In view of the process of standardizing the RTP brands, which will distort public radio stations – Antena 1, Antena 2, Antena 3, RDP Internacional and RDP África -, this time, “the news is the journalists”. Inevitably.
The “bad news” has arrived of who has already given so much good news. There are three days left until the end of public radio as we (almost) always knew it.
It is the end of the mythical microphones, the famous denominations and the fear of the freedom of the radio stations Antena 1, Antena 2, Antena 3, RDP Internacional, RDP África.
From the 30th onwards everything will be ‘running’ RTP Antena 1, RTP Antena 2, RTP Antena 3, RTP Mundo, RTP África (same name as the television channel).
It will change everything, starting with sponges: red, purple, yellow and orange are abandoned and they will all be blue, like those on RTPwith a small bar at the bottom identifying each radio or television channel.
It will also change what we read on car screens, on cell phones or on computers. On the radio you will hear “RTP Antena 1” (or 2 or 3, but always with the same preface). This all stops.
Public radio journalists are (still) struggling. “Still”, because they will no longer be. They will become RTP journalists, like so many others who play functions… different.
Radio is not television
“We are told that, in this company, there are no radio journalists. There are journalists from RTP. We refuse this to be the case“, said, in a statement, the elected members of the Radio Editorial Board.
“It’s just that we know we are radio journalists in moments like blackout of April 28 last year. We know we are radio journalists when fires They arrive every summer and the battery-powered radios are turned on because there is no electricity. We know we are radio journalists when the storm Kristin destroys everything, and the following storms, and those that will come after. We know why a Emergency kit should include a battery-operated radio. In a fire, in an earthquake, in a storm, in a catastrophe, we know that we are Radio journalists”, they list.
“We know that We are the most resilient means of communication and we also know that We have the world at our feet when they remember that we are needed when all else fails. They unfold in praise, tributes, a big party is thrown because the radio didn’t let us down”, they add, in a post on Instagram.
The authors of the statement point out that “RTP funding does not benefit the radio and often does not allow it to be where it is needed”.
“We are fewer than before and we will continue to decrease in number in the future, with more exits and much fewer entries”, they accuse.
Just “RTP journalists” and the problems that this brings
Radio journalists fear that their work will change radically, for example: “We don’t know if, as from now on we are all ‘RTP journalists’, with an identical microphone in hand, a second ‘RTP journalist’ has the right to ask a second question after a first ‘RTP journalist’ asks a first.”
“If ‘RTP’ appears so many times, Those who think we are right are right too manyto do the same, at the expense of ‘taxpayers’ money’, as we have heard so many times. (…) No, There are not too many of us, we don’t all do the same“, but-se.
“The radio and television channels do not have the same audience. The language is not the same, the prime times are not the same, the time and deadline of the news is not the same”, they explain.
“And no, no one asked us, radio journalists, anything. We know that we are the ones who have to ask questions, but this time it’s to reverse roles: make us news”, they conclude.
