Next December 21 will mark a before and after in the history of news television in Spain. It will be that same Thursday when Pedro Piqueras presents his last nightly edition of Informativos Telecinco, before Carlos Franganillo takes over. It has been 17 long years where the journalist has reported the latest news, tragedies, exceptional events and all kinds of local, national and international news.
Just 10 days before his retirement, the Albacete native has given an interview in which he has talked about all kinds of topics and themes. From his most complicated day in his long career to the freedom he has enjoyed at the production level at Telecinco. However, there were also moments that made him angry, particularly some of the moments in which Sálvame gave way to him in a bizarre way and he had to keep a poker face.
“Isabel Pantoja’s niece, naked in the snow, or Raquel Mosquera, whom I know and appreciate, has directly given way to me, sending me ‘a big kiss’ in the middle of Covid, with hundreds of deaths every day. That should never have happened. I got very angry with the situation, but then I called Raquel to apologize because the story didn’t suit her, one thing doesn’t mean the other,” the presenter confessed in the canteen of the Ateneo de Madrid.
Piqueras also confessed that he had been considering this decision for two years: “I noticed my age was beginning to weigh on me, as if the ground on which I walked was changing, I was not as agile as I was to make the quick decisions that this job requires, and I thought about leaving. I said it on the network. They asked me to stay. Then came Ukraine, the devilish election year, Gaza, the inauguration, and you say to yourself, how are you going to leave?”
In his own words, it was the changes in the structure of the editorial office after the investiture that ended up being decided. “I stayed out of responsibility, until, with the investiture resolved and a new news chief, I said: it’s now or never,” he explained. The veteran journalist also had the opportunity to confess which were the instances in which he suffered the most or felt uncomfortable.
“For not reaching news, because they step on it, for not having been fair, above all. I am a big ruminant and I take my worries home. I try to do a very honest job, not belligerent, tell things as I think they are and if you realize that you have failed, you have a bad time,” she said. Beyond these thoughts, he assures that with Franganillo the change is in good hands: “It seemed like the best to me. I have met him in several coverages, which is what I have always liked the most as a journalist.”