“I remember when I arrived for the first time 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, which affects you. I believe that the This was also an 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”, confesses on the phone 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 collaborating with Rai, then joining the foreign editorial staff of Tg3, a 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 her 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 at Rai, have been close to me, have taught me many things: colleagues, technicians, operators, editors, employees, those that take the pieces from you. The beauty of this adventure – the journalist, who was born in Trieste in 1957 and received the Bellisario prize for information, 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 who perhaps are not seen. 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 that’s 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 walked the journey, of those I saw die at the front, in 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, to explain a war, a tragedy, a pandemic, a revolution, a change, you go through a 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 I learned that you shouldn’t be ashamed of being afraid, because fear dictates prudence 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 difficult situations. relationships with people there is a lot of truth.”
“I understood – she continues – how being a woman makes a difference, something that I always claim: my eyes are those of a woman, of a mother, I told stories that perhaps weren’t so obvious, at a time when little was said about refugees, civilians, families, aspects that today would be impossible to bring out of the story. And this is a result achieved partly thanks to us, who brought our sensitivity, our attention, not a feminine gaze in the sense that it belongs to a woman, but that she is capable of telling something different”.
“Passions are all maintained, they are never abandoned”, he smiles. “Maybe, since I’m a swimming enthusiast, I’ll do more laps now.”
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