María de Jesús González He has spent a large part of his long and impeccable career on TV Perú Noticias. The journalist has worked on the State channel for 23 years, going through ups and downs in the various changes that the television channel and our country have gone through. For this reason, she spoke exclusively with The Republicgiving us a sincere critique of the current panorama in journalism.
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—What is it like to work on a state channel? What benefits and complications does it bring?
—I joined Channel 7 in July 2002. I entered at a time when changes were taking place from the regime of Fujimorism to the regime of Alejandro Toledo. I have also worked in other places, in other media… I was a morning news anchor, I did links, interviews.
The State channel has always been seen by all governments as the political arm, if you want to say, at an informative level. It's something that, personally, I don't share.. We should not have that issue, which is a kind of defect in Peru, it is a structural issue. It doesn't just happen in this administration, we have been seeing it for many periods. You may think that it is not normal, the cuts in programming, but it happens, it happens. I think it would have to change if we are really going to have a public television concept. I repeat, it is not from now. When I joined Channel 7, there was already that structure, which became stricter and more demanding with the APRA government.
—Regarding censorship, gags, have you ever felt that your freedom of the press has been threatened or has it been a little more difficult to exercise your role as a journalist?
—I've been there so long that it's already a little difficult to think about them wanting to gag me. So, I'm honest with you, no. I can't deny that it may happen to some colleagues at the time, but I can tell you that it doesn't. I think it would be difficult to gag a driver of so many years. It's not that I don't want to point out that it doesn't happen because I work there. No, no, I simply don't have that problem, to be honest, but if it were to happen, I don't tolerate it and I think the channel knows that detail of my participation very well. I would not accept being muzzled by any administration; If anything was attempted, it was with Apra, which was very hard for me because they wanted to fire me and a series of things, but, thank God, they were corrected.
—Would you say that has been the most difficult challenge you have faced in your 23 years doing journalism? Everything that happened during the Apra government?
—No, each stage has had its varied moments. I remember one of the anecdotes when a press manager told me that they were possibly going to expel me from television for a while because I was pregnant.. The press manager told me: “Look, you've gained weight, you're pregnant.” That moment was very hard, because also, when you are pregnant, you face a series of emotions. It was hard, I turned to colleagues for support.
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When you work with colleagues, there are some who are the favorites or the cocky ones and also this issue of women vs. man, even when they do the same tasks, there is this issue of the man earning more. That was a complicated issue on channel 7, several hosts complained about that. I don't think it is an issue that occurs exclusively on TV Perú, it has occurred before more than now. It is a defect in the world, it is an issue to be corrected. Sometimes, you realize that you are not the ring, you are not the favorite, you are not the stuck-up one.
Many times the State itself is the main corruptor of labor rights and I regret having to tell you that. I have seen many colleagues who have been on the channel for 20, 30, 35 years and are just now able to get a stable position. The question one asks is: Do you have to take legal action and confront your employers so that your labor rights can be respected? It's painful, because you expose yourself. I am 23 years old in July of this year and only last year they put me on the payroll, after a five-year legal action.
I have felt excluded, sometimes for promotions…
—Are you referring to promotions?
—In this administration, I must be fair, they have recognized my stable position because there is a court order, not because it was the kindness of the administration. My accrued labor rights are still pending. But sometimes I have felt excluded from the promotions, from the channel's events, from presenting on the open signal as before.
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