Get the dirt out from under the carpet !

Get the dirt out from under the carpet !
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By Howard Brereton - Typically Spanish Editor - Mar 15, 2010 - 1:10 PM
Typically Spanish editor, Howard Brereton, considers it a blunder for the Ministry for the Environment to try and edit a television documentary on the coasts of Spain

A demolition scene from the cut section of the TVE programme as shown by El País

The news, broken in the El País newspaper, that the Ministry for the Environment has censored two minutes of a television documentary, Las riberas del mar océano to be broadcast on the TVE state channel cannot be condemned strongly enough.

Coming hard on the censorship of a series of photos, already printed in newspapers, from an exhibition in Valencia on the news of 2009 because they showed PP politicians linked to the Gürtel case, it shows that both the main parties are as bad as each other.

It is also an example of how much Spain still has to learn if it really wants to hold its head up high as a real democracy, because practically all the media, and even the more seriously the judiciary, remain party political and put self interest before impartiality.

The programme in question was commissioned in 2006 when Cristina Narbona was Minister for the Environment, and before the funding of TVE came under the current question with the Government’s decision to remove advertising. The programme producers were funded by the very same Ministry of the Environment to the tune of 1.29 million €, and the Ministry’s logo is seen at the start of each episode.

In a two minute section of the 12th episode of the series, dedicated to legislation, the Granada professor on the coastal law of Spain, Miguel Ángel Losada, makes reference to the effect of corruption on the massive development of the coasts, describing it as ‘unfortunately part of our history’. It shows two minutes of news footage and corruption scandals in Marbella, Andratx, Gondomar and Telde, and also has footage of homes being demolished, and the excessive development at La Manga del Mar Menor. Losada says that the section concerned shows ‘flagrant abuse of the Coastal Law and Constitution’ and is refusing to let the programme go out without the two minute section left intact. He should be applauded.

The excuse for the Ministry’s demand for the edit is to ‘avoid biased interpretations’, but what the Government should realise is that it is total transparency that is needed here. If Spain is ever going to clear up what is nothing short of a disaster along much of the country’s coast, with all the excessive development and the dozens of corruption cases where backhanders were priority and legality not so, then those guilty of such behaviour have to be highlighted and taken to court. A quick search of Typically Spanish will show just how common such irregularities are, and indeed thankfully how many are now finally reaching court, and the Government needs to understand that to solve the problem the dirt has to come out from under the carpet, and stop trying to hide more under it.

Also in these days of the internet the Government shows how little media savvy it has. El País already has a video of the section of the programme concerned on its webpage, and he we are in this editorial drawing more attention to the item, where as if no censorship had been attempted, the programme would have gone out as normal, and would have been seen by the usual low audiences obtained by such documentaries.

I repeat, Spain has to come clean and clear out all of the corruption, and that means sending the politicians, mayors, developers and whoever else to court. It is the only way for the country to make progress and once again start to attract all the foreign investment that is so desperately needs.

Read the orginal El País article and watch a video of the section of the programme - here

UPDATE - TUESDAY MARCH 16TH - El País reports the Ministry for the Environment has now decided to let the programme be broadcast as it is, without any edit. A statement said that the Government respected the 'freedom of creation' even though it contains errors.

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