Spanish newspapers

Even in the analogue days, when a newspaper was something you held in your hands, it always seemed like a lot of work to read one. Nowadays I have a newsreader application that collects news from the Internet. It's not as though I'm a glutton for punishment or anything, I only have three feeds: one for local news, a second for serious news and a third that's a bit more frivolous with the sort of stuff that happens on Twitter or Instagram. Nonetheless the number of articles that turn up each day is simply overwhelming.

A podcaster I listen to, in English, promises to summarise all the Spanish news for me so that I don't need to bother. That's not really true but the podcast does, at least, unpack stories where the detail has often escaped me. Last week, as an extra, the podcast did a bit of background on some of the major Spanish newspapers and the rest of this blog is my recap of that

El País is still the biggest selling (however that is now counted) newspaper in Spain. It's a progressive, centre left newspaper. It's a paper of reference in Spain a bit like the Guardian in the UK or The Washington Post in the US. El País is aligned with the Socialist party, the PSOE and generally it gives the current Spanish President, Pedro Sanchez, an easy ride. The two journos who were doing this round-up of the newspapers repeatedly mentioned newspaper editors. It's very true that newspaper editors are much more like personalities here in Spain than they are in the UK. They often turn up on those political chatter shows which is something a bit alien to us Brits. El País has gone through a lot of editors in recent years. The changes took the newspaper a bit to the right, then back to its traditional position and now they have an ex radio personality at the helm. The changes perhaps, reflect how difficult it has been for newspapers to find their way in the new digital landscape.

El País has an English edition. That used to be a source for Spanish news in English but it has recently changed editor and it now seems to limit iitself to doing a few international stories.

El Mundo, is the number two newspaper in Spain. Like el País it is a reliable source of information. Its politics are centre right. If el País is for PSOE voters then el Mundo is for the centrist end of the Partido Popular. The newspaper had a charismatic founder and editor, Pedro J Ramirez, well known for always wearing braces. He was ousted in 2014. El Mundo blundered seriously when it persisted in reporting that the 2004 Madrid train bombings were the work of ETA rather than Al Qaeda and that mistake still taints its credibility for lots of Spaniards.

ABC is a well established and reliable newspaper. It's a long way to the right, politically, but recently it has been softening its stance a little. That's probably to maintain its place as the party of the Partido Popular and to distance itself from the extreme hard right party Vox.

Vox has its newspaper though in La Razón. Again this newspaper is identified with its editor, Francisco Marhuenda, who is one of the people who gets very excited on those political talk shows, has very strong opinions about most things and has been involved in a number of scandals.

Nowadays as well as the newspapers that have print and digital editions there are some that are purely digital. The digital world has changed though and lots of news is no longer free. Most of the recognisable digital stuff has to be paid for. The most successful digital newspaper is one set up by the man who was ousted from el Mundo, Pedro J. Ramirez. It's called el Español and it is more or less in the political centre with a bit of a leaning towards the right and a very critical stance on Pedro Sanchez's government

El Confidencial is the online Spanish equivalent of newspapers like the Financial Times or the Wall Street Journal. It's apparently pretty reliable in its information but, given its potential readership, it's not surprising that it is right leaning.

The current Spanish government is a socialist led coalition. The junior partner in the government is Unidas Podemos which is a a far left political group which even includes the remnants of the old Communist Party. One of its founders was a bloke called Pablo Iglesias and he is closely aligned to the newspaper Publico. The paper is very left biased and it likes to do those sort of digital stories - what was said on the telly or who is slagging off who on Instagram or Twitter.

El Dario is another progressive, left leaning digital newspaper that has straightforward and usually factually correct reporting. Their pay model is a bit like the Guardian - you can have it for free for a while but expect a deluge of messages asking for money till you give in and pay up.

And last, and least, OK Diario. This is a newspaper that, I am told, never checks its facts and is happy to run with anything that supports the right and badmouths the left. The editor Eduardo Inda is, I am told, loud mouthed and boorish.

Solid

When it comes to National Identity I'm not a believer. I don't, for instance, see anything to be proud of in having been born in a particular place and I don't think  that the people of one nation are intrinsically different to the people of another. I do believe though that we all learn from our surroundings and that, as such, there are learned, generalised, national traits.

One thing that Spaniards like to say about themselves is that they are "solidario". It's not an easy word to translate into English - it's the attitude of being supportive, caring, empathetic, sympathetic and in it together.

Whenever there is an earthquake or hurricane somewhere in the world there will be something in the Spanish news about us being solidario and sending this or that team of rescue workers, search dogs, blankets or tents. The truth is that Spain has cut its foreign aid and only spends about 0.14% of it's Gross Domestic Income (GDI) on overseas aid. As a Briton, seeing those teams, supplies and tents being loaded onto the Airbus Atlas I often think the help looks paltry and late. One of the things we British can be proud of is that the UK is one of only seven countries in the world which has reached the 0.7% of GDI overseas aid target agreed at the United Nations. The UK economy is much bigger than Spain's so in folding we're talking 19 billion British dollars as against 1.6 billion Spanish dollars.

At the moment people are dying in hordes all over the World because of coronavirus. Spain has been one of the countries hardest hit though the latest figures for the UK are equally terrible. In fact the situation in Spain is probably much worse than reported. Imagine someone breathes their last in a Spanish care home. The person died because their lungs could not take in sufficient oxygen or expel sufficient carbon dioxide. The doctor can't put Covid 19 on the death certificate as the cause of death because there has been no corona virus test. The doctor writes pulmonary insufficiency in the space on the certificate and the death is not recorded as a part of the daily toll.

Maggie and I have taken to watching more television news broadcasts, both British and Spanish, during the pandemic. On the Spanish news the format is usually the latest national coronavirus news along with the political and economic news surrounding it plus the stories about shortages, bad planning etc. That's followed by a coronavirus update from around the world. Then there's the other news, a fair bit of sporting stuff (goodness knows how when there is no sport) and then lots of little human interest, soft news, stories.

The softer news stories are multifaceted. It might be about people using their 3D printers, sewing machines and production lines to make this or that for health workers or about football clubs opening their changing rooms for lorry drivers or about the children sending thank you drawings to police officers. Then there's usually lots and lots of applauding. Applause for the people giving impromptu concerts from their balconies, applause for firefighters who haven't been home for days as they drive by their home to sing  Happy Birthday over the loudspeakers to their locked in son, the line of siren blaring Civil Protection, Guardia Civil and Police cars "applauding" the supermarket workers. Today there has been lots of Easter ritual performed from balconies to applaud and, of course, every evening at 8pm we have applause for everyone from everyone.

The British news has the same sort of stories, maybe with a bit more complaining about the wrong responses, but there seem to be far fewer, hardly any, of the uplifting, morale boosting, we're all in this together stories. Maybe I've just missed them or maybe the Spaniards are right in thinking they are more Solidario.