Carles Puigdemont and Begoña Gómez, communicating vessels

The internet is (virtually) infinite, but the confines of paper are dramatically limited: every square centimeter you dedicate to one topic is a square centimeter you don't dedicate to another. This might seem like a very meager nugget of knowledge, but Cruyff said that if you have the ball, the opponent doesn't, and he certainly got far. This Friday, newspapers had to decide who to grant their square centimeters to: the European guarantee, the amnesty that should bring back (among others) Carles Puigdemont, or the Court pointing Begoña Gómez towards the defendant's bench. As I predicted yesterday, the right-wing headlines relegated the ECJ's ruling to minor sections or, directly as Abc" did, to nothing. And they did so to emphasize that everyone should relax, as the Supreme Court here would use its supremacy – I don't dare to write 'supremacism' – to let the ruling go in one ear and out the other, magnificently unaltered.

In contrast, with Gómez there was a great profusion of square centimeters, of course. In El Mundo there was even room for adjectives, which in the contested space of a front page is a luxury equivalent to having a cinema room inside a flat: "Five judges bring Begoña to the bench with a solid ruling." How is the solidity of a judicial decision measured? Not with any objective data: it can only be done with taste buds. You rub the paper with your tongue and, if you find it sweet, it's very solid. If not, you keep the adjective in the drawer. Those who open with the amnesty, on the other hand, emphasize in the minor pieces about Gómez that she will only be tried for two of the four crimes Peinado was looking for and that, furthermore, it will be by a jury. These are the curious communicating vessels of journalism where affairs often jump onto the agenda at the opportune moment to add or subtract square centimeters.