Journalism of journalists. It’s not just charging the camera and turning it on, it’s much more. It is sharpening your eyes, ‘reading’ the facts, looking around, intuiting and living between calm and adrenaline. Juan Manuel Acosta is a cameraman with extensive experience, currently working in DirecTVhas followed the peruvian national team, has reported on evictions and has learned the risks of the profession. Also the joy of being present, live and direct, in the events that make history.
MIRA: DirecTV journalist confronted all his colleagues for defending Peru
THE RISK
Once I was sent for an eviction. The police confronted those who inhabited the place, who did not want to leave. With my camera I was advancing with the guards and they threw everything at us, I was sweating, I felt that the drops were falling on my face and I dried myself with my handkerchief, but I might not lose concentration, I was still focused on the shots, when I feel that something falls once more , this time on my forehead, the sweat was already more intense, once more I try to dry it and when I look at my hand, it was bloody. I was rushed to a hospital and had 9 stitches. A brick had broken my forehead.
THE TIPS
I am one of those who try to collaborate when I have a commission with a young reporter, who is just starting out. I am the ones who tell you that you should stand more in the center, go to the right, repeat so that it comes out better and not because I think you are doing it wrong, but because I am the one who presents the images and I will always seek that your work is impeccable, but the truth is that not everyone accepts those Tips or suggestions. They think they are the bosses and so I prefer to keep quiet.
THE TEAMS
A reporter always goes with the microphone and nothing else. We cameramen carry the heaviest. Sometimes I tell them to help me, but not all of them are humble, they get overbearing and don’t lend a hand. In the last ‘Copa América’ in Brazil, I went with a lady, she was not going to ask her to carry something and for 32 days, I only carried the camera, a heavy backpack, the tripod and the kangaroo where I carry the batteries. I came back without arms.
THE COVERAGE OF THE NEWS
It is very important to get acquainted with the reporter. While he is interviewing, I know that I must do a close-up or the environment and that is achieved when both know each other. But one must also take the initiative from him. If you are going to cover an accident, take a minute to look at the corner where the events occurred, if there is a post with the name of the street, if there is a patrol car, aggrieved. This profession makes you always have several looks from one place.
THE NICKNAME
Once, being on one of the channels that I had to work on, I was watching the news program and in that it was announced that they were going to present a report and when it started to go on the air, they forgot to close the microphones and since I have a strong voice and thick, I spoke and leaked. The next day, the former driver Amprimo Star I arrived, because on that television station he had his program, and the first thing he asked was: ‘Whose whisper was that you heard’ and from that moment on, they call me that way.
the misplaced
When it was my turn to cover the training sessions of Universitario de Deportes, one morning the former player ‘Calin’ The Rose. He saw us all at the door and got in his car, not caring regarding anything and left in a hurry. That day, outraged by his attitude, all the journalists who covered the club made the decision not to ask him for notes and every time he went out, we turned our backs on him. Since those times, nobody knows what he was in his life and now he is one more NN in the country.
