Free, rigorous, and verified information, based on facts and data, and on pluralistic and honest analysis and opinion, is in danger, besieged by a combination largely invisible to the general public: the one formed by large digital platforms and the most toxic political populism. These are two worlds that feed off each other and are putting professional journalism, as a guarantee of pluralism and democratic quality, on the ropes.
Are we sufficiently aware of this? Sometimes it seems that neither the public, nor the government, nor even journalists themselves, truly understand the media crossroads at which we find ourselves. Faced with the distrust that has been generated, the solution for many citizens—to give up on being informed—is as lethal as letting themselves be swayed by the fast food toxic information that invades our mobile phones via social networks and Google.
The world's richest man, owner of the social network X and a key figure in Donald Trump's return to the White House, fuels distrust of the media day in and day out in the name of supposed freedom of expression. In reality, Elon Musk's network, like the rest, is not dedicated to promoting verified information endorsed by professionals, but rather thrives on polarizing debates as a quick way to increase its audience, resulting in citizens being trapped in bubbles of misinformation, with fake news of varying degrees—from unscientific falsehoods to blatant and crude fabrications—that only serve to fuel prejudices and obsessions.
Google's algorithms also operate with clearly commercial and quantitative objectives, sacrificing and undermining the fact-checking essence of journalism. Information overload is gaining ground while truthful information is losing ground. Many media outlets, dependent on Google traffic, have fallen into practices of dubious journalistic ethics: clickbait techniques in which editorial and professional criteria are literally sidelined.
It is crucial that the public understands this dangerous drift in the communication environment. What many users receive via their mobile phones—especially in Catalonia and Spain, via Android phones and Google Discover—is not reliable, researched, or curated information; it is the result of a ruthless battle to capture attention. And things are getting worse. Until now, Google directed users to links from the media outlets from which it siphons content, but now, thanks to AI tools, it's starting to offer its own automated summaries.
Media outlets that had become accustomed to this audience crutch now face a problem. Those of us who, like ARA, without abandoning them, have focused primarily on building our own community and, therefore, an audience that comes to us directly because they trust our publication and seek in-depth and exclusive content on our website, have a better future. But this doesn't diminish the complexity of these times, marked by the aforementioned and blatant alliance between large digital companies and the populist political class: a very serious challenge to free and independent journalism and the very viability of democratic regimes.
