Mauro Viale was killed by the enemy he tried to fight

It is incredible but Mauro died of fear. For more than a year he communicated his fear of COVID-19 and tried to convey his own panic to the community watching his shows.

Terrible the finite and short destiny that ends up giving us incredible news because Mauro Viale seemed eternalized in front of the screen at any time and with any program profile where something provocative and intelligent could be said.

It is very sad to fire a teacher, but it is tragic to fire a student who later became a disciple.

Mauro Viale sat next to Marcelo Araujo – who has also been fighting COVID-19 for more than 30 days at the Italian Hospital – in a classroom at the School of the Sports Journalists Circle. One night in 1968 this student asked me aloud to the silence of the class:

“Professor, what is the French May that is shaking the world from the streets of Paris”. It was then that I tried with the acceptance of the whole class to talk about the student protest and to put aside the programmatically anticipated that was to discuss the structure of language.

That student later known as Mauro Viale had concerns, curiosities and concerns that transcended the information, the story and the football commentary With which he would start his career on Radio Rivadavia and El Gráfico after an attempt to enter print journalism that was unsuccessful.

Last week when I saw him surrounded by scientists, politicians, communicators, legislators. I thought about that image and also about the transformation that went from the famous “who moves” to the television show that Mauro offered for 50 years.

His style was to have the dynamics of gathering many people and dealing with sublime guests, such as a Maradona or an Alfonsín, and other abject ones, such as some criminal ready to surrender to the police on camera after having committed the crime; his journalism embraced everyone because he knew how to extract from each one what he would have to repeat.

It does not seem possible that COVID-19 has won the duel that he invited to the fight for more than a year with a sermon that conveyed his own fear.

Still under emotion it is a vain attempt to explain who was who through unforgettable images will never cease to be. Mauro Viale died at the age of 73 in his prime that transmits the state of grace that he was passing through when doing his show as a conductor and his participation in any program outside of radio or television.

It could be said without risk of misunderstanding that managed to be a teacher without trying, since the rigor with which he assumed the production of each of his programs was personal and anticipated.

Not only did he ask his collaborators for the notes to make, but he taught them how to get them and he had a real obsession to achieve them by being meticulously on top of each one.

Mauro was a journalist who produced his ideas and demanded them with particular emphasis. It took a lot to meet his demands, but working with him meant being prepared to grow in the profession.

He was not a bohemian journalist or a passerby of the night of the time; the time available was always work time to draw up the agenda for today’s program and prepare tomorrow’s.

Nor did he belong to the group of tables with talks and ramblings so characteristic of the 70s and 80s that they brought together colleagues in a state of permanent debate to go through the issues that the late night allowed. Rather well Mauro led a life of great physical care and a lot of austerity for leisure.

He could hardly indulge himself in walking with his wife through Palermo on a Saturday morning as long as there was no event that would lead to ideas for the upcoming program.

Once he retired from sports journalism to address general information, he left no anchor that would take him back to his initial passion for soccer; Clearly, the 1968 student who asked about the French May had found in the open and general journalistic show the path of his true vocation and although he was a successful soccer reporter, he slept in his spirit an overwhelming restlessness whose meaning was superior to any goal. .

Having worked 50 years in journalism implies the miracle of maintaining its validity for more than three generations and his death does not represent evoking someone who was but someone who was being.

I feel a deep pain after his death and now under the effects of emotion I recall with admiration the soccer storyteller who changed the narrative generating a new order, to the radio journalist who took away ceremoniality from the message communicational and the driver of TV that transformed journalism into a show.

But I also evoke an affectionate father and attentive to his children and a grandfather who found energy in the sweetness of his grandchildren to renew its validity.

It is unimaginable that today and those that will continue today, the infallible Mauro Viale is not asking us from any means to take care of COVID-19.

The invisible enemy contributed to his unjust death.