..... HAS AN UNEXPECTED VICTIM:
JOURNALISM
The
Spanish media has been ravaged by the country's recession, and not just
economically. The crisis has also sparked serious challenges to its
credibility.
By Andrés Cala
In SPAIN’S transformational economic
crisis, no industry has escaped unscathed. But one of the biggest casualties is
an unusual one: journalism.
Thousands of jobs have been lost and
dozens of outlets have been shut down, denying newsrooms of some of its most
veteran and talented professionals.
And the SPANISH media isn't just
hurting in terms of raw numbers – it's also taken hits to its most valued
asset: credibility.
“Beyond a doubt, this is the worst
crisis SPANISH journalism has endured so far,” says Elsa González, president of
the Federation of SPANISH Journalist Association. “We have to regain the trust
of society that we have lost to a great extent.”
JOURNALISTS EASY PREY TO MAINLY CORPORATE PRESSURE
It’s not just the expected result of
citizens’ loss of institutional trust amid the grueling global economic crisis.
Increased politicization and institutional weakness are making journalists easy
prey to government and corporate pressure, experts say, leading to blatant
cases of political and corporate manipulation and serious editorial mistakes in
even the most reputable publications and broadcasters.
In fact, SPANIARDS trust journalists
just a sliver more than lawyers, according to a poll released Feb. 20. Only 53
percent of SPANIARDS say journalists are honest, compared to 51 percent for
lawyers, 80 percent for police, 88 percent for teachers, and more than 90
percent for health professionals. Bankers and members of parliament came in at
12 percent and 11 percent respectively.
MEDIA COMPANIES IN SPAIN ARE CONTROLLED BY CORPORATELY OWNED
BY BANKS, LARGE CORPORATE TYCOONS, AND EVEN THE CATHOLIC CHURCH
“Reporters should be addressing
society’s concerns, and they shouldn’t be as conditioned by their sources and
the owners of their companies, but we are witnessing the opposite,” says Ramón
Salaverría, director of journalistic projects in the School of Communication of
Navarra University, and expert on industry trends. “Outlets are more interested
in their corporate results than in their public.”
To make things worse, media
companies in SPAIN are either controlled by the government, or corporately
owned by banks, large corporate tycoons, and even the Catholic Church. “From
that point of view, [society] feels media companies lack independence of vested
interests, and respond to ideological and economic clientlism.”
The economic crisis and resulting
transformation of SPANISH society are further alienating journalists, Mrs.
González says. “Journalists are taking part in the country’s radicalization.
The politicization is illustrated especially in the absence of transparency as
a result of the weakness of journalism. [Journalists] ascribe to different
sides because they have no other choice.”
“The errors and lost credibility are
not a coincidence,” says Dr. Salaverría. “You can’t do good journalism without
good journalists.”
Between 2008 and 2012, nearly 10,000
journalists lost their jobs, almost half of them in 2012, and 73 outlets shut
down. The top editorial teams of every major news organization were “beheaded,”
González of the journalist federation says. “The biggest enemy of independence
is unemployment and precariousness, always waiting to be fired.”
The average age in SPANISH newsrooms
has plummeted since the beginning of the crisis to the early 30s, Salaverría
says, from late 40s. As corporate revenue shrinks and stock prices plummet,
companies “are leaving newsrooms without teachers, with few flight hours.”
The most embarrassing – and telling
– case involved the world’s most read newspaper in Spanish and Spain’s most
respected daily: EL Pais. On Jan. 4, the newspaper made “one of the most
serious mistakes of its history,” as it admitted in a story tracing in detail the
makings of its error.
El País published a front page
picture which allegedly showed VENEZUELAN President Hugo Chavez with a tube
connected through his mouth. Mr. Chávez has been receiving treatment for
cancer, and his condition has been kept under tight wraps by his government.
Uncovering and publishing evidence of his current status, like the picture,
would be a media coup.
But the picture turned out to be a
fake provided by an agency. Most printed copies were collected throughout the
country before they hit stands, and the newspaper immediately apologized and
reprinted a new edition at a cost of 225,000 EUR, it said.
The VENEZUELAN government has yet to
take legal action, as it threatened. Nonetheless, being called out for shoddy
screening on such a high-profile topic is a major black eye to El País.
But the biggest concern is editorial
manipulation from government-financed public television and radio, one of the
most popular sources of information in SPAIN that is legally mandated to
reflect balanced content representing all SPANIARDS.
Regional and national governments
have historically and readily imposed political agendas on the media they
control, with swinging editorial lines depending on what party is in power. But
amid the crisis, manipulation has been blatant. Journalists have denounced
pressure, and reader complaints and legal suits against media outlets have
increased.
Independent media companies are more
subtle, but like in the rest of EUROPE, they are heavily ideologically biased,
and allegiances to political parties are obvious, a lot more so than in the US.
It has come to the point that
protestors increasingly decry journalists’ ties to the elite in almost daily
anti-austerity rallies, at times violently.
Another rising concern is corporate
ability to influence reporters, either directly through coercion by threatening
vital advertising, or indirectly by bullying journalists into self-censorship,
experts say.
“Editors are favoring profit-making
and boosting their audience. And amid the loss of credibility, companies have
not invested in journalistic rigor,” González says.
“Are we meeting the demands of
society?” she asked. “Not so much in some cases.”
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