The gratitude of going into the deep and forgotten America to show these stories to the rest of the world mobilises Patricia Villegas Marín’s journalistic exercise in the unequal and daily fight against the big news chains that try to monopolise the truth.

Her image was present two decades ago in that first broadcast of the multi-state channel Telesur, with her particular Colombian accent that resists the habit of 20 years of life in Venezuela, in which the tireless practice of the profession still does not allow her to visit a natural wonder such as the Angel Falls.

The current president of the news channel, in an exclusive conversation with the Cuban News Agency, shared her views on the panorama of communication and the resistance of the peoples to whom they have given a voice from platforms that are increasingly oriented towards occupying the few spaces left by the hegemonic discourse to any alternative proposal.

Participant in the IV International Colloquium Patria, an event dedicated to the 20th anniversary of Telesur, Villegas Marín convinces by speaking with gestures as if he wanted to graph with his hands the words that his voice calmly savours.

«Every minute of the event is a triumph, a demonstration of what is possible, of the tenacity of the Cuban people to overcome and not allow themselves to be dragged down by adversity in every second of economic and media siege, this is how the Homeland is made».

«Looking back, from the very beginning, the main strength of the Telesur project has been that of having communication professionals willing to narrate the daily stories of the inhabitants of the global South as a way of life».

At a time when Telesur’s resistance has become a point of reference of dignity for many around the world, Villegas Marín cannot forget the crucial, firm and determined contribution of Commander in Chief Fidel Castro Ruz who, like a good chief of information, stood up to the slander about the alleged resignation of Commander Hugo Chávez during the attempted coup in April 2002.

«Telesur appeals to be the information source par excellence at the primary level, what in Cuba is the neighbourhood, or the commune in Venezuela or the community and trade union leaders in any part of America are our main targets».

«We are interested in that, that when that human group wonders what is happening in any corner of the planet, they look for it on Telesur, 20 years after that first transmission, we continue in our efforts to be the reference and reflection of those people for whom we work».

His formula lies in the intelligent integration of the progressive forces to make effective the exercise of a different kind of communication, one that takes advantage of every loophole in the unitary discourse to replicate the stories of the humble, as the big networks do not dare to tell them.

«Telesur is due to the tenacity of the simplest people, the people we have dedicated ourselves to telling, to narrating at the peak moments of resistance in the face of repression, in coups d’état, in wars, of seeing how humanity germinates in the midst of tragedy», in which Patricia Villegas Marín finds her vital drive time and time again.