Madrid begins media siege of BBVA chairman

There's one word that overwhelmingly dominates this Friday's front pages: fails. It's the verb that the vast majority of newspapers choose when talking about the BBVA takeover bid, and although, in general, the headlines are sterile and limit themselves to recording what everyone already knows at that time, there are some cracks where a bit of journalistic poison sneaks in. For example, the newspapers tend to use the neutral phrase "BBVA takeover bid fails," but inThe WorldThe subject of the sentence is significantly different: "Torres fails in BBVA's takeover bid for Sabadell." Including the name is anything but innocent. And the second subheading is even more punitive, when it says: "BBVA chairman avoids resigning." It's the don't-think-about-a-pink-elephant tactic: now it's inevitable to consider whether the executive would have had to hand over his head on a silver platter that same night. From the Prisa group, your financial dailyFive daysHe also put the spotlight on the entity's president: "Torres is failing again in an ambition that defines his mandate." The catch here is in this "again," which indicates a tendency to stumble.

Just as, in cinema, no camera movement is innocent—Godard said that a tracking shot is always a moral issue—syntax and grammar are also culpable and revealing. Mentioning Torres may seem insignificant, a trifling matter, but when the news affects a major advertiser, with whom one usually treads carefully, any minimal gesture is indicative. It is suspected, then, that the Madrid press knows more than it is letting on. And newspapers that until now supported the takeover, due to their relationships with the bank or because they backed down the Spanish government, are now distancing themselves. Success always has many progenitors, but everyone is quick to avoid being blamed—even if it is intellectual—for a failure.