Who should be a journalist?
The text now submitted for public consultation states that a journalist is "any natural or legal person who professionally engages in the search, processing, and dissemination of truthful information of public interest, through any means of communication, in order to enforce the right to information."
Thus, the Spanish Association of Universities with Information and Communication Degrees (ATIC), which brings together around fifty university centers that provide training in these fields, demands that only those with a university degree can be considered journalists. In their opinion, only a "person who, having a specific university degree in Journalism or Communication (or equivalent), or protected by the transitional provision, investigates, contrasts, elaborates and disseminates truthful information of public interest through journalistic techniques, subject to codes of ethics and, where appropriate, to the applicable association regulations" can be a journalist.
It is evident that a large group, throughout the national territory, of graduates, degree holders, or those with qualifications in the unimaginable university disciplines of knowledge, and those without such qualifications, who, for the sake of understanding, we could call collaborators, charlatans, and even salaried information workers, make up a sector that, under the protection of freedom of information [is an extension of freedom of expression, a fundamental human right [recognized by international law, which is currently considered in a general sense, encompassing freedom of expression in all types of media, whether oral, written, printed, via the Internet, or through artistic forms. This means that the protection of freedom of expression is a right that includes not only the content but also the means of expression used. Freedom of information can also refer to the right to privacy in the context of the Internet and information technology. As with freedom of expression, the right to privacy is a recognized human right, and freedom of information functions as an extension of that right.
Article 20 of the Spanish Constitution regulates the so-called "area of communication," recognizing a series of rights in the different sections: a) the right to "freely express and disseminate thoughts, ideas, and opinions through speech, writing, or any other means of reproduction." b) the right to "literary, artistic, scientific, and technical production or creation." c) the right to freedom of teaching. d) to freely communicate or receive truthful information by any means of dissemination. It also designs the constitutional framework for the media; the guarantees and limits of these rights; and those of information professionals.
Article 20 guarantees the formation of free public opinion, and, therefore, the right to information becomes a right against manipulated information. To this end, the Constitution does not guarantee any information, but only truthful information; which does not require that the facts or expressions contained in the information be strictly true; but that it must be understood as a reasonable truthfulness, which is obtained through the duty of diligence of the informant; depriving of the constitutional guarantee anyone who, defrauding everyone's right to communication, acts with contempt for the veracity or falsity of what is communicated.
Last May 16, we read an amusing text from El Mundo Today in El País that, under the title "I am a self-taught neurosurgeon and what I know about the 'brain' I learned on the street," humorously denounced the professional encroachment experienced by many professions in our country. It is the daily bread in most guilds, and if not, think, how many escape the problem? Few. Perhaps the most specialized, and not even then.
And what is the umbrella under which such a practice is covered, which ends in the dishonest practice of professional intruders, who have cut corners and what this means for the journalism career, which generally lasts four years in most countries and universities, including Spain, versus the self-interested obtaining and application of 7 Golden Rules of Journalism
- Respect for the truth. ...
- To exercise the rights to inform with honesty. ...
- Respect the rights of others. ...
- Especially protect minors. ...
Commit to respecting copyright...
To use dignified methods and act with professional integrity. To champion the principle of the presumption of innocence
I fear that these maxims cannot form a practice as the basis of "intrusiveness" in a global right that subjectively protects loquacious social climbers and an entire fauna of "sine título" [without a degree], who influence the development of an academic profession, and under letters of marque, license, concession or permission of "freedom of expression" run wild, practicing a university profession, which with a terrible formal defect, makes them worthy of free academic achievements in what is called the "fourth estate."
Ryszard Kapuscinski sentenced with phrases like these, in which the vulnerability of things becomes so ductile and malleable in an absolutely dystopian world.
"When it was discovered that information was a business, the truth stopped being important."
“What was once merely a source of information has today become an instrument for shaping public opinion.”
Reflections through which, progressively, the keys to this absolutely unfair framework are obtained, of a profession that is a "sinkhole" of economic interests, doctrines, and systematic manipulation.
The Penal Code, in its article 403, specifies that the following is considered professional intrusion: "the performance of acts specific to a profession without possessing the corresponding official qualification, as well as the performance of acts specific to a profession without possessing the corresponding academic degree issued or recognized in Spain."
