We will try to laugh, Miguel

It is difficult to think clearly when pain and loss follow the shock for the unexpected death of Miguel Barroso. But today the need to say goodbye to him well is imposed and I wish the reflection that I am going to share had not had to be made as a posthumous tribute. We are always late to say the things that matter.

Establishing the right distance from power, inside and outside your company, is a fundamental task for a journalist. Because this coexistence is part of the nature of our work, as well as the tension that it entails, which is why it is essential to clearly delimit the playing field. But to dance this dance well, it takes two who believe in it. The opposite ends up with the journalist or the journalist on the street.

I have treated Barroso at two different stages of my professional life. From 2004 to 2006, he was Secretary of State for Communication and I was on public television as director-presenter of The breakfast of TVE, and another two years, these last ones, him serving as editorial advisor of the PRISA group, and me as director of EL PAÍS. Neither then nor now did I ever have to point out the red lines, even though we often disagreed. My experience with him has been intelligent and fun conversation, fine analysis and absolute respect for the work of journalists. That this is inconceivable to so many says a lot about the moment journalism is experiencing.

He would be shocked to know that today we are all writing about him. He was allergic to public protagonism—he resignedly accepted being a fool who could be beaten to give EL PAÍS, SER or PRISA—and, however, he kept intact the pleasure of being in the front row where things happen—the journalist who did not ceased to be—and the desire for this world to be a little more livable—the commitment to ideas that he never hid and that he was always willing to discuss elegantly with anyone who thought differently. That was actually his power, talking to everyone, knowing everything, and enjoying looking for solutions, new paths. Enjoy and commit to the passion of his time, this time, not yesterday's, today's. As Jordi Gracia wrote in Free Ink, and we published in EL PAÍS, it is not age, it is power, the management of present, past or absent power, that makes us lose our footing with reality. Barroso did not lose it.

Today would be one of those days in which we would laugh out loud reading what is being written about him again, those superpowers that allowed him to inspire Sanchismo, assault companies, maneuver with shareholders, renew newsrooms, design electoral campaigns, control them in the rallies, in the newsrooms, on the networks, making covers, editorials, programs, whispering in the ear and singing habaneras. Everything at once everywhere. That caricature that is paraded by those who need to believe or make people believe in great conspiracies to justify prosaic personal failures.

We will try to laugh, Miguel, although it will be difficult for us today without you.

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