Pipo, what made you get into journalism?
To be honest I was initially planning to become a doctor. I was on my final years of study and focused on become a doctor when one day, it was a couple of years before going to University, I was studying with some friends and we went for lunch. When finishing lunch, we went to a candy store to get some sweets and the lady from the store told me, “you’ve got an amazing voice, are you planning on becoming a journalist? And I said," No, I will be a doctor!"
She said, "it’s a pity, because you would amazing in radio or TV shows, so you should rethink that" and I laughed...
Something in myself kept thinking about that and a few months later I said, “I want to become a journalist”
Also, when I was about 14 years old, I started to do a local radio show and since I put myself in front of a mike, I realised I wanted to do that. I had two radio shows connected to music. One was called “Melancholics Anonymous” and the second “The 3 Marias”
That is a big jump, from doctor to journalist! What has journalism shown you in life?
Journalism has taught me most of the things I do. What I have learned, is that as work it's amazing. It's about telling to the people what happens to them. I observe everything very carefully. I try to have empathy with everyone. To me, it means to try to understand every point of view. To try not to judge anything from a single point of view. You need to learn to be unbiased. None of us know enough to judge others in life.
Also, journalism has taught me that it can be dissapointing. Because sometimes is too close to politics and high power and they are not always interested in telling the real stories (or "what's the real truth/reality behind every story).
I love that attitude, not judging anything from a single point of view. How has journalism changed over the last couple of decades?
I remember when I started in radio initially. We already had internet but we tried to dive into stories. Everybody had to make lots of phone calls, connect with resources, there was a lot of action. We all felt like we had to go outside and find stories.
Now, with the google generations and in the newsrooms, journalists have become a bit passive. I’m not saying all of them of course, but many journalists have become too comfortable by going online and reading what others have done before.
So for many years many outlets where not doing actual journalism, they were just repeating what others were saying or doing and so on. In a way, thanks to social media and all the new platforms for those that understand the real thing, when they realised what was happening, they went back to real journalism again and it was amazing once again. We spent some years in a bit of a dark place, because there was a bit of confusion. They were not sure where the business model was heading. The big bosses did not understand the money spent for someone to spend several days on a story. With the years, in some companies everything has gone back to what it all was a the begining. Unfortunately, for some others, there is still a lot of confusion...
You have also done TV work ... What is the main difference between TV and radio journalism?
There is a huge difference. The main difference is that TV is like a hard place. It has magnets because of the colors and the lights. It’s great to have someone there telling you things, but many times people don’t pay attention.
The real difference, on radio, you only have one shot, one way to connect with the people. Your voice, your stories, and how you say it. Whereas on TV you are focusing more on the headlines, you have to be more of a showman….
You don’t have to go that deep into the topics. TV has a great part, because you have lots of ways to connect with people, but radio has more magic. I think it creates a much deeper connection. You talk to the people. Those connections are like a book or a film. When you read a book, you can imagine lots of things.