On Monday, current affairs programs reacted to the war between the United States, Israel, and Iran. In situations of crisis and gravity, the informational miseries are most evident. One of the recurring situations consisted of interviewing Spaniards trapped in the Persian Gulf. On Espejo público, they made a certain Ofelia Hentschel, a former contestant on MasterChef, famous. Over the weekend, she had announced on social media that she could not return to Spain from Dubai. With a victimistic attitude, she ranted and groaned as if she were the only person in her situation and even suggested that Spanish citizens should not pay taxes because they were useless. It is unnecessary to list the absurdities she uttered, but the recordings were a grotesque spectacle. A repertoire of unprecedented moods, full of demagoguery and with a worrying lack of maturity. The phenomenon demonstrates how television, in symbiosis with social networks, has ended up normalizing forms of exhibitionism based on narcissism.After showing a selection of Ofelia's stellar moments, Susanna Griso interviewed her for fifteen minutes and even had her participate in the discussion to attack Pedro Sánchez. The presenter showed her the videos the president had posted on social media riding a bicycle so that the influencer would criticize him. In the afternoon, she was interviewed on Y ahora Sonsoles,on Antena 3; El tiempo justo, on Telecinco, and Todo es mentira, on Cuatro. Both Sonsoles Ónega and Joaquín Prat and Risto Mejide were also very interested in delving into her absurdities and her opinion on paying taxes. After all, these are programs that feed on sensationalism and turn anecdotes into categories. They claim to be doing journalism, but they are dedicated to variety shows. They all put on faces of gravity and contrition in the face of the escalating conflict, but they reveled in the psychodrama of the former MasterChef contestant. Posing as daring interviewers, they gave her moral lessons about the duty to pay taxes.In the height of incoherence, on Más vale tarde, on La Sexta, they went even further. Iñaki López and Cristina Pardo made faces about the case and dedicated a report to the girl's farce. The presenters wanted to demonstrate their high moral standing by belittling Ofelia's discourse and asked the experts at the table to join in. Even the singer Ramoncín chimed in. “Let's see if we can talk to Ofelia and understand this change of opinion better”, the presenters said ironically after seeing that the influencer was already saying she felt “supported by Spain”. They later lamented not being able to establish a live connection with her.What is perplexing is why on earth they wanted to interview this girl, who had been spouting nonsense for twenty-four hours. The television presenters' eagerness to shock us and achieve virality does nothing but fill television with the kings of foolishness.
