The UAB awards an honorary doctorate to journalist Joaquim Maria Puyal
25/04/2019
On 7 May at noon, the auditorium (Sala d'Actes) of the Rectorat building played host to the awards ceremony for journalist Joaquim Maria Puyal. This was the last of the five extraordinary honorary doctorates the UAB awarded this year in celebration of its 50th anniversary. Puyal, a key element in the normalisation of the language by commentating football matches live on the radio in Catalan, was sponsored by Miquel de Moragas, Honorary Professor of the UAB Department of Media, Communication and Culture.
Trained in the journalism at the UAB, Puyal's professional career spans over 50 years, in which he has commentated on more than 3000 sport matches. He was the first journalist to once again offer football matches live in Catalan on the radio, something no one had done since the fall of the Spanish Republic in 1939. Throughout his career he has worked in Ràdio Barcelona, Televisió Espanyola, Televisió de Catalunya and Catalunya Ràdio. He has also directed programmes such as Vostè pregunta (TVE) and Vostè jutja, La vida en un xip and Un tomb per la vida (all three broadcast on TV3).
His contributions to the terminology and language of journalists led him to be accepted into a section of the Institute of Catalan Studies and he is also author of a doctoral thesis on television discourses and the essay Aicnàlubma. Reflexions sobre la societat i els mitjans. Propostes per a la nova televisió (Columna). [Aicnàlubma. Reflections on Society and the Media. Proposals for a New Television.]
The UAB's newest honorary doctorate has been a pioneer and role model for many of today's journalism professionals in Catalonia (Sílvia Coppulo, Mònica Terribas, Jordi Basté, Eduard Boet, Manuel Fuentes, etc.) and he often has been awarded for his tasks: four-time Ondas winner, a Saint George Cross and the National Broadcasting Prize from the Government of Catalonia, the Manuel Vázquez Montalbán Sports Journalism Prize and the National Prize for Culture, in addition to a long list of other distinctions. Puyal was also once a member of the UAB Social Council.
Among the exceptional honorary doctorates awarded in celebration of the UAB's 50th anniversary, Joaquim Maria Puyal's doctorate corresponds to the axis of commitment to the Catalan language and society. The honorary doctorates already awarded corresponded to freedom of expression (Congolese lawyer and also journalist Caddy Adzuba), solidarity (microbiologist and activist Marie-Paule Kieny), cultural identity (sculptor Jaume Plensa) and knowledge (American physicist Lisa Randall).
More information:
The Audacity of Knowledge: 50 years UAB