Lusa? “I had no intention of staying past 70 years”

A former information director of Lusa said today that she had no intention of directing Lusa beyond the age of 70 and that the entry of the two new administrators resulted in a change in dynamics.

“ It was my birthday on November 23, I had no intention of spending more than 70 years driving Lusa, in any way,” said Luísa Meireles, who is also chairman of the Committee of the Professional Journalist Wallet (CCPJ), in the parliamentary committee for Culture, Communication, Youth and Sport, in the context of the request of the Free, PS and CFP parliamentary groups.

According to the law, “I had 20 days to communicate”, since on November 23 “my contract would become a fixed-term contract”, the journalist stressed, who told how her process of leaving the news agency took place.

Luisa Meireles, who left the company on October 12, pointed out that what precipitated the exit were the statements of Lusa’s chairman of the Board of Directors, Joaquim Carreira, in parliament, repeating that he attended a “direct discharge”.

Since the new Lusa administration took place, which includes two new elements – Luís Ferreira Lopes and Ana Alves – there has been “an increase in situations,” he said.

“ One of the administrators kept the directory of information and is a person who wants to know everything and have an active participation ", said, pointing out that the direction of information is a bridge to the writing and a barrier to administration. In other words, the communication of the administration must be made through the direction of information.

The situation began to get “strange” from the moment when they are asked to the direction of information contributions, which are made, but everything stayed the same, giving the example of the podcast strategy or about the audiovisual.

Cases of this type of non-response occurred, he pointed out, also referring to the cases of the opening of the Évora delegation and the hiring of a journalist in Brussels.

“ It became a costly relationship”, admitted Luísa Meireles.

Regarding the “element that remains” in the administration, President Joaquim Carreira, with whom he lived for five years “quietly”, says that “there has been a change of dynamics” with the entry of two new people and “a great attempt and willingness to speak directly to people, to have this direct contact, which we explained that the administration speaks with the writing by the management”, he stressed.

Luisa Meireles said that there was “actually” a barrier that was transposed and Deputy Director Nuno Simas said that the management disagreed with the methodology of choosing a person for writing in Brussels.

The information director of the Lusa agency, Luísa Meireles, left the news agency's information management on October 12, after having accepted an exit proposal made by the Board of Directors.

Lusa's assistant directors, Maria de Deus Rodrigues and Nuno Simas, agreed to take the agency's interim management until October 31, at the request of the Board of Directors.