2023-04-23 11:57:07
Sunday, April 23, 2023, 10:04
Iñaki de Mujika has passed away at the age of 72 at his beloved Hondarribia’s home. History of Gipuzkoan journalism, his memory will remain linked to his non-transferable style in front of a microphone and the author’s program into which he turned ‘La movida deportiva’, on Radio Popular, then Onda Vasca, in which he officiated as a friendly giant, well informed and always close to the athlete. The personal side of the protagonists of triumphs and defeats, whom he insisted on never leaving alone in bad times, was his obsession.
Direct contact with the athlete was his forte. His humanity caused a natural trust in Iñaki. Everyone told him their worries and fears of him openly, knowing that he was sitting in front of an interlocutor who listened, understood and empathized. And that a secret told to Iñaki de Mujika was still a secret. He knew about life.
The friendly journalism of Iñaki de Mujika
For this reason, his journalism was kind, he fled from the conflict. With an expansive personality, he was a great conversationalist. With a long and solid culture, he loved to put on the show suit and frivolize with any hot topic in the world of the heart, show business or, even better, copla. The music that came out of the radio cassette of his Fiat van (better known as the ‘popemobile’ and that traveled the bull’s skin at improbably low speeds) is impossible to describe.
He was a great interviewer because by being friendly, without an aggressive question -which unnerved his few detractors-, he managed to get the best out of the protagonist on duty. He did not load the inks in criticism, so every time he shook the censorship it sounded more severe, unusual.
The great virtue of his program was to be a gallery of characters. Everyone who had a role in sport in Gipuzkoa received his call to go on the air. He spoke little about the Real and much with the organizer of a race from any town, with an athlete who had achieved undetectable success or was going through his worst moment in the fight to get out of some injury. That style is inimitable.
Mujika, maestro!
De la Real was in charge of the weekend. Special envoy for decades, what he said mattered and much more what he did not say, that he was perfectly understood. He was very close to the footballers at a time when journalists could still talk with the players on trips and in concentrations, before the press departments. He managed to keep talking afterwards. He wrote until the last day. After his retirement, he maintained a column in ‘Noticias de Gipuzkoa’, which announced his death this Sunday. His name was ‘El beaterio’ and in the last one, after the derby, he talked about zarzuelas.
Mourning in the Real and mourning in the Real Unión, of which he became president. He mourned in his beloved Bidasoa, whose glorious era he sang, and in the Hondarribia rowing club, to which he professed open loyalty, which did not cause him any animosity from the rest.
Of course, he was part of that great journalistic rivalry that eventually ended in reconciliation, each faithful to his style. In the tune of ‘La movida deportiva’ you could hear: Mujika, maestro! Goian bego.
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