The piñata and Cuba, two examples of what journalism really monitors in Spain

@ElentirENG ES 1·03·2024 · 7:02 0

Journalism is a profession that has had a great reputation for its role as an institution dedicated to monitoring political power.

The party of two of Sánchez's ministers admits that it is inspired by a dictatorship
The secrecy that exists in Spain about political favors to the media

However, journalism is not good in itself. There have always been good and bad journalists, and we must not forget that journalism has also played a notable role as a companion to the worst tyrants, who have always tried to ensure that only they controlled the information that was published. That dark side of journalism did not monitor power: it was its watchdog, and today there are still many journalists who dedicate themselves to this work, and not to that mission of the "fourth estate" that many attribute to it.

We have a clear example of this deformation of journalism in Spain. Today, a large part of Spanish journalism has abandoned that surveillance function and has become a spokesperson for power. There are media outlets and journalists who live off subsidies and act like Sánchez's political police, singling out all those who oppose the coalition government of socialists and communists, as if disagreeing with them were a crime. Sometimes this collaboration with power is limited to placing the focus where the government indicates it and abandoning the mission of monitoring power to a point that should embarrass any journalist.

Let's look at two examples of this. These last two days, many Spanish media outlets have had a piñata as their cover story, due to the PSOE's protest over a piñata with the image of Pedro Sánchez in the protests against the socialists in Madrid. Some media have had the dignity to remember that the PSOE has done worse things, but others don't even do that. It is about criminalizing, in any case, the opposition, applying a blatant double standard, which demands convictions if the opposition does one thing and dictates silence if the left does the same thing.

In the end, what is current is dictated by the government and the media obeys. If they tell us that we have to talk about the piñata, we talk about it and the rest doesn't matter. If the government decides that the current topic is a kiss from a soccer player, it obeys and covers are dedicated to it daily. In this way, the media become inquisitors at the service of power, if only by fixing the focus where the government decides.

Things change if we move away from that focus. Yesterday you could read in Contando Estrelas that the party of two Sánchez ministers has recognized that it is inspired by the communist dictatorship of Cuba, a dictatorship that has been in power for 65 years without free elections, violating human rights, imprisoning, torturing and murdering those who call for democracy and all those who criticize that tyrannical government.

In any other democratic country it would be a scandal for a ruling party to support a dictatorship in a public, open and shameless manner as the Communist Party of Spain has done, in which two female ministers are active. However, that information, whose source is public and available to anyone, has only appeared in Counting Stars. No other media has echoed it.

It is difficult to explain that in a country like Spain this happens: a piñata in a protest is news while the support of one of the government parties for a dictatorship is silenced. Don't the journalists who do this feel ashamed of allowing themselves to be manipulated in this crude way? Is that why you studied journalism at a university, so that now the government tells them what they should talk about?

---

Photo: PSOE.