Don Francisco: Don Francisco returns to television at 80 and talks about punishing “fake news” “| Interview | Mario Kreutzberger | Reflections 2021 | Huge Saturday Teleton | LIGHTS

When the press refers to him as an icon, he distances himself. “What this means?” he asks me. – That I’m very old? “You are a symbol of the history of television,” he explained after the salute, but the veteran Chilean animator conveys the praise of his colleagues who address him with the same reverence. “I don’t think he represents more than any other communicator,” he says. At the age of 80, Mario Kreutzberger appears on the screen of the virtual interview looking gray and calm. “It simply came to our notice then. I’m 80 years old “, says one of the most popular faces on Hispanic television. Mario Kreutzberger debuts on Monday, February 15 in his program “Mr. Francisco: Reflections 2021, a space for interviews broadcast by CNN in Spanish, with the format we are used to in these months of pandemic: that of video calls. There will be 10 chapters with about forty guests from different fields and whose central theme will be to know what they did during the closing.

– Are there any Peruvians on the list?

I don’t know, it could exist. We still have half of the shows unconfirmed. But right now I don’t know if it exists. I am not sure.

– The ‘Don Francisco: Reflections 2021’ program is clearly linked to closed life. You met last year 80 years old. How did you imagine the celebration before the pandemic hit?

Ah okay. I’ve been preparing to celebrate it all year. I wanted to have a party here in the United States and another in Chile, on channel 13, where I have worked for the last 59 years. I really wanted to do a lot of things and I couldn’t do them.

– Did people around you die, friends, close people?

Some people do. The elderly people I know have died in Covid.

Yesterday I was able to see your virtual press conference with colleagues from Latin America. When they asked about the vaccines, you expressed your support and that you even received the second dose. But some headlines say “I don’t recommend it.”

I never said that!

– How much do you think part of the media contributes to misinformation?

What I said is that I was not able to recommend. I have had all the vaccines, but I am not able to recommend it because, suddenly, before you get vaccinated, you will have to consult your doctor. But I never told people not to get vaccinated. In contrast to the! What happens is that the media is at a critical juncture and looking for headlines that do not match the truth to try to stand out. Maybe these are publishers’ requirements. I don’t know why a person can write that.

You have a funny anecdote with George Bush. The former president thought your name was “Don” and your last name was “Francisco.” This reminds me of what happens with the book “Don Quixote,” which many in the United States think tells the story of a donkey. What do you think about the disagreements between the United States and the Latino community? Is it impossible for an American to understand the 61 million Hispanics in the country?

I think President Bush, who has his brother married to a Mexican woman, knew a lot about Hispanics. The name Don is very popular, it comes from Donald, the most common American name. And the last name Francisco also exists. This was because when I was invited to a dinner party, I introduced myself to the police officer in English as Mario Kreutzberger and then he told me that I was not on the guest list. When I left, a policeman next door, who was from Miami, who was also a gringo, recognized me. “Don Franciscou,” he told me. The man looked at the list again and said “Don Francisco is invited” (laughs). That’s where that anecdote comes from. I think some presidents, some more, some less, understood the Hispanic community. In the case of President Bush, he did.

– His biography is the story of a migrant, the son of German Jewish parents who fled to Chile and left Chile for the United States. How do you see the problem of migrants after the Trump era?

It was a very difficult time and I hope it will not happen again. But today I see with great pain what is happening to migration in all parts of the world. And it happens in Argentina, in Peru, in Chile. There are many migrants coming from Central America and Venezuela. 70 million people move around the world. In this pandemic, countries cannot provide services, they suffer from entering illegally along dangerous roads, where they suffer from hunger and cold. Migration is facing the most difficult time. As a migrant and the child of an immigrant, I believe that countries should provide the greatest facilities, in an orderly manner, to avoid causing them even more pain. Because after the discrimination, the drama is added. We hope that there is a global agreement to help and finance the aid.

– It is impossible to talk to you without thinking that you are part of the history of television, the tradition of gathering the family on a Saturday afternoon, as you did with “Sábado Gigante” or in Peru Augusto Ferrando with “Trampolín to fame ”. However, this power of television no longer exists. What happened?

Television was the queen of image and sound. Now, this reign has many aspects. Only on the phone, people have so many opportunities to connect, to watch videos, to get information, the internet is still nobody’s land. When news happens, where does the first one go? On the phone! It was usually heard on the radio, seen on television, read in the newspapers the next day. But this habit has changed and I think that at some point it will have to be regulated so that all this can be financed.

– The same Telethon you are promoting is facing both the crisis of the television format and the crisis of credibility in the media. Is he not coming back from this crisis?

I believe that we will be able to get out of this crisis insofar as “false news” is punished. I will give you an example: someone wrote something I never said and that person has no punishment. He could have done something more serious and he wouldn’t have. Today, “false news” is spreading uncontrollably. There are people who have 50, 100 Twitter accounts to spread, close them and then open new ones. Nothing I write is true. It’s their sport! But with this sport they can cause huge disruptions to society and people.

– In Latin America you have uniform support, but in Chile there are sectors that reject it, especially left-wing sectors. Why, while in Latin America Don Francisco is a pleasant icon, in Chile he is a controversial figure?

I was never a controversial figure. There are situations of the moment, the politics of the moment, in which a group is interested in it. But I could not have done what I did without the support of most of the country. Remember that for 42 years I ran a marathon and built 14 hospitals. I was never involved in politics.

– You have always defined yourself by ordinary political neutrality. It is said that this was motivated not only to protect his public credibility as a television, but also to defend the musicians who worked on his program and who were in danger because of the Pinochet dictatorship. This is true?

Ok, yes. I never really got involved in politics, but if I had to help someone, I always did. No matter what a musician thought, the most important thing was that they could bring good music to the show. And so in any order of things, in any position. I am a person who likes politics, I talk about politics, in private with my friends, but publicly my role is different. I admire political journalists, those specialized in sports, popular science journalists. I am an entertainment and information journalist and also a social journalist. That’s how I define myself.

VIDEO RECOMMENDED

Biden seeks to accelerate vaccination against COVID-19

YOU MAY BE INTERESTED