Carles Capdevila: "I want to dedicate my time as a journalist to these heroes: the ones I call the 'people people'"

Carles Capdevila receives the National Communication Prize

Ara
6 min
El director fundador de l'ARA rep els aplaudiments dels assistents a l'acte de lliurament dels premis nacionals de Comunicació

Barcelona"Hello everyone. I thought it was pretty funny that they told me I could only speak for two minutes. I guess they don't know me very well. Giving someone the "National Communication Prize" and not letting them speak for as long as they want is not a prize, it's a punishment. If it was the National Mime Prize, that would make sense, but this one, no. Me, I can spend two minutes just explaining that I'm not going to take only two minutes.

I'm really happy. I am very fortunate, very. I run the risk of sounding like a blowhard saying what I'm going to say, but this is the third time that I have come to receive a National Prize. The two first times were collective. The first for "El Matí a Catalunya Ràdio" [radio show] and [Antoni] Bassas let me join him on stage, maybe thinking that that way I would reveal fewer blunders on APM. It didn't work, but I still appreciated it. The second time was to receive the prize in name of ARA newspaper, in the digital category. These were collective prizes, but I very much considered them to be mine, since I had dedicated so much energy to both those projects. Today, it's strange, because it's very much mine, it has my name on it, but it feels less mine, it feels like it belongs to many people.

It feels like it belongs to the readers, and especially to the subscribers who signed up six years ago before they knew if we'd be able to make a go of it. Thank you, we get up every day to make this paper for you, who are our true bosses.

It feels like this prize belongs to the ARA newsroom, to whom I can never be grateful enough for their commitment, generosity and energy, starting a crazy project that today is a reality thanks to them. I love you.

And since they're giving me the prize for bringing education and regular daily life to the media, I feel like this prize truly belongs to the teachers, the nurses, the educators, the social workers, the volunteers, the after school counselors, the scientists, the people in the arts, the social entrepreneurs and all of the workers in the social services sector. They are my favorite topic of conversation, the people whom I admire, it's an honor to consider myself their spokesperson, and it chokes me up how they celebrate each time I receive a prize, as if it were theirs. Celebrate it as if it were yours, because it is truly yours.

And I want to take advantage of a prize that they're giving me for ethics and dignity—which is exaggerated and dangerous, because it inflates our ego and we journalists already have inflated egos—to say that I accept this prize only as an advance, as a responsibility, as a guide for what should be, as an invitation to work more ethically and with more dignity in order to fully deserve this prize all the way, and to work hard every day to promote ethics and dignity, in life and in journalism.

And to do that I have to tell you five things. Just five. Numbered.

One. Journalism is not innocent. When it suits us, we journalists act like the cool kids, and we defend our influence, but when the world heads for disaster, like now, we stand by and hypocritcally say that we are simple reflections of what is happening. That's not right, folks. We are accomplices of this media-ruled world that gives voice to those who shout the loudest, where it is easier to be on TV for being an idiot than for being skilled. We must take responsability and make the media well-mannered and educational, with good intentions, filtering lies and refusing to limit ourselves to presenting a show of yes or no, without nuances, dressed up like information and analysis.

The media must defend culture over no culture. We don't know the name of the scientists who will save our lives because we fill up our mind knowing the name of idiots who egg on the worst in human behavior. It's our fault, I'm sick of hearing how it's what the audience wants. There is proof that you can get to many people with a quality product, that feeds and encourages the mind without poisoning and encouraging the worst in people. The thing is that it takes more effort, more talent, more work. So, go on, get to work, and refuse to be a tool of the loudmouths, the blowhards, the swindlers, the pretentious powerbrokers, and the liars.

Two. Journalism exists between the power and the people, and we have made the mistake of getting closer to the former than the latter. We are forgetting to tell the everyday truths while we make protagonists out of this circus of the pseudo-famous, the pundits, the political the spokespeople, the cacophony of dunces, the massive global reality talk show that is like overacted theater, a very tiring farse indeed. And to the journalists for whom this is working out, the lucky ones who have work and podiums and who get prizes, we fall into the temptation of considering ourselves as a part of the chosen ones, of the elite, instead of taking our proper place as a voice for the people. Particularly of the people who are suffering. And therefore, the farther away we can get from the people who make them suffer, the better.

Three. I demand more truth from the media. And especially less lies, less fiction, and less overacting and less cynicism. We must be more humble and self-critical, we must give up the VIP boxes and the reservations at restaurants and go back out on the street or to the waiting rooms of hospitals or to neighborhoods. We must begin with the intimate truths, of each person. And we must explain the outsized job that is done every day by people who work carefully to fix the world with their own hands. They don't need to be the main characters, they are not seeking the limelight, they have no communications staff, they do not apply pressure, they are too busy, but society does need to know what they are doing, because when you know what the people who are fixing the world are doing, most of them volunteers, you recover your hope in the utopia that we still have left, a utopia that might seem very homey, the one of the small individual everyday revolutions that one day transform everything.

Four. To move forward we have to recognize two uncomfortably, ugly truths. None of the powers that be, none, support freedom of the press. This has been the big disappointment for me during my five years leading ARA newspaper. The unabashed pressure and threats received indicate a democracy that is unwell. Politicians take what we publish too seriously, and political journalism falls too often into a game of exchanging favors, and those who govern us end up obsessed with, and spend way too much time and energy on what we say about them. The amount of time that I had to spend attending to someone about a five-line article made me think: "if this man takes this much time with me to talk about this inconsequential thing, when is he spending his time serving his constituents? Freedom of the press is not defended by talking about it, singing its praises, or whatever. We must be honest. Some people who congratulated me on this prize made my life hell when I was director of the newspaper and conspired as best they could to take our independence away. Enough cynicism already. Freedom of the press is defended by journalists who don't yield to pressure and it should be defended by politicians by backing off. The most baldfaced are the economic powers that be. These folks, if you let them, would choose the headline and the photo all on their own, they're quite full of themselves. They also want to choose governments, always from the dark backroom. They are an enormous danger to democracy and to freedom. That is why journalism needs readers to pay for content. Only if we are independent can we be useful. The things is, if we are not independent, they won't pay for content. It's time to be brave and consistent with our values.

And five. There is a group that I adore which is ignored and silenced by the media. It is the group of people who take care of other people. I had to get sick in order to discover the nurses, and—especially—the women nurses. For me, they were as invisible as they were for everyone else. And now I know that the group of my beloved nurses, of which I hope to be president of their fan club, is a group that is holding on and humanizing medicine and that demonstrates every minute of the day that taking care of people is much more than curing them of an ailment.

I am interested in people who suffer and in people who take care of others. Educators, volunteers, healthcare personnel. And tons of relatives. It's usually women who take care of others, and they are usually ignored, undervalued, and either poorly paid or not paid at all. The big budgets go to the military, technology and finances, in a world of testosterone, because power is shamefully masculine and sexist, and for things that make us more human, the most important, the most essential, which is taking care of each other, there is little money and less public acknowledgement. I want to spend the time that remains to me as a journalist dedicated to these heroes: people who take care of people, the ones I call "people people". People who dedicate themselves to being people and to taking care of people.

I will finish by saying that I accept this prize with enthusiasm and appreciation, but I want to give it to one person who I have close by, who is an example of everything that I have said, all her life she has taken care of others, she is a woman who suffers and who fights, and an example of the absolute power of unconditional love. This prize I give to my mother who bore me. It's all for you, Mom.

Thanks to everyone for the patience during these long two minutes".

stats