In April 2020 I received an offer that I could have refused: making a podcast with interviews for a political party. The proposal came from the Socialist Party and arrived at the height of lockdown. The country had stopped because of covid-19 and I was locked home for that reason, and for having decided, a few months earlier, to resign from the newspaper I worked in.

After 13 years in the same newsroom, I decided in November 2019 that it was enough. In 25 years as a professional journalist, it was the third time I was quitting a job without having another one waiting. These were pleasant years, those at Expresso: it’s the most prestigious newspaper in the country, and this serves well those who work there – opens doors, makes it easier to make appointments and make headlines. A reasonable journalist can have a great career just because of this. But for a restless journalist, this is not enough.

I often quote a phrase by James Baldwin: before the trip, we never know what we are going to find. Making a podcast for a party has never been in my plans. I objected: I am not a party official, nor a member of the party. And even as a voter… well not always. They knew that, of course. They wanted an experienced journalist, with his own perspective, capable of conducting interviews on governance and public policies, but also the regime and democracy. Without a party agenda. With editorial criteria.

The idea was strange and risky. But it was causing unrest in me. I admire those who take risks and I cherish those who trust my work. A party I had no links with, except years of professional interaction – often tense – gave me carte blanche to choose a weekly interviewee and green light to ask any questions I wanted. No restrictions and no one I had to report to as regarding my options.

One thing is clear: this means more freedom than I had in any of the nine newsrooms I worked in. Why not then? I accepted.

We took contractual precautions to protect both parties. My editorial autonomy was assured, and the number of interviews was not defined either, only that either party could terminate the contract with one week’s notice. That’s what happened after almost one year after I decided to leave when I was invited for yet another professional challenge.

The Socialist Party decided to continue the podcast “Política com Palavra”, handing it over to someone with a long journalistic career and enormous experience as an interviewer – and with a very different approach from mine. Which only proves the enormous freedom granted by the party to those who conduct these interviews, to do it as they see fit.

The pandemic ended up imposing a fair deal of options for me: the timeliness and centrality of executive decisions dictated many interviews with members of the Government, those who could provide answers to what the Portuguese wanted to know, from healthcare to social security, from the economy to education…

It was easy to prove these options right considering the huge impact of these interviews: they hit the news every week in newspapers, radio and television. A podcast made for a political party became editorially relevant and marked the flow of information. Some colleagues believed this endeavour was doomed to fail but were forced to acknowledge its value, quoting these interviews. I’m not going to pretend I didn’t feel good about it.

I see two reasons for this impact. The first is that this podcast always followed journalistic criteria: choosing the right interviewees and asking the questions that need to be asked. The second is that it offered interviewees the chance to be heard. There are countless interviews designed are there for the interviewer to shine and to put the guest in a difficult position. Interviews that are there to hear what the interviewee has to say are not that common.

Some interviewees refused to be interviewed, cancelling at the last minute, who didn’t like some of the questions being asked. Some told me – it’s recorded – that I was helping to share “liberal theses”, of “uncritically reproducing” the opposition’s accusations, based on wrong assumptions. Nothing new in my life as a journalist. But I didn’t feel the slightest hint of pressure from the Socialist Party.

The problems came from where I least expected them. From the supposed guardians of journalistic integrity, gathered under the acronym CCPJ (The Commission of the Professional Journalist Card). We all know that there are no deontological problems in Portuguese journalism and bad professional practices (#ironyalert), and for that reason, CCPJ has been able to sleep the sleep of the just for years. It’s a wax museum where people who smear themselves with their past pay little attention to the present. They limit themselves to charging huge amounts to allow journalists to be journalists.

What sin did CCPJ discover? It did not question my independence nor the professionalism in the conduction of the interviews (sorry for bragging about it, but I had to …), but rather the fact that I had signed an agreement with a political party.

If a journalist works for a party, according to CCCPJ, he is making propaganda, not journalism. Full stop. An interpretation that contradicts the history of Portuguese journalism ever since we live in a democracy. Social media outlets owned by political parties have been around for decades, and journalists from these newsrooms have a professional license. My professional licence that CCPJ decided to withdraw was never withdrawn from journalists who write for the Communist Party newspaper Avante!, for the Socialist Party newspaper Acção Socialista or the Social Democratic Party Povo Livre newspaper.

The absurdity boils down to this: if did the same podcast at Ação Socialista, CCPJ wouldn’t bother me … Would I be more independent if I was held accountable to the editors of the official Socialist Party newspaper? … I don’t think so. CCPJ does think so. May its soul rest in peace.

I am proud of what I did, and how I did it. I challenged the abstruse decision of CCPJ in the courts. And I owe it to the Socialist Party to have proposed that challenge to me and for having involved me in an editorially independent and journalistically relevant project. I can’t complain about choosing difficult paths and then finding stones along the way … That’s life.