Jon Sistiaga reveals Telecinco refused to pay him for Kosovo kidnapping on 'La Revuelta'
During a sobering interview on La Revuelta, war correspondent Jon Sistiaga recounted his 1999 kidnapping in Kosovo and Telecinco's refusal to compensate him, while promoting his new Netflix documentary on Miguel Ángel Blanco.
A documentary on Miguel Ángel Blanco
Sistiaga appeared on La Revuelta to present "Miguel Ángel Blanco: las 48 horas que lo cambiaron todo", co-directed with Juanjo López. The Netflix documentary reconstructs the 48 hours between the kidnapping and murder of the PP councilman by ETA in July 1997. Sistiaga, who covered the event, was just 5 kilometres from where Blanco was killed. He lamented that many young Spaniards know little about ETA, calling it "a failure of the education system, democracy and parents."
The Kosovo kidnapping and Telecinco's response
In 1999, while reporting on the Kosovo war for Telecinco, Sistiaga was kidnapped and held for six days. After his release, his boss offered a week's vacation in Tenerife, but Sistiaga went to HR to ask if the time could be paid as overtime.
I told him: 'I know this is unusual, but if I'm working for this network, doing my eight hours, which are always twelve, and they hold me for a week... Is this paid as overtime?'
HR calculated and said no, though they wanted him to recount everything that happened.
They didn't pay me. That was it.
He attributed his release to "football diplomacy" involving Spanish and Serbian players.
The king who arrived two hours early
King Felipe VI participated in the documentary, his first such appearance. During filming at Zarzuela Palace, the monarch surprised the crew by showing up two hours early.
I said: 'Hey, Your Majesty, but this is at twelve.' And he said: 'I have to work.'
The king then asked to stay and work quietly while they set up.
Do you mind if I stay here working? I won't make noise.
War tourists and the end of an era
Sistiaga drew a sharp line between war correspondents and content creators who travel to conflict zones.
We don't consider them journalists, they are war tourists.
He argued their goal is followers, clicks and money. He also declared that the era of the reporter embedding for weeks is over, replaced by drones and soldier-shot footage, though verification remains essential.
A career on the front lines
The interview touched on other episodes: in Iraq, he and cameraman José Couso discovered that wounded soldiers presented by Saddam Hussein's regime were actually healthy troops pretending. To bypass censorship, they got Iraqi minders drunk. Sistiaga gave host David Broncano a Saddam Hussein banknote from 2003.
