Scots launch Catalan Defence Committee to defend democracy

[Denzil_DC]

14. Really? The Guardian's even worse than I thought then (which is pretty bad).

Last edited Mon Oct 23, 2017, 10:21 PM - Edit history (4)

From 2015:

Miguel Ángel Aguilar, 72, had worked on and off for El País, Spain’s biggest news daily, since 1980. Since 1994 he had written a weekly column for the paper and he is one of the country’s most respected political commentators.

But this week El País pulled the plug on Aguilar’s column after he told the New York Times that the Spanish newspaper’s financial problems were compromising its editorial line.

“Working at El País used to be the dream of any Spanish journalist,” he was quoted as saying in the New York Times article, published on November 5. “But now there are people so exasperated that they’re leaving, sometimes even with the feeling that the situation has reached levels of censorship.”

The article looked at how the Spanish media’s heavy debts meant it was often in hock to corporate interests and that El País was one example, allegedly censoring its own journalists’ articles about companies that were financing its parent firm.

https://www.politico.eu/article/el-pais-goes-to-war-with-the-new-york-times/

From 2017:

El Pais sacks Times essayist John Carlin for Catalonia article attacking King of Spain

A veteran British journalist has been sacked by El Pais, the Spanish newspaper, over an article in The Times criticising the handling of the Catalonia crisis by Madrid and King Felipe.

The centre-left daily ended the contract of John Carlin, 61, who has been contributing to El Pais since 1998, as a result of his essay in Saturday’s Times that was headlined “Catalan independence: arrogance of Madrid explains this chaos”.

Carlin, who has a Spanish mother and lived for 15 years in Catalonia, wrote that Mariano Rajoy and his conservative government had largely provoked the crisis by failing to understand feelings in the region and refusing compromise.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/el-pais-sacks-times-essayist-for-article-attacking-king-of-spain-s3cl95bms

(See also:
El País goes to war with the New York Times)

Columbia Journalism Review: Spain’s Not-So-Free Press

Columbia Journalism Review: Under Spain’s gag law, covering the news could cost you

Irish Times: Parable of 'El País' bodes ill for democratic media

New York Times: Spain’s News Media Are Squeezed by Government and Debt

Freedom House: Freedom of the Press 2016 Country Report - Spain

European Centre for Press & Media Freedom: The politicisation of the media over Catalonia

BBC: Catalonian media reflect polarised Spanish society

Index on Censorship: Catalan referendum: The media becomes a target as tensions escalate

And for balance, if we're relying on artists for opinions, here's a range of them: How artists view Catalonia's independence crisis

I could go on, but it's late here, and I doubt you're persuadable anyway.

Suggest what you want. I'd no more expect to get a full picture of Spanish-Catalan tensions from someone whose sole long quote on the issue in this thread is a column by Marías, whose long-held views on this are well known, posted as if it were gospel, than if someone who lived in London (Jersey might be more apt in your case, I guess) quoted an establishment columnist's opinion as the last definitive word on Scottish separatism (and as an adopted Scot, I know not to bother looking in the Guardian for much balance in coverage of Scottish affairs).

Oh, and:

I suggest you attempt to get on air on TV3 in Catalonia voicing a point of view opposed to the fanatics.

I think Rajoy's ahead of both of us there:

UK Press Gazette: Spain threatens takeover of Catalonian public broadcaster over pro-independence propaganda claims