João Paulo Guerra
1942 – 2024
It was unanimous. It came from all (many) parts of what we call ‘the class’.
A tribute to João Paulo Guerra, with testimonies from Luís Paixão Martins, Coronel Carlos Matos Gomes, Adelino Gomes, Maria do Céu Guerra, Eugénio Alves and António Macedo.
On that Sunday, 4 August 2024, and the days that followed, the professional group of journalists reacted in a rare way to the death of one of their own. Alongside the “‘short”’ or “‘canonical”’ obituary, readers, listeners and viewers received statements of admiration and homage from professionals from the multiple trends and cultures that made up the newsrooms of newspapers, televisions and radios. The same thing, multiplied by many, was happening on social media.
'Goldsmith of Writing', “Master of narrating short stories, which is how the great journalism is made”, “coherent, of committed causes, but without cutting bridges with those who thought differently” and with a “discourse mixed with fine irony”. This is how his comrade and friend Pedro Correia described him, hours after he left us.
João Paulo Guerra made his entry into the radio world at the age of 20, on Rádio Renascença (RR). A year later, he was already working as a journalist at the newly created News Department of Rádio Clube Português (RCP). He worked there for 10 years, as part of a luxury news team chosen and managed by Luís Filipe Costa, a mythical figure of a news style that would have its historic consecration in the early hours of 25 April 1974.As was common in the pre-25 April radio era, he combined his work as a news editor with his work as a reporter, director and programme announcer. Apart from that, he also worked in other media.
Shortened examples:
Radio
PBX’, at RCP (1967-69); reporter, announcer and later director (1970-1972) of the programme ‘Tempo ZIP’, initially on RCP FM and later on Rádio Renascença; editor and reporter at Emissora Nacional (post-April 1974); head of the Studies and Planning Office of the National Broadcaster's Programme Directorate (1974-75); correspondent in Lisbon for Rádio Nacional de Angola (1976-77); co-founder of Telefonia de Lisboa (1985-87); editor and reporter for TSF - Rádio Jornal (1990-96) and Central FM (1996); contributor to Antena 1 with: ‘Os Reis da Rádio’ (2005-06), ‘Revista de Imprensa’ (2006-2015) and ‘O Fio da Meada’ (2015-2017). He was also the listener provider of all RTP - Rádio e Televisão de Portugal stations (2017-21).
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João Paulo Guerra. In Rogério Santos (26 de Abril de 2020). Fichas radiofónicas (2) – “Tempo Zip” e João Paulo Guerra. HISTÓRIA DA RÁDIO EM PORTUGAL. Recuperado em 25 de Maio de 2025 de https://doi.org/10.58079/t7li .
Also in the radio sphere, as a natural consequence of his experience, he taught professional radio training courses at the Cooperativa de Rádio e Animação Cultural - CRAC, for TSF and at the RDP Training Centre.
Print Press
(Before 25 April 1974) - Contributor to the Diário de Lisboa, on the team of the supplement “A Mosca” (1968-69), for which he invented “nacional cançonetismo”; A Capital, in the supplement “Cena 7” (1970) and also in República, Memória do Elefante and Musicalíssimo (1971); editor-in-chief of the weekly Notícias da Amadora (1972-74) and editor (in the first months of 1974) of the weekly AE - Actividades Económicas, which was forbidden to leave by Censorship.
(Post 25 April 1974) - Editor (1978-89) and editor-in-chief (1989-90) of O Diário; correspondent for the ‘SouthScan’ newsletter (1985-89); contributor to Público (1990), O Jornal (1991-92) and O Inimigo (1994). As a freelancer, he wrote reports for the CNTV agency (1992) that were published in Público and Expresso. He was also editor of the newspaper O Jogo (April-September 1997) and Diário Económico (1997-98), becoming a contributor between 2006 and 2012.
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Professional Journalist Card of João Paulo Guerra
TV
Screenwriter at SIC (1993-94); reporter for the series “O Século XX Português” (SIC- 1997/99); screenwriter for Endemol/SIC (2000): author of the screenplay for “Angola – 40 anos de Guerra”, ranked first by ICAM, in the documentary category (2002).
Published works
Polícias e Ladrões [Cops and Thieves] (Caminho, 1983); Operação África [Operation Africa] (Caminho, 1984), co-authored with journalist Fernando Semedo (1954-1994); Os Flechas Atacam de Novo [The Arrows Strike Again] (Caminho, 1988); Memória das Guerras Coloniais [Memory of the Colonial Wars] (Afrontamento, 1994); Savimbi Vida e Morte [Savimbi Life and Death] (Bertrand, 3 editions in 2002); Diz que é uma espécie de democracia [They Say It Is a Kind of Democracy] (Oficina do Livro, 1st and 2nd editions in 2009); Descolonização Portuguesa – o Regresso das Caravelas [Portuguese Decolonization – the Return of the Caravels] (Dom Quixote, 1996 and Círculo de Leitores, 2000), with a revised and expanded edition, prefaced by Ernesto Melo Antunes (Oficina do Livro, 2009); Romance de uma Conspiração [Romance of a Conspiracy] (Oficina do Livro, 2010); and a fiction book, the novel Corações Irritáveis [Irritable Hearts] (Clube do Autor, 2016).
He was also the author of the report series “Viagens com Livros”, aired by TSF in 1995 and later published on CD by Strauss (1996) and in book form by Oficina do Livro (2009).
Awards
The acknowledgements were unavoidable and meaningful, especially those coming from his professional class.
Radio awards from the Casa de Imprensa (collective), as part of the “PBX” programme team (1968); from the Casa da Imprensa, as director of the “Tempo ZIP” programme (1972); for Reporting, from the Administrative Modernisation Secretariat (published in Público, October 1990); National Reporting, from the Porto Journalists' Club; “Gazeta”, from the Journalists' Club (2009); for Radio Reporting, from the Portuguese Press Club (1994), for the series of reports “O Regresso das Caravelas”, aired on TSF; ‘Procópio’ for Journalism' (1996), for the series of reports “Viagens com Livros”, aired on TSF (1995); “Gazeta de Mérito” (Gazette of Merit) (2010), “for his long, diverse and prestigious professional career over almost half a century of activity on radio, in the press and on television”; and also “Igrejas Caeiro”, from the Portuguese Society of Authors (2014).
Finally, three special mentions:
1. The (highly acclaimed) theatre adaptation of José Saramago's Claraboia for A Barraca (2015), with staging and dramaturgy by Maria do Céu Guerra, his sister, and set design by José Costa Reis.
2. When it wasn't very common, he created a blog, which he entitled ‘Journalism: it claims to be a kind of democracy’, very inspired and very relevant at that time, and even nowadays. In this case, it was a direct ‘inheritance’ of the book with the same title published by Oficina do Livro (See ‘Works’), with a selection of chronicles published in Diário Económico and which were therefore extended in one of the new languages required by the change in the communication paradigm.
3. But João Paulo Guerra realised that it wasn't enough to say it once in words. He wanted to say it in multiple ways and on different platforms, demonstrating his eternal youth. He accepted the most diverse challenges from the journalistic field, some of them very delicate. Such as writing about her mother - Maria Carlota Álvares da Guerra, a prominent and controversial figure in intellectual and journalistic circles before the 25th of April, as the director of the magazine Crónica Feminina for 30 years. The result was a remarkable biographical text of information, understanding and love, published in 2009 in the book Jornalistas Pais e Filhos, an initiative of Casa da Imprensa.
If it is true that ‘communication in Portugal has become a little poorer following João Paulo Guerra's death, political pluralism has become a little more amputated, collective memory has become a little more diluted and discarded’ (Pedro Correia, again), there is nothing better than to counteract these effects through the different statements of those who read, heard, saw and/or lived with him more closely.
That's the purpose of this NewsMuseum section: to provide visitors, and particularly young people, with information that will help them to better understand the career, attitude and work of each person selected.
Today we are remembering the journalist, writer and citizen João Paulo Guerra. Another (of the greatest), among a nourished handful who, over the years, have laboured and lived ‘the most beautiful profession in the world,’ as the reporter and future Nobel Prize winner for Literature, Gabriel Garcia Márquez, once called journalism.
