The rain doesn’t let up. Like the news he tells every night (Madrid, 62 years old) on Antena 3. Donald Trump, the trains, corruption… By mid-afternoon, he usually has the rundown quite clear: the informative menu that will be served for dinner, seasoned with a good pinch of his personal view. He still does not know that this day, February 5, 2026, in which, of the season with 3,037,000 viewers on average and 22.4% of share, according to the data of Barlovento Communication based on the measurements of the auditor Kantar Media.
Inside the cafeteria, without a suit and in front of a tea with lemon, he observes and measures each word. He only hesitates and his voice breaks when talking about his father, who died a few months ago. With him he shared two of his great passions beyond journalism: Atleti and music. Experienced in the Moncloa, in Congress and as a special envoy to several countries, he sees retirement getting closer, and also, “with joy.”
Ask. They say in his team that he is cold, cerebral and that he doesn’t walk around the newsroom as much as… Is shyness a way to protect yourself?
Answer. More than protecting you, I think it makes you feel out in the open when you want to solve personal problems… Being less shy would have made my life easier when I was young. I have had a hard time because I have had difficulties relating when I have arrived at a new job. At first, it is a barrier.
P. He was born in Vallecas, into a working family and as a child he lived in a shack that his grandfather built. Are you class conscious?
R. I am aware of where I come from. Class consciousness is a political issue. It refers to the fight between the working class and the capitalists and that seems old to me, something from other times. But when you live in slightly more difficult circumstances, you learn more quickly to overcome problems. My parents’ generation is the one that has suffered the most in Spain in the last 150 years. And the one that has built the country and democracy.
P. What do you think of the dialectical war against the?
R. It is normal for there to be generational struggle. My generation did not live worse than that of their parents. Currently, low salaries and the difficulty in accessing housing are indisputable. Although it wasn’t easy for us to buy a house or have a better paying job either. I am the result of public education. The fruit of a country that helped young people educate themselves in a cheap way to reduce class differences.
He Trumpism Spanish, the followers of Vox, are not amused by what we have in the news”
P. What is the biggest prejudice you suffer?
R. I don’t know any journalist, with a certain career, who hasn’t been given a label. It’s inevitable. The public judges and is within its rights. I assume it normally.
P. And doesn’t it bother you that spokespersons or misinformers proudly share fragments of their news?
R. If you saw the things that are said about me in far-right forums, you would be surprised. He Trumpism Spanish, the followers of Vox, are not amused by what we have in the news. This has to do with extremism and the echo that social networks have.
P. ¿ es Trumpism español?
R. Not 100%. Like Pedro Sánchez, Ayuso has a great ability to maintain the support of his people. It is not exactly the example of Trumpismbut she tries to attract that sector and has managed to get them to vote for her and not for Vox.
“I do remember the monographic news reports on the corruption of Rajoy’s PP.”
P. Do you consider yourself the scourge of the Government?
R. The scourge of the Government in what? When you say that a politician should not pardon a politician and then you pardon him? When do you say that the amnesty is unconstitutional and then decree it? In which of the two moments are you critical? People focus on what we have done in the last quarter of an hour, but I remember the monographic news reports on the corruption cases of the PP when Mariano Rajoy governed. Nobody remembers anymore, but I do, because I made them.
P. Have you ever felt the slightest bit guilty if you have contributed to the singling out and hatred towards Pedro Sánchez?
R. No, we do not point out anyone. We tell the news and analyze it. Then, what everyone does with their thoughts and ideas is their responsibility, but in our news no one will find an insulting word, much less towards the people who run the country. You can be critical of the president of the Government, of the Community of Madrid or of the Generalitat of Catalonia, but that does not make you an accomplice of those who use it to transform it into insults and harassment. No serious media outlet is doing that.
P. In an author’s newscast, where is the limit between information and opinion?
R. I do not set limits, because I do not consider that we are giving opinions. Analysis differentiates journalistic work from simple data reporting. Providing analysis in the news has not been a tradition in Spain, but it has been in countries like the United Kingdom, France, Germany or the United States. Telling things like this has a reward.
P. Sometimes, this interpretation is so disparate depending on the medium, that it generates distrust in citizens.
R. Perhaps we have not explained well enough how good it is that each medium has its own criteria because countries in which all radios, newspapers and television channels tell the same thing are not democratic countries. That happens in North Korea, in Cuba or in Russia.
P. Her partner Sandra Golpe, presenter and director of Antena 3 Noticias 1, confessed years ago that she did not vote to maintain her neutrality and a certain distance as a journalist. And you?
R. There have been elections in which I have not voted, but I have had a very plural vote over the years. Neutrality can be maintained by voting or not voting.
“Raising a teenager today is more difficult because of the screens because they generate a lot of family conflict.”
P. What is Vito Quiles?
R. I differentiate between journalists and activists. He is an activist, but he is not the only one who does it. There are more examples in his political sphere and in the opposite as well.
P. How do we address their presence in the Congress of Deputies?
R. It is a difficult debate. At home, when I was little, my father had a book on the shelf. It was called Rules of civility. And I think that is fundamental in democratic institutions, out of pure institutional respect. Being critical at a press conference does not free you from behaving with due politeness.
P. His father passed away last summer. What is lost when you lose a parent?
R. It’s very hard. We are both very Atleti fans and before there was not a day in which, when the referee whistled the end of the game, he did not dial his number to discuss it together. Now, when I finish, I still have the impulse to call him. Absence is a cement block that falls on you every day.
P. It was an important part of the awakening of his vocation…
R. Yes, my parents could not study due to their circumstances. However, the self-taught attitude was enormous. They read books, they bought the newspaper every day… I remember the day when man landed on the Moon. “Vicen, come, you have to see this!” he told me.
P. What is it like to educate a teenager after sixty?
R. I have more patience, but it is more difficult than when I raised my other two children when I was younger. It has to do with screens and social networks. Managing it is very difficult and generates a lot of family conflict. You always have doubts about which is the best solution: what you do or the opposite.
P. In 2004, he lived in an apartment that was just 150 meters from one of the trains that exploded in . Did everything break there?
R. It broke a lot there. Then it broke down more, but the first big gap occurred there. It’s a shame. Before, terrorist attacks generated unity and that generated a lot of division. A division that has only grown.
