"La Noticia Rebelde" was a classic of Argentine TV. It taught many others who came after them, how to mix humour and information in an effective way and many well known products of today (among which "Caiga quien caiga" or "CQC" can me pointed out as the most successful, both in terms of ratings, and of international repercussions) owe much of their premise to LNR. The CQC we see now in Argentina, Chile or Spain, we saw in its splendour back in the mid-eighties.
When LNR first aired, Argentina was only coming out of the single hardest dictatorship ever. We were learning about the terrible outcome of circa 30,000 "desaparecidos" (missing people) who were killed basically for disagreeing, and a complete devastation of national economics. Unlike now, people were a lot more afraid of saying things. So, it took a lot of courage to come every weekday on the air, on a state-run television channel of national coverage, and say what they said in this show.
In a nutshell, LNR simply didn't shut up anything. And they didn't (as we say in my country) "get married" with anyone. That is, they didn't overprotect or fail to criticise anyone, just because it was convenient to do so. They were respectful, even careful, of the newly regained democracy. But within the limits of never risking that asset, there were hardly any limits, other than good taste and clever humour.
Probably now, when you see the reruns of LNR on "Volver" (an Argentinian channel that shows old national films and TV shows) you may have a feeling that this was a rather naive show. But twenty-one years ago, when I was a teenager and saw it every day live from home, I did have a feeling that they were doing something huge. And so many other shows that have sprung up ever since, seem to be there to prove me right.
Just a final note for those of you who are interested in linguistic remarks. "La Noticia Rebelde" (literally: "The Rebellious News", is a pun on "La Novicia Rebelde", ("The Rebellious Novice" the Spanish title for "The Sound of Music"). That is a little example of the kind of clever humour they made, and also an indication of the kind of journalism they performed.
