How’s your week going? Are you surviving the heat wave?
This week, the long-awaited plan for democratic regeneration that Pedro Sánchez promised to present finally arrived. Here are the main measures. The opposition’s response? The expected one. According to Alberto Núñez Feijóo, this is the “biggest attack on freedom of information in Spanish democracy”, which seeks “censorship” and to put “commissioners in private media”. For Vox, it is even worse: it is “a gag law”, “a witch hunt” and “a coup d’état”.
Of these two opposition parties, only one is consistent in this respect. Almost all of the measures on the press that the government has presented come from European legislation: the regulation on freedom of the media, a regulation that is mandatory and that will come into force in August 2025. It was approved by a very large majority in the European Parliament: 464 votes in favour, 92 against and 65 abstentions. Almost all Spanish MEPs supported the regulation, including all those from the PP. Only the extreme right voted against this regulation.
At least Vox is consistent, I insist. Even if it is persistent in its error: in its aversion to any limits on the hoaxes and misinformation that the ultras feed on so much. But what kind of criteria does the PP maintain? What is its standard? Why, when faced with the same measures, can it be in favour in Europe and against them in the Spanish Parliament?
But let’s get to the proposal. In my opinion, the biggest criticism that can be made of the plan is that it may fall short in light of the magnitude of the problem. As our colleague Iñigo Sáenz de Ugarte wrote, “In the face of the threat of misinformation, a little placebo.” I hope the Government dares to go a little further, as many of its partners are asking. I hope the majority in Parliament – which is not progressive, let’s not forget – reaches an agreement as ambitious as possible.
The timing of this debate, which the government should have addressed during the previous legislature, is also questionable. Disinformation was a real and pressing problem long before the opposition – political, judicial and media – made the president’s wife its main target to undermine the government. But only with tons of demagogy can any of these proposals be considered to pose the slightest threat to freedom of the press or expression.
The new European legislation – and not just the Government – requires transparency in the public revenues received by each media outlet, through institutional advertising. It is such a reasonable measure that it is surprising that anyone would be against it.
At elDiario.es we already meet this requirement. Every year, as you well know, we publish an accounting report where we also detail how much money we have received from all public administrations and what percentage it represents of our total income.
I am sure that we will be in for some surprises when the rest of the media are forced by the new European legislation to publish these figures. Because every time we have access to some data, they are usually scandalous. For example: the almost 600,000 euros of public money that was taken between 2007 and 2015, the website nuevatelevisión.com in advertising for Canal de Isabel II, the public water company of Madrid.
I bet you haven’t heard of nuevatelevisión.com yet. I’m not surprised. It was a medium that was as irrelevant as it was unknown. But I’m sure you know the owner: Miguel Ángel Rodríguez.
Yes, it is the same Miguel Ángel Rodríguez who today works as chief of staff for the very liberal Isabel Díaz Ayuso. The same one who threatened elDiario.es with “crushing us” until we have to close. The same one who is credited with the following phrase: “There is no need to buy a media outlet, it is enough to be its best client.” A maxim that he also often applies.
The new measures presented with the Government, in line with European legislation, will also require the names of the main shareholders of each media outlet to be detailed. It is unacceptable that people as important to the public debate as the owners of the media should exercise such influence anonymously.
I’m sure there will be surprises when we know all those names too.
We will understand, for example, why some media outlets that lose money every year remain open: because the real business of their owners is in other sectors for which the political influence provided by the press is something of great value.
At elDiario.es we have always shared these details. Here are the names of our shareholders: we are the same as always, the same team that founded this newspaper twelve years ago. The vast majority of us work here.
It is not usually the case that journalists are also the owners of the editorial office. And it is important for citizens to know who is behind each media outlet. This is essential information to understand if there is a potential conflict of interest.
An example that I always give: my hometown, Burgos. There are only two newspapers there. One is owned by a builder with numerous links to the PP and who was convicted of urban corruption: Michel Méndez Pozo. The other is owned by another builder with numerous links to the PP who was convicted in the Gürtel scandal: José Luis Ulibarri. They are also the owners of many other Spanish media.
Both are competitors in Burgos, but also allies. They are co-owners of the regional television of Castilla y León, a company financed by the Junta. Free press at its best!
But let’s return to the proposals for the media. The Government, following an agreement between the PSOE and Sumar, has also announced a few more things: a reform of the laws that regulate the right to rectification and the right to honour. Both are from the 1980s, forty years ago. They have become as obsolete as UHF television, which was the cutting-edge technology in those years before the Internet.
They also want to modify the law on institutional advertising. It was approved by the Zapatero government two decades ago and undoubtedly needs updating. Among other reasons, so that it is consistent with the new European regulation, which requires transparency that has not been in force in Spain until now.
European legislation –not the perfidious Sanchez– will also oblige the media to submit to some independent system of self-regulation: a kind of ISO certificate that guarantees compliance with minimum ethical and transparency standards. At elDiario.es we are already attached to the one promoted by Reporters Without Borders: the Journalism Trust Initiative. And we have also joined the Code of Ethics of the Federation of Associations of Spanish Journalists (FAPE).
A few days ago, the FAPE complaints committee issued several resolutions on a matter that you probably remember: the hoax of the hooded journalists from elDiario.es who raided Ayuso’s house, a lie spread by MAR and published – without checking it – by several media outlets. According to this committee, these media outlets violated the FAPE Code of Ethics. It is nothing more than an ethical reproach, with no other consequences. A minimum, which even so, some of the reproved media have labeled as an attack on freedom of the press. The freedom to lie.
And what about the censorship that the PP is denouncing? Where is it supposed to be?
As with so many other issues, the double standards are surprising. The same PP that used the police to pursue its political rivals accuses Pedro Sánchez of “Stalinism.” The same right that has turned all public media wherever it governs into propaganda tools accuses the government of manipulation. The same PP that, when it was in power in La Moncloa, took care to purge numerous inconvenient journalists is now the one that speaks of censorship.
Some examples? Galician Television, which was run until recently by Feijóo; where its workers have been protesting against political interference for years. Or what has happened with Telemadrid. The first law that Isabel Díaz Ayuso passed after winning the 2021 elections was to take over this public television by storm; to overturn the law that the PP had had to pass during the time when it governed with Ciudadanos, which gave a certain autonomy to that editorial team. That independence ended as soon as Ayuso had the necessary votes for it. They purged the entire management team that had been there, and that had managed to turn around an audience that had previously been in ruins – dismissals that were later annulled as illegal by the Supreme Court. They also fired the journalist Silvia Intxaurrondo, whom Ayuso never forgave for asking certain things. At the head of this television channel, which all Madrid residents pay for, Ayuso appointed a journalist who was paid from the PP’s black fund, according to the Bárcenas papers.
This is the practice of censorship. As for the theory, there is no need to look at any of the laws that the Government plans to reform. It is still possible in Spain with current legislation: prior censorship is in force during states of war or emergency, according to Article 3 of the Fraga and Franco lawstill in force.
It is a law that should embarrass any democrat. But it remains the current regulation. It does not provoke even half the criticism that the minimal reform attempts that the Government wants to promote.
A hug,
Ignacio Escolar
Source: www.eldiario.es
