When I arrive on time for the appointment, Adela González has already been posing for a while, friendly and super professional, for the photographer. She is wearing one of her uniforms from the set: the little white dress and the red heels with which she has been presenting live Morning people Until a couple of hours ago. When we sit down to chat alone face to face, she takes off her shoes and offers herself, barefoot and frank, but not without armor, to the conversation. Only when I ask her about her daughter, Andrea, Died in 2020 At the age of eight, after suffering from Ewing’s sarcoma, she becomes entrenched in a silence that is as polite as it is blunt. When I turn off the recorder, I apologize for having made her uncomfortable and we chat for a while. It is then that she opens a few doors. Her life, she says, is not news. Nor does she want it to be.
It has an audience of 10.1. Does this figure matter?
Of course it matters. Those of us in television always cry because the audience ratings are not exact, but they do mark trends. It is an indicator of whether you are more or less liked, of where things are going. It is not only important what you do, but also what those in front of you do, the topics of the day, whether it is cold or hot outside. That is why the challenge is to be like a drop of Malay, to give the best of yourself and for your work to be felt.
Who do you imagine on the other side?
Well, my father, for example, who just told me that he saw me for a little while. The program is so long that even my father doesn’t see me the whole time. [ríe]I imagine people who work in the afternoon and in the morning they are messing around at home with the TV on. I like to imagine myself leaning on the arm of the sofa for a while, watching TV because something has interested me and then going on with my own business. Not everyone works in the morning, or even just works.
There are also people Older people whose only company is the TV. Do you think about them?
Of course, and accompanying them is one of the great challenges of the programme. Look, for example, I speak very quickly, you hear me, I’m a machine gun, even on TV. Well, in this programme I do an exercise in speaking more slowly. Sometimes we rush each other and, in trying to tell things quickly, we don’t tell them well. I try to be and seem calm because people, at home, are doing their own thing and we can’t disturb them, it’s not necessary.
What does it offer them, then?
Get informed, entertain yourself, watch a sauceeverything counts. But this is Spanish Television and everything that is offered at that table must be rigorous and contrasted. Those are the red lines. Let’s say we take a peek gourmet current affairs and entertainment for all audiences.
Doesn’t your title of journalist fall apart for commenting on matters of the heart?
It’s all about information. You’re not there to ask the most incisive or the most uncomfortable question. You ask what people would ask, and sometimes the sharpest question is the simplest. I’m not here to show off as a journalist, I’m here for the people. So that people can find out what’s going on in the world and act accordingly: that’s also a public service. And also so that they can have a laugh at the outfits from the wedding of Martha Louise of Norway with the shaman. That’s fine.
Did you think much before agreeing to present? Save me?
I thought about it, yes, but because I didn’t have much knowledge of that medium. And I think that’s precisely why they hired me. There I learned that you can break the fourth wall, that you can laugh, that you can walk around a set without losing your cool. It never occurred to me in my life that I was going to parade dressed as Agatha Ruiz de la Prada, or sing dressed as Freddie Mercury with a fake moustache… and I had suggested it myself. I learned that I wasn’t as shy as I thought. I said that Save me saved me and I still hold on to it.
Do you miss the raw information?
No, because I don’t feel it is far from me. I follow current events, the migration crisis, I am interested in everything, I read everything, I consume it. I like information. I am passionate about the profession. I have done a lot of work in my profession and I still get a huge adrenaline rush when current events upset your schedule. Unfortunately, I have had to report on ETA attacks with dead people on the table, and that is very hard. You never forget that in life. So, when we talk about work, all that is there when I go out to present.
If you can count one attack, you can count the horns of a famous person.
Man, please. Look: we are journalists, we are responsible, we have a trade, we know what our profession entails, but we are not performing open-heart surgery either. Of course we make mistakes, I have made mistakes a thousand times, and that day your ears burn with what they shout at you from management through the earpiece, or what you read on the networks. But it’s okay, if you make a mistake, you admit it and recognize that you were wrong. Now, do you lose credibility for talking about one thing and the other with professionalism and solvency? I don’t think so.
Now that you are a star presenter on TVE, how is your ego?
Look, I’m very streetwise. I was a reporter before I was a monk. I know what it’s like to be out there. I’m a presenter who steps into the newsroom, I have my desk there, I need to know what’s going to be discussed, and I make suggestions. There are those who tell me that I should believe it more, but, although I keep my ego in check, I also believe that I do a good job, and that, although I can obviously improve, I have enough confidence and poise to be where I am.
Have you always wanted to be a journalist?
No way. I wanted to be a doctor because for me doctors are God, but when I found out I had to study Physics, I gave up. Then, as I love lawsuits, especially consumer lawsuits, I started Law at Deusto, but I didn’t see myself spending my whole life in a law firm. My parents had a hard time paying for my private university, so, as I loved communication and I’ve always been very curious, and I was a fan of Mayra Gómez Kemp, Rosa María Calaf and Carmen Sarmiento, I decided to study Journalism, which encompasses a bit of everything. Look, looking back, maybe what I’m missing from my curriculum is covering a war. Let me understand: I wish nobody had to cover them, but Yupi’s worlds don’t exist, someone has to tell them and you learn from that and it toughens you up. I don’t know if I would be emotionally prepared.
You have been through the worst pain of your life, losing a daughter.
Yes, but I’m not going to talk about that, forgive me.
Has that pain shielded you?
In a few years, ask me and I’ll answer you.
She has just been signed when she is over 50 for a medium, television, in which, at that age, many women become invisible. Is something changing?
I refer to the evidence. If I were not over 50 years old and 25 years of experience under my belt, I would not have the experience, poise and confidence that I have on air. I go out calmly and confidently. There is still a lot to do, of course. But I think that a woman’s experience is beginning to outweigh her wrinkles. If you take a look at the network schedules, there are more and more women over 50. It has to do with the fact that there are more female managers, and also with the fact that more and more male managers want empathy and a well-furnished head, much more than a little dress. And I’m telling you this as I’m wearing this little white dress and these heels that I just took off because I can’t stand them. One thing doesn’t take away the other.
It’s 07.00, what time do you go to bed to be fresh in the morning? Morning people?
Well, at 10:00 or 10:30, at the latest. I get up at 5:00, at 7:00 I’m in makeup and until the show starts, I’m soaking it all in. I need to sleep. These days, I’ve had to draw the curtains because it was still daylight. But it’s okay, if I’m happy…
… It is?
Very much so. I feel lucky. I do what I want. How many people can say that they go to work happy every day? I have colleagues at school who don’t work in their field. And, well, life has to flow. If now I have to be back in Madrid, living in Lasarte-Oria, then I go up to be with my son and my husband on the weekend. He tells me this himself: he sees me enjoying myself so much, shining so much, having such a good time and giving myself so much that he is the first to encourage me. You can’t fight against life, because life has taught me that you are going to crash. And that, if there are things that don’t work out or that don’t work out, it doesn’t matter. Something better will come along, or not. But whatever it is, it will come anyway.
MORNING IN CHIEF
The other day, Adela González’s (San Sebastián, 51 years old) colleagues at Spanish Television gave her a surprise live. The images of her first appearance on TVE screens, in the territorial centre of Navarra, in the year 2000. The anecdote confirms with graphic evidence the long career of González, who, by then was no longer a novice, and has spent almost her entire professional career recounting life behind and in front of the cameras as a reporter and presenter of news and current affairs programmes on television. After making her mark at ETB, Basque television, and struggling on other public and private television channels, where she came to present Save mealongside Jorge Javier Vázquez, on Telecinco and Better Saturdayalongside Boris Izaguirre, on La Sexta, the journalist has just been signed by TVE to lead the magazine Morning peopleits flagship morning drink.
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