Vicente Valles (Madrid, 1963) is without a doubt and with the data in hand the most watched journalist thanks to the enormous audiences of the Antena 3 news program, an event with millions of viewers that every day, minutes after nine at night, They allow you to dine at home with the whole family. And it's been four years.
Those credentials would be enough (although he has others) to support the indisputable fact that he is an opinion leader. Considered the most influential journalist in this country, he has granted one of the few interviews of his to elEconomista, in which she only boasts that she is a dressmaker mother and that she is friends with politicians. “My only political party and the only thing I am passionate about is Atlético de Madrid.” But, unlike the rojiblancos, Valles is used to winning by a landslide. Since August 2020, he is on average eight points ahead of his immediate competitor, which, for the modest Vallés, is thanks to “a good run”, although he laughs when he says it. Inevitably, he is asked about the signing of Carlos Franganillo, that leaves TVE to compete from Mediaset to replace Pedro Piqueraswho is retiring.
He praises the man from Oviedo to the point of saying enough: “He is an excellent professional and Telecinco has had a very good idea looking for him. Carlos deserves anything good that happens to him,” he says of the person who will sit in front of him every day.
Regarding those who place him on the right, He explains that he is “a firm follower of what in Anglo-Saxon journalism they call news analysis,” he clarifies. “Analyses always involve criticism and, when doing it in a context, with a Government, it seems that you always criticize it. When another party governs, if that ever happens, it will take its analysis,” he warns.
Vicente Vallés repeats that he talks to politicians “as little as possible”, although he remembers that this was not always the case: “When I was doing street journalism, in Parliament. In the last stage of Felipe Gonzalez or the first of Aznar. Now I have to analyze the information and it is advisable to distance myself. I talk to politicians just enough, which is almost nothing, and I don't have appointments with them,” she reveals. “What gives you independence is getting away from the people you have to report on,” she says.
Nor will the current star presenter of Antena 3 News be forgotten of the legislatures of Felipe González, Aznar or that of Zapatero after 11-M and remembers that at that time “the political environment was terrible”, although he admits that “now it is very tense, but not worse.”
“We do not have the best possible generation of politicians”
“That today's politicians are worse? I think we do not have the best possible generation, but this could have been said in previous generations and will be said later. In the Transition there was a good level, but there were also tensions. Risks were assumed, we will see how these new risks that have been assumed on behalf of everyone end,” he warns.
An expert in international politics and author of several books, he hates characters he has studied in depth, such as the predecessor of Joe Biden in the White House or the main tenant of the Kremlin: “I fervently hope that the victory of Trump. Furthermore, if he runs, something similar to what happened in the 2020 elections will occur. There will be a national mobilization to prevent him from returning to the White House. And it will be as successful as then,” he explains. About Vladimir Putin, which he described as “an extremely dangerous being”, He dares to make another prediction: “The invasion of Ukraine has a bad prognosis, it will remain stagnant for a long time,” it is feared.
Very proud of his parents and that generation
Vallés defends his parents' generation (Loli and Vicente), because “it put aside the hatred of the past”: “They knew how to build the Transition on the basis of reconciliation,” he remembers. “The reconciliation of everyone, because everyone decided that they had to forgive each other. Now there is a part that wants to reconcile and another that doesn't seem so much,” he clarifies. “It makes me very happy that they are happy. That they can move forward in the company of their children and grandchildren. That they see me on television, because their friends call them and I know that they enjoy it a lot,” he shares. “My parents are children of the war or the post-war. They have suffered what no generation of Spaniards has suffered. They worked hard so that we would not have those sufferings. I, beyond living in a humble family, did not have those shortcomings of theirs, even if they had nowhere to get it from. And that has been general. Their efforts have benefited us,” he confesses.
As director of the nine o'clock news, He works from eleven in the morning to ten at night from Monday to Friday. “I do everything possible not to have meals during the week. None if possible. If I can, I eat at home, because I live close to work, which is a luxury in Madrid. What I do try to do is go pick up my son Daniel in the afternoon. It took twenty minutes,” he says. He has a trick to avoid the numerous invitations he receives and avoid commitments. “I make a lot of excuses not to have to go anywhere,” he admits.
“How many gave him 'two news shows' with his wife?”
Because for Vallés the true luxury “is time”, as the logical one: “Being with my family. Between my wife's (Ángeles Blanco, Telecinco News presenter) and my jobs, it is not easy to escape, especially the school. There is nothing that makes us happier than an airport, because there we know we are going on a trip. We love it,” he confesses. “My wife really likes landscapes, I love urban landscapes and in the end we mix it up. One of the last places we have revisited is the Colorado's canyon. “We really like Christmas getaways,” he adds. He also says that they “very much” like movies “with popcorn.” His wife works at Mediaset and on weekends, which is when he rests. “We literally do two news programs each. Nobody tells us this to our faces, although someone has surely thought about it. We have already had many news programs and we hope to continue having many more.
