Roberto Veros, musician and journalist who left his mark on LA OPINION, died

On Wednesday night the news spread quickly in the journalistic and cultural environment of the city: one of the good guys had left, Roberto Veros.

With an impeccable career and always clinging to values ​​such as honesty and courage, added to his admirable intellect and his ever-present desire to learn, he transcended into the field of music, his great passion, and journalism, having gone through all the types of media in which in his time this profession could be practiced. Thus he made graphics, radio and television, always leaving his mark. In LA OPINION he was for 17 years becoming its editor-in-chief. Although there are hardly any companions left in this house from that time, respect for his figure, for what his passing through here meant and the teachings he knew how to leave behind, has always been and will be present.

His life

After spending part of his childhood in Manuel Ocampo and beginning his formal education at School No. 3 in that town, his family settled in Pergamino and here he completed the school cycle at School No. 4 and secondary school at the School of Commerce. . In those years he had discovered that music was his passion and he began to train as a drummer and venture into musical groups.

Then he started working and did so for five years at the Inta Pergamino Extension Agency. This step allowed him to discover a fascinating universe: Sociology, Psychology, the handling of images and a nascent interest in writing. So, without thinking, on pure impulse he wrote a story, “La botella”, which he sent to a regional contest and to his surprise he was awarded.

A few years earlier, the fashionable rhythms had put him in contact with Gonzalito’s orchestra, then with “Los Dados Blancos” (by Humberto de los Reyes), in a long musical line that he would continue with “Los Modernos del Swing”. From there, to “Las Estrellas del Trópico” where Pepe Motta was among others. When he formed his “Latino Group” in the 1960s, he was there until “Magia Negra” was formed years later in the 1970s.

The journalism

His encounter with journalism, Roberto Veros knew how to recount it in an interview with LA OPINION. He said then: “Two great journalists like Mario Lombari and Hector del Giúdice discovered the journalist that I was unaware of: when the first made me a note for LA OPINION and for ‘Parchment between 15 Days’, the second, they introduced me to Horacio Abel ‘Chichino’ Ayestarán, who edited ‘Parchment between 15 Days’.

“Then, a casual note in Rosario, from a Saturday program on Inta Pergamino on Channel 3, has prepared a major surprise for me: its producer, Moisés Guterman, likes that half-journalist and half-drummer (they were the times with Pepe Motta) and he offers me to host a daily program on Channel 3, ‘From 12 to 14’, with the model Nora Garavelli, as co-host and irresponsibly, I accepted. I had never been in front of a TV camera. He liked my way of driving, apparently fresh, chacarera, even though I secretly wet my pants because of my nerves.I was on Rosario TV for almost a year, while Pepe Motta was recording in Buenos Aires and I bit my elbows: I couldn’t do both tasks at the same time.

“I made a decision that I still often reproach myself for today. I left ‘De 12 a 14’, with excellent prospects as a television journalist: I had been asked to be one of the four hosts of ‘La Campana de Cristal’, in Buenos Aires, on Channel 13, along with Héctor Larrea, Fernando Bravo and Leonardo Simmons. But I chose music and live the experience of recording records. At that time, the producer of ‘De 12 a 14’ was also producing the first ‘Tiempo Nuevo’, on Channel 3 of Rosario, with Bernardo Neustadt in the lead and Roberto Veros in the journalistic production.I got to write an article in the magazine ‘Extra’ of Neustadt.

“However, the drums were stronger, and I went back to Pergamino. A few years of ‘Pergamino entre 15 Días’ had passed when Ayestarán summoned me for another project: directing the fortnightly ‘Show’. But going often to Junín I thought I would hit it there well, a magazine like Show, fresh and with a certain self-confidence. There it was called ‘Vos y Junín’ and it was a great goal. I sold my house in Pergamino to set up a printing press there, but Rodrigazo came, I melted and bye ‘Vos y Junín’ .

in THE OPINION

“Back in Pergamino, the Sopeña brothers supported me and I worked in their printing press as a producer, until Don Julio Venini called me to join LA OPINION. I spent 17 years in the Pergamino newspaper, and I went from the police chronicle to the editorial office. During that period I was able to interview Jorge Luis Borges, René Favaloro, Mercedes Sosa, and a wide portfolio of generals, ministers and other forgettable characters from the process for LA OPINION; including the murky threat from the soldier who warned me in the Junín barracks: ‘ You have a yellow card’.

“But it gave me secret tastes, like reporting Monsignor Zaspe or Ernesto Sábato for the Venini newspaper, breaths of oxygen, few pleasures of the profession.”

“Three years after Hugo Apesteguía bought LA ​​OPINION, I am leaving, but not before working for Channel 4 for a couple of years, producing the general interest magazine ‘Mediodía’ and conducting a weekly political cycle, ‘Re-Unión’. Immediately, for a couple of years I had to carry out ‘Todos con la radio’ on Sunday mornings and at night, once a week, ‘Vamos, todavía’ (program dedicated to retirees), on LT 35 Radio Mon.

“Journalism was still latent and jumped back into the ring when Héctor Lebensohn, the son of Moisés, creator of the Junín newspaper ‘Democracia’ from Junín, called me to direct it and I was in that newsroom for 13 years. And during a Democracy vacation, too I reached into the weekly ‘El Tiempo’ to reformulate it, give it another design and speed up and renew its contents”.