The workers' councils of the public media have denounced the "deterioration of informative independence" in Radio Televisión Canaria, the Andalusian television and radio station Canal Sur, and in À Punt, the Valencian public radio and television.
In a press release issued this Tuesday, they recalled that Valencian television broadcast "a bullfight on the day of the last demonstration against the management of the DANA [isolated high-altitude depression] by the Valencian president, Carlos Mazón (PP)."
At the same time, they have exposed the coverage by Canal Sur "of the scandal over errors in breast cancer screening in Andalusia," which has generated "outrage among the public broadcaster's own staff." The workers have sent a letter to the AMAMA association, which uncovered the case, showing their solidarity with those affected, and "criticizing the channel's concealment of this health crisis."
Meanwhile, in the Canary Islands, the reform of the law that regulates Radio Television is being prepared in such a way that it "makes possible the outsourcing of news services, while President Fernando Clavijo (CC) publicly stated that the television belongs to the Government."Outsourcing services "in a coordinated manner"The public media platform denounces that these types of actions "are repeated as a result of the parties' desire for political control and the greed of audiovisual companies." Thus, in this sense, they have indicated that the coordination of outsourcing policies reaches the point that "certain articles of the laws of the regional radio and television organizations are literally copied from one community to another."The platform was created last spring to share the problems experienced by radio and television organizations. In view of the common elements that are repeated, a mobilization is being prepared to denounce the bad practices of Forta, the Federation of Autonomous Televisions.
The Public RTVs platform also intends to initiate a round of talks with the political groups in the Congress of Deputies to present common concerns. This initiative comes a few months after the entry into force of the European Media Freedom Act. This regulation foresees the obligation of governments to guarantee the editorial independence of public media. According to their complaint, the implementation of this regulation in Spain "is happening at a very slow pace and involves assigning oversight in this area to the National Commission on Markets and Competition."
The public media platform has stated that "the problem of information manipulation also concerns private media." "If public media are weak in the face of political power, private media are in the face of economic power. Those responsible for managing advertising in private media frequently interfere in the decision on informative content," they said. "Only some latest-generation digital media have begun to take measures against the phenomenon. All of this indicates that the problem is common and constitutes a sign of a lack of quality in Spanish democracy," they continued.
The works councils have pledged to intensify the mobilizations that they have been carrying out separately, agreeing to converge in a historic day of simultaneous strike action with the date still pending. It could be called on the day of the Christmas lottery or coincide with the parliamentary processing of the new regulatory law for Canary Islands public radio and television, which they consider "highly damaging."
The public media platform invites Spanish society to "become aware of a problem that prevents the country from progressing to the level of the most advanced democracies in the European Union."
The platform is formed by the works councils of À Punt, RTV Andalucía and Canal Sur, EiTB, IB3, RTV Asturias, RTV Aragón, RTV Canarias, RTV Castilla y La Mancha, RTV Extremadura, TeleMadrid, CRTV Galicia, TV3 Cataluña.