine, published in Valencia by ''Edicions del País Valencià'' since 1984. It is distributed throughout the whole Països Catalans. It is edited by Eliseu Climent. The publication has offices in ...

, Diari de Barcelona, TVE,

Catalunya Ràdio ''Catalunya Ràdio'' () is Catalonia's public radio network. With headquarters in Barcelona, it is part of the Corporació Catalana de Mitjans Audiovisuals (CCMA), owned by the Generalitat de Catalunya. Catalunya Ràdio broadcasts exclusively ...

El Punt ''El Punt'' (, ) was a Catalan daily newspaper based in Girona, Catalonia (Spain). The newspaper was renamed in 1990 from the original ''Punt Diari'' ('Daily Point'). It was published between 24 February 1979 and 31 July 2011. History and pr ...

, and

La Vanguardia ' (; , ) is a Spanish daily newspaper founded in 1881. It is printed in Spanish and, since 3 May 2011, also in Catalan. It has its headquarters in Barcelona and is Catalonia's leading newspaper. Despite being mostly distributed in Catalonia, ...

, among others. He is considered an Internet pioneer. In 1994, he created the self-styled "first news Internet system in

Catalonia Catalonia is an autonomous community of Spain, designated as a ''nationalities and regions of Spain, nationality'' by its Statute of Autonomy of Catalonia of 2006, Statute of Autonomy. Most of its territory (except the Val d'Aran) is situate ...

" named ''El Temps Online''. In 1995, founded ''Partal, Maresma & Associats'', a company devoted to

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the Global network, global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a internetworking, network of networks ...

Consulting A consultant (from "to deliberate") is a professional (also known as ''expert'', ''specialist'', see variations of meaning below) who provides advice or services in an area of specialization (generally to medium or large-size corporations). Cons ...

and access. From that initiative, ''La Infopista catalana'' appeared in 1996, which later became VilaWeb. He is currently the Chairman of the Board of the

European Journalism Centre The European Journalism Centre (EJC) is an independent, non-profit institute, based in Maastricht, Limburg, The Netherlands. Operations Its aim is to give further training to mid-career journalists and media professionals. The institute also ...

Biography

Vicent Partal studied

Magisterium The magisterium of the Catholic Church is the church's authority or office to give authentic interpretation of the word of God, "whether in its written form or in the form of Tradition". According to the 1992 ''Catechism of the Catholic Church'' ...

at the

University of Valencia The University of Valencia ( ), shortened to UV, is a public research university in Valencia, Spain. It is one of the oldest universities in Spain, and the oldest in the Valencian Community. It is regarded as one of Spain's leading academic i ...

and worked at the Gavina School. However, he soon changed his profession and began to work as a journalist. Co-founder of the weekly magazine

in 1983, he was a collaborator of the Diari de Barcelona and

Televisión Española (acronym TVE, branded tve, "Spanish Television") is Spain's national state-owned public television broadcaster and the oldest regular television service in the country. It was also the first regular television service in Equatorial Guinea. T ...

, where he specialized in international politics. As a reporter and correspondent, he covered events around the world, including the

collapse of the Berlin Wall Collapse or its variants may refer to: Concepts * Collapse (structural) * Collapse (topology), a mathematical concept * Collapsing manifold * Collapse, the action of collapsing or Telescoping (mechanics), telescoping objects * Collapsing user ...

, the coup d'état in the USSR and the independence process of the

Baltic countries The Baltic states or the Baltic countries is a geopolitical term encompassing Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. All three countries are members of NATO, the European Union, the Eurozone, and the OECD. The three sovereign states on the eastern co ...

, the

Balkan war The Balkan Wars were two conflicts that took place in the Balkan states in 1912 and 1913. In the First Balkan War, the four Balkan states of Greece, Serbia, Montenegro and Bulgaria declared war upon the Ottoman Empire and defeated it, in the ...

, the revolt of Beijing students, the End of

apartheid Apartheid ( , especially South African English: , ; , ) was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 to the early 1990s. It was characterised by an ...

in South Africa, the beginning of Palestinian autonomy, the conflict in

Kurdistan Kurdistan (, ; ), or Greater Kurdistan, is a roughly defined geo- cultural region in West Asia wherein the Kurds form a prominent majority population and the Kurdish culture, languages, and national identity have historically been based. G ...

or several elections in the United States. In 1994 he created the first informative system on the Internet of the Catalan Areas, and from Spain called El Temps Online. In 1995, together with Assumpció Maresma, then director of El Temps's weekly magazine, he founded Infopista (first web directory in Catalan), which was later transformed into an electronic newspaper in Catalan, VilaWeb. In the same year he created with Jordi Vendrell the program ''L'Internauta'' in

. He is currently director of VilaWeb. He has collaborated with other media like Elpuntavui, El 9 Esportiu,

Berria ''Berria'' (Basque: ''News'') is the only daily newspaper published wholly in the Basque language and which can be read in the entirety of the Basque country. It was created after the closure of the previous Basque language newspaper, Egunkaria, ...

or Catalunya Ràdio. He has published several monographs on

NATO The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO ; , OTAN), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental organization, intergovernmental Transnationalism, transnational military alliance of 32 Member states of NATO, member s ...

and the nationalisms of the former Soviet Union. He published the books ''Catalunya en l'estratègia militar d'Occident'' (1987), ''Els nacionalistes a l'URSS'' (1988), ''La revolta nacionalista a l'URSS'' (1991), ''Atles de l'Europa futura'' (1991), ''Catalunya 3.0'' (2001), ''11-M: El periodisme en crisi'' (2004, with Martxelo Otamendi) and ''Periodisme quàntic''. . In June 2009 he published ''Llibreta de Pequín'', the first commercial

ebook An ebook (short for electronic book), also spelled as e-book or eBook, is a book publication made available in electronic form, consisting of text, images, or both, readable on the flat-panel display of computers or other electronic devices. A ...

in Catalan without print edition. He has also published two key books to understand the evolution of sovereignty in Catalonia, ''A un pam de la independència'' (2013) and ''Desclassificat 9-N'' (2015) As for television, he has written the series ''Hem fet el Sud,'' (''We made the South)'', and the show ''Una llengua que camina'', a co-production between VilaWeb and

Televisió de Catalunya Televisió de Catalunya (, known by the acronym TVC) is the public broadcasting network of Catalonia, one of the seventeen autonomous communities of Spain. It is part of the Corporació Catalana de Mitjans Audiovisuals, a public corporation c ...

on Escola Valenciana. He was also the scriptwriter of the controversial program ''Camaleon'' on Spanish public TV TVE, who made a criticism of news stories staging a false coup d'état in the Soviet Union. He is the president of the European Journalism Center, based in Maastricht, a professional organization of continental scope that works for the promotion of quality journalism in Europe and to assimilate the great technological and cultural changes that accompany the digitalisation of the media. Partal has won a number of awards, including Premi Ciutat de Barcelona 1999, Catalonia's National Internet Prize in 2000 and the National Journalism Prize in 2004.

Books

* ''Catalunya en l'estratègia militar d'Occident'' (1987) * ''Els nacionalistes a l'URSS'' (1988) * ''La revolta nacionalista a l'URSS'' (1991) * ''Atles de l'Europa futura'' (1991) * ''Converses sobre els orígens d'internet a Catalunya'' (2000) * ''Catalunya 3.0'' (2001) * ''11-M: El periodisme en crisi'', amb el periodista Martxelo Otamendi (2004) * ''Periodisme quàntic. Fent periodisme a Internet. L'experiència dels primers deu anys de VilaWeb'' (2007) * ''Llibreta de Pequín'' (2009) * ''A un pam de la independència'' (2013) * ''Desclassificat: 9-N'' (2015) * ''Nou homenatge a Catalunya'' (2018)

References

External links

Personal website

Sir Berners Lee and the African Journalist
Article at the EJC website about Partal ideas on journalism {{DEFAULTSORT:Partal, Vicent 1960 births Living people People from Camp de Túria Writers from the Valencian Community Catalan-language writers Journalists from Catalonia