It has been five years of great and constant changes for Sonsoles Ónega (Madrid, 45 years old). It was Pedro Piqueras himself who proposed that she go from being a parliamentary correspondent for Telecinco’s news programs to one of the star presenters of the network’s magazines produced by Ana Rosa Quintana. Her much-discussed signing for Antena 3 has created a domino effect not only on the Atresmedia network’s grid, but also on Mediaset’s.
This season, she faces the afternoons as the “veteran”, facing Jordi González and his imminent La plaza on La 1 and Quintana herself with the recently released TardeAR on Telecinco. Ónega continues to collect good data, with which she consolidates the slot for Antena 3. She is so integrated into the network, that she arrives at the interview from the set of the series Amar es para siempre, in which she has made a cameo . She plays Tierno Galván’s press chief, dressed like a woman from the eighties.
Ask. What are the strengths of your program?
Answer. Our asset is exclusive content, so that the viewer knows that what they are going to find here they will not find anywhere else. That is why we have reinforced the investigation and incident teams. And we take advantage of the audience on set. This season we dedicate one more tier to it. I like to interact with people.
This permanent political parliament, this declarative journalism with politicians vomiting phrases and citizens yawning, does not interest me at all.
Q. They have been years of many changes. She appears to be the calm woman. Has it taken a toll on you?
A. I like to know that I appear to be a calm woman, because the nerve goes inside… It is true that the professional changes have also been personal. One thing goes hand in hand with the other, especially in professions as absorbing as ours. I don’t live to work, but I admit that I take each opportunity very seriously and I am very obsessive.
Q. You have always referred to the difficulty of reconciling being a working woman.
A. I don’t want to call it a personal bill… although my children do do it anyway. I hope that one day they won’t hold it against me. Both in Congress and in Telecinco, with Ya son las 8, she was used to arriving home late. It is a light rain with the family to explain to them that you are not here, but that you are. You will always be there for urgent matters, even if a nephew has to help you take the child for extracurricular football. They say that as they grow, children begin to recognize the work of their mothers. Writing a book about it allowed me to discover that we have all been idiots for centuries. It is a nameless evil among women that must be dealt with as best as possible, because above all, one must not give up.
Q. Telecinco asked Unicorn Content to put on Ya es noon, her first experience as a magazine presenter, in less than five days. What was that dizzying jump like?
A. The network and the production company have that muscle, because they have a lot of experience in putting on programs. It cost me much more than it did for them. I had never been on a set before! Just invited by the books. And once, during an electoral campaign, Pedro Piqueras took me to launch graphics and he never gave me way… We barely did any rehearsals for It’s Noon. It had nothing to do with the start of the afternoon on Antena 3, in which we did many pilots and explored the set a lot.
I don’t want to call reconciliation a personal bill… although my children do do it anyway. I hope that one day they won’t hold it against me
Q. And how was the jump to Antena 3?
A. It was even more demanding, because the network had not had a live window in the afternoons for many years. It meant starting from scratch, with a team and a set to build. We have done a lot in a very short time. I have no shame in saying that I had no idea. I have learned along the way with the teams how important the technical part is. It’s been a tough year.
Q. It’s just that I came from working on the street.
A. Sure. I said: “Ask me where to put the camera on the street to cover an investiture.” I’ll give you three in Zorrilla, four in the San Jerónimo race, one at each exit of the deputies’ building… but I had no idea about the set. I still don’t have it. There are many things that I learn every day.
Q. In And Now Sonsoles deals with current affairs, heart and events. Is politics still where you feel most comfortable?
A. I feel comfortable in all registers. Politics, as it is, I don’t think it was an area in which I felt so comfortable now. Sometimes it forces the communicator to stand on one side. Because of my training in Congress, always listening to arguments from one another, I realized that no one has the absolute truth. So I don’t think a communicator is the one who treasures it either. By making magazines I have discovered the value of citizen testimony. In people’s lives there is always a lesson.
Q. So you don’t think that journalists should express political ideas in their magazines?
A. Everyone can do what they want. Sometimes I do speak out, on matters about which one must have an opinion and express it with a certain vehemence. But this permanent political parliament, this declarative journalism with politicians vomiting phrases and citizens yawning, does not interest me at all.
Q. What type of social chronicle do you prefer?
A. At Antena 3 we try to make a social chronicle of characters who do things, who are examples and educate. For years they have been overshadowed by another type of social chronicle, just as respectable, but perhaps not as inspiring. I trust a lot of what my mother says and now she is really enjoying the documentary about María Jiménez. As Rubalcaba said, in Spain we bury very well. But there are other figures who are alive and television has the obligation to turn on the loudspeaker, to tell us how they have achieved it, how much they have suffered, if they enjoy success…
Sonsoles Ónega faces two veterans like Ana Rosa Quintana and Jordi González from the afternoons of Antena 3.Santi Burgos
Q. What TV does Sonsoles Ónega watch? Is it the same one that she saw when she was a parliamentary journalist?
A. Now I see Antena 3 a little more (laughs). I am in tune with the rest of the country. Although I also look at the premieres of other networks. I don’t have a reference chain. I watch the 24-hour channel a lot because my sister Cristina works on it.
Q. When you signed for Antena 3, were you never offered to inherit the mornings in the near future?
A. It was never on the table. And she still isn’t. Before she even talked about the weekend. Also, I like to set my brain cells in the morning and it’s hard for me to get up early.
Q. How did you feel when Terelu Campos told you on her program that María Teresa Campos considered you to be her natural successor as queen of the mornings?
A. It is appreciated, but I do not aspire to any reign. Neither in the morning nor in the afternoon. I am satisfied with continuing to work and for my team to do the same. Of my father [el periodista Fernando Ónega] I learned that as soon as you are the star signing to present the evening news on Antena 3, and soon after, you are left on the street. So I don’t believe almost anything, other than day to day.
Q. If your children wanted to be journalists, would you give them the same advice that your father gave you or have times changed too much?
A. I’m doing something wrong so that my children don’t want to be journalists. No one expresses interest in my work. They don’t watch the program. Sometimes they find out about something because it appears on TikTok! If they wanted to dedicate themselves to it, I would tell them the same advice that I received: “work, work, don’t be lazy, I give you with an open hand. It is a long-distance career that is very exhausting, often poorly paid. Do not faint.” So yes they would be similar advice.
Q. Were you more excited about winning the Lara Prize as a novelist or the Mainat as a television presenter?
A. They are both very excited, but the thing is that Lara awarded a very specific novel, which cost me a lot to write. It was a very complicated plot that I didn’t know if I was going to know how to construct and that was set in a very specific historical period that I knew nothing about. I had to do a lot of research. The award restored me to the literary world in which, honestly, I had not had much luck until that moment. I had three novels that did not cover advances of 1,000 or 3,000 euros of the little they sold.
Q. Do you find time to write?
A. Without writing I am nobody. The other day I fondly complained that in interviews they never ask me about books. This summer, when I had a week without children and without work, I started writing the following.
Q. Well, let’s ask about books. What is your next novel about?
A. It is a historical novel, in Galicia, with a search for truth, destiny… There are many ingredients that are repeated in my novels. It is a story that recognizes the work of women for decades and decades in the Galicia of the sea.
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2023-09-23 23:06:25
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