Abstract
On 25 August 1988, a fire broke out in the Chiado area of Lisbon. It is considered one of the biggest fires in an urban area in Portugal, having destroyed a vast built historical heritage and caused several victims. The Portuguese news radio, TSF, was the first media outlet to report the news by starting a long special live emission putting into practice an innovative model of radio journalism for that time in Portugal which was based on the priority given to live informative reporting. The experience of this long live report was replicated in the following years by TSF in the coverage of other events. In this article, we analyse TSF's live coverage of the fire and reflect on the role of this experience in the journalistic model implemented by the radio in the following years.
Highlights
The project emerged from the initiative of a group of radio professionals who wanted to create a station focused on journalism and that would break with the information model on the radio that predominated in the country until
Until it obtained the license to broadcast, TSF was creating its structure and in 1987 it promoted a training course for journalists and announcers from which the first radio professionals would emerge. This course lasted six months and it aimed to create a model for radio journalism that was different from the one that had been practiced in Portugal until
A generation of journalists was created that still exists today” (Francisco Sena Santos, personal interview, 4th July 2008). It was a rupture with the radio journalism that was practiced in Portugal and a radio station focused on information and live broadcasting was born
Summary
The Portuguese radio TSF is the result of the liberalization of the Portuguese radio sector that occurred in the late 1980s. TSF was created in 1981 but only started broadcasting in 1988, even though the Portuguese Radio Law did not allow it This means, that when it carried out the live report on the Chiado fire, which we will analyze, it was still a pirate radio. It was during this period that the monopoly of public television ended when the first broadcasting licenses were granted to two private Portuguese television stations, SIC (1992) and TVI (1993) It was, still during the period when it broadcasted only to Lisbon as a pirate radio that TSF made one of the most important broadcasts in its history and that is still remembered today as a relevant milestone in the recent history of Portuguese radio journalism. This article aims to contribute to the knowledge of that informative moment in Portuguese radio through the analysis of excerpts of that news coverage, interviews with professionals who were part of the team of journalists who participated in the live coverage, and crossing with the available literature on radio information in Portugal and TSF radio’s informative model
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