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Iñaki Gabilondo's final goodbye to radio

2021-09-22T20:02:05.158Z


The journalist assures that "getting older is a process of dismissal." Friends and rivals gloss the figure of an essential professional in the last five decades


He has devoted practically his entire life to the radio and after half a century before the microphones, the journalist Iñaki Gabilondo (San Sebastián, 78 years old) says goodbye.

He made the official announcement of his farewell on Tuesday on Cadena SER, where he forged a successful professional career and became an inspiration for several generations of journalists.

"I am convinced that it is over," he said on the antenna of

Hora 25, a

program of which he was director at the end of the seventies of the last century.

“Getting older is a process of dismissal.

I'm going to be 79 next month.

It was clear that this was over and I was getting bored with myself ”, he explained.

Iñaki Gabilondo, in a study by SER in 1995.

Gabilondo's professional career has been atypical. He did the reverse path that journalism professionals usually take: first he was director of the SER in several local stations and later he went on to direct and present programs, including

Hoy por hoy,

the great modernizing bet of the most listened to channel on the dial, which it piloted for 19 years and left in 2005 to be in charge of the nascent television channel Cuatro.

At the time of goodbye, the journalist has admitted that the SER gave him everything: “Every time I have heard the red light go on, I have felt the cramp of a child who dreamed of being there.

I think he was like almost all children because they all wanted to live in Disneyland ”.

He recalled that his family lived the fascination of Spain around the radio.

“With the radio, as a creator of mental images, each word filled our world with color.

I have never felt a greater triumph than when I was director of Radio San Sebastián ”.

It did not allow mistakes or nonsense or jokes around a material as sensitive as information.

I recorded that with blood and fire

Ana Pastor

To announce this decisive step, the journalist has chosen the complicity of Aimar Bretos, director of

Hora 25.

“I was as I wanted, withdrawing by way of maximum discretion.

When I stopped commenting, surely I should have dropped everything.

We force a little more in

Today for today

, but in my heart it was clear that the end had come. "

After a long period of reflection during the hardest part of the pandemic, in January he shelved the daily comments in which he analyzed current events with a lucid gaze.

He argued then that it was becoming increasingly difficult for him to have an opinion because he has always doubted a lot.

“Now there are many people who have an opinion in a very easy way, even without the need for information.

Making a comment every day forces you to enter the center of the dispute, of the anger.

As the polarization and radicalism intensify, my discomfort has grown, ”he assured.

With nails and teeth

For those who worked alongside him or were his rivals on the airwaves, Gabilondo's farewell has triggered reactions charged with emotion and a certain sadness. Luis del Olmo, competitor for two decades in the morning strip of the airwaves from RNE, Cope and Onda Cero, resisted this Wednesday to admit the final goodbye. "I dont believe it. I hope it's a joke. I don't think I'll be able to say goodbye to the radio or the microphone. He has given everything to the radio and the radio has given him so much… ”, Del Olmo commented in a broken voice, who has always felt like a“ friend of the soul ”of the journalist from San Sebastian. "I don't know what my dear brother is playing," he added, "but if it were true that he turns off the microphone, it is something very bitter and it would be the most bitter news in the history of SER." Del Olmo retired in 2013.His nose told him then that he should lower the curtain. That objective was not met. “You can't say goodbye to radio for good. I keep zascandileando ", says now the creator of the legendary

Protagonists.

Those who worked with Gabilondo in SER evoke the journalist's commitment to respect the truth and coherence.

Isaías Lafuente joined as a fellow in

Hoy por hoy

in 1986, when the great information and entertainment magazine was about to take off.

He was “lucky” to work on the launch of an “exciting” adventure and to be next to “an absolutely stunning person”.

“At that moment I won the lottery.

I consider myself very lucky, ”says Lafuente, who shared 19 years with Gabilondo in a space of which he was deputy director.

From those times, Lafuente, currently linked to the evening

La Ventana

, he saves in his memory the lessons he learned: that hearing is different than listening and that looking is not the same as seeing. Or that objectivity does not equal the coldness of the notary. “For Iñaki, objectivity was and is an obligation, to separate ourselves a few meters to see the panorama. But when we see the murderer and the murdered, the abuser and the abused woman, we must take sides. We have come to this profession to commit ourselves ”. For Antonio García Ferreras, former director of SER, Gabilondo "has been a before and after in the dignity of journalism in Spain." “He has been and is the force of an ethical, brilliant and iron commitment to this profession. With him, every morning on the radio, Spain was a better country and above all more tolerant and open. Iñaki is the teacher who showed us the way. Let's follow him ”.

He has been and is the force of an ethical, brilliant and iron commitment to this profession.

With him, every morning on the radio, Spain was a better country

Antonio Garcia Ferreras

Radio is fifty years old, but Gabilondo does not consider it to be a thing of the past.

“It is the only medium that operates in hours, minutes and days and does not demand anyone's attention.

If you listen to the radio you can do everything.

The radio makes you the second voice, if you want, you can listen to it, if you want to, you can hear it.

Some are listening to us and others are listening to us ”.

For the journalist Ana Pastor, linked to the SER newscasts until 2006 and now on laSexta, Gabilondo transmitted to her team curiosity, a desire to be surprised and to know.

And he did it, in addition, with an awake, deep and tempered gaze.

And that was transferred to the radio antenna.

“His level of demand was only comparable to the level of self-demand.

It did not allow mistakes or nonsense or jokes around a material as sensitive as information.

I recorded that with blood and fire, "he says.

When evaluating Gabilondo's passage through the radio, he adds: “We cannot afford to have Iñaki out of the analysis in this country.

There are very few people with his prodigious head ”.

More information

  • Iñaki Gabilondo's Proust questionnaire

During his time at the helm of

Hoy por hoy,

the SER achieved leadership and managed to surpass the omnipresent

Protagonistas.

In 1993 he joined the management of the Daniel Gavela chain. "I was fortunate to find a person with a very high degree of current knowledge and commitment to journalism, with an enormous capacity for work, infinite curiosity and absolute independence." He maintains that Gabilondo has gone through all the events since the end of the Franco regime with a “free and accurate” look and has faced very difficult situations. “He suffered threats of terrorism and disqualifications, but he never gave up. Saturation has overcome him. It is a shame that he is leaving, but he has the right to do what he has done ”, adds Gavela, for whom it is unimaginable that the SER got where it has come without the participation of Gabilondo."He contributed the profession of entertainment radio and championed a journalism marked by honesty and bomb-proof independence," he says.

An example: Isaías Lafuente tells that being almost a fellow in

Hoy por hoy,

a chief of staff of an important minister of the time called to ask for the questionnaire of the questions that Iñaki was going to ask him the next day.

“I didn't have the power to tell him that we didn't do things like that.

I consulted Iñaki and he replied: 'Tell him that the minister send us the answers that he is going to give us and seeing them I will decide whether to interview him or not.'

This, which may seem like an anecdote, means always maintaining the position and defending it tooth and nail until the end ”.

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Source: elparis

All news articles on 2021-09-22

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