The Electoral Board agrees to warn Canal Sur for broadcasting news about Doñana in favor of the Board and the PP | Autonomous elections | Spain

2023-05-04 15:12:16

The Central Electoral Board (JEC) has considered an appeal, presented by the PSOE of Andalusia before the Provincial Board of Seville, against some news broadcast on Canal Sur, the Andalusian public television, on the bill that the Andalusian Parliament is processing to regularize irrigation in the surroundings of the Doñana National Park, according to sources from the body that oversees the cleanliness of electoral processes. The JEC understands that they contained biases in favor of the theses on this project defended by the Junta de Andalucía, chaired by the popular Juan Manuel Moreno Bonilla, and the PP. The body thus opens a warning file against Canal Sur because it observes that it violated neutrality in information from a section, called Fake News, in theory programmed to contrast false data. The debate among the members of the JEC on the limits of freedom of information was intense and was not resolved unanimously, as was the case with the withdrawal of the seat of the former Catalan deputy Laura Borrás or the sanction against the minister spokesperson in La Moncloa , Elizabeth Rodriguez.

The debate on the appeal of the Andalusian socialists against the information from Canal Sur about Doñana made possible an open and broad discussion on the limits of information and its control in the public media. The meeting this Wednesday of the Central Electoral Board also coincided with International Press Freedom Day. The socialist resource was limited to the focus of some news on the controversial proposal of the Board to regularize the situation of more than 1,000 hectares of irrigated land in the perimeter of the Doñana National Park. They reflected a face-to-face debate in the Senate between the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, and the opposition leader, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, the critical positions of the Vice President and Minister of Ecological Transition and Demographic Challenge, Teresa Ribera, and then a new section on theoretical data contrast, called Fake Newswhich the Electoral Board concludes contained biases and false data in favor of the position of the PP and the Junta de Andalucía in three of the four sections analyzed.

The JEC thus agrees not only with the PSOE-A complaint, but also with the one expressed in a statement by the independent body of RTVA professionals, the Professional Council of Canal Sur Radio and Television, which concluded in a recent analysis of the information services of that television about the news of the irrigation project around the park that violated the principles of independence and impartiality of the professional statute of that public entity. That council accuses the Canal Sur newscasts of making “their own the positions defended by the Andalusian government” and explaining them “through direct broadcasts, videos, interviews and panels” and thus alludes to the new department of fake news and specifically to the issuance of “supposed hoaxes, in this case, against the position of the Junta de Andalucía” in the news broadcast on April 20, which is the same space also analyzed by the JEC.

“Doñana, manipulation in #CanalSur” latest report of the Professional Council of the #RTVA.
The Information Department hides criticism from scientists or UNESCO of the PP and Vox Bill and puts news spaces at the service of the Andalusian government #Andalusia pic.twitter.com/ZCNGRxjXO0

— RTVA Professional Council (@ConsejoRTVA) April 28, 2023

in the dashboard fake news Exposed in the news, it is concluded as false that the land is in the Doñana National Park; that the law declares an amnesty to illegal wells and crops; that the law grants irrigation rights to 1,500 hectares; and that the law endangers the aquifer and the park. The JEC understands that at least three of those assertions allegedly dismantled by Fake News are themselves false.

The discussion was prolonged within the JEC because the matter raised different and nuanced positions when considering at least one of the five professors present in the body, experts in this type of matter, that the decision of the body that ensures rigor and good exercise of the administrations and public entities in electoral periods could oppose or collide with the right to freedom of information in general and of journalists in particular. And he considered that questioning from the JEC the “informative approaches” of a piece of news could give rise to future appeals in this sense from all kinds of parties that felt mistreated in various reports on other televisions or public media from different fields. In this sense, one of the members of the JEC stressed that the body’s lawyers had not proposed the warning in their previous report.

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The appeal of the PSOE was estimated, however, with a large majority. The resolution will be communicated this Thursday to the affected parties. The JEC has been convened again this Thursday to formally issue its position.

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