Current Affairs: Spanish state broadcaster TVE accused of political bias

Spanish state broadcaster TVE accused of political bias

For more than 50 years millions of Spaniards have sat down each night to watch the Telediario, the flagship news programme of state broadcaster TVE. In recent months, however, the channel has not just been reporting the news — but making it as well.

TVE and its news programmes stand accused of blatantly favouring the government of Mariano Rajoy and his ruling Popular party, while sidelining opposition voices.

The channel’s own journalists have grown so concerned about political interference that they sent a delegation to Brussels this month to make a formal complaint to the European parliament. In a seven-page document, they describe TVE as a “propaganda instrument in the service of the government” — and chronicle a series of alleged journalistic lapses and manipulations.

With regional elections only a month away and a general election at the end of the year, Spain’s national broadcaster has turned into a crucial political battlefield.

“I have been with the channel for 30 years, and I have to say that it has never been this bad,” says Alejandro Caballero, president of TVE’s information council, an internal ethics watchdog elected by the channel’s editorial staff. “What we want is a channel that is in the service of the public. What we have is a channel that is an instrument of the government, and that is being put to use by the government.”

Some believe the controversy at TVE is symptomatic of a much broader problem in Spain. Analysts such as Victor Lapuente, a governance expert at Gothenburg university, argue that far too many of Spain’s public institutions — from the judiciary and the prosecution service to the civil service and state-backed media — are made to serve the interests of the government of the day.

“The prevailing culture in Spain is that the victor should enjoy the spoils,” he says, pointing out that “thousands of positions” change hands whenever a new government is elected. “But the problem is not just that people are hired or fired — the problem is that civil servants know that being politically neutral will not help their career prospects.”

Founded in 1957, TVE — short for Televisión Española — served for many years as a propaganda instrument for the dictatorship of Francisco Franco. Even when Spain returned to democracy in the late 1970, the station regularly drew fire for alleged political bias. Now, however, the trickle of complaints has turned into a torrent.

Mr Caballero and others say the channel systematically downplays or suppresses items that could damage Mr Rajoy’s government, most notably stories involving political corruption. Critics have also rounded on TVE’s coverage of the Catalan independence movement and of Podemos, the new anti-establishment party, saying both are habitually presented in an unfavourable light or marginalised.

In the case of Catalonia, for example, a September rally drawing more than 1m pro-independence protesters was given almost the same weight as a tiny anti-independence demonstration that took place the same day.
 

Pablo Iglesias, the leader of Podemos, has never been interviewed on TVE’s main channel, despite attracting huge interest from other Spanish and international media. When he was eventually invited to appear on the late-night slot of the broadcaster’s 24-hour news channel, he was confronted by five fiercely hostile interviewers, one of whom “congratulated” Mr Iglesias on the recent release of prisoners from the Basque region convicted of terrorism and murder.

Senior TVE executives strongly deny allegations of political bias. “Our reporting is based on journalistic criteria, not political ones. We always lead with the story of the day,” one top official at the channel said.

In a statement to parliament this month José Antonio Sánchez, TVE’s government-appointed president, insisted that “editorial freedom is respected and neutrality is guaranteed” at the broadcaster, and that it was up to the “independent professional” to prepare the news.

Yet there is growing concern also about some recent appointments at the channel. The past year in particular has seen an influx of executives and journalists from rightwing and pro-government media, raising suspicions among veteran TVE journalists that the channel’s directors are trying to establish a “parallel” editorial team ahead of the general election. The new director of TVE’s regional office in Catalonia, for example, is the former spokesman of the PP leader in the northern region.

The previous Socialist government of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero did attempt to break the link between state broadcaster and the ruling party by passing a law that required a two-thirds parliamentary majority to appoint the channel’s president. That requirement was abolished, however, shortly after Mr Rajoy took office in 2011 — giving the PP a clear run once again.

Whatever happens after the general election, many TVE journalists hope that the two-thirds provision will be restored — forcing parliament to find a consensus around a new non-partisan leadership. “The next prime minister will have to take some serious decisions about public radio and television in Spain,” says Mr Caballero. “The current model does not work — and we are being taken ever closer to the abyss.”

 

Three areas where TVE has been accused of bias and favouring the government
	Corruption Spain’s state broadcaster is accused of underplaying a string of corruption cases that have engulfed Mariano Rajoy’s ruling Popular party. The centre-right group has been shaken in particular by revelations that Luis Bárcenas, a former party treasurer, presided over an illegal slush fund that it was alleged was used to make undeclared cash payments to senior PP leaders. Mr Rajoy and other officials have repeatedly denied the allegations made by Mr Bárcenas.
	Catalan independence Another area of concern is the Catalan independence campaign, which critics say has struggled to get a fair hearing on Spain’s public television news. Last year’s mass rally in the regional capital Barcelona in support of a break with Madrid — which attracted more than 1m people — was given almost the same attention as a much smaller anti-independence rally. Mr Rajoy has made opposition to Catalonian independence a key plank of his campaign strategy.
	Podemos TVE has also faced accusations of downplaying the rise of the anti-establishment Podemos — “We Can” — movement, and overt hostility towards its leader and founder, Pablo Iglesias. When Mr Iglesias was interviewed on TVE’s 24-hour news channel, one presenter “congratulated” him on the recent release of terrorists from the Basque region. Recent polls suggest Podemos could emerge as one of the biggest parties in the next parliament.

Finance&Economics: As Spanish unemployment ticks up again, many workers are sinking into poverty

Spain's recovery

Not doing the job

As Spanish unemployment ticks up again, many workers are sinking into poverty

 “THEY are good figures, we should celebrate,” said Mariano Rajoy, Spain’s prime minister, after data released on April 23rd showed the country’s recovering economy had created close to half a million jobs over the past year. Many Spaniards were feeling less than festive. Since the euro crisis hit in 2010, Spain’s astronomical unemployment rates have vied with Greece's for first place in Europe; they have fallen from a high of 27% in 2013, but slowly. Indeed, the unemployment rate increased slightly in the first quarter, to 23.8%. And in the working-class Madrid neighbourhood of Vallecas the figures did nothing to lift the gloom.

“Without the money my father gives us from his pension we would be lost,” says Elsa Carmona, a 39-year-old mother of two. “That's how it is for many families—six people living off one person's income.” Her husband, a former construction welder, recently found a job gardening for nine hours a week, but it does not cover their €800 ($867) per month mortgage. Like many of their neighbours in this, one of the Spanish capital's poorest districts (where one in five are jobless), Ms Carmona's family receives no state money. Her husband's unemployment benefits ran out a year ago. They received a small payment from the regional government of Madrid for a few months, but that has also ended.

Ms Carmona does whatever odd jobs she can find, such as covering for shop assistants on their holidays. Spain has a state-run jobs agency, the National Employment Institute (INEM), but Ms Carmona says it has never found her work: “That only comes by word of mouth.” The Carmonas have not paid their mortgage in two years and are behind on utility bills. A local food bank has helped feed the two children, aged four and 15. Ms Carmona’s brother-in-law has pledged to put her elder son through university. Spaniards have a long tradition of keeping up appearances, and many of Elsa's neighbours are too ashamed to admit to their growing poverty. “That's why you don't see it on the streets,” she says. Cáritas, a Roman Catholic church charity, helped one in twenty Spaniards last year.

The gap between the government-championed economic figures and the reality of many people's lives explains why Mr Rajoy's centre-right Popular Party (PP) has shed half its support since winning an absolute majority at the 2011 general election. The bump in first-quarter unemployment was partly seasonal as temporary Christmas jobs were shed, but the five European regions with the worst unemployment are all in Spain, according to Eurostat figures. Southern Andalucía, Spain's most populous region, leads the list at a whopping 35%. Almost half of the country's unemployed have not worked for more than two years.

Many Spaniards are like Elsa and her husband: neither fully employed, nor fully unemployed. The economics team at the Ciudadanos party sees a growing number of working poor, with incomes below the state-set annual minimum wage of €9,080 ($9,830). About 24% of salaried workers are on temporary contracts; half of those quizzed by the country's Labour Force Survey say their contracts are for fewer than six months. Part-time jobs now account for 16% of the total. Young people and immigrants are leaving the country, shrinking the labour force—and making the high unemployment rate all the more striking.

José Ignacio Pérez Infante, of Spain's Association of Labour Economics, worries that the rapid increase in construction jobs in the last quarter means the country is heading back to the bricks-and-mortar growth model that pumped up a housing bubble earlier in the century. The IMF thinks it will take Spain until 2017 to return its economy to the size it was in 2008, before the bubble burst.

Economic growth is running at around 3%, but that is not yet enough. Mr Rajoy's PP hopes growth and jobs will eventually help it emerge on top of the polls, which are currently split equally between the PP, the Socialists, the liberal-minded Ciudadanos, and the upstart left-wing Podemos party. But the PP's reputation as a trustworthy manager of the economy has been hurt by cronyism and corruption. Rodrigo Rato, the former PP finance minister and IMF boss, was temporarily detained last week by police investigating allegations of tax fraud.

Mr Rajoy's economic recovery has arrived too late to save his party at the regional and municipal elections due across much of Spain on May 24th. It is unlikely to have created stable jobs in Vallecas, or many other parts of the country, by the time a general election is held at the end of this year. And it may come too late for the Carmonas. Elsa is not sure how long the Santander bank will defer repossessing her apartment. The government's future is now just as uncertain as that of Spanish workers.

Study reveals top 50 things that make people in Britain feel 'great'

Study reveals top 50 things that make people in Britain feel 'great' – and they are mostly free

The Independent

It’s said that the simple things in life are often the best – and the British public appears to agree.

In a survey asking 2,000 people what it was that made them “feel great”, a staggering 62 per cent listed sleeping in a freshly-made bed.

While some of the feel-good factors people chose implied expenditure – like the smell of a new car (34th), the scent of fine wine (37th) or the royal family (50th) – many of the best come for free.

Second in the top 50, listed by 57 per cent of respondents, was “feeling the sun on your face”, while simply “being thanked” or kindness from a stranger came third with 53 per cent.

The survey, commissioned by Bupa, found that Britons are more takers than givers, with “doing something for others” relegated to 9th place.

The full table of results 

1. Sleeping in a freshly made bed – 62%

2. Feeling the sun on your face – 57%

3. Being thanked, or a random act of kindness from a stranger – 53%

4. Finding money in unexpected places – 52%

5. Having time to yourself – 48%

6. Laughing so hard it hurts – 48%

7. Snuggling on the sofa with a loved one – 44%

8. Smelling freshly made bread – 43%

9. Doing something for others – 43%

10. Feeling clean after a shower – 42%

11. Your favourite song coming on the radio – 42%

12. Finding a bargain in the sales – 41%

13. Listening to rainfall/thunderstorms when indoors – 40%

14. Drinking freshly brewed tea or coffee – 39%

15. The thrill of personal achievement at work or completing a physical challenge – 38%

16. Having a long, hot bath – 36%

17. Seeing a fresh coating of snow – 34%

18. The smell of freshly cut grass – 34%

19. Chocolate melting in your mouth – 33%

20. Doing something active outdoors like a bike ride, run or country walk – 32%

21. Cooking bacon in the morning – 32%

22. Talking to or playing with your pet – 30%

23. A soothing massage – 30%

24. That ‘Friday feeling’ – 30%

25. Eating a perfectly cooked steak – 29%

26. Waking up before the alarm and realising there’s more time to sleep – 28%

27. Exercising – 24%

28. Seeing a rainbow – 23%

29. Remembering the name of someone or something you thought you’d forgotten – 23%

30. Baking a perfect cake or pie – 23%

31. Stepping on crunchy autumn leaves – 21%

32. Popping bubble wrap – 20%

33. Swimming in the sea or lake – 20%

34. The smell of a new car – 20%

35. Dancing like no one’s watching – 19%

36. The smell of new books or magazines – 19%

37. The smell of a fine wine – 16%

38. Setting your ‘out of office’ message before going on holiday – 15%

39. Putting on a brand new pair of socks – 14%

40. Watching your breath float away in cold air – 12%

41. Getting new stationery – 11%

42. Singing in the shower – 11%

43. Getting a seat on the bus, train or Tube – 11%

44. Picking an orange from the fruit bowl that is easy to peel – 9%

45. Loosening your jeans after eating – 9%

46. The ‘pop’ when opening a new jar of jam – 9%

47. Squeezing a spot – 8%

48. Cleaning your ears – 8%

49. Cleaning the bathroom – 6%

50. Thinking about the Royal family – 4%

TV presenter Tess Daly, launching the Bupa campaign, said: “We all have those little things that make us feel great – for me it’s feeling the sun on my face.”

The survey also found that the extent to which we feel great regularly is linked to our age. While more than a fifth of over-55s said they have a moment where they feel great every day, across the whole age spectrum just one in eight (12.5 per cent) said they felt great more than once a month.

Daly said that “with modern society being so busy people struggle to find the time and lack the inspiration to enjoy a feel great moment”.