Ana Teresa Badía Valdés

Full Professor at the Faculty of Communication of the University of La Habana. President of the Radio Department of the José Martí International Institute of Journalism.

In conversation with Ana Teresa she comments: "I grew up in a small countryside town, in Rancho Veloz -Villa Clara- that taught me the most essential aspects of life; and then I moved to Sagua la Grande. I preserve the most precious memories of my childhood, I played in a ditch to bring fish to my house –you can imagine the reactions-, I played marbles, also playing house. Ah, I fed soaked bread to the chickens, made bubbles with detergent and stalks from the papaya plants. Some nights I even improvised a theater for the neighborhood. In short, a beautiful, happy childhood, like that of anyone from my generation. A childhood that I wish had extended to today, a childhood that I would like many children to have, for its purity, for its truth."

"I have always had good friends, from those early years. Today I remember the name of each one, incredible, but that's how it is. My life has been marked by two people, mainly: my mom and my grandmother Gude, great warriors. And from my father, I inherited the dreaming spirit always. All of them made me a good woman, at least in my opinion."

Ana Teresa wanted to be a journalist when the invasion of Panama occurred, while she was in pre-university studies.

She studied at what was then the Faculty of Journalism in the 1990s. She graduated in 1995 and went to work at Radio Rebelde, her best school, her best space for fulfillment, the place where she has learned the most, the place she has never been able to detach herself from.

As a reporter she fulfilled her greatest dreams and achievements. One day, she understood that she should make room in daily journalism for her already graduated students. She takes great pride in seeing young people changing the face of our media, even though much still needs to be done. Then, she finished her doctorate in Social Communication Sciences, precisely with a thesis on Radio, a theoretical-methodological proposal for the production of ideologies from radio discourse, and she also did her Master's thesis in Library Science and Information Sciences with a proposal for the management of sound archives. In other words, Radio is in everything she has researched.

Radio is part of her. Because she works in it, she measures every second, what fits in a minute and that makes her assume the way of living in a very particular way.

Ana Teresa is a woman of radio, she listened to radio from a very young age, first listened to CMHW and later Radio Sagua. She began in that radio station, in a youth news program of which she has many memories.

She has been starting the day for more than 20 years on the program –Haciendo Radio- of the national radio station Radio Rebelde.

She has earned prestige and respect from her colleagues and the even more elusive appreciation of audiences. Ana Beresa Badía can feel honored to have gained both. To her daily and profound work in the media, and in digital networks, she adds her academic prestige and the value of her teaching. With that endorsement, she has placed herself among the most important voices of the transformation of the press and communication in Cuba.