Carlos Pinto Coelho
A Communicator who marked generations, Carlos Pinto Coelho became immortalized in the memory of the Portuguese as «Senhor Acontece». His career includes Press, Radio and Television
"And so, it happens". This was the sentence that immortalized the journalist Carlos Pinto Coelho, commonly known as "Senhor Acontece".
The journalist was closely connected to the cultural show he hosted in RTP2, from 1994 to 2003.
Despite having made his career in RTP for 26 years, Carlos Pinto Coelho wasn’t just associated to television.
Carlos Nuno de Abreu Pinto Coelho was born in Lisbon on April 18th of 1944. In the following year he moved, with his family, to Mozambique.
Son a judge and of the journalist and writer Sarah Augusta de Lima e Abreu, Carlos Pinto Coelho returned to Portugal in 1963.
He started to attend Law School in Lisbon University but, by failing one of his classes, he would later give up.
It was by this time that the journalism bug bit him.
Press, Radio and Television
In 1968, he entered at Diário de Notícias as a reporter. In April of 1975, he would end up leaving the newspaper, under the tumultuous management of Luís Barros and José Saramago.
Later, he would be found among the founders of Jornal Novo, managed by Artur Portela.
Until 1977 he was editor at the news agency A.N.I., correspondent in Portugal of the radio station Deustche Welle and editor of Vida Mundialmagazine, led by Natália Correia.
In 1982, he assumed the executive direction of Mais magazine, a time when he also started his collaboration with RTP. He was Deputy Information Director (1977), editor-in-chief of Informação/2 (1978), program director (1986-1989) and director of Cooperation and International Relations (1989-1991).
But Carlos Pinto Coelho wouldn’t stop here.
He was announcer at the radio stations TSF, Rádio Comercial, Antena 1 and Teledifusão de Macau, stooding out especially with the presentation of Acontece magazine, between 1994 and 2003.
In 2003, he started as a journalism teacher at Escola Superior de Tecnologia do Instituto Politécnico de Tomar.
Between the several positions he held, stand out the ones as member of the Administration Council of Europa TV (1986-1987), as coordinator of the Encontros de Televisão de Língua Portuguesa (1989-1992), as juri of the Emmy Investigation Journalism awards (1984) and of Fantasporto (1986).
His interests would also extend to the Portuguese-speaking Africa and photography.
"There isn’t one day that I don’t reach my balcony in Alentejo and look at the sky – the sky that is different every day – and that I don’t have to get my camera because, this time, this time the clouds are the best ever."
The recognition
On June 9th of 2000, the journalist was nominated as Comendador da Ordem do Infante D. Henrique.
In journalism, he also stood out with the Prémio Bordalo award, in the Television category, by Casa da Imprensa (1995), Grande Prémio Gazeta, by Clube dos Jornalists (1997), and Prémio Carreira Manuel Pinto de Azevedo Jr., from O Primeiro de Janeiro (2002).
His fame with the show Acontece would go beyond barriers.
In such a way that Herman José event imitated the journalists in his comical show at the time, Herman Enciclopédia.
Carlos Pinto Coelho passed away on the 25th of December, 2010.
The great person behind the cultural projection in Portugal, through the oldest cultural newspaper in Europe, would leave a major legacy behind.
"I am a man without country, without land, without roots, without place, a man of the time, the day, of the moment. I travelled the world, met a lot of people and many things enriched me. It is not here, where I am passing through, that I have my heart. I have in the where I am, in the moment. I don’t know which will be the last and where I’ll be when I die."