The loneliness of 3CatInfo during the storm
On Saturday afternoon, on TV3, the tension of the storm was already felt during the broadcast of the film Escape room by Joel Joan and the series Tàndem that followed. A banner was scrolling along the bottom of the screen announcing that President Salvador Illa would soon appear live due to the weather alert. An unsettling countdown for viewers, eager to discover what the sky had in store for us. At that moment, in the top left corner of the screen, they were still advertising Col·lapse for prime time. At seven-thirty, they cut the episode to connect with 3CatInfo presenter Anna Barreda, who had been on air live since seven in the evening. The journalist introduced the appearance of Minister Parlon.
Barreda managed those two hours with the resources of 3CatInfo and the indispensable support of Eloi Cordomí, who was impeccable in each of his interventions: precise and with a great capacity for outreach. The weatherman faced the most critical stage of the storm for many hours, until dawn.
At the time of the Telenotícies, Raquel Sans took over with her usual competence. After the news broadcast, the presenter announced a change in the channel's programming to offer a special. Sans continued for another hour with an adapted format that revealed how they feel most secure working: sitting with the computer at their side and the large screen as a visual aid. Shortly after 11:15 p.m., Raquel Sans said goodbye to the special and Anna Barreda took over the reporting. And in the following hours, that coverage transmitted more and more informational poverty. Barreda was always diligent, correct, and effective in her work. And it was not easy, both because of the scope of what was intuited as a latent catastrophe and because of the responsibility. But the 3CatInfo professionals seemed left to their own devices. While the morning stars of the Catalan radio stations arrived at their respective stations to flex their journalistic muscle, TV3 seemed to allocate minimal resources to it. Barreda kept introducing the same images, connections, and information, well accompanied by Cordomí and David Izquierdo. They gave it their all. But each time they seemed to be more alone, and we entered a repetitive loop in which the only thing that changed was the Meteocat on the left side of the screen. Past two o'clock, we entered the spiral of rebroadcasts.
After a year of debuting the new news programs and all that deployment of media and possibilities, the night of the storm raises a question: if they do not take advantage of it in this context, when will they? Where is the epic nature of the stars and the new faces taking on the challenge? Where is the potential of the innovation that allows for so many flourishes? Where is the whole digital world at the service of the news programs to be everywhere? So much promotion, only for it to end up, on a night of maximum alert, resorting to what looked like the 3/24 from twenty years ago.
