There was a president who won an election against all odds. He achieved it after visiting the most hopeless areas of his country, where he promised to stand firm against the establishment and make a substantial change in the way politics is done. “We must govern for the people, not for the elites,” he expressed at every public event.
Throughout his campaign and subsequent mandate, he constantly mentioned the term fake news. All media outlets acted against him and conspired against him. Any information about him or his family was false, and only a large group of media supported him and told the truth.
That president was not Pedro Sánchez, but Donald Trump. The media company that supported him was not listed as Promotora de Informaciones SA but was Fox, owned by Rupert Murdoch; which, by the way, had to face a $787 million fine for defaming those Trump considered his enemies. For knowingly lying, in fact. After all, those who lied paid the price. The courts worked. In Spain, there are also media and journalists convicted. Both civilly and criminally.
The first lesson that could be drawn from this episode is clear: it is wise to be careful with those who denounce the existence of media armies that discredit the current government with fake news… because perhaps that discourse is part of a strategy to accuse others of engaging in practices that are more common in the accuser than in the accused. Does Donald Trump or Pedro Sánchez never lie? What about their sympathetic press? Is it to be assumed that those who write in favor never manipulate?
The president and his friends.
All these questions came to mind while listening to the interviews that the president gave to RTVE and Cadena SER a few hours after announcing ‘his decision’, which is to try to restore harmony by acting against those who hinder it, which are only the critics.
Sánchez insisted on RTVE that he is willing to dialogue – with parliamentary groups, media companies, and professional associations – about the possible ways to reduce the influence on Spanish society of lying media, those of the far-right.
He also called for increased transparency in media companies to know who is behind each of them, a concept that caught attention. Transparency? For others or for himself as well? Because it doesn’t seem very ‘transparent’ to hide from journalists, as he did on Monday.
After the melodrama staged during the previous five days – planned by the party, although they deny it – he announced his desire to continue in office through a statement without questions. He didn’t even allow the media to attend the event, in which he, by the way, revealed his plans to change the functioning of two fundamental powers in any liberal democracy – the judicial and the media – without offering any clues about the path to be followed.
After this exceptional exercise in opacity, he appeared on public television for an interview – very well done by Marta Carazo – in which some quite relevant questions were not asked. For example: if nobody was aware of his decision, why did he ask the CIS about what he stated in his statement? And why – perhaps by chance – was that biased survey released precisely on Monday?
Àngels’ usual thing
The president could justify his appearance on TVE due to the importance of public television. He is not wrong in this sense, given that this medium forces Spaniards to contribute 1.200 million euros annually. However, this Tuesday he did not hesitate to go to Cadena SER to talk with Ángeles Barceló, who was as uninvestigative as usual. Even less than usual. In fact, she has even admitted to the president that she, in her inner self, perhaps in her sleepless nights, sometimes reflects on the damage caused by misinformation.
She was referring – obviously – to right-wing pseudo-media. There are no pseudo-media on the left. Journalists in line with the PSOE sometimes make mistakes. The others knowingly lie.
The attitude of these political and media spokespersons is so brazen that they are even willing to resolve the eternal philosophical debate on what is true, false, casual, and circumstantial. Because where is the difference between truth and lies, and between serious media and pseudo-media? Is El Confidencial an ultra-right newspaper for spreading Begoña Gómez’s information? Is the one writing these lines ultra for criticizing Sánchez’s strategy and trumpist and polarizing speech?
Is it possible that the lies that come out of the president’s mouth are not lies or are transmuted into truth simply by being uttered by him?
For some reason, no journalist has been able or willing to pose this question to Sánchez, which, in reality, could be asked in another way: “Mr. President, if you are worried about the media lying about you, but at the same time, you frequently engage in such behavior, are you asking the press to turn a blind eye to your lies… because it benefits you?”
Maybe that’s the key. And maybe someone could see a certain similarity between Sánchez and Al Pacino’s Scarface who said: “I always tell the truth, even when I lie.”
