Journalist João Fernandes dies aged 81

Veteran journalist João Fernandes has died from an illness aged 81 in Lisbon, according to family sources quoted by Radio Macau yesterday.

Fernandes was the founder and editor of Jornal de Macau, a popular Portuguese daily in the 1980s and ‘90s. Born in Lisbon, Fernandes had a long career in Angola, Brazil and Portugal before moving to Macau.

Fernandes worked at O Comercio de Luanda and Noticia magazine. After 1974 he went on to work in Brazil, at Estado de São Paulo.

He then returned to Lisbon in 1976, where he was managing editor at O Dia and wrote a regular column for the right-wing newspaper O Diabo. At one point he briefly served as adjunct to a minister in the Lisbon Government.

After moving to Macau in 1982, he founded and edited the Jornal de Macau. The evening daily was popular for its coverage of news from Portugal, but mostly for Fernandes’ short, witty editorials on the front page, which became known as “O quadradinho,” the little square. A collection of his editorials was published in 1996 by Livros do Oriente.

In 1998, Jornal de Macau joined weekly Tribuna de Macau to become Jornal Tribuna de Macau, which is one of the three Portuguese dailies published in Macau today.

Fernandes was a member of the Consultative Council during the last decade of the Portuguese Administration until 1999, when he retired and moved to Portugal. PC