Set yourself the challenge of making the best grade every day. It could be overwhelming, but for her, who has journalism in her blood, it is a pleasant task. Enthusiastic, doer, restless, curious, sensitive, funny —according to her own definition—, Nuria Am “A happy and grateful mine” is also recognized.
Journalist specializing in politics, radio host and television host, she started working at the age of 17. She went through different roles, worked in radio, TV and graphics —Grupo Clarín, Radio Miter, América TV, Canal Metro, CNN Radio, CNN en Español, Eleven Ten— and won a Martín Fierro for best driving. Today is part of the program Fontevecchia mode who drives Jorge Fontevecchia (Monday to Friday from 8 to 12 on Radio Perfil and Canal Net TV) and writes for El Cronista, iProfesional and datosnuria.com.ar.
“I feel at my best, I have professional maturity, I am happy and I enjoy what I do. I feel blessed by the profession. Many times I wonder if I were born again I would do the same and I realize that yes, because it is in my blood. I am where I want to be,” she assures.
Personally, and despite his busy schedule, he tries to be present as best he can for his children Ignacio (14), Tomás (12) and Catalina (8). “I’m guilty,” she confesses. And if she had time maybe she would take singing lessons and even have her own band with friends. It wouldn’t be like her mother Nélida, who was a soprano at the Colón, but she thinks it could be a lot of fun.
News: Is journalism love, passion, conflict?
Nuria Am: It is more passion than love, conflict and infatuation. I get into work and abstract myself.
News: What is the most luminous and the most complicated of this profession?
A.M: The most luminous thing is to fulfill the objective of bringing a little light on certain topics. Many times I have asked myself what contribution I make.
News: And which one is it?
A.M: Being able to help think, give triggers or tools to put white on black on certain issues.
News: What is the most complicated or what you like least?
A.M: Like any race, it has its difficulties, especially at the beginning, to make a place for yourself. Later, there may be situations of conflict to address this or that topic or when interests are mixed or when you enter into some kind of contingency regarding what you think and what you are expected to think or say. But I never suffered from that thing: “You can’t say this, you can’t ask this”. Obviously, you are clear about what shirt you are wearing, you know the company you work for. But I always felt free with my work. And I learned to look as if through the keyhole, both to one side and the other so as not to get dizzy and not contaminate myself.
News: Have you ever had to go through unpleasant situations?
A.M: In some particular moments of government-business ideological clashes and covering certain situations, yes, obviously. Yes, in front of who I was, in front of a mobilization or in front of certain officials who kicked me for the company I worked for.
News: What coverage do you particularly remember?
A.M: There are always personal and journalistic challenges. I was very young in 2001 and I covered days and days on the street and that enriched me a lot. Very sad coverages like Cro-Magnon. Later, when Menem was a prisoner in Gostanián’s country house, I decided to go in and, I don’t know how, I got into the line of those who were going to greet him on his birthday and, suddenly, I ended up in the living room with Menem and Boloco.
News: Your best note in recent times?
Am: The challenge is to make the best mark every day. I learned a very rigorous way of working at CNN en Español, and today I am in the Fontevecchia team that allows me to get into everyday issues from the multiplatform. In addition, I write for El Cronista and for iProfesional. I’m very happy. And if I had to choose a note from recent times I remember the one I made to Felipe Solá.
News: As was?
A.M: After many messages, chatting and softening him up, Solá came to my CNN program in Spanish to speak for the first time after being told, while he was on a flight, that he was no longer chancellor. He was very hurt and it was very hard for me to talk. It was a very good note and had a lot of repercussion.
News: How do you manage your ego with so much exposure?
Am: When I started working I was embarrassed by the exposure and then I started to live with it. I brake the ego, calm it down and lower it. It’s needed at some point, but it can’t handle my career or me. I am a journalist, whoever works on TV or radio is circumstantial.
News: And how do you see current Argentine journalism?
Am: I think there are great journalists, but we are in a very difficult moment and we have to try to get out of the dilemma. People want you to tell them what they want to hear, which is why we have this issue so polarized in the media. Radicalize the speech for which you know you will listen and the other does not matter. I feel sorry for that, the silence too, the non-examination. We journalists have to do the important exercise of getting out of that place because it does nothing but harm.
News: What are the issues that most concern you in the country?
A.M: Security, education and inflation, the cost of living, the difficulties of maintaining the circus that each one has been carrying out. Hopefully someone appears who can break this polarization and really do something for Argentines. Today I get the feeling that neither the ruling party nor the opposition can do much. We already see the ruling party and the opposition seems to me to be very entangled in its own internal affairs.
News: How is your life outside of work?
A.M: I like running, it’s a passion I discovered three or four years ago. If I had time maybe I would sing, act, it’s a good therapy. I love getting together with my friends and I am very familiar
News: How is your family?
A.M: My three children, my parents, my brothers. I love sharing Sundays with them.
News: How do you experience motherhood?
A.M: I try to be very present. But I question myself, I’m guilty, I never stopped working too hard. Only when my daughter was born will I have taken six months off, but with one of my children I worked up to a week before giving birth and with the other up to two days before. It is the mother who touched them. They also know that I can come from work to pick them up at school, eat with them and come back. I always try to convey to them that my work makes me happy.
News: pending projects?
A.M: Being able to accompany my children in their different stages, traveling with them. Singing could also be, who says maybe one day I’ll have my own band, I’d have fun having a band with friends. And professionally, always being able to make a better program.
