Paulo Oliveira was a familiar voice to VOA listeners at one time in Portugal, then Brazil. Now he is heard in Mozambique, Cape Verde, San Tome and Principe, Guinea-Bissau and Angola.
Almost each weekday evening Paulo Oliveira hosts the one-hour Portuguese to Africa Evening Show, which brings the latest news from around the world to many millions of listeners in Portuguese-speaking Africa.
Mr. Oliveira was initially hired by VOA in 1984 to work on programs directed to Portugal. When the Portuguese Service was closed in 1991, Mr. Oliveira became part of a team feeding material to radio stations in Brazil, and then in 1995 transferred to the Portuguese to Africa service. So his experience at VOA covers broadcasting to three very different areas of the world.
In 1996 the Voice of America?s Portuguese to Africa service opened a news bureau in the capital of Luanda to provide Angolans with up-to-the-minute news and reports on events in their country that were not available in the state-controlled media. The service clearly fulfilled a need ? some 60% of Angolans regularly listen to the program.
The Luanda news center consists of a full-time staff of 13, plus an additional 18 journalists working throughout the country, and a rotational correspondent from VOA?s Portuguese to Africa service in Washington. Paulo Oliveira was the first Washington journalist to be assigned to Luanda.
Paulo Oliveira did not start out to be a reporter. He grew up in the Azores on the island of Sao Miguel, and at eighteen went to the mainland to study German and English linguistics and literature at the University of Lisbon. His first jobs were in marketing and finance. He says he got into journalism by accident.
Mr. Oliveira did learn fast. He learned by covering state visits of dignitaries to Portugal, which none of the more experienced journalists wanted to cover. Later he reported on international organizations, NATO, on events in Europe, and developed into the seasoned journalist that attracted the attention of the then-chief of VOA?s Portuguese service, who recruited him to come to the United States. After almost 20 years, Mr. Oliveira is still enthusiastic about his job.
As for his adjustment to America, Paulo Oliveira says that despite his accent, he is as American as anybody who was born here. Although the fast tempo of life took some getting used to, he says, now he feels very much at home.