Irene Polo, the modern and fleeting reporter

Of those eight years as well exploited as Plumilla give an account of the newspaper. After a first stage in which he used Pseudonyms, when he began to sign with his name he did it in reports on the new Barcelona, ​​a city that was modernized by the hand of the International Exhibition of 1929. In front of the boring journalism of his companions -Politics , courts, police … The same usual news-Polo was interested in cinema stars and other popular figures. His report on the visit to Barcelona of Marriage Natalie Talmadge-Buster Keaton He made fortune and today read; Also the chronicle about his frustrated interview with Cambó. He faced the pressures of unions and employers in his information, and she herself faced the direction of her newspaper for a salary reduction. «Five or six, however, we got like beasts, protesting and considering that there was no right. The ones we broke the most my friends M. and T., the companions M., F. and I, so we were dismissed immediately and it was not necessary to reduce the salary of others ».

The book ‘An Intruder in the Press’, with edition of Francesc Salgado de Dios For the Renaissance editorial, it includes the 77 articles located in various publications and written in Spanish that cover the work of Irene Polo between 1927 and 1931. «It is about the years of training of the journalist, which carries out in various publications dedicated to Cinema already continues in the first newspaper in which he signed articles continuously, ‘The news’, ”says Salgado de Dios. An example of Irene Polo’s reporter is your article about men-world. If Julio Camba had dedicated to these men two decades before, one of her celebrated columns, she preferred to board the figure down the street. «What has been done of the men’s men? Perhaps the same man-ancium that we have in front of us can tell us. And we ask. […] ‘Do you know the heat given that cardboard shell that covered us from the shoulders to the knees? In addition, he did not allow us to walk easily, and worst of all, in the long run, he ended up harming us health. ‘

Among the articles collected in this anthology are others dedicated to the fans -“this year are more pimpantes, more colorful than ever” -or the umbrellas -“those of now are some summary sticks, dressed in the crazy and banal enagua more or less expensive or of a frivolous silk »-. Irene Polo ironized about the role of journalists who promoted films in the press: the bombers. «The firefighter is an interesting character, much more than Greta Garbo, than Ramón Novarro, that Charlot and Adolphe Menjou; because the firefighter is the one who creates all the interesting things of these ‘stars’ ». Today’s journalism a hundred years ago. He told the rivalry between taxi drivers and chóferes long before Uber and Cabify, narrated the proclamation of the Second Republic and wondered if women would wear pants. “The skirt is simply the primitive tunic,” a designer argued. The naive and clumsy common tunic of the first ages than man, more practical, more logical and above all freer, abandoned immediately to adopt the pants, which is the only way of reasonable dress ».

In this first stage of his career Irene Polo developed a vital journalism, according to the editor of ‘An Intruder in the Press’. There was “optimism, celebration, curiosity and discovery of the environment.” He left journalism at his best, five months before the war broke out, to make the Americas with Margarita Xirgu, with whom he has been sentimentally related. He no longer returned to Spain or journalism. Depression and his bad personal situation anticipated his premature goodbye.