Maria Lluïsa Suau dies, pioneer of television in Catalan in the Balearic Islands

PalmaJournalist Maria Lluïsa Suau died this Monday at 87 years of age. On November 15, 1979, she presented with Joan Santamaria the first broadcast of the Informatiu Balear of TVE. It was one of the first audiovisual information spaces in Catalan in the Islands and Suau was one of its most well-known faces.

She had started working at Ràdio Popular, from where she followed the democratic transition in the Balearic Islands. Later she moved to TVE. In those first months, the program was prepared in the Islands, but the territorial center did not yet exist: the tapes traveled every day by plane to Madrid to be broadcast the next day. Suau presented the news and also followed the activity of the Balearic deputies and senators in the Spanish capital.

Her voice left the screen on February 27, 1981. Four days after the attempted coup d'état, she read the manifesto of the rally in defense of democracy held in Palma, in which some 15,000 people participated.

Years later, she returned to read a manifesto before a full square. It was in March 2007, at the end of the demonstration 'Enough destruction. Let's save Mallorca', called by GOB and Salvem Mallorca against the degradation of the territory and the urban planning policies of those years. Suau and the painter and theater director Joan Lacomba had to repeat the reading because the last protesters were still arriving at the Plaça Major. The protest had gathered tens of thousands of people in the streets of Palma.

Born in Palma on September 17, 1939, Suau is part of the first generation of journalists who made television in Catalan in the Balearic Islands. In 2008, she received the Ramon Llull award. The Government recognized at that time her contribution to linguistic normalization through the Informatiu Balear and her professional career.

Condolences to family and friends

The Government has wished to convey its condolences to the relatives, friends, and colleagues of Suau. The Executive has emphasized Suau's contribution "to the linguistic normalization of the Balearic Islands, through the Informatiu Balear daily news, and her permanent commitment to the truth, pluralism, and informative rigor, as well as the strong social and civic commitment of her activity, made her a prestigious journalist and an example for the entire profession".

For her part, the President of the Congress, Francina Armengol, wanted to highlight on social media that Suau was "one of the pioneering women of journalism in the Balearic Islands and a benchmark in democratic normalization and in the social use of our language". "We will always remember her for her kindness and at the helm of those first broadcasts of theInformatiu Balear from RTVE".