La Jornada: Poniatowska criticizes influencers who “dehumanize” journalism

Making the other speak and communicating it is essential in journalism and other disciplines that use writing to give a message, said Elena Poniatowska Amor, 2013 Cervantes Prize winner. Yesterday morning, in a keynote conference, the narrator and journalist remembered when she asked Diego Rivera why he was so potbellied. “Ah, because I eat Polish girls,” the muralist responded.

He highlighted: “I am lucky to have reached the age of 94 and still belong to a left-wing newspaper: The Day”.

In the Julio Bracho room of the University Cultural Center, Poniatowska referred to her learnings during 73 years of working in the press and writing.

The chronicler mentioned: “the craft of writing and listening are tools that are perfected over time. Writing is a craft like carpentry or sewing: it does not turn out right the first time. It is a matter of perseverance, practice and dedication.”

The novelist remembered the interview with Rivera when she had not even seen one of his murals. “From my clumsiness and my ignorance, (and coming from) a nunnery in the United States, I was able to enter the life of Mexico and it is something that I continue to be grateful for from the first moment.”

During the closing of the cycle of the seventh generation of the CulturaUNAM Journalistic Investigations Unit, the writer contrasted her experience with what is happening in the present. “Young people have all the technological advances; however, the novice reporter must trust their intelligence or intuition (which in the case of women has a lot to do with it).”

He also advised that new journalists must “respect themselves and be critical enough of what they see, even what now appears on social networks, to distinguish the fake news that contaminates public opinion and makes us accept, without a second thought, lies and corruption.”

The journalist “has to risk it, he has to be willing to give his life for what he sees, feels and what he receives from others,” the chronicler pointed out.

He warned that electronic journalism has new challenges: “the information we find on various social networks, such as Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, is full of influencerswho monopolize spaces to dehumanize in a certain way such a noble profession, which means not only describing what happens to others, but also reporting it, denouncing it and transmitting it in the most ethical, professional and effective way.

Wait and hope

She commented that her writing as a journalist has led her to practice “novels, short stories and, believe it or not, poetry, when she was very young, not old. Each of these inclinations are accompanied by research, although they are different.”

She recalled that she has been inspired by figures such as the photographer Tina Modotti, but also comedians such as Germán Valdés Tin Tan and Mario Moreno Cantinflasas well as the singer María Victoria.

Regarding the work that he began to develop in 1953, he mentioned that journalism “has to do with waiting and hope. No politician gives you an interview immediately; no painter opens the door of his studio to you at the first opportunity; no actress receives you later. They don’t need it. Perseverance is an essential instrument in journalism, as in the writing of novels and stories.”

Known for having portrayed harsh situations for more than seven decades, such as the student movement of 1968 and the massacre in the Plaza of the Three Cultures, the 1985 earthquake and the reality of opposition militants in the country, Poniatowska gives perseverance the role of a virtue in which she has believed all her life.

The author of The night of Tlatelolco It upholds the essentials of curiosity, interest and perseverance, so you have to “do the same, look for people and do it with a capacity for dedication that must last a lifetime.”

Poniatowska evoked personalities such as the writer Alfonso Reyes, the muralists Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco and David Alfaro Siqueiros, the founder of Mexican cardiology, Ignacio Chávez, the actresses María Félix and María Dolores del Río, the singer Jorge Negrete, the actor Emilio Indio Fernández and the comedians Cantinflas y Tin Tan.

He also remembered the dancer Yolanda Montes Tongolele“who scandalized the Blanquita Theater,” as well as the writers Carlos Fuentes, Juan Rulfo, Octavio Paz, Parménides García Saldaña, Gustavo Sainz, José Agustín, Rosario Castellanos and Elena Garro.

“Everyone I had the pleasure of dealing with thought it was hilarious that someone showed up to ask them questions. They listened to me because I’m very short. ‘What does the dwarf want, why is she calling me, why does she want me to answer some questions’. That’s how I started,” said the journalist.

Poniatowska said that like someone who is “threading a thread into a fabric, I was able to see many valuable Mexicans who gave me their words and their life experience. That was enormous nourishment to continue living. I still write in the newspaper on Sundays today, but I have also been able to narrate from myself.”