2023-06-29 17:42:03
Iñaki Piñuel, PhD in Psychology from the Complutense University of Madrid and author of “My boss is a psychopath” (La Esfera de los Libros, 2021), regrets that it is still believed “that psychopathy is a problem that affects bloody criminals ” and explores what the so-called “integrated psychopaths” do on a daily basis, who can do much more damage without ever having set foot in jail.
This Thursday morning, when I decided to publish the news of a new complaint for gender violence faced by the director of the newspaper La Arena, Leonardo Santesteban, an unexpected situation occurred to me. Leo, as I have known him for many years, called me a kind of “wet dog” with a single objective: to raise the note that was on the cover of El Diario de La Pampa.
What was striking, however, was not his “friendly” and “remorseful” tone, but his asking me for something that he knows (as a journalist) he shouldn’t do. So naive is the request that it even sounds hilarious. Leo also thought, he argued, that I had an obligation to call him before publishing the news.
Journalistic responsibility and the protocol to address cases of gender violence say the opposite: the recommendation -as a golden rule- is not only to believe the word of the victim and publish her version first, but also not to re-victimize her . He asks and does the opposite.
In that telephone conversation that we had, Leo appealed -through psychopathy- to my “good manliness”, to “family honor” and to my “journalist status” so that I would do what was just not appropriate. Immediately afterwards he decided to interrupt the communication while waiting for my answer.
“Hello, Leo. I can’t raise the note, you and I know that it’s not done. It would be a mess. Of course, you have the right to reply… if you want to speak on, off or even through of your lawyers here I am. I hope you know how to understand, greetings, “I replied.
He returned an audio, also friendly, where -among other considerations- he said he was going to tell me “what we are going to do” from now on, in relation to the advice he would receive from his lawyers.
A while later, also to my surprise, on the radio, where every day he broadcasts his singular points of view of his “reality” in the Pampas and the country, I hear him accuse me of having known in advance that they were going to denounce him and that the publication itself was a “sham”.
I am even related to a supposed chat with one of the owners of the company where I work, of which I did not participate and was unaware of. What followed afterwards was complete nonsense, before the deafening silence of his escort on duty.
In addition to naming me on several occasions, almost as if pointing me out to society, or to the public that decides to listen to him, Leo sought to make me an accomplice in a published news story, supposedly between cocks and midnight.
All typical of a phony.
I have an obligation to clarify that I found out about the complaint against you on Wednesday night. At that very moment, I checked the information with three different sources and called the victim several times, but I was unable to speak to her.
I do not escape public discussion, on the contrary, it is something that I submit to daily as journalistic director of El Diario de La Pampa. I am not afraid of that kind of escrache or public threat.
The “journalistic ethics” that Leo brought up on different occasions, with the intention of defaming me, he did not have from the moment he tried to convince me to “publish a story”.
He also said that everything was a “lie”, but not before using a provocative and threatening tone against the judge and the prosecutor who are investigating the case against him. In short, through contradiction, he admitted that it is real, that it exists, but with the position of the man who -so he believes- does not understand the general laws.
Nor can I ignore your partial considerations towards Justice. The double standard of hers. The praise for some -those that have lasted for years, with a rather questionable perspective- and the criticism of the representatives of the Public Prosecutor’s Office who appear as a renewal of fresh air in the Pampean Justice, and who -of course- are not afraid of it to the threats from the Santestebans, from La Arena or from Radio Noticias. The coverage of yesterday’s attack on prosecutor Marcos Sacco only confirms what I’m saying. Surely they did not, but I invite you to read that “news” from the newspaper colleague.
Anyone who knows me knows my connection to El Diario. I always recognized that it is the place where I was trained as a journalist after leaving university, where I learned the trade with many of those who are now my editorial colleagues. My work has sustained me as a director for almost 22 years, which will materialize this July 2023. But there is a deeper conviction that, with pride, made me decide a long time ago that it is the only newspaper in which I (worked) work and I will work: the courageous decision made by the notary public Antonio Nemesio on May 3, 1992, when he decided to found it and put an end to the information monopoly in the Pampas capital.
Journalistic Director of El Diario de La Pampa
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