Between anecdotes and big names, Carlos Ulanovsky traces an oral history of Argentine journalism.

In 1996, during the 52nd Assembly of the Inter-American Press Association (IAPA) in Los Angeles, United States, Colombian writer Gabriel García Márquez gave a historic lecture. It was titled "The Best Job in the World" and almost instantly became study material for journalism schools. The paradox was that in his words, the Nobel Prize winner for Literature had been highly critical of such educational institutions. "The young people who leave academies full of hope, with their lives ahead of them, seem disconnected from reality and their life problems, and a desire for prominence takes precedence over vocation and innate aptitudes," he declared.

The truth is that Carlos Ulanovsky 's new book, entitled El periodismo es lindo porque se conoces gente (published by Marea), is an evocation of that sacred essence of journalism that Gabo yearned for in times when he was already aware of the unbridled technological advance (he spoke of a "labyrinth of technology shooting out of control into the future"). Throughout 256 pages interspersed with pleasant illustrations by Miguel Rep , there is a compendium of anecdotes that Ulanovsky collected from direct interviews with colleagues , books and archival material.

Divided into six chapters, this sort of oral history of vernacular journalism intersperses anecdotes from journalists throughout the ages, from the earliest noisy newsrooms—with heavy typewriters, cigarettes, and whiskey—to the most modern, filtered through the author's own experience of working through them all.

At 81 years of age and with over sixty years of experience in the profession , he rightly intrudes his gaze, also influenced by his work as a media researcher – his books Días de radio and Paren las rotativas , to cite just two examples, are required reading if one wishes to understand the history of Argentine communication.

“Here is a tribute book, recognition of a profession that – well, very well, very well, a lot, a little – has guaranteed my livelihood for 62 years,” writes Ulanovsky in the first pages while summarizing, in his opinion, what he considers to be the keys to the profession : “nose, intuition, feeling, curiosity, peripheral vision, sense of opportunity, heart to look beyond and, in a few or many lines or characters, describe events, complex issues, lives that become knowledge, feelings, ideas.”

The book is, to a large extent, a paean to cunning . Several sections focus on the aptitude Ulanovsky considers essential to the profession. It involves courage, persistence, and even the often necessary white lies. Just the right amount of nerve is needed to face certain challenges on the brink of closure.

" Picaresque is born from necessity and shortcomings. A good journalist knows his limits; he knows that he must first understand if he wants to deliver a worthy article," writes Sergio Olguín in the prologue. He adds: " A good journalist is usually a pesky type , but with a single objective: to make his audience say he's a trustworthy professional." García Márquez said that journalists should be as ethical as the buzzing of a fly.

"Artificial intelligence is coming to stand up to ignorant natural intelligence. The time will come when it will overtake us, but no one can ask it for cunning. That's not achieved in laboratories," Ulanovsky notes, and then shares a host of mischievous anecdotes.

For example, when Fernanda Nicolini, based on a few photos, almost completely invented a coverage of the wedding of the Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek to an Argentine woman for Noticias magazine. "Who hasn't had to, from one minute to the next, describe places and scenarios around the world without ever having visited them? Who could swear they didn't botch a story from beginning to end, while taking great care not to distort reality? " Ulanovsky would write a few pages later. Journalism as the sacred art of becoming an expert on any subject in just a handful of hours.

There are many interesting anecdotes from his early days that serve as inspiration for those starting out in the profession. They tell of the precarious beginnings of the editorial staff at the newspaper Página 12, where Eduardo Blaustein evokes the Uruguayan who sold sandwiches at the door, or Camilo Sánchez as a cadet at Billiken magazine in the 1980s, where the comedian Enrique Pinti and the cursed poet José Sbarra coexisted.

He recounts an assignment that, read today in the age of artificial intelligence, sounds hilarious : “I was heading to the Military Geographic Institute at 300 Cabildo Street. I was there with the original maps of the country so that an official from the Institute could check them and certify with his signature that the boundaries, borders, rivers and mountains were in order.”

There are many anecdotes about great figures of journalism —such as Natalio Botana, Jacobo Timerman, Julio Ramos, and Héctor Ricardo García. A definition of Botana is included, which speaks of the pride he felt for his editors: “Almost all my journalists are poets. But yes: poets who know how to describe a football match or interpret a crime.”

There are also stories of women who have managed to make a place for themselves in a seemingly masculine world, such as María Moreno or the poet Tamara Kamenszain. Novice journalists mingled with strict editors and street sleuths who roamed in search of news. Ulanovsky recreates these stories, sometimes with greater intervention, other times as a mere observer.

“ It is difficult to understand the gymnastic routine of clicks, the perversion of this new genre called “News in Development” or the illusory fantasy of getting nowhere first,” writes Ulanovsky, who has always been and is attentive to the future of the profession (in his book In Other Words he interviewed 35 young journalists and subtitled it: between the crack and precariousness).

Regarding this vertigo, he quotes a quote from Horacio Pagani: “I worked at Clarín for more than 30 years, and nobody knew me. Since I appeared on television, every time I go out, people make me believe I'm like Tinelli. But don't be mistaken. Print media gives you prestige, and TV gives you popularity . Lately, I feel like I'm walking close to a precipice. On one side is the prestige and seriousness of print, and on the other, the clowning of television.”

Other interesting points include the ten commandments compiled by Ulanovsky from interviews and statements by journalists who offer advice on the craft. These include maxims from, among others, Leila Guerriero and Hernán Casciari. Another section focuses on some famous graphic publications that the author chooses to highlight and discuss (Humor, Página 12, Perfil, and Botana's Crítica).

There are also profiles of iconic journalists such as Roberto Arlt, Rogelio García Lupo, and Silvia Rudn in a chapter entitled "Sanctuary." It's also interesting to read first-hand about the beginnings of TEA in 1987, a journalism school that Ulanovsky himself founded with colleagues: "The need to explain in theory and practice what a box, a subheading, or a color note were led us to relearn the craft all over again."

Toward the end, Ulanovsky offers some final reflections on a present that finds the profession at a crossroads : on one side, technology is advancing to such an extent that it threatens to completely replace it; on the other, working conditions are becoming increasingly precarious.

“Journalists in these times are limited by the pandemic of precariousness and often have to struggle to make ends meet. The current scenario includes both those who, day after day, overcome difficult conditions and those who have made their work a small business as lucrative as it is suspicious,” he writes.

At the same time, reading this volume doesn't feel like a paean to the past or a nostalgic rant . Rather, in a necessary historiographical exercise, it functions as a kind of journalistic I Ching, yielding clues from the past that strike like arrows at an increasingly uncertain present.

Meanwhile, as Ulanovsky says, journalists continue trying to make a living by producing hasty literature . Or in the words of García Márquez in that lecture: “No one who was not born for that purpose and prepared to live only for that purpose could persist in such an incomprehensible and voracious profession, whose work ends after each news story, as if it were forever, but which does not grant a moment of peace until it begins again with more fervor than ever the next minute.”

Journalism is nice because you meet people, by Carlos Ulanovsky (Marea).