We have a bad reputation, even at the dentist's office. "Oh, you mouths of a bad life!" exclaims the dentist with the headlight on his forehead as he buries between teeth worn from so much sawing to get the right word out. I remembered that popular adage that says: "Don't tell my mother I'm a journalist, she thinks I'm a pianist in a brothel". Because, if the reputation of politicians is bad, that of journalists is devastating. And it reaffirms the idea that it is always better to make the news than to write or read it. Among citizens, the profession scares as much as it entertains. "manipulation", "massage", "vomiting"... This is how the hot square accuses it of being revolted by a journalist who seems to act as a messenger of power. Or so they believe.
It is true that some pens prefer the pulpit to the premonition of bringing a look outside the cliché, and use their loudspeaker to set fire to the sermon. They are the nostalgic ones, who continue to despise the influence of Twitter and sit in their Greek column, with the base, the shaft and the capital.
The glamor evaporated years ago, along with the prestige and media. We live in precarious times, although information is one of the main global entertainments. In the chain of paradoxes, interviews are usually done via Zoom: it saves money, yes, but you can't smell the character. On the other hand, the windows of commentators who smell the world and its surroundings are multiplying as if they were playing the tarot.
Perhaps because of all this, it was surprising that Yolanda Díaz confessed to Jordi Évole that in a hypothetical Third Republic she would like to have Iñaki Gabilondo as president – she would have shown more sisterhood by naming Júlia Otero–. A journalist, yes, ideologically significant but with an irreproachable professional career. Rigorous, sensible, instructive and at the same time amiable, and a good connoisseur of the human condition. Many came out with their hands on their heads and became more monarchical. But the most interesting thing about Díaz's example is that, by choosing a figure from such a well-known profession, he brought to the table the spirit of mediation and commitment to the truth.
This week I participated in a colloquium at the March Foundation, with Daniel Gascón, on Spanish journalism. The first thing they asked us was how many times we had been censored. "Never", we both affirmed, fresh and proud, two real examples of the freedom of opinion in the extravagant Spanish press. Practitioners of that old craft, that of making articles between politics and poetry that Umbral said, we talked about the necessary plurality of the media and the risk of sentencing. And how there are columns that, instead of illuminating, obscure correctly.
Before the talk I re-read master Paul Johnson's witty advice to the future good columnist: knowledge (but displayed discreetly, without overwhelming), reading in the head, thematic variety without straying from the everyday, instinct for the news. And, although many articles are personal, they should never be self-centered.
As a bonus tip, the audacious and at the same time very conservative Johnson added: “Life is sad for most people, certainly for the columnist as well. But, as in Pagliacci, it's about not showing it and continuing with the show". The avalanche of news does not stop, just like the mountains of garbage; it grows old quickly and is buried badly. But without leaving reality, I say to myself, we will have to point to the beauty that is hidden and lighten the spine.
