The Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, has closed the VI Meeting of Ibero-American Journalism of elDiario.es with a defense of rigorous journalism and a call for coordination against misinformation and the manipulation of reality, which, as he has pointed out, It especially affects migrants and women.
Albares has highlighted the importance of global communication spaces that social networks and new technologies have opened, but which have also become “a vehicle for hate speech that we thought was buried.” And he has warned: “physical violence is always preceded by verbal violence. And that is why nothing can be built on hate speech. Nothing can be built on confrontation.”
“Disinformation is a problem for serious media, such as elDiario.es, and it is a very serious problem for governments like the government to which I belong and for democracies,” the Foreign Minister emphasized during his speech, who He recalled that democracy is “a system of discussion and debate, of dialogue, of negotiation, of agreement with words” and that this meeting can be achieved through disagreement and differences but “not from alternative facts.”
The minister also highlighted that public institutions “degrade very quickly” when realities and facts “are questioned” and considered that we are witnessing “enormous” changes that require us to have a great capacity to react to threats against democracy. which, he emphasized, “as they generate uncertainties, they can be used to cause destabilizing effects at all levels. And the first step is always misinformation.”
José Manuel Albares recalled how attempts to manipulate public opinion or influence electoral processes erode democratic processes and called attention to those who deny freedom of the press, “because they deny the pluralism and diversity that define any democracy.” .
At that time, the minister defended the need for coordinated action by all actors committed to democratic values as well as guaranteeing the existence of free and plural media “and that they are not subject to any interference, neither political nor economic.” He also called for an end to the persecutions and arbitrary arrests of journalists and to condemn all types of harassment of informants, especially women journalists.
José Manuel Albares pointed out how misinformation affects and challenges us all doubly, “as people and as citizens”, and asked to “take care” of words and speeches because “there are words that unite and bring us closer” and “there are words that separate us and “They confront us.” “It is about converting discrepancy into dialogue, difference into negotiation, confrontation into agreement. That is the ultimate basis of democracy,” he added.
The Minister of Foreign Affairs wanted to close his speech at the VI Ibero-American Journalism Meeting by thanking “those who dedicate every day and every hour” to working for a better world “from that humanist conception and from citizen commitment” and he expressly thanked elDiario.es for “protecting, caring for and defending journalism despite everything.”
Source: www.eldiario.es
