Lluís Foix – 16/4/2021
The role of the public media has been under debate for a long time. Like everywhere. Journalism is not made by innocent hands and a perfect, neutral product is as difficult as it is impossible. We do not have a problem, in any case, with the media, but with the doses of freedom that circulate through them.
I am referring in the first place to what we could call prior freedom, that is, giving the opportunity for the ideas that represent the political, social, ethnic, religious and thought plurality of society to be expressed in a public environment. set. There is no freedom when the balance of those who participate in opinion forums is disproportionate in favor of the government or the party in power. The one who really commands is the one who draws up the lists of those who intervene.
If the dissenting party is excluded or annulled, there is a risk of falling into authoritarian gregariousness
There are many ways to circumvent the neutrality to which the public media are required by law. One of them is to invite someone who disagrees with the government line, who has to defend his position against three others who dialectically crush him from the other side. This phenomenon occurs frequently on Catalan public radio and television and it is not surprising that its lack of equanimity is constantly denounced by political and social actors who are critical of the government from the opposition.
In his essay on freedom, John Stuart Mill said “that if all humanity, except one, had an opinion, and only one person had the opposite, humanity would not be justified in silencing it in the same way that that individual would not be justified in silencing humanity ”.
In a society in which the freedom of the other is not respected, there is a risk of falling into dogmatism and gregariousness, the so-called exclusive exclusive thinking, which erases any hint of discrepancy. The critic is silenced, he is persecuted through the networks or he is expelled from the public space.
Turning back to Antigone, Sophocles’ most emblematic work, in the face of the unjust decisions of the kings, the unwritten laws of the gods can always be invoked, which speak to us of common sense, reason, justice, freedom and conscience . Politically manipulate the public media in favor of a partisan cause is to sow divisions in society and hinder the progress of all.
https://www.lavanguardia.com/opinion/20210416/6887911/problema-libertad.html
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