Breathe
By Pamela Cerdeira
I came to this profession with two things in hand: idealism and a lot of naiveté. When I interview a victim of you name it - government ineptitude, organized crime, sexual abuse, disappearances - a kind of black lava envelops my stomach, it burns, and the facts take color and shape in my head, as if it were a movie that I am witnessing, not from a screen, but on the side of the scene, live. I found some peace in knowing that sometimes on the other side of the radio or TV there was someone with the power to act who was willing to listen, an institution that cared about its reputation. And then, more often than not, giving space to those stories made a difference to the victim. But that is no longer the case.
In Cynics Are No Good for This Trade, Ryszard Kapuściński says that "true journalism is intentional: namely, that which sets itself a goal and tries to bring about some kind of change. No other journalism is possible." The thing is, change - whether in seeking institutions that work, authorities who care about their work, or citizens who care - seems like a losing battle. If we have been talking about post-truth for the last few years: the reign of other data, distorted reality, these times deserve another name.
Here cynicism is the communication model. We are no longer in the post truth. This is Cínicom: a system where no attempt is made to convince, only to dominate with brazenness. The cruder it is, the better.
Donald Trump said publicly that he wants to apply a "Juanito": since re-election for a third term is not contemplated in US law, and to change it he needs two thirds of Congress, he came up with the idea that JD Vance could be the candidate and then give him the space. A Juanito!
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