Don Francisco: Don Francisco returns to TV at age 80 and talks about punishing ‘fake news’ ”| Interview | Mario Kreutzberger | Reflections 2021 | Giant Saturday | Telethon | LIGHTS

When the press calls him an icon, he distances himself. “What does that mean?” asks me. “That I am very old?” “You are a symbol of television history,” he explained after the greeting, but the experienced Chilean animator praises colleagues who address him with the same reverence. “I don’t think I represent more than any other communicator,” he says. At the age of 80, Mario Kreutzberger appears on the virtual interview screen, looking gray and calm. ‘Right now I am assuming gray hair. I assume I am 80 years old, ”says one of the most popular faces on Spanish television. Mario Kreutzberger makes his debut on Monday, February 15 in his program “Mr. Francisco: Reflections 2021, a space for interviews broadcast by the CNN signal in Spanish, in the format we have become accustomed to in these months of the pandemic: that of video calls. There will be 10 chapters with about 40 guests from different fields, the central theme of which will be knowing what they did during the incarceration.

– Are there Peruvians on the list?

I don’t know, it could be. We still have half of the unconfirmed shows. But at the moment I don’t know if it is. I am not sure about that.

– The “Don Francisco: Reflections 2021” program is clearly related to prison life. You met last year 80 years. How did you imagine celebrating before the pandemic hit?

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

– Are there people around you, friends, have close people died?

Some people do. Older people I know have died of 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 had already received the second dose. But some headlines read “I don’t recommend it.”

I never said that!

– To what extent do you think part of the media cooperates with disinformation?

What I said is I was unable to recommend. I have had all the vaccines but I cannot recommend it because before getting vaccinated you should suddenly see your doctor. But I never told people not to get vaccinated. In contrast to! What happens is that the media is at a critical time and looking for headlines that don’t fit the truth to try and get noticed. Maybe they are editors’ demands. I don’t know why anyone can write something like that.

You have a funny anecdote with George Bush. The former president thought your name was “Don” and your last name was “Francisco”. That 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 those 61 million Hispanics in the country?

I think President Bush, who married his brother 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 surname Francisco also exists. This happened because when they invited me to dinner, I introduced myself to the policeman in English as Mario Kreutzberger and then he told me I was not on the guest list. When I left, a Miami police officer, who was also a gringo, recognized me. “Don Franciscou,” he said to me. The man checked the list again and said “Don Francisco has been invited” (laughs). That’s where that anecdote comes from. I believe some presidents, some more, some less, have understood the Spanish 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 who left Chile for the United States. How do you see the problem of migrants after the Trump era?

It has been a very difficult time and I hope it will not be repeated. But today I see with great pain what is happening with migration in all parts of the world. And it also 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 them with services, they have a hard time entering the areas illegally along dangerous roads, where they suffer from hunger and cold. Migration is experiencing the most difficult moment. As a migrant and as the child of an immigrant, I believe that countries should provide him with the best facilities, in an orderly manner to avoid causing further pain. Because later on, discrimination is added to the drama. Hopefully there is a global agreement to help and fund aid.

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

Television was the queen of sound and vision. Now this government has many aspects. Only on a phone do people have so many options to connect, watch videos, get information, the internet is still a no man’s land. When news comes, where do you go first? On the phone! It was usually heard on the radio, it was shown on television, it was read in the newspapers the next day. But that practice is changing, and I think it will have to be regulated at some point to fund all of this.

– The same Telethon you are promoting is facing the crisis of the television format as well as that of credibility in the media. Is there no way back from this crisis?

I think we can get out of this crisis to the extent that “fake news” is punished. I’m going to give you an example: someone wrote something that I never said, and that person is not punished. He could have done something much more serious, and he wouldn’t have it. Today, “fake news” is spreading uncontrollably. There are people who have 50, 100 Twitter accounts to distribute them, they close them and then open new ones. Nothing they write is true. It’s their sport! But with that sport they can cause enormous disruption to society and people.

– In Latin America you have uniform support, but in Chile there are sectors that reject this, especially left-wing sectors. How come while Don Francisco is an endearing icon in Latin America, 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 them. But I couldn’t have done what I did if I hadn’t had the support of the majority of the country. Remember I did telethon for 42 years and we built 14 hospitals. I have never been involved in politics.

– You have always defined yourself by a customary political neutrality. This is said to have been motivated not only to protect his public credibility as a television-focused, but also to defend the musicians who worked on his program who were endangered by Pinochet’s dictatorship. It’s true?

Okay, yes. I never really got involved in political things, but when I had to help someone I always did. It didn’t 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, privately with my friends, but in public my role is different. I admire political journalists, those who specialize in sports, popular science journalists. I am an entertainment and information journalist and also a social journalist. That’s how I define myself.

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