A few days ago, the pruning that will remove several faces from ESPN Chileand one of them is Felipe Bianchi, a panelist on the program ESPN F90. Along with him, Fernando Solabarrieta, Luka Tudor and Waldemar Méndez will leave the mark, among other prominent figures. The motives? An apparent restructuring for 2023, which would also go through economic issues.
Of this, however, Bianchi opined, responding to a comment from a tweeter who reported that Gonzalo Jara, defender of the golden generation, will be joining the ranks of the channel soon. And of course, the communicator was very critical of this increasingly common phenomenon of seeing former players taking over sports programs to the detriment of analysts.
“True sports journalism, with the demands and obligations of all journalism (professional, university), has entered into frank decline and perhaps retreat due to the myopia of media owners, who have left the territory of ideas and content in the hands of commercial engineers, lawyers and producers”, Bianchi wrote at the outset.
Later, he pointed to the “less literate public” and its ignorance, which has allowed “today the goal is almost achieved: every day fewer journalists edit, command and develop Chilean ‘sports journalism’ spaces”.
In fact, in his words, Bianchi believes that currently sports spaces in the media “are turned into true offices of the industry, headed by ex-detés and ex-players, often involved in the business of club leaders and representatives.”
Regarding the arrival of new players linked to soccer, such as former players or detainees to the programs, the communicator opined that “the mix is healthy, when it is a mix. And new, when it adds knowledge and anecdote”. However, “sweetening or silencing journalism is a serious mistake and a time bomb for any media.”
“Sooner or later the costs of going once morest the nature of the business will be paid. It seems like a good idea at first (it is cheaper and less controversial to do without journalism) but strictly speaking it is a foolish suicide”.
Let’s remember, today practically all sports spaces, both on radio and on TV, have the presence of former players or coaches. Recently, following his retirement, Jean Beausejour, Jorge Valdivia and Mauricio Pinilla joined names that have been around for a longer time, such as Claudio Borghi, Juvenal Olmos, Rodrigo Goldberg or Patricio Yáñez, just to mention a very long list.
