The manuals say that great parties should start very well and end even better. If the ovations are a thermometer, this Wednesday hit the nail on the head. The first of the 26 statuettes awarded was collected by journalist Gemma Nierga for her program Cafe of Ideas and, after thanking her, he has expressed his hope that in the future these awards can be won by “Osmán, Salma, Mohammed… because that will mean that those who want to expel them have not been able to do so and, on the other hand, this country has given them the opportunity they deserve.” He finished the sentence and the cheers filled him.
And, he also worked the magic at the end, with one of those hard speeches that characterize him so much, yesterday without a hint of humor, warning against those who call themselves journalists and are “intoxicators who occupy the information space to launch lies and insidious schemes.” He called on the new information professionals to “fight against the enemies of freedom: they were, will be and are, with flamethrowers or chainsaws.” And the Liceu roared again at the end of the party organized by Grupo Prisa and Radio Barcelona-Cadena SER.
There were two hours in which radio, television and music were vindicated from empathy, respect, kindness and conversation, as he managed to summarize. But the future also slipped into that speech, the youth who have to command it in the coming years and who are now in a sea of uncertainty, if not precariousness. , asked them for a favor: “Don’t let yourselves be discouraged by precariousness, we need you to combat hoaxes.”
Almost everyone spoke about the difficulties, including Pastora Soler, awarded for her musical career. He remembered that his 10-year-old daughter asked him what it was about the Ondas award that he was going to receive, and he said that he tried to make it understandable with a few words: an award “for having dedicated my entire life to what I have dedicated my entire life to, with many ups and downs.” The tune of “getting back up” that Nierga had used before or overcoming obstacles, as he pointed out and yesterday awarded for his career, but yesterday he remembered his first live performance, at the Barcelona airport. “My bosses didn’t see it clearly,” he explained of that premiere. “Here I am,” he closed, in an attempt to build trust.
“The word of the day is thank you,” he said, already with the Ondas award for the best professional work after 40 years of profession in his hands. The veteran briefly reviewed the career he began 40 years ago as an intern and vindicated the young people who one day arrive in the media “with the expiration date on their foreheads” because they do not have the opportunity to mature or undertake a career like the one he ended up forging.
Two hours before, outside, in the middle of an atmosphere marked by the dust of the countless works on the Ramblas and the Christmas lights on since last weekend, the traditional red carpet received guests and award winners. That “world that scares us a little”, as he defined it, went unnoticed, which received the documentary award. I left Opus Dei. “We are going to push back the people who want to annihilate this country,” he said, very much in line with the entire gala.
During the lunch prior to the gala with the winners, the CEO of Prisa Media, Pilar Gil, claimed the role of the radio and old transistors. It happened during the terrible damage that devastated Valencia on October 29 and Gil once again remembered the central role he played on April 28, when a major blackout left Spain without electricity. “That afternoon we all looked for a transistor to find out what was happening, to listen, to know, to understand and to have context,” he said. The mayor of Barcelona, Jaume Collboni, host of the reception for the winners, called for a commitment to cultural creation from the Catalan capital, which he said is the protagonist of a “new cultural spring.”
