The battle cry that Leonidas demanded of the three hundred Spartans would serve to unify the emotions of the tertullians, the trained and uniformed regiment that fills the radios and televisions of this country morning, noon and evening. And Spain is a meeting. Permanent. I’m a fan of them: here four or five of us get together somewhere at dusk and in half an hour we solve the problems of half of humanity. It takes me about ten minutes before I start saying phrases like “That’s the way it is here and in popular China.” I also use “as and how” a lot, which helps me get by most of the time. It was a Sunday afternoon and after lunch I saw an uncle of La Mancha blood with a swollen vein telling me that the Tajo-Segura transfer had to be dynamited and that he had the data. Even though my father was the moderator, we came to the brink of assassination in my living room. But we had a gin and tonic afterwards and soon decided that there is no one else like Margot Robbie, Charlize Theron and Jessica Chastain, and there is nothing else like a butterfly.
But professionals are something else. I don’t know how they experience this stress: from radio to television, from morning to evening, from La 1 to Ser, from Ferreras to Ana Rosa, from Fortes to Carlos Alsina. I swear I saw Jesús Maraña (my favorite professional talk show host; how easy it is, how much he knows how to be) in two places and at the same time. And he says the same thing but in different tones (he’s a pro). The gift of omnipresence accompanies them wherever they go. What style they all have, what ease they have with the red light on their cameras, and what a strong will they have to never say this complex sentence when faced with any question: “I don’t know, I don’t have a damn thing.” idea.” They respond to everything in that slow voice full of nuance, to everything they find an explanation full of platitudes, whether it’s the impact of the European Union’s energy policies resulting from the war in Ukraine (“governments need to do something,” says one) or China The measures he will take to gain control of Taiwan (“geostrategy is in his hands,” says another). Normally journalists have to ask us things and explain things. They give ideas in meetings, they say, they comment, they rant, they spread, they spread. War His ability to talk about conflicts, European summits, Pan-American events, transnational congresses, climate emergencies is incredible.
But it’s in national politics where everyone looks great and proudly pulls out their guns to see who has the longest chance. They begin to publish so many sources of information worthy of full solvency that we poor viewers cannot cope, the information dries up and no one tells us a little secret or something. If they’re just talking and talking, going from one end of Madrid to the other, shopping without doing anything, how will they have time to talk to them all reliably (what does it mean to be reliable?) After all, there’s not much left of everything that’s been said on dials, programs and sets (interesting reflection, striking half-sentence, a nun’s pinch) but I am aware of my caffeine addiction that has given me this addiction that has been imposed on me. The security and assertiveness of this army of hard-working socialites who do everything possible to brighten me up every morning and help me sleep every night. “Ah, ah, ah,” they shout.