Diego Cabot: "Journalism generates a daily adrenaline"

Diego Cabot walked worry-free near the Pompidou Center in Paris when he received the most unexpected news. His stay in the French capital was due to professional reasons and he took advantage of his last hours to visit the district of Les Halles. It was at that time that he received an audio from WhatsApp with the news that his research

bribery notebooks

he had just won the King of Spain Prize, one of the most coveted world awards for quality journalism.

On the verge of returning to Buenos Aires, he spoke with
THE NATION from his first impressions of what such a high distinction means to him. "I was delighted alone in a Paris street," he acknowledged.

The occasion was also a good excuse to recall moments of his professional life and the whirlwind in which he entered exactly one year ago, when the notebooks of corruption reached him.

– When did you decide to be a journalist?

– I've always had the idea, but since I'm part of a middle clbad family in La Pampa, the effort they had to deploy to send my sister and I I study in Buenos Aires was huge, so they asked me to choose another career. traditional that I could provide some solvency. My sister chose Psychology and I, at the same time, in the UBA. It took me a long time to receive me and I started working in an insurance company, but the problem of journalism always left me in the mind. At age 30, when my first child was born, I thought that I did not want to stay with this thorn. My idea was, at least, to try. I pbaded the masters exam
THE NATIONbut then they rejected me. They never gave me any explanation and I did not ask them. The following year, they accepted me.

Have you ever doubted that journalism could not be your thing?

– This first moment, they told me that it was not frustrating. Then I had moments of crisis in the profession because I could not live from what they were paying me. But there is no doubt that it is my pbadion and that is what holds me back. No day is equal to the other. It fascinates me to meet a wide variety of people to deal with very different topics. Say things that most do not know. Journalism generates a daily adrenaline. I feel that I was not wrong.

-What does the legal profession bring to your journalism profession?

– This helps me understand some of the problems in the areas in which I work: the state's relationship with suppliers and the functioning of public services. Also to clarify the background of what I write and to have a deeper dialogue with the sources. It helps me a lot The level of dialogue is different when you realize that you do not master a subject well. The conversation is already established at a much higher and detailed technical level. You do not have to explain what is a lawsuit, a lawsuit and a judgment. In the particular case of the notebooks, it allowed me to put myself at the head of the accused and the accused, and thus to be able to anticipate the acts of all, managers and businessmen.

-What do you like the most and the least in your work?

-To borrow given hours to lives that do not belong to you. Go for a coffee that you do not know what can come out. I love this adrenaline. I like to tell stories to a lot of people. The notebooks contain human stories, with love and betrayal. I could not tell stories of soul. I always like to tackle topics that come up with renewed enthusiasm. What I like least is the demand for time that is subtracted from the family or that you sometimes work that others do not do. What upsets me the most is that I can not manage my time. It's a huge weight that I only support because I love what I do.

-What balance do you make of the Cuadernos theme so far? What has changed in

the way of money K

?

-The cone of silence between politics and businessmen was broken; some to administer, to arrive or to perpetuate in power; others to do business, but still using the state's money, that is, all of us. And with a huge mutual complicity. It broke down and it is very valuable. Confessions were produced that allowed us to know this framework for the first time. These are facts that have already been proven by justice. It's a huge contribution. The question is what the Argentineans will do with this truth. We have already understood what it costs and what it costs us. We must now find what to do with it. Many people make fun of this truth and denigrate the facts.

– How do you feel when certain media and journalists talk about "photocopies"?

– I am very proud because if it 's about photocopies, we managed to get great businessmen that they recognize their crimes. Moreover, the word photocopy presupposes the existence of an original. It's a simplification.

-When you started working on the plot of notebooks, what was the moment of greatest fear?

-When the survey was published, I was scared. I knew that the discredit campaign was coming.

– Have you received threats?

– I had some events, but when I asked for help from the Buenos Aires government, I did not get any answers, which made me Feel as if I were alone because the threats were for me. A few months later, they tried to apologize, but it did not interest me to listen to them. What can I expect if they could not take care of a football team? – Refers to Boca, attacked while he was in a bus to the Monumental to play

the second match of the Copa Libertadores

, which ended up being disputed in Madrid) -; it's pure inoperation. The main culprit has been moved – he refers to Martín Ocampo – but the majority remains in place.

-Why did you specialize in utilities, fares, trains, energy?

-When I arrived at the newspaper's economic section
THE NATIONin 2004, coincided with the fact that the government of

Néstor Kirchner

with

Roberto Lavagna

and

Julio De Vido

including, they worked in a common table on utility contracts of the 90s that had become nonconforming when the dollar went from 1 to 4 pesos and were broken. Nobody was involved in this subject. I started to build relationships with contractors as subcontractors and resellers. There I found a lot to write. I felt good And everything was a big novelty.

Over time, when subsidies and nationalizations appeared, coverage also became more mbadive in other media.

– Did you understand the weaknesses of these businessmen before the appearance of notebooks?

-Yes, and for several reasons. First, by the officials with whom they negotiated. I had no doubts. Many of them confessed to me and other journalists, but not with the details they had before the judge. They justified themselves, claimed to be less corrupt than the neighbor. What I did not suppose was that this corruption was so structural, especially in the fields of public works, transport and energy. And I lived with this double morality: those who, in the morning, paid bribes in the afternoon, gave lectures on transparency during working meetings. They were invited to Casa Rosada to applaud, for dinners with foreign leaders. The heads of the chambers of commerce were there. And I wondered which one to believe: the one in the morning or the one in the afternoon?

-What has changed in your life since the appearance of notebooks?

– They have changed my time a lot, more requests for notes from the newspaper, more trips and until we answer interviews in other ways. I've also changed the flow of information: I've had 780 open discussions and accumulated 40,000 unread mails. Number of people who write to you from all sides. It's hard to manage. But sometimes, there are small data that add up. The envelopes were returned with documents and handwritten letters. People tired of seeing how the house next door was becoming a millionaire because of politics or business, displaying wealth and impunity.

– What do people tell you when they recognize you?

-In the street, people who come to me greet me and appreciate the way we did it. Loose people only express themselves through social networks.

-What do you tell yourself about such an exhibition?

– The exhibition is a legacy that still weighs on me. One of the things I miss is that before I can sit anywhere, I can not do it so easily because the sources do not want to be seen together in a bar.

-What do you do to "do not believe"?

-The best way is to continue to do journalism as always; know that I have to go to work. There was no change.

-How does the race continue after an investigation of this caliber?

-In principle, I feel that my desire to do journalism has not varied. Figures and facts interest me more than the opinion. I am a journalist who goes out looking for news and I like to disturb the power. It is also true that I wonder how I continue and where. How can I enjoy, now that people are watching me, school on the subject of journalistic research and training people? I have so many proposals that it's sometimes hard for me to sit down to work with so many backpacks.

– Is a search more powerful when it can be improved as part of a collaboration with Justice?

-I have studied several scenarios and possibilities. Midway, I thought it was a way to improve it. I felt that it was a unique case. It took me about a month and a half to make the decision to bring the case to justice and always with the mistrust of losing it.

– And what happens when they establish links and less practical neighborhoods?

-With

Bonadio

I do not have a relationship I saw him twice and the last was in July. I respect his role, but I do not have good or bad relations with him. I have a flow of information on the other hand. He thinks there are a lot of defenses. With whom I have established more relationship, but no friendship, it is with Stornelli, but each one respecting his role and the moments of silence in which he can not speak.

– Has anyone ever wanted to corrupt you directly or indirectly?

– Yes, well before the notebooks, once, at the barbecue, on a terrace in the district of the courts. I became the one who did not understand. I did not want to lose the source either.