RTVE, threatened

There are more subtle ways to threaten. “I think RTVE will lose the election. I hope the leaders of this party will resign the next day,” tweeted Esteban González Pons, deputy secretary of the People’s Party. “You better not go. I don’t see it and I don’t go.” He said it after its leader, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, had been asked some uncomfortable questions and remarks on the group, which journalists from that house had to make. He said it before Feijóo, as he declared, stood in discussion to four against three in Torrespaña.

I think that @employee You will lose the election. And I hope the leaders of that party will resign the next day, as all parties do when they lose an election they are running.
You better not go. I do not see her and do not go.

– Gonzalez Ponce (@gonzalezpons) July 17, 2023

Xabier Fortes, who led with skill and wisdom Two electoral debates On RTVE where what was said is understood, He reprimanded in La noche en 24h: “If you don’t see us, I’m so sorry for you, and I think you miss it.” He added, “We are not a political party either. We are public television, professional, and journalists. Sometimes we are right, sometimes we are wrong. Especially today, Silvia Intxaurrondo did what she had to do.” Intxaurrondo noted To Feijóo, with data in hand, it is not true that PP governments have not always updated pensions in accordance with the CPI.

In an ideal world, we would like to protect the independence of RTVE like that of the BBC or, say, the Bank of Spain. That the officials were elected under a broad and cross-sectional parliamentary pact (this only happened once: when Zapatero agreed Appointment of Alberto Ollart as President in 2009), that its directors are all highly regarded professionals, and that their mandates are irrevocable simply because Moncloa’s tenant has changed hands. But we cannot wait for state covenants on this object of desire of the parties when they were not even able to renew the judicial bodies as provided for in the Constitution. Feijóo has said today that he would like it for RTVE “more consensual direction”; That doesn’t sit well with how Pons expects heads to roll.

In the country we know we live in, which is not perfect, we consider that if the government changes, the RTVE chiefs and most of their faces will, and that the journalists now appointed will disappear from the screen. And we are content to hope that those who solve them will not respond to the dossiers of the combatants, that they will let the good professionals in that house do so, and that times as dark as the ones we live in will no longer return. In the very tragic days of March 2004.

If González Pons never watches TVE, he is not alone: there are many who only want to see and listen to those who agree with them. But it is possible to demand the respect of viewers who, with various governments, have chosen to inform ourselves on public television, on account of their experience, rather than on any private person. You may be asked to respect journalism, which we acknowledge. Which is sometimes uncomfortable, of course, or it wouldn’t be journalism. RTVE has a mission, but it’s not to keep the politicians who make up their minds happy about it.

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