"I will only speak to BBC Tim ..." - the Chilean President, Sebastian Pinera.
The statement in many ways illustrates why the BBC was right to send - and send big - to the rescue of 33 miners trapped for 69 days in part of the collapsed San Jose mine in the Atacama desert in Chile.
The BBC College of Journalism organised a debrief to look back at the coverage: the decisions behind it; the lessons learnt; what worked well; and what the BBC might do differently next time. If indeed there is a next time for this type of deployment.
Jon Williams, the BBC World Editor, Tim Willcox, the BBC presenter and reporter who's now forever know as 'BBC Tim' in Chile, Mark Georgiou, the senior broadcast journalist, and Hilary Bishop, head of BBC Mundo, all took part in the discussion.
The first question to Jon was obviously - was it worth it? The BBC has been in the spotlight for sending 26 people and spending a reported £100,000 covering the rescue. This is likely to have a significant impact on the coverage of other major events such as the Cancun climate summit, the World Economic Forum in Davos and this month's G20 summit in Seoul.
Jon Williams was absolutely convinced that it was the right thing to do. He called it the biggest single foreign story in the five years he's been BBC World Editor. He was unapologetic about the way in which it was covered. If the BBC was going to be there, it needed to do it wholeheartedly, he said. Although he did say how relieved he was that the original estimates of the rescue attempt taking until Christmas proved to be wrong.
Tim Willcox said they had a huge advantage over the other news outlets. Because the BBC was there in force from an early stage, he was able to build up excellent relationships with the families, the rescue teams and the Chilean authorities. The fact that he was also able to conduct interviews in Spanish and English certainly helped too.
Hilary Bishop picked up on this point: having BBC Mundo at the heart of the BBC coverage, and as a central part of the team at Camp Hope, meant they had a direct connection with the people at the very centre of the story.
In terms of logistics, the early deployment was vital. Tim and Mark both spoke of the "land grab" at the beginning of the coverage. The BBC was able to literally pitch camp in the centre of the media village, which grew massively as thousands of journalists from all over the world descended on this remote part of the Chilean desert. The cameras were able to capture everything live as the miners were brought to the surface. Something other broadcasters, who arrived later, were simply unable to do.
The other technical point which came out of the debrief was the way in which Mark Georgiou was able to monitor the live feed of the rescue and clip-up material very simply on his laptop. In the past this would have been virtually impossible without a lot of technical expertise and kit.
The coverage also showed how media-savvy the Chilean authorities were. This was a fantastic story for Chile and President Pinera was going to make the most of it. They provided the feed of a 19-camera outside broadcast, including a live shot from down the mine as the men were brought up. All great stuff for the world's gathered media.
Mark Georgiou summed up the team's feelings by saying: "The story was so strong and the pictures so powerful that it impossible not to do - the BBC needed to cover it and cover it well."
