Reinhard Mohn Prince of Asturias Award for Communication and Humanities 1998

Gathered together in Oviedo, the Jury for the 1998 Prince of Asturias Award for Communications and Humanities, comprised of Enrique Barón Crespo, Adela Cortina Orts, Alejandro Fernández de Araoz y Marañón, Francisco Giménez-Alemán, Javier Gómez Cuesta, Juan Luis Iglesias Prada, Hans Meinke, Adrián Piera Jiménez, Ernesto Sáenz de Buruaga Bustamante, Ricardo Senabre Sempere, Jesús de la Serna Gutiérrez-Répide, presided over by Manuel Olivencia Ruiz, and with Román Suárez Blanco acting as secretary, has unanimously decided to grant the 1998 Prince of Asturias Award for Communications and Humanities to Reinhard Möhn, founder of the Bertelsmann Group and president of the foundation of the same name.

Among Mr. Mohn´s numerous merits, the Jury has especially held in high regard his capacity to envision and organise an integrated, participatory business model in the area of communications and the humanities, which has contributed in large measure to the diffusion of culture through the publishing of books and other publications, the creation of libraries, and the promotion of reading, through a world-wide multimedia network with particular influence in Spain, a country with whose culture he has shown a marked affinity.

Oviedo, 8th May 1998