Isaías Lafuente: “I think I’m a top secondary player” | Television

Colleague Isaías — we shared a conversation about the program The windowby Carles Francino, on the SER network, welcomes into his home a charming chalet in an old and placid neighborhood of low houses that survives between the impersonal towers and the chaotic traffic of the center of Madrid. “I bought it many years ago, but now I didn’t have the money”, he explains, just in case, to the envious faces of the visitor. Inside, memories of an entire personal and professional life linked to radio and words: old transistors, old editions of classic titles and the very light of “Silencio, Estudios” that presided over the SER headquarters on the second floor of Gran Vía, 32, in Madrid, before being remodeled and moved to the eighth floor. There, in the central studio, next to his boss, Francino, in the house where he has worked for four decades, since the age of 22, he received the news a few days ago from the voice of Iñaki Gabilondo that he had won an Ondas award for his entire career. His face was a poem.

Is the scare over?

I’m digesting this. It was a real surprise. The fact that they gave it to me live, from the person who announced it was Iñaki, who is my professional father, who received it on November 27th, the day before my birthday… It’s a perfect and round gift. But I didn’t expect it: I always thought that that award was for another profile of colleagues, who are wonderful, for a star.

Don’t you consider yourself a star?

Never. And if this award has any virtue, it is having left the shine of stardom and looked for another place. In radio, as in film, there are very powerful secondary actors who suddenly shape what is rewarded. I consider myself good, I think I’m a top secondary player, but not a star.

Man, he must have done something to only be known by his first name. What is your seal?

The naturalness. I’m the same Isaiah in front of the microphone and out. On Ondas day, when I left the studio, I started preparing the section What’s left of the day. Well, that’s it: working day after day. My goal and my horizon are the next 24 hours of radio. And, of course, doing it well, which is a concern I inherited from Iñaki: taking care of my words, taking care of my forms, taking care of what I do. There are other colleagues who build characters, who impose their voice. I don’t, and it shows. The radio picks up everything. On the radio you can see all the seams.

Also anger?

By the minute. But the thing is, when I’m angry, I want my anger to be noticeable. And when I’m happy. And when I get excited. I want the look to be noticed. Objectivity is not neutrality. It’s far enough away to see the entire plane. But when you take that distance and see the abused woman and the abuser, the murderer and the murdered, the exploitative businessman and the exploited worker, you have to take sides. I did not come into the world or into this profession to act like today’s cold notary. That’s why we had the BOE. So, I am a committed journalist because I am a committed person. I see what happens, I care about what happens, I have to say what happens and of course I take sides.

In his career, he was often second in the program he starred in, never first. Does it burn?

Honestly, no. Let’s see how I explain this. If I compare myself to others, I think I have the profile to lead any major program on the network. I cannot know how he would have done it, nor will we ever be able to know. But, on the other hand, the network gave me opportunities that it didn’t give to others. Let’s say I was on the penultimate step, but allowing this is very important. No one can take that away from me.

Have you never asked for anything?

I only entered the office once, when Montse (Montserrat Domínguez, former director of Let’s live for two days). I was deputy director, I was comfortable with the team, I think the team was comfortable with me, we were doing a good job and I asked to be included on the list of possible successors. They didn’t choose me. They called Javier del Pino and I was very happy because he created a wonderful program and I continued on another path that allowed me to do other things. If you have a specific ambition, you get frustrated. You and I know colleagues who get frustrated because they want to present the two o’clock news and receive the nine o’clock news, for example. But my only ambition was to be a journalist. And I achieved this.

He has the name of a prophet, but he looks like a saint. Where does this stoicism come from?

Well, I suppose it comes from the family I have, parents who raised 12 children. From my mother, mainly, because my father passed away at 63 years old. And I never saw my father or mother complain about anything. I’m the youngest, I’ve been with my brother Ángel, the oldest, for 22 years. And in the meantime I have already lost three brothers, the healthiest ones. It was an accident. Life is an accident. So, when you get there and see that your life has improved, what are you going to complain about.

Was burying three brothers the greatest pain of your life?

It’s extremely painful, but the greatest pain in my life was the death of my father. He caught me when I was 13. This marked me, mainly because it left me with vital uncertainties. I kept thinking: “What’s going to happen to me, what’s going to happen to my mother, what’s going to happen.”

At 13, were you already suffering from life’s anguish?

Yes, I was always a child, so to speak, ruminating, living consciously, worrying about others.

And was it as cool as it is now?

(Laughter) Well, let’s put it this way. Compared to the people my age around me, I spoke better, in some ways, I was more vehement in defending my ideas. Note that something happened that I understood over time. I wanted to keep my father’s ring, but my widowed mother wore her wedding ring. When I turned 18, I asked her to give me a ring and the woman gave me a horrible signet that I never liked. So I returned it and with the money I bought the Royal Academy Dictionary. Maybe that’s where it all comes from. Life took me through everything.

He has been with the same company for 40 years. Speaking of saints, this is almost a miracle today.

Radio gave me everything. I even met my wife, Elvira Cordero, here. We started together like juniors from Today for today. The truth is that I didn’t receive any great offers to go elsewhere either. But most of all, I never had the need to go out and look. If I’m here like a son of a bitch, why would I leave? And the years passed.

I also don’t see him as very adventurous to become a war correspondent. Or am I wrong?

I have accepted each step and immersed myself in each adventure, which has been extraordinary, without leaving home. Because radio is a daily adventure. It’s been 40 years with its holes and convolutions, but I’ve always felt comfortable. I started at 22 and at 27 I was deputy director of Today for today with Iñaki Gabilondo at the helm. What more adventure could you want? And I assure you that this had to be fought like a war correspondent fights issues.

How much ego did you have to deal with, not counting yours?

I was lucky to work with people who had a moderate ego compared to what they could have. But yes, I saw and still see a lot of ego in the profession. There’s one thing that bothers me a little: those who don’t value the work of the people who work for them. The radio, without the stars, continues to function. There were long replacements of big stars: Iñaki Gabilondo, Gemma Nierga, Carles Francino. And the radio continues. But without the equipment there is no radio. Stars need secondary characters to shine.

What does a boss need to have to be respected professionally?

That they respect themselves and make themselves respected, and that they demand of themselves what they demand of others. In my case, this happened to those I worked with, but it doesn’t always happen. There are bosses who demand more than the possibilities they give to those who work for them.

What was the worst thing that happened to radio in these 40 years?

I think that only, or above all, good things happened to radio. It is the most precarious audiovisual medium that exists. We are voice and sound, nothing more. Technology has opened up possibilities and multiplied and facilitated the way of working but, in essence, radio remains the same as it was in 1924. What I see is that, in radio and in the media in general, in times of crisis, when looking more at the demonstration of results than at the results of the account, work has become more precarious. Now, an intern earns 300 euros, the same 50 thousand pesetas that I earned when I joined, 40 years ago, and with which I paid the rent and the month in Madrid. Now, those 300 euros, compared to those 50,000 pesetas, are zero.

Is talent wasted?

Quite a lot. Before, when you joined the broadcaster and went through the precariat that was always the internship period, you knew that if you didn’t make any mistakes, you would be allowed to work and could have a professional career. Now I see interns arrive with the expiration date printed on their forehead, and this is very painful and must be very frustrating, because what has remained constant is the amount of talent. On the other hand, we expelled the seniors early and hired four juniors who we didn’t let mature. And that’s horrible. For business, for journalism and for democracy.

Why?

Because an uninformed society is an extraordinary breeding ground for populism. We are already seeing this. I just hope that this doesn’t happen to us with democracy like it happens to our parents, that we only miss them when they die.

On the radio and in Xis unleashed against the far right. Have you become radicalized over time?

Hey, what happened? You can’t imagine the self-restraint I still have. It’s true that I was born into a dictatorship, but I was 12 years old when Franco died and I didn’t suffer that. I came to Madrid when I was 18 and I liked Movida. But I always knew what Francoism was and it always seemed incredible to me that in a democracy someone could cover up, minimize or justify what that was. I have always been very passionate about what I do, what I write and what I say on the radio. And I won’t give up.

You yourself said that a full-race Ondas is like seeing the exit door. Is this taken for granted?

(Laughter) I go back to that child who knew what the world was like from a young age. If I were an athlete in an 800 meter race, I know perfectly well that it’s not that I’m at the end, it’s that I already see the finish line. And that fills me with emotion because on the radio, of course there is, but outside of the radio there is also a lot of life and I want to live it. After 40 years, I want to experience what it’s like to live without being subject to schedules or calendars. My father died at 63, I’m going to be 62. I want to enjoy looking at the horizon without obligations. I’m not in a hurry, but I also can’t resist going out.

Show your colleagues their mistakes, but you will have yours too.

Well, of course. Very early on, and it is recorded, I passed “the testicle” to a colleague and said something like “the money was deposited in two accounts at the Dirty Banks Union in Geneva” and they didn’t expel me. Look, I was prophetic there.