Media News - Monday, August 06, 2012

Spanish government accused of purging critics from national radio and TV

A government making a raft of public spending cuts might not be expected to win many friends. But critics of Mariano Rajoy's rightwing Partido Popular (PP) claim that a series of departures from Spain's leading state broadcasting organisations are a sign that it will not tolerate any criticism. A number of journalists who have presumed to question the administration's austerity policy have been purged from the national RTVE radio and TV channel. And this weekend the most high-profile exit in recent months – that of Ana Pastor, the presenter of Los Desayunos de TVE, a popular breakfast news magazine programme – was announced. Since 1980 RTVE staff have been public appointees. In 2006 the law was changed so that appointments had to be approved by a two-thirds majority of parliament. This year the PP used its overall majority to scrap the 2006 amendment and has begun staffing the channel with veterans of the last PP government, which lost power in 2004 in the wake of the Madrid bombings. Pastor is one of the country's best-known journalists. (The Guardian)

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