Merçè Benet 24/07/2020
The works council committees and professional councils, in addition to the unions representing the workers of TV3 and Catalunya Ràdio, have issued separate statements denouncing the politicization and government control suffered by these media. They did so after last Monday the acting president of the Catalan Audiovisual Media Corporation (CCMA), Núria Llorach, failed in her attempt to dismiss Saül Gordillo as director of Catalunya Ràdio. Llorach debated the dismissal of Gordillo in the Governing Council of the CCMA, but two of the four councilors – Rita Marzoa and Armand Querol – opposed it and only had a vote in favor of the removal of Antonio Pemán.
The acting president of the CCMA asked Gordillo for explanations for the departure of Mònica Terribas from Catalunya Ràdio. The director of “El Matí” de Catalunya Ràdio announced last Friday that she would not continue one more season at the head of this program because “the gears of the company screeched.” The same day, Eduard Pujol, spokesperson for JxCat in the Parliament, asked for the head of Saül Gordillo in a very harsh intervention in the CCMA control commission. The political fight between JxCat and ERC is evident in this dispute since Gordillo was appointed on the proposal of the Republican party and Rita Marzoa was elected as a councilor of the CCMA also on the proposal of this party.
The Professional News Council and the Catalunya Ràdio Works Council Committee in their joint statement asked, this Thursday, July 23, that “we demand that the next presenter of “El Matí” de Catalunya Ràdio be someone chosen solely for his/her professional worth and not because of his political affinity, whoever conducts this important program, which marks the country’s current affairs, must be a critical voice with political and economic power, that does not accept interference of any kind and that is exclusively guided by his/her professional judgment. ” These workers’ representatives consider that “the episode after the resignation of Mònica Terribas, with the attempt to dismiss the director of Catalunya Ràdio by the president of the CCMA, leaves us stupefied” and denounce that “personal disputes and political hotchpotch plan on the decisions that affect the present and the future” of the station.
The TV3 Works Council has called for the dismissal of the leaders of the CCMA. “The little modesty with which the CCMA executives and managers transfer their personal battles and political sector differences to the media management is worrying. Therefore, after this last show, they would have to resign and give way to a leadership of the media and Corporation plural and independent from political power. The distribution of positions of the companies of the CCMA between the government partners and the petrification of a council of government of the dying CCMA has to come to an end,” write in their statement the union representatives of TV3.
For its part, the Union of Journalists of Catalonia has demanded to put “an end to political and government interference in the management of public media given the grotesque performance of CCMA.” This union calls on parliamentary groups “regardless of electoral expectations” to renew the leadership of the CCMA “within one year” since the reform of the Law that regulates the corporation was approved six months ago.
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