The prominent journalist and essayist, pioneer in the digital transformation of the press, Jean François Fogel, died this Sunday at the age of 76. He made the first steps of his career at Agence France-Presse and worked for numerous publications in the newspaper Libératión and the weekly Le Point.
He was also deputy director to the management of the newspaper “Le Monde”, where he served from the 90s to 2002. He also contributed to the creation of the Le Monde.fr site in the 2000s.
Fogel, an advisor to important media outlets such as the New York Times of the United States, Clarín of Argentina, El País of Spain and also El Mostrador, died of a cerebral hemorrhage, according to his wife.
Jean François Fogel was known as one of the great leaders in the process of adapting the press to the digital world. A great connoisseur of America, he was a friend of Gabriel García Márquez and head of the board of his foundation “Gabo”.
His teachings and vast experience generated a great impact not only in the written press -which he advised- in Latin America and Europe, but also for the thousands of journalists who attended the workshops of the Gabo Foundation, where they learned from him.
His vision was embodied in 2005 with the book “The press without Gutenberg”, where together with one of his project partners, Bruno Patino, current president of the ARTE channel, in which they developed the impact that technology and the internet would have in the following years on journalistic companies.
In addition to “The press without Gutenberg”, “End of the century in Havana” stands out, where he talked about the secrets of the collapse of Fidel Castro and “The testament of Pablo Escobar” about the Colombian narco, a country to which Fogel had a lot of appreciation.
Back in 2009, Fogel wrote in El País de España that “technological development and, above all, the mobile phone, favor nomadism. We go to an audience permanently connected to a wireless network. And this means changes in behavior, as connected people discover new consumption of content and places and moments that did not exist before the mobile phone. The way out of the crisis will be with the phone in your pocket.”
After his death, the general director of the Gabo Foundation, Jaime Abello Banfi, said that “Jean François had a deep knowledge and interest in Latin America and Latin American culture, he was a good friend of Gabo, whom he met in the early seventies.”
“He loved journalism and literature, he cared about freedom of expression and the quality of democracy in the region, and he did first of all what we now call digital transformation, of which he became a practical expert, generous promoter and far-sighted guide,” he added.
Abello said that “it is irreplaceable and we will be sorely needed, but we will always remember it and we will pay it the tribute it deserves at the 11th Gabo Festival in Bogotá.”
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