The new “Telenoche” premieres: what its protagonists say and why empathy will be the goal

It is Friday afternoon, January 13, and in the Carlos Giacosa studio of Channel 4 there are about twenty people working. They are finalizing the details, but they are also working against the clock, as usually happens on Uruguayan television. There are a couple of them on stairs, others move armchairs, there are also those who are in charge of adjusting the lights and cameras. On the floor there is paper, cardboard and plastic, purple cellophane, empty boxes, and a group of people sweep and mop the shiny black floor.

They are all there with a clear mission: to finish the set design that will be presented today, Monday, at 7:00 p.m. on Channel 4. It is that telenochethe first news program on Uruguayan television, the one that Carlos Giacosa inaugurated on April 29, 1968, is renewed.

It is not merely a change of scenery, or aesthetics as happens periodically for all television programs (yes, the newscast is also a television program), it is a more global change that began to be thought of several months ago.

“I am two years older than Telenoche, so I grew up watching it,” he says
jaime clara
who joins this new stage of the news.

The driving will be shared with
viviana ruggiero
and Emilio Izaguirre, journalists with several years on the Telenoche screen.

Jaime Clara, Viviana Ruggiero and Emilio Izaguirre from "telenoche".
Jaime Clara, Viviana Ruggiero and Emilio Izaguirre from “Telenoche”.

Photo: Darwin Borelli.

“The news in general, and this one in particular is in the DNA of Uruguayan television. That is why there is a great responsibility in respecting and honoring a very rich tradition, which has been fundamental in the history of Uruguayan television. It was not a challenge to be taken lightly”, adds Clara, who said goodbye last Friday to the audience of the magazine Buen Día to take on this new professional challenge starting today.

“For us it’s a start over,” says Ruggiero. “It is to renew the commitment with the viewers and in my case with journalism, the profession that I love.”

“There is a change in the house,” adds Izaguirre, the youngest and tallest of the trio of drivers. “The scenery is very beautiful, you can take advantage of a lot, and that gives us great enthusiasm. Until recently we had not been able to enter the set, stand up and start playing with the plans, see where we were going to put ourselves ”.

Now, on the studio floor there are white crosses that mark the place where journalists have to stand; and everything is rehearsed, the lights, the sound, the cameras and the videos that are going to be broadcast are tested.

Jaime Clara, Viviana Ruggiero and Emilio Izaguirre from "telenoche".
Jaime Clara, Viviana Ruggiero and Emilio Izaguirre from “Telenoche”.

Photo: Darwin Borelli

For many months, Channel 4 has been working, from different areas, to get to this moment, to launch this Telenoche of 2023. And to achieve this, the news program was thought from scratch. Without losing the essence of the newscast: giving the news, everything was reformulated. In fact, the old studio was torn down and a new one was erected. For this reason, in recent days, Telenoche was carried out from an emergency studio that touched the scenery with the magazine Buen día.

“There is a global bet of the channel that has been changing in recent times, adapting formats; In terms of production, a lot of head and effort was also put into it, and now it was time to focus on the news program”, comments Clara.

In addition to an aesthetic change -moving away from the traditional violet color that accompanied Telenoche in recent years to go to blue tones-, there is a new scenery. It is more illuminated, modern and that will allow you to take advantage of the led screens that serve as the background. They allow presenting reports and explaining topics in a more didactic and clear way.

It is that this change in Telenoche, assure its protagonists, comes with a change in the way of presenting the news.

“The objective of a newscast is to give news,” says Ruggiero, “but all news has an explanation and a context. And what we want is to tell that story as simply, completely and clearly as possible, with the voices of all the protagonists. At the same time, we want to tell stories, because there are many that are worth telling, and one of the objectives of journalism is to find stories that are worth telling, and tell it to others. The objectives we have in this new stage are out there”.

Jaime Clara, Viviana Ruggiero and Emilio Izaguirre from "telenoche".

Jaime Clara, Viviana Ruggiero and Emilio Izaguirre from “Telenoche”.

Photo: Diffusion

That requires standing from a different perspective, more empathetic, without losing rigor.

“We are looking for a different perspective, to be able to empathize with the person on the other side while maintaining the commitment to bring them the information,” says Izaguirre.

Clara agrees and exemplifies: “you cannot go from a family whose house has just burned down, to fuel prices increasing as if nothing had happened. You cannot be indifferent to those stories that have their protagonists, I have to make some mention of that. I can’t go from one topic to another as if nothing were happening because life isn’t like that, and a newscast can’t be either. So we’re going to put effort into that.”

To achieve that, the trio of drivers have been rehearsing off the channel to work on “chemistry” between them. They have also been having a lot of fun.

“We have the advantage that we have known each other for a long time,” says Izaguirre. “I worked with Jaime at Radio Sarandí when he was entering general journalism (before he was focused on sports journalism), and with Viviana since he came to the channel. The three of us have worked well, and we have the same idea of ​​what we understood to be the role of the driver. Because we present the work done by colleagues and us too. We are a link between information, the work of our colleagues and people. That’s how the three of us understood it.”

To present this work there are the huge screens, the graphics, but also the desk and the characteristic chair of the driver that, they say, belongs to Clara. “We gave him the throne,” Ruggiero says with a laugh, and everyone laughs.

“After a year standing on Buen Día, this little body needed a chair,” Clara retorts.

In this way, the dynamics of this new Telenoche will be with Clara at the desk, and Rugguiero and Izaguirre standing, to finish the three unemployed.

There, in that last moment of the newscast, uncertainty arises: the closing sentence.

“I am not very fond of forcing things, they have to happen naturally. Hopefully we will find her today, but if not, she will arrive ”, comments Clara.

“The idea is to be very spontaneous and the challenge is to grow the three of us. Because to be on the air for two and a half hours it is important to look at each other and get to know each other, and that is built, and Telenoche also grows as a team, so that each one can put their best into a common goal”, adds Ruggiero.

Tonight, the first news program on Uruguayan television begins a new stage, with new faces, more empathy, and the usual information.

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The new “Telenoche” premieres: what its protagonists say and why empathy will be the goal