Xabier Fortes (Pontevedra, 59 years old) does not let himself be intimidated by the attacks he receives daily from social networks and certain media. The journalist and presenter of Night in 24 hours He is used to taking hits from a very young age. At the age of nine, he had to see how his father, soldier Xosé Fortes Bouzán, was imprisoned and expelled from the army for fighting against Franco, and how some of his classmates attacked him for it. “I always say it: my childhood ended on July 29, 1975,” he remembers. “When they arrested him, we became traitors for a few years to much of the establishment. It changed my life very quickly. My father was one of the good guys and the ones who wanted dictatorship were the bad guys. Over time, I see that as a positive thing: it made us tough and helped us understand the world from a young age.” Over time, he also learned to fight back: “If they bother me, I will defend myself. »
Ask. He has worked at TVE for almost 40 years. Is public television politicized as some media say?
Answer. It never ceases to surprise me that certain media, which have a very marked bias, give lessons on equanimity, plurality and distance from political power. Spanish television is public, but the function or service of private media is also public. A school can be private, but its function, education, is public and it must have certain values. All media, whether public or private, have a public function, that of informing, and they must have certain values: truth, plurality, difference. Now you remember TVE when we did very well with audiences. They didn’t remember it five years ago. I am simply saying: I accept the challenge of comparing the plurality of TVE debate shows with those of any other media and with news minutes.
Q. During these 40 years on public television, he will have seen it all.
A. Well yes, all my games stopped. The PSOE and the PP fired me. I am cured of fears. My biggest confrontation took place precisely with Moncloa, shortly after the arrival of Pedro Sánchez for a famous electoral debate. They tried to change the date of a debate, supposedly to favor Sánchez’s strategy, and I said the date could not be changed. Some who criticize me don’t remember this. But you can go to the front page of EL PAÍS to check it out. These were moments of great tension. Now some call me a Sanchista, while the biggest fight of my career took place with Sánchez already in Moncloa and with the management of RTVE at that time. Let’s see if those who criticize me are up to the task. As long as they do half of what I did then, opposing the management of my channel and opposing the Moncloa advisors, I am satisfied.
Q. Part of TVE’s new success is due to current affairs programs, political rallies and infoshows. Why are people so addicted to political news?
A.. Because the political moment is very interesting. We have had a few years of absolute fragmentation in Parliament, where there is no absolute majority, but we still need to move the country forward. That’s politics: trying to reach agreements. It was the transition. And this critical and tense moment is reflected in the increase in audiences for this type of program. What surprises me the most are politicians who talk badly about politics, using the term “politician” as something derogatory. They say: “Justice is politicized”. “Television is politicized. » “Education is politicized.” “Health care is politicized. » For me, politics is the most superior construct of human thought.
Q. He had a difficult few weeks, his son attacking him because he was doing a journalism internship at TVE. How did you manage this?
A. Pointing the finger at my son by posting his image to try to harm me is the most petty and miserable thing I have encountered in this business. But, due to the years I spent there, my life experience and the circumstances I have experienced since I was a child, I am quite used to it. It doesn’t affect me. I’d rather they don’t talk bad about me, but I’m also not going to cry if they do. The attacks on my family bother me more. My son completed the diploma, he did Erasmus in Brussels, he did internships in different media and he did internships and training at TVE which ends in a few days. It’s not his fault he has my last name. It comforted me to know that he and my wife handled the situation well.
Q. Would you have liked your son to study something else?
A. Honestly, I advised him to study engineering because he is a much better student than me. He earned his bachelor’s degree in science and took a year of engineering, but ultimately that’s what he wanted. The mother said to me half jokingly and half seriously: “Xabi, it’s your fault: you showed him the candy and now he wants to be that.” I took him to lunch one day with Gabriel Rufián, another day with Jorge Valdano and Santiago Segurola, another day with Bolaños or Aitor Esteban…
Q. He said he was cured of his fears through his life story. His father went to prison for fighting against Francoism. How did you experience it?
A. I was nine years old. I wanted to be a soldier like my father. I went to a school that depended on the Navy, all my friends were children of soldiers or sailors. At that time, in Pontevedra there was a strong military presence and numerous barracks. At that age, I wanted to imitate my father: put on the uniform, do maneuvers and shoot all day. I wanted to be a soldier without knowing what it really was to be a soldier. At the time, we experienced it with great sadness and had a bad time, although there were also many moments of laughter. Today, I have reconciled myself with the Armed Forces and claim their role. I always say jokingly: in the end I did journalism for the happiness of the militiamen and the misfortune of the journalists (laughs). But I should have been a soldier, or at least tried.
Q. When did you realize you wanted to become a journalist?
A. I did not become a journalist because of an early vocation, even if as a child I followed the series a lot Lou Grant. I decided to do journalism when I realized that it was the only way to come to Madrid in the 80s. The only career that didn’t have literature in Santiago was journalism. I was 18 years old and I wanted to see La Movida in Madrid, Alaska, Sabina… If I had chosen another career in literature, I would have had to do it at the Galician university. Then the profession caught up with me when I started practicing it. I realized the importance of this profession, that you have to tell and attack the lives of others and that you have to be very respectful of these lives because you can ruin them. Journalists, like judges, have power and we must be aware that we can influence people’s lives. I criticize, I analyze, but I try not to hurt people.
Q. We are celebrating 50 years of democracy and it turns out that there are young people who say that with Franco they lived better. What’s wrong?
A. Sociological Francoism has always existed, but now, with Vox and the more tense right, it is emerging without complexes. In my opinion, three factors come together. The first, the distance from these events. There is a loss of memory of what brought us together to emerge from the dictatorship. Second factor, a generation must correct the previous one, and that moves the world. The generation of 68 was replaced by that of the early 80s, marked by Reagan, Pope John Paul II and Margaret Thatcher, the triad of conservatism. Then came the 2000s, with Obama, Zapatero… Today, we are returning to a very militant and excessive conservatism, very right-wing. It’s probably something cyclical. Third factor, young people see that their state of well-being has deteriorated, that they live less well than their parents. The system is not able to meet the needs of children, who are not even capable of renting a room to live as a couple. A fertile ground for the most fanatical and ultra-populist populism.
Q. What happened to the lawsuit Ayuso’s boyfriend filed against you for calling him a “fraudster”?
A. I don’t know. My classmates gave me a piggy bank and I continue to put coins and notes in it. When it comes, it will come. It’s no longer a question of freedom of expression, it’s a question of truth. I was telling the truth, that he was a confessed fraudster because his lawyer had sent an email to the prosecutor’s office admitting to two tax crimes. When he said his lawyer acted without his consent, I started calling him a “confessed ex-fraudster.” I’m waiting for this to be vindicated, but I don’t think it’s going to go forward. Meanwhile, I continue to put money in the piggy bank because I am asked for 10,000 euros.
Q. In the meantime, the attorney general has been convicted.
A. I’m not going to go in there. I don’t have enough little pigs getting bigger to play in togas now. Let everyone draw their own conclusions. For me, with the little that I studied law at university, I was taught that to convict someone, you have to have evidence or brutal indications. Let society judge whether evidence or indications have emerged.
Q. He is still very active on X. Why did he stay on Musk’s network?
A. I had my moment of doubt, but after reflection, I believe that the monopoly of public space cannot be left to scoundrels. If they insult me, I respond. If they bother my family or my colleagues, I defend them. If they bother me, I will defend myself. This has become clear to me since I was nine years old, when my father was bullied in the schoolyard and I came out to defend him. I don’t understand this thing about being silent. If you always answer, you can sometimes be wrong. But if you never respond, you will always be wrong because you will give voice to someone who defames you, insults you or lies to you.
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