André Hernan reinvents himself on digital

Andre Hernan is one of the big names in sports journalism today. At the age of 40, and consecrated as one of the main reporters in the country, the journalist took a bold step in his career in 2022 and left one of the biggest vehicles in Brazil to venture on the internet. Less than a year later, he reached 217,000 followers on YouTube and won the ACEESP best reporter award. In other words, the football market specialist has proven himself on the multiplatform.

In an exclusive interview with sportbuzz, André Hernan commented on the challenges he had to overcome to reach his great reputation in the digital environment. The short time producing content on social media and the rapid transition from television to the social media environment brought him positive responses from internet users, but even he did not expect that his adaptation to the new model would be so quick. Grupo Globo definitely seems to have stayed in the past.

“It was surprising, yes, because I expected a certain distrust from the public when I made this transition from television to digital. As much as I had a little notion of digital, it is a different universe and I had a certain fear of people’s reaction to this change. I think when I took on this challenge, I dove in so deep, that this answer turned out to be surprising but rewarding. Everything I have delivered and have been delivering has shown a positive response from the public, who are understanding me in this transition“, he stated.

In André Hernan’s view, the digital environment has given him a freedom that he had not seen in his career until 2022. The journalist recalled his past at Globo and his experience with television. He does not regret having left the biggest communication vehicle at the height of his career, and makes it clear that he signed his release by venturing into creating exclusive content for social networks.

“This is pretty crazy. I arrived, sometimes I was even disappointed, there was a lot of information, many details and I had only 30 seconds to say everything I wanted to. I felt trapped in a model, but over the years, before I thought about this change, I looked at digital as a space of freedom and time. I feel more at ease and can be more myself on a daily basis when I’m talking on digital. That freedom is priceless. As much as television is taking this armor off, digital has been exploring this space for a longer time and I have had more conditions to explore“, he explained.

Even with so little time in the digital market and a long experience in television, André Hernan knows what his next career steps will be. he told the sportbuzz that his idea is to stop being a state reporter, to become a national one. The journalist has had more freedom to participate in a series of contents and with different vehicles. Something very different from what he did when he was a protagonist on television.

“Man, now I have to be a national reporter, right? My face is very São Paulo, but our challenge is to nationalize my face. We managed to burst the bubble at the end of Libertadores with an interview with Arrascaeta. That’s the big challenge of bursting bubbles and getting new fonts, but I’m in no rush either.“, he explained.

Amarilla case: the most important reportage of his career and which was even entitled to persecution

As much as André Hernan gives indications that he is living the best moment of his career, the journalist does not hide that his past on television has provided him with remarkable reports. The ‘Amarilla case’, for example, was the most important in the journalist’s opinion. The referee was responsible for blowing that controversial Corinthians and Boca Juniorsin the 2013 Libertadores, which resulted in the discovery of a strong arbitration scheme.

On that occasion, Hernan was the first to talk to Carlos Amarilla, but the verification process was by far one of the most complex of his career. In conversation with sportbuzzhe brought details of the investigation and the story drew attention due to the series of unforeseen circumstances that the journalist had to overcome in order to achieve results.

See Hernan’s full statement:

“ANDI think the scoop that was the one that brought me the most difficulty and brought more random things was when I managed to interview Amarilla. Carlos Amarilla, the one from the episode of Corinthians and Boca Juniors at Libertadores in 2013. I was even at that game and it was absurd. I’ve never seen anything as bizarre as that. Soon after the complaint against Amarilla appeared, we went after him in Asunción [no Paraguai] and we were nine days behind him. This assessment is a manual of everything a reporter can live off of adrenaline within his role. At first, he would slam the phone in our face, hang up, tell us to leave. So I started to do a reverse process.

I mapped Amarilla’s friends and went after them to see who was closest, of course with the help of some local mates. I found out that a retired linesman was a friend of Amarilla and we went after him. Then I found out that he had become a hairdresser and we went to his salon. Lucky for me, he was very ‘reviewed’ and talked about carnival and I promised him a place in the box on Sapucaí and a bunch of other things that I couldn’t get, but I wanted to be friends with the guy.

I cut my hair three times with him in nine days, I was going almost bald. Then I told the producer, cameraman, everyone to cut their hair too. We were creating a relationship with him, and he was giving us a clue about Amarilla. We went to the park, he [Amarilla] found out we were there and wasn’t going anymore.

We would do a shift in front of a training center for referees, he would show up with the car, but we didn’t chase him. [O cabelereiro] He said he didn’t want to talk, that it was difficult, but he made it clear that he was going to help us. So, he told us about a park that Amarilla was going to train at 6 am and we woke up at 4 am to meet him. I created a scene with my cameraman and we set up a ‘theatre’.

I arranged with the cameraman for him to approach Amarilla and start filming his face. At this I would interrupt, scold the cameraman and apologize. We did that and it worked. Then I talked to him, I talked about the need for him to speak and he talked to us. After that, we celebrated a lot and it was like Pelé and Galvão winning the fourth [em 1994]“.