The government of Pedro Sanchez will decide “what is a media” and “real professionals” when the democratic regeneration plan that the Executive approved this Tuesday in the Council of Ministers. It was Sánchez himself, in response to the journalistic investigations carried out by media such as OKDIARIO, which led to the accusation of his wife, Begoña Gomezwhich announced in the first quarter of the year the approval of a new regulatory framework to control critical media.
The Ministers of the Presidency, Justice and Relations with Justice, Felix Bolanosand that of Culture, Ernest Urtasunwere responsible for detailing this plan, which must now be partially validated by the Congress of Deputies. The social-communist coalition was therefore forced to give in to certain historical demands of its partners, such as the reform of the Official Secrets Act or the Insults to the Crown Act or the flag of Spain, so that Junts, ERC, Bildu or the PNV give the green light to the muzzling of the press.
The head of Culture and Sumar’s spokesman, Ernest Urtasun, will be in charge of implementing the control measures on media publishing companies. For Urtasun, this is a “first step, based on the certainty that much remains to be done.” According to him, “it is essential that administrations do not finance ‘fake news'” and he believes that work must be done to “support the work of real professionals“.
The plan, divided into three axes and includes 31 measures, including legislative changes such as the rforms of crimes against honor or rectificationtransposes several European directives that, according to Bolaños, should serve to “strengthen the clean up our democracy and offer our media greater transparency. The socialist super-minister, who has repeatedly denied special funding for Catalonia or the approval of the amnesty, stressed that “European democracies suffer from risks related to hoaxes and disinformation.”
Regarding the measures affecting the media, the Executive will instruct the National Commission for the Communications Market and the National Commission for the Securities Market to determine which media meet the requirements act as such.
He will be promoted, Urtasun explained, new law on professional secrecy for the protection of journalistic sources and the protection of professionals against external harassment and unfounded complaints, such as those that the President of the Government had announced at the time but never presented against media such as OKDIARIO for reporting his false thesis.
The Executive also proposes a “revision of the regulatory framework to guarantee political pluralism in the media” and “avoid media oligopolies that undermine the right of citizens to pluralistic information”. Likewise, the law on institutional advertising will be reformed to provide it with greater transparency, proportionality and non-discrimination and “audience measurement systems so that they comply with verified data”, which are those that determine private advertising in the media.
Other reforms
The democratic regeneration plan, in addition to directly affecting the media and the companies that manage them, will have an impact direct impact also on electoral processes with the reform of the electoral law or with institutional communication itself. In the first case, Candidates will be required to attend election debatesalthough Sánchez himself refused to attend a few years ago. In the second, the Executive wants to expand its own information channels to “have greater contact with citizens” and “make it easier for citizens to know and understand the measures we are adopting to improve their living conditions.”
