2023-10-05 05:05:45
October 3, 2021. While Cuba celebrates another anniversary of the First Central Committee of the Party and the birth of the newspaper Granma, Escambray publishes excellent material about the rice program in the South of Jíbaro, a project conceived by Fidel.
As so many times, I feel like calling the author to say: “Friend, great work.” Or better yet: go to Sancti Spíritus to hug him. But at that time, Juan Antonio Borrego Díaz continues to wage an unequal fight, of life or death, against covid.
Hours later Escambray: newspaper, massif, mountain range, camera, live set, sound, ether, spring, river, mouth, plain, swamp, savannah, alligator, entire Cuba… he would writhe from that pain that neither medicine nor time cures.
Supposedly, only supposedly, the man who with the quiet tenderness of a child spent almost a quarter of a century at the head of the Sancti Spiritus newspaper was leaving us, without renouncing – and I doubt that Cuban journalism will pick up another similar case – to his status as the newspaper’s correspondent. Granmain whose team he remained for 29 years.
As for his commendable work in Escambray It has been talked about, perhaps not enough, but in more than one forum, I prefer to evoke part of what, as a correspondent, leaves us with students, active professionals, retirees and even researchers.
Immediacy and passion for journalism were always on his agenda. (Photo: Courtesy of Granma correspondents).
Correspondent is not just anyone
Borrego never looked for the place that, from Havana, he reserved Granma in 1992 for a truly capable journalist, capable of bringing the rich events of the Sancti Spiritus territory to the pages of the newspaper.
It was not as easy as it might seem. He knew that not everyone is a correspondent. Only for someone like him—chronically in love with the profession and shaped by the divine hands of his parents and his time—denial did not exist.
Susana Lee, then Head of Information, noticed it immediately when she shook the hand of that young man who with so few words said so much, first in a routine dialogue with her and then collectively.
I remember that, according to a very habit of his, El Borre settled down there, in the back, perhaps out of shyness (I don’t think so), out of modesty (it could be), to better dominate the “combat scene” (it’s probable) or so as not to attract attention or seek prominence (no one doubts it).
The real thing, undeniable, is that since his arrival he resonated with colleagues, managers and readers.
Without wanting to make an academic assessment (I leave that to the experts), I will discuss some of the reasons why Borrego was a true correspondent, from head to toe, from skin to marrow.
Self-discipline
If something always distinguished him, it was his iron discipline, his respect for Granmato the province and to the readers, their perseverance, even knowing that a national correspondent is the owner of his time, he plans it as he pleases, is more free.
Even so, even in the most intense moments as director, deputy, president of the Union of Cuban Journalists in Sancti Spíritus, he always ensured the flow of materials. I don’t remember a single mention of him for reasons of productivity or quality.
Domain of territory
I don’t know how he managed it, but he knew everything economic, social, historical, political, and cultural about a province that he dominated by heart.
Lead Escambray I helped him. But what about before taking office? For him it was obvious what a correspondent can never forget: the value of having sources in the palm of your hand, listening to the street, catching the country’s sign on the fly and landing it dressed in a guayabera, closing ranks with the media. local offices and national correspondents accredited to not be rotating in another orbit or, worse still, without orbit.
Juan knew everything economic, social, historical, political, and cultural about a province that he dominated by heart.
Use of all journalistic genres
One time they criticized a team colleague for wanting to dress a simple curiel as a lion. In other words, overestimating “little information”.
It wasn’t Borrego’s style. The more concise, the more leonine his information was, as his full-page materials could be devoured with the speed of a news note.
The profession also allowed him to master the most varied subjects, expand his knowledge of photography, design, juggling to transmit (especially in the times of telex) and even the art of driving. In Granmathe correspondent is a driver, photographer, proofreader, the first to “take himself seriously,” almost to the point of censorship at home.
Countless times other colleagues returned writing inside the car that took them to coverage. Borrego, on the other hand, could sit down to write or select photos after letting go of the steering wheel.
Elbow to elbow, key to key
As far as I know, nothing establishes that a journalist has to cultivate the most cordial working relationships with his colleagues. Of this, however, Borrego was a reference, with his total selflessness, proverbial modesty and high sense of cooperation. The Yayabero union and correspondents such as Freddy Pérez and José Antonio Fulgueiras (from Villa Clara) or Ortelio González from Avila, with whom he worked to discuss topics, at the request of Granma, during coverage of July 26 or on their own initiative.
If you give first, you give double
Conscious or not, Juan brought that old maxim to the job of reporting, not through the “journalistic stick,” since his notes and images belonged to whoever needed them. I’m talking about titling. He knew that therein lay the first “hit” to “hook” the reader. And immediately, the others: direct and clear style for informative texts or a mixture of fine journalistic flight with high literary buzz to create other genres that left the editor “almost without a pinch.”
I wish time had allowed me to unravel archives, to savor, together, the wealth of his titles or paragraphs like this:
“When Fidel Castro stood on the back of that amphibian, which in the middle of the flood looked more like a guasima leaf than a military vehicle, what he really thought he had in front of his eyes was the Amazon River itself, which was flowing towards the Guacanayabo gulf”.
Equanimity on two feet
Also the habit of maintaining apparent silence revealed Borrego’s simplicity. When others shared opinions, concerns and even complaints, he remained silent. His interventions in 29 years as a correspondent could be recounted or summarized with ease. He said what was strictly necessary, but when speaking you had to take your hat off. In 3 minutes he transmitted more than what had been accumulated for hours by those who asked to speak 15 times more than him.
And with that penetrating, fixed, studious, often mischievous, mischievous look, he could say everything without having to open his mouth.
Even in the most tense or intense moments, he maintained enviable equanimity. I never saw him upset, angry, out of control.
In the mood
A blood count on Juan Antonio, I believe, would have shown a good presence of humor in the blood. She had it in her veins. I don’t know if since the days when he was hanging on the horse’s leg with his father, back in the area of Jicotea, Yaguajay; If he came up with what parents and grandparents call “development” or if it was at the university where the boy’s congenital seriousness “was spoiled.”
His humor was not borrowed; It was his and that was it. Nor was it a public or collective humor, even when those less close to him ended up getting closer to listen to stories, anecdotes or phrases that made the most serious ones laugh with laughter or made the most jocular ones think.
Of love
That’s the key. Borrego had plenty of talent, ability, passion, knowledge, sensitivity, convictions, principles, security, optimism…; but above all love: for work, which consumed his time, health and life; for his most loved ones, for that team of Escambray that became a family extension, for his beloved Yaguajay, for all the humble people of the Sancti Spiritus town, for the Parroquial Mayor, the bridge over the Yayabo River, the stones of the most colonial streets, the tiled roofs in danger or the walls still unpainted, the majesty of the Uruguay colossus, the open mouth of the Zaza dam, the ancient aroma of Trinidad…
I’m not saying it. Their publications confirm this.
Without that love on board, he will not continue to be the tremendous correspondent that he IS (like this, in the present tense and in capital letters), the “trunk” of the helmsman who, from some quiet dimension, continues to guide the Escambrayreporting for Granmabequeathing journalistic teachings and occupying a worthy seat in the Parliament of all Cubans.
For El Borre, I would never ask for a minute of silence (even if his divine tendency towards it justifies it). For colleagues like this one can only ask for the most endearing of all applause.
#Borrego #trunk #correspondent #Cubaperiodistas