Their mission is to tell stories. Stories of life, of death, of solidarity that happen in Gaza, Israel, Ukraine, Syria, Haiti, Venezuela and so many other places where pain, injustice and darkness lurk. She delves into the very heart of the conflict and tries to show reality without half measures.
Teresa Bo is an Argentine journalist, recognized for her international coverage. He studied Communication and International Relations at American University and has a Master’s Degree in Armed Conflict Resolution from the same university. He worked at CNN, in the Spanish newspaper La Razón and freelanced in Pakistan and other countries. Since 2006 he has been a correspondent for the network Al Jazeera English. He lived in Baghdad, Beirut, Washington, Madrid and Buenos Aires.
He comes from a family of film artists. His grandfather was the director Armando Bohis father is the actor and producer Victor Bo and his brother is the screenwriter and director Armando Bo Jr. She is married to businessman Ezequiel Garat and is the mother of Tea (13) and Jerónimo (9).
“I am terribly passionate about what I do and the things that matter to me. Very restless, very anxious. I naturalized this jumping from here to there, it’s part of my life. I like to give the best. Go where things happen, try to learn a story as best you can, talk to everyone. I try a lot. I try to make it a brand in my work,” he acknowledges in his talk with NOTICIAS.
News: How do you handle danger?
Teresa Bo: When I was younger I went into houses, I talked to everyone, I had no problem. I landed anywhere and moved alone in many cases. Today I still go everywhere, to complicated places, like the Ukrainian border with Russia, but since I have children, I take security measures that I would not have thought of before. Today I think about how we got there, I talk to more sources, I see which is the safest path, I make sure I travel in cars that are in good condition.
News: And the fear? Because despite all the security measures, you must feel afraid.
Bob: Many times I have been afraid and I have asked myself what I am doing here and why I am doing this. But there is something in me that I overcome and move on. I usually have a cool enough head to control the situation. Fear also helps you not end up in a much more dangerous situation. I travel with a production company, a cameraman, a local producer, and I don’t like to expose anyone. We usually set up a meeting beforehand and see where we are going to go and how we are going to do it.
News: You come from a family of artists. Why did you choose this other path?
Bob: From a very young age it was instilled in me that I had to follow the artistic path. I didn’t want to know anything, because I didn’t feel comfortable with public exposure. I don’t like being in the center of the spotlight or attracting attention, I don’t mind doing it in journalism, being on camera, but I don’t see myself being part of a fiction. I opened up, I made my way. At first there was some tension, especially with my dad, I told him that I was going to study Arabic and he looked at me as if I was completely crazy. At one point I thought about being an archaeologist, but I didn’t have the patience. And as the former Yugoslavia fell and things happened, I wanted to be there. So, I went to study in the United States. My mother always supported me and for my father it was harder. Today I can tell my brother: “Hey, this story that I saw in real life would be an extraordinary movie” and he tells me that all the stories I tell would all be amazing scripts.
News: Do you plan to do something together?
Bob: We don’t think anything concrete yet, but we do talk about the stories I tell him. We are thinking about what could be done. In my work I see the extreme of human suffering, the extreme of tragedy and also wonderful stories of people who do things to save another, to help another.
News: What view do you have of your grandfather?
Bob: Armando died when I was six years old. He was a huge figure in our family and was a revolutionary of his time. He didn’t care about anything, he always went to the front, he believed in his cinema and defended it against censorship and against everything. I think that’s his legacy.
News: How do you not get emotionally involved in your work, to have a certain distance?
Bob: I get involved. I happened to arrive in Haiti after the hurricane, where there was a terrible cholera outbreak and everyone was dying of dehydration, everything was flooded, the kids were malnourished, without medicine, without alcohol, and a helicopter from the United States landed and they came down with toothbrushes and toothpaste. I stayed. It is time to make a note explaining this very serious situation and how the international organizations and countries that supposedly come to lend a hand are in another chapter. Many times my presence there is that critical eye on how certain things are handled, even in humanitarian operations. In many coverages I end up emotionally exhausted, guilty, and anguished. There are people who are left with post-traumatic stress. After living three years in Iraq, I went a week without sleeping. You get used to waiting for a bomb, for a grenade launcher against the hotel, waiting for them to break into the room. You are on alert all the time. All in all, I learned to handle it quite well.
News: She doesn’t like to be called a war correspondent. No?
Bob: I don’t like grandiloquence. I am a journalist and I cover a lot of stories, including many wars. I have a problem with the egos associated with the word. I prefer to talk about peace correspondents, how we can use this work to bring positions closer, to understand the suffering of each other, to generate empathy, for those who feel they own the truth on one side and the other.
News: Why are you so interested in the Arab world?
Bob: After years of analyzing it with my therapist, I saw that I felt more comfortable in conflict than in non-conflict. I move very well in conflict, it interests me. The Arab-Israeli conflict, especially, interested me greatly, and it is one of the reasons why I began to get more involved. I started traveling when I was very young and it seems to me that there is a lot of ignorance about what is and what is happening in the Arab world in general.
News: What is it like to work at Al Jazeera?
Bob: The network emerged with the idea of covering the world from a south-south point of view, telling the stories that are important to each country. I had just lived in Iraq for three years and when Al Jazeera came up they asked me if I would be interested in going to Latin America for a while. I was very tired of being in the Middle East and I said yes, so we opened the office in Buenos Aires. Now I’m here, but I travel all the time.
News: How do you, as a woman, manage to work in places like Afghanistan, for example?
Bob: For me, being a woman was never an impediment. In Afghanistan it is always very difficult. It is a very conservative place, where women are not part of social life or work life, they are not part of anything. I always had to go with my head covered. I happened to ask a warlord something and the guy didn’t speak to me, he only responded to the man translator. The same thing happened to me with some Taliban in prison, they only spoke to the translator because they didn’t want to talk to a woman. Also, some kids saw me with a camera and started throwing stones at my back. They are not used to seeing a woman in action. But I always managed.
News: And what were the three years in Iraq like?
Bob: While Saddam Hussein was in power he kept Islamism very controlled. The same as Bashar al-Assad in Syria. I was in jeans and a T-shirt and without a veil. When Hussein fell it was a change from one day to the next, it was more difficult to move and we had to start covering ourselves and taking care of ourselves for safety. But I never had a serious problem because I was a woman.
News: Have you ever had a life-threatening situation?
Bob: I was in very difficult situations. I covered the United States invasion of Iraq in a North American military unit and we had clashes all the time, but there was no risk to my life. At Al Jazeera we are very careful and have everything we need, including bulletproof vests, and we often hire local security teams with whom we put together plans to minimize the risks. Many journalists die due to poor planning or not having the resources.
News: How does your family support you?
Bob: My husband accompanies me and takes care of the kids a lot. It’s difficult, Jerónimo the other day told me: “Mom, why aren’t you in Syria?” And I told him that if he went I would not be with him at Christmas and that he was very important to me. But when I was in Israel and he saw me on television with a helmet, he told my husband: “That’s mom. “We have to go get her out of there.” And my daughter, at thirteen years old, already questions me a lot more. I try to transmit a passion to them. I love what I do and I can’t imagine doing anything else.
News: Are you the journalist you wanted to be?
Bob: Yes, I try to balance work and family life. I always have that feeling of resignation on one side or the other. I live in anguish, because I say no here and no there. My challenge is to find that balance.
