Nearing his 75th birthday, Oscar Herrera strikes me as a simple, curious, and jovial man, who has never let the innate journalist in him sleep completely. Perhaps because of this (and because habit is usually a beautiful vice), he inquires about the origins of the surname we share and who is the girl who now calls him "cazador" instead of "cazado". Meanwhile, I look at his whitish mustache and hair, and I wonder how many stories this founder of the press in Las Tunas treasures.
Colleagues who lived through his time as a reporter tell me that he was a work locomotive and more than once the doctors had to scold him so that he would slack off in labor matters. He even squeezed the chest of many when a localized hemorrhage in his brain took its toll in 1992 and he almost didn't make the story.
Today I have before me this gentleman journalist, Rosano Zamora Padín Lifetime Achievement Award. And I, thinking of the good fortune of learning from his experience, do not delay the dialogue any longer...
- How did Oscar come to what "Gabo" called the best job in the world?
I always wanted to be an industrial chemist, but I didn't have the chance. I was the runner-up at Cucalambé High School, but I didn't like the study options that were presented to me. One day, sitting in a park, I met Roger Aguilera, Ricardo Valera, and Alberto Reyes, who told me they were going to give a test in Holguín to study journalism and asked me if I wanted to join. I said yes. Happily, the four of us passed. I was about 16 or 17 years old.
Then they sent us to spend a three-month course at the Pablo de la Torriente Brau School for correspondents in Santiago de Cuba. From there Roger and Alberto stayed in the Heroic City, and Ricardo and I came here. We were inexperienced, empirical, and impetuous. My colleague began in Puerto Padre to direct Mochas y Caña, and I started as a correspondent for the Sierra Maestra newspaper in the former Oriente province. I worked there from 1969 to 1976.
- And do you remember the first journalistic work you did?
Yes, of course, it was something complex and beautiful at the same time. I got the information riding on a truck of the Jucarito rice plan, in Bayamo. There I talked to the boss and then I wrote the note. At that time I used to cut and save my publications, but later I stopped doing it because there were so many of them.
I do not deny that, at the beginning, I felt a certain fear. At "Sierra Maestra" there were experienced people working there and journalism was not easy, but with time one adapts and perfects one's work. Once a week, between Nelson Marrero, Rosano Zamora (Gallo), and myself, we made a page dedicated to Las Tunas. We would take the photos ourselves with analog cameras and then develop the photos, that's what "Gallo" taught us, a sort of one-man band.
I also joined the El Forjador Newspaper (weekly). In its pages, colleagues like Luis Manuel Quesada Kindelán, "Gallo," Nelson Marrero, and Herminio Reynaldo published. In short, I began my professional life as a correspondent, but without a degree in journalism, only with a preparatory course. Afterward, I began to take courses at the University of Oriente and then in Holguin. Thus, in 1978, I obtained my degree. Others like me were formed along the way. Journalism here grew empirically.
- I understand that you gave courses to volunteer correspondents. Tell me about that. How difficult it was to practice journalism then?
In the town of Gaston, Majibacoa, I gave seminars for volunteer correspondents. It was a very nice time because Las Tunas became the region of greatest development of the Movement of Volunteer Correspondents in Cuba, there were more than 50 in total, from different places and sectors. From there came, for example, Ulises Espinosa and Alberto Rodríguez Morell. They even gave us a bicycle to work in a sugarcane district during the sugarcane harvest of 1970.
I was also head of correspondents in Oriente Norte, which included Las Tunas and Holguín. It was the time when we worked with typewriters, the printed editions were made by hand, with the help of typographers, or we sent the works through teletypes, by mail.
In the classes, I emphasized the human value. I have always said: the fight is against man's defects, not against man. He also emphasized the strength of the argument (with the argument no one can beat you), the importance of investigating in-depth, and always telling the truth.
- Of the events you had to report, which ones does he remember most?
The tours with Fidel, Raúl, Almeida, and other top leaders. Once, when the maximum leader of the Revolution was in Covarrubias and the factory of metallic structures Francisco (Paco) Cabrera, I was there, close, and it was something great. That's how I remember it, big not only in size but in thought. One of the things I liked about him was that he emphasized that we should listen to everyone, from the humblest person to a scientist.
Being able to listen to him in congresses of the Union of Journalists of Cuba was another joy because I tried to stay active within our guild. I was even the first secretary of UPEC in the territory and later, vice president. Until I had a neurological problem and had to say goodbye to several tasks.
- How enriching was it to report at a time of transformations that marked the socioeconomic and cultural life of the territory?
I bristle when I think about the coverage of that time. I remember the 70s when Faure Chomón was the First Secretary of the Party when the first aqueduct of the city was inaugurated (the Buena Vista Tank) and it was something beautiful for the whole region. Juan Emilio Batista and I made a report on the event, which was published on the front page of the "Sierra Maestra".
We owe Faure many things: the support to the emergence and development of the sculptural movement led by Rita Longa, his encouragement to magic, as he brought Blanquita Becerra and promoted the creation of the Vocational School of Art, the encouragement to works such as the Paco Cabrera metallic structures factory and the inauguration of the Ernesto Guevara de la Serna general teaching hospital, just to mention a few examples. Today I feel a healthy pride for having been there to tell the story of those events and for them to remain in history.
- I imagine that, like every journalist, you have experienced some unexpected or bittersweet moments during your work...
Once I was on the verge of giving up journalism. Rosano Zamora was the director of El Forjador and also performed other tasks. We, reporters, were young, we had a lot to learn. I brought some information from a collection center in La Yolanda, a sugar cane district in Jobabo, and he told me that there was a piece of information missing. That's why I had to go again to the place, which was about ten kilometers away from that town, which turned into 20 kilometers by bicycle round trip. Then I saw it.
- But Radio was finally the media that caught you until you retired under its cover. How did you get there and what does it mean to you?
I was sent to the radio because it was what was needed at the time. I almost cried when I got the news, I liked writing and now I had to be concise. Then they put me as head of the News Department of Radio Victoria and I was in that position since 1976, for more than a decade. The magic of the medium finally caught me. Although I had been collaborating with the then Radio Circuito since before I was part of its staff.
I got so involved in journalism that, when I was on duty as part of the board of directors, I would say to the person who had to write: don't come, I write the bulletins. I cannot conceive my life without the radio, I was there for more than three decades, growing in knowledge and as a person. It has given me too many joys.
- What does it mean to you to hold the Rosano Zamora Padín Lifetime Achievement Award?
Honor and satisfaction. You don't realize what you do until you remember it in detail. When I began to write my memoirs, I was amazed by the events I had lived through. I cut cane before and after being a journalist, I was a delegate of the People's Power, secretary of the base delegation of Upec, and vice-president of that organization in the province, among other functions. But I did not really like being a leader, I liked being a journalist, and that is why I did not leave the profession.
- So, 60 years after Upec, what should a journalist not forget?
Always tell the truth and not be afraid of the profession or any subject. It is vital to prepare oneself. Modesty is important, never fall into triumphalism. Besides, we must experience things to know how to write. I still have this habit, for example, I analyze the environment while I am in a queue, and, on some occasions, I have even shown certain managers that they have not acted in the right way in their organization. You have to check the work people go through, put yourself in their shoes, and then speak with arguments. Being a journalist, more than a profession, is a philosophy of life.
...
I say goodbye to him as one who drank from a fountain of wisdom. His eyes shine a little brighter and his face looks happier. It was worth it, I say to myself. I know there were many things left to say, such as his participation in softball games and those parties he helped organize, his recovery after the brain hemorrhage, anecdotes related to his children and grandchildren, but -above all references to anonymous faces that owe him more than just an interview, a piece of life immortalized with the signature of a man named Oscar Herrera, an essential name in the history of the press in Las Tunas.