Since Monday we are shocked in the newsroom. A woman was rescued in the Port of Barcelona after swimming for eight hours. We went to the regulars of the harbor waters, and no one knew her. We went to the Russian community in Barcelona, and nobody knew anything. Finally, on Thursday, the Barcelona coordinator, Meritxell M. Pauné, managed to speak with the captain and deckhand of the merchant ship who spotted her and facilitated her rescue. History continues to fascinate us. They mistook her for a seagull, until they struck up a conversation, albeit without words. Communication, the core of the human condition. But history continues to fascinate us. She wanted to warn her mother when she was demure. Maybe she doesn’t have another family? We were told that she was Russian. Her interlocutors seem to be unable to tell because of her accent. And the story continues to fascinate us. Can you swim for eight hours and leave the hospital without any sequelae? She did, but without following the protocols of the experienced swimmers we spoke with.
The sea is addictive and enveloping. Inside it we feel more fragile and vulnerable than on solid ground. It’s just a feeling with no real basis. And stories of people lost at sea are always fascinating to us. Gabriel García Márquez came to the fore with ‘Story of a castaway’. What went through that woman’s head while she was dominated by the currents? Did she feel that she was dying? Could she really have done anything to save herself from it? History continues to fascinate us. So we’re not going to stop until we can talk to her. Journalism, when done professionally, follows the story of the woman rescued in the Port with the same passion as the death of Queen Elizabeth II. He devotes the same effort to unraveling the keys to the summit of European energy ministers as irregularities in the concession of beach bars in Barcelona. And when he does her job well, things change. This week the ‘conselleria’ d’Educació put fans in the classrooms at 40 degrees after being portrayed on the cover. Journalism, life. A woman who looks like a seagull. A queen who doesn’t look like it. Some ministers who do not clarify. Some judges who rebel.