Giovanna Botteri is retiring. “It’s all a bit strange, from today it will be different: I will return to Italy, it is certainly a big change but change can also be positive.” This was said to Adnkronos by the historic Rai correspondent, who is retiring from today but the adrenaline in her voice immediately makes it clear that it is only the beginning of a phase full of projects. The journalist, sent all over the world – from New York to Beijing to Paris, where she was currently staying – tells us in what spirit she is about to enter this new phase of life. Immediately revealing that she has no intention of hanging up her profession: “I think there are those two or three things that I know how to do, and I think I will continue to do them”, she smiles.
Giovanna Botteri retires, who is the Rai journalist: a career between New York, Beijing and Paris
«It’s certainly a big leap, I’ve been living abroad for many years now – explains the reporter, who many remember among other things also in a Sanremo a few years ago alongside Amadeus, where she pleasantly tried her hand at the role of co-host- But that’s life, it’s also right to take over from young people, to hand over the baton, there are very good young journalists around. It’s a natural transition.” There will be “more time for passions”, explains Botteri. Like the one – well known – of her for her Lazio. “There will be more time to go to the stadium,” she laughs. And she closes with the usual irony: “After all, it’s not like she’s dead, I’ve just retired.”
WAR
«I remember when I first arrived in the Balkans, in a bombed house where everyone had been killed. I saw the bag from a department store in Trieste where I also went: war is something real, that affects you. I believe this was also the attempt: to make those at home feel that what is happening is perhaps not so far away.” It is the commitment that has guided Giovanna Botteri in her journey as a journalist, which has seen her long as a war correspondent for Tg3 and then a correspondent for Rai, from the United States, from China and from 2021 from France. A career that has made her “an icon of public service”, Usigrai applauds on the day Botteri reaches retirement age. «But a profession like this cannot be abandoned: we know how to do this and continue to do, like The Player Jones by De André, ‘playing touches you / for your whole life’. It is a path that perhaps can also be followed in a different way”, confesses on the telephone to Ansa from Paris – from where he is reporting on the anti-Rassemblement national demonstrations – Botteri, who after his first experiences in the printed press began to collaborate with the Rai, then joining the foreign editorial team of Tg3, a newspaper for which she reported the main international events as a special correspondent, from the revolution in Romania to the wars in Bosnia and Kosovo, from the G8 in Genoa to the US occupation in Iraq, winning the Ilaria Alpi Award and the Saint Vincent Award for his services from Baghdad.
«I’m not on social media, at this moment the thing I really want is to thank all those who have helped me in these years in Rai, have been close to me, have taught me many things: colleagues, technicians, operators, editors, employees, those who take your pieces . The beauty of this adventure – the journalist, who was born in Trieste in 1957, is keen to underline – is that it is a human adventure, for the people you meet, the stories you hear, for those who work for you and with you and that maybe you can’t see. If my job was well done, it was thanks to them. This is the strong lesson of humility and respect that these years have taught me and it is what I carry with me.” Being a war correspondent and then a correspondent «means crossing your life with that of others: in some way – she becomes passionate – every piece of the road is a memory of the people with whom I made the journey, of those I saw die at the front, at war. As I always say, what we receive is a lot, probably much more than what we are able to give: you go, you tell stories and you go away, and people give you trust, the possibility of telling, of explaining a war, a tragedy, a pandemic, a revolution, a change, you go through a little piece of their life and bring it to others.” Among the lessons he learned, Botteri recalls his first experiences as a war correspondent: «I had my very young daughter, I was one of the very few war reporters, perhaps the only one with children, and I was ashamed to show that I was afraid: well, I learned that you shouldn’t be ashamed of being afraid, because fear dictates caution and saves your life. And then in difficult situations I learned to distinguish good people from bad people, because in certain moments there are no compromises or pretenses, even in relationships with people there is a lot of truth.” “I understood – he continues – how the difference is being a woman, something that I always claim: my eyes are those of a woman, of a mother, I told stories that perhaps were not so obvious, at a time when little was said about refugees, civilians, families, aspects that today would be impossible to take out of the story. And this is a result achieved partly thanks to us, who have brought our sensitivity, our attention, a feminine gaze not in the sense that it belongs to a woman, but that he’s capable of telling something different.” “The passions are all maintained, they never give up,” she smiles. “Maybe, since I’m passionate about swimming, I’ll do more laps now.”
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