2023-05-24 06:55:46
«I am quite restless, but they must have something magical because they got me to spend four days recording a total of sixteen hours in a button factory in Leganés». The journalist José María García (Madrid, 79 years old) refers to Charlie Arnaiz and Alberto Ortega, the duo responsible for ‘Supergarcía’, the documentary series that reviews the career and abrupt goodbye in 2002 of the sports journalist and that can be seen in its entirety on Movistar Plus+ on May 29.
And no, the document, structured in three episodes lasting about an hour each, does not mean the return to the airwaves of the revolutionary announcer who coined adjectives such as boot-turner, streetlamp-hugging or street-runner and invented the midnight slot. “I’m not saying that I will never return, but the chances are slim, among other things because I’m still not well,” he explained this morning during the presentation of the series at the headquarters that Telefónica has in Madrid.
The truth is that a few months ago, García suffered a major blow to the head. At first, the wound was not serious, but recording a fragment of the series with his lifelong friends, he began to forget his names. A scanner confirmed that he had two blood clots in his head, for which he had to undergo surgery. «Now, I get tired and by medical recommendation I have gone from doing three hours of exercise a day to twenty minutes, to recover little by little. That has broken all my schemes, “says who hopes, after a while, to feel” passion and fervor “for the radio again.
No one would say so judging by the irrepressible and precise verbiage that this sports journalist who began his professional career as a reporter in 1963, on Radio Spain, and who later worked for the newspaper Pueblo, TVE, la Ser, Antena 3 Radio, continues to articulate. la Cope and Onda Cero.
‘Supergarcía’ talks about his journey, both at work and in life, using the typical bars of analogue radio in a very visual way to jump in time and start the narrative precisely at the end, when he left Onda Cero without even saying goodbye to his listeners. “I retired with two pieces of news that I am not going to tell because they would be a success for me but the damage we would do to the fans and the country prevails much more,” says the announcer.
At that time his secretary was in charge of collecting, classifying and storing in boxes, in a warehouse on the outskirts of Madrid, photographs, papers, contracts and all kinds of documents that García had treasured throughout his forty years of professional career. , including the tapes of the programs. “Somehow, the pre-production of the documentary began 21 years ago,” Ortega says with a laugh.
There are, for example, his beginnings in Ser, when he launched the sports radio at dawn, initially as a ten-minute section on ‘Hora 25’ that little by little gained its own entity, his departure after his confrontations with the then Minister of Justice Pío Cabanillas – “they will realize that neither Cabanillas nor Pío,” he said in his last speech faithful to his independent character – or his years of glory on Antena 3 Radio.
“I wanted the truth”
Along with these documents, the documentary is full of dozens of testimonies, from his biographer Vicente Ferrer, to Iñaki Gabilondo, who directed him in ‘Hora 25’, as well as journalists Juanma Castaño, Pipi Estrada, Cristina Pardo, Raúl del Pozo, Alfredo Relaño , Luis Herrero, Siro López, Juan Cruz, the writer Arturo Pérez-Reverte, his sons Pepe and Luis, his secretary Almudena Pérez, the presenter Pedro Ruiz, the director José Luis Garci or the former president Mariano Rajoy. “It is not a hagiographic series,” say its creators and, judging by testimonials that speak of how he used fear to get his scoops, it seems true.
They refused to participate in the series Valdano, Michel, Butragueño, Aznar, Florentino, Perico… “The best of each house,” García scathingly adds. “I demanded that I wanted the truth, not a job where I would come out tall and handsome,” says the journalist. Nor does José Ramón de la Morena, responsible for ‘El larguero’ on Ser, and his great enemy on the airwaves. “We were both wrong, but possibly me more than him because I was on top and I should have let it go,” says who now claims to get along well with the announcer. Of course, García believes he was “the most mistreated journalist in this country.”
Through his experience, the series also recounts the evolution of a country that García gave a good account of. A firm defender that vocation comes before specialization, the journalist did not hesitate to put sport aside and approach Congress on 23-F to narrate the failed coup.
Without mincing words, García is critical of Spanish politicians, whom he calls “mediocre and boring”, and with the precariousness to which a trade for which he believes he has the key has been doomed: “In the In communication there must be a show, but in addition, the central part must be the truth and information. Asked about ‘El chiringuito de jugones’, the sports gathering that Josep Pedrerol leads in Mega, he assures that although all journalism is bad, «the one that is disastrous is sports. I don’t know how anyone can sit down and tell lies. A piece of news is not news if it is not verified by all the sources, “says someone who also does not understand why a journalist wears a team scarf.
There has also been space to deal with issues such as the racist shouting at Vinicius. “That is child’s play, at the Bernabeu they burned a butane figure, they kicked it and they were giving it brooms,” says García. And there has even been talk of the Negreira scandal, uncovered after many years. «Self-criticism», he says about the profession, «is essential, but I think that these movements are more for the gallery. To begin with, there are some leaders who are stupid or Mongolian, or five minutes away from being so, they make a serious irregularity and leave it signed… It is evident that there was money, but it is also obvious that they did not send anything. Negreira is a poor man because he has earned a lot of money, but where is he ».
#war #Morena #wrong