A promise

Thanks to my colleague Jordi Mumbrú, I gave a sort of class to journalism students at the Universitat Rovira i Virgili about the genre of the chronicle. In the last row, six guys who have a sports podcast. I look at them, so smiling, and I understand that they must do this genre —I love it— which is peer-to-peer journalism. "We cannot change the world," they tell me. But immediately after, they talk about the Mourinho documentary and criticize its absences and the relevant scenes that do not appear in it. And behold, we all start talking about politics and the code of ethics. All of them have seen La bola negra and there is one, a voracious reader and implacable graphomaniac, who criticizes the film's critics, because "it shows that they haven't read Lorca and, of course, they don't know La bola negra". Next to him, a girl with very lively eyes, the one who is worried about the far-right, asks if a journalist must betray their principles if they work for a media outlet they do not agree with. In silence, I thank her for having asked the question. On the other side, a mischievous and sharp boy shows that humor is a weapon and armor. And next to him, a polished girl, who writes down the names of all the authors I cite, avidly.

Most of them read some opinion piece that they have been sent. They do not pay attention to the form, in the same way that they are not usually interested, in their day-to-day life, in a salad decorated with flowers, because what they want is protein. We talk about the news of the woman who survived two lethal injections. Whispers, comments. This interests them. We talk about the series Sex Education, whose protagonist —so charismatic— manages to become a writer. They are all aware that they will not have a house, that they will not be able to pay for it. And that is why they are also aware that changing the world starts here, with local concerns, which are the universal ones, by asking themselves questions. They ask me if I can write a chronicle of the meeting. Here it is. I hope to read you and hear from you. You have brightened up my rainy day, on which the ES-Alert sounded.