Beatriz Silva 02/04/2020
The coronavirus primed with the poorest neighborhoods in Barcelona. Nou Barris is the one that registers more positives compared to Sant Gervasi which is the one that has the least: 533 versus 77 per 100,000 inhabitants. Figures that are explained by poor living conditions and the type of housing. But also because the most precarious workers live in these neighborhoods, who are still at the forefront of this crisis: in supermarkets, doing cleaning tasks or delivering food at home. Exposed every day to the virus.
How do families in these neighborhoods live these days? Those who are confined in tiny spaces or in substandard housing? What difficulties do people who have the most precarious jobs or lost their jobs have? How do children cope? who are locked in floors where there is almost no room to move?
Find information on public Catalan media, TV3 and Catalunya Ràdio, is not possible. One does not know through these media about the dimensions of the drama that is being lived in hospitals and nursing homes because they treat news in an aseptic way, with graphs and figures that do not account for what is really happening.
Since the state of alarm was declared, our public media have made efforts to offer their own particular view of the situation. A view representing the Catalan government’s story, which insists on blaming the Spanish government for a health crisis of planetary dimensions, avoiding any type of responsibility. A story in which the health cuts of the last decade in Catalonia are never mentioned. But it also hides the crudest face of reality, the one that suffers the most vulnerable part of the citizenry and that dismantles the image that they strive to sell us: that of a Catalonia where things always do better. Where there is no 21.3% of people living below the poverty level. In which there is no mention of Kellys or caregivers who work for wages of 343 euros. Neither of the boys and girls who live with their whole family in one room and who now have very few options to continue with their school activity. In this crisis situation, relaxed interviewees are shown talking to us from comfortable houses, with a lot of space and large shelves behind them, advising us interesting readings to reflect on the future of humanity.
Instead of carrying out its public service work and reporting on the serious social problems that we have to solve, on the mechanisms to report cases of sexist violence or child abuse that have been triggered by confinement, they choose to repeat over and over information that not only reinforces the idea that everything the Spanish government does is wrong but is also planned to harm the Catalan people.
The rules of the CCMA (Catalan Corporation of Media) Style Book on how TV3 and Catalunya Ràdio professionals should treat news are very strict, but we see how some of their main faces insult and threaten without any restraint on social networks. Toni Albà has accused the Socialists of carrying deads on their backs and has informed them that they will have to live in confinement for the rest of their lives. Jair Domínguez of ‘Està passant’ show has done something similar while Adolescents iCat’s Bru Esteve has allowed himself to make macabre jokes about the high death toll in Madrid.
Pilar Rahola, who despite the restrictions on programming continues to have her fixed spaces to rant while the presenter on duty nods smiling, has literally told the Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez to go to hell. What has the CCMA or public media workers done about it? Have we seen any press release distancing from these type of broadcasts?
Not even at a time when we are facing a crisis with consequences that are difficult to foresee, Catalan public media, TV3 and Catalunya Ràdio, have behaved in accordance with the serious circumstances of the moment and stop acting as speakers for that part of the independentist movement that has gone from the proclamation of ‘ Spain robs us’ to that of ‘Spain kills us’. Forgetting that their mission is to promote coexistence, reflect the plurality of the entire Catalan society, without adopting positions, reporting truthfully and rigorously although the image returned by the mirror does not fit the story that they have been trying to sell us for years.
https://cronicaglobal.elespanol.com/pensamiento/pandemia-segun-tv3_334185_102.html
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