TVE News Oversight Council denounces "threats" and "a purge" against editor

BarcelonaThe News Oversight Council of Televisión Española (TVE) (Spain’s Public Television Corporation) believes that "a purge" has been carried out within the station’s News Department. The council has complained that an editor for the National News Section has been transferred to "Los Desayunos" (a morning show). According to the News Oversight Council, the journalist has been "threatened and intimidated" by the management of the department. In a statement, the News Council explained that this editor "has been summoned to the head office several times, following the management's strategy of intimidation and threats towards journalists who defend their work and who refuse to compromise their ethical principles”.

The conflict between the editor and management came to a head when he refused to sign a news story about the case of the Interior Minister’s tapes (1). According to the News Council, the journalist expressed his disagreement with the angle imposed by management. Indeed, TVE workers protested because management did not want to broadcast the tapes. The recordings could only be heard on La 2 Noticias (on the second channel), a news program hosted by Mara Torres, who ignored directives from the station and played some excerpts of the leaked tapes.

__________

(1) N.T. The tapes in question were of private conversations between Interior Minister Jorge Fernández Díaz and Daniel de Alfonso Laso, Director of Catalonia's Anti-fraud Office, allegedly conspiring to seek out or fabricate politically damaging information against pro-independence leaders in Catalonia.