Sánchez's media supports: few and declining
Corruption cases have made evident the weakness of the Spanish president, who has few affinities beyond Spanish public television.
BarcelonaThe UCO audio recordings have not only tested the resilience of its political partners to discomfort. Hesitations have also been detected among media outlets, and some of the traditional media allies have distanced themselves from Pedro Sánchez in recent weeks.
The most paradigmatic case is that of the newspaper The Country and Cadena SER, both part of the Prisa group. The newspaper traditionally most aligned with Spanish socialism has dedicated harsh editorials to the leader of the PSOE, challenging him to submit to a vote of confidence. However, this editorial position must be contextualized within the tensions between the group's president, Joseph Oughourlian, and the Moncloa (Spanish government).
The refusal of Prisa's top executive to move forward with the project of an open television channel—designed precisely to mitigate the significant imbalance in the DTT landscape—has ignited an open war that has resulted in the departure of the executives closest to the party. In response to this, the Sánchez administration has made efforts—so far unsuccessful—to facilitate an alternative shareholding majority for the media group with the aim of replacing Oughourlian.
The tensions with the Prisa group mean that only Televisión Española remains a media bastion favorable to Sánchez. At least, that's how her political adversaries see it. The Popular Party, for example, regularly criticizes journalist Silvia Intxaurrondo, accusing her of a lack of neutrality. Last year, over a period of six months, up to 23 questions were submitted to RTVE's parliamentary oversight committee regarding content related to the presenter, who is famous for having confronted Alberto Núñez Feijóo in an interview.
Xabier Fortes is another of the journalists considered hostile by the PP, to the point that he demanded his head during negotiations with the PSOE for the latest renewal of the board of directors of the state-owned broadcaster. He also demanded the dismissal of David Broncano, considering him also to be left-leaning. Not only did the head-scratching not happen, but the president of the corporation, José Pablo López, added Jesús Cintora to the roster, also considered to be close to the left. The group of journalists criticized by the right also includes Javier Ruiz, head of the program Morning people, with a long career within Prisa and an occasional substitute for Cintora, Santiago Abascal accused him of "singling out and demonizing Vox voters in order to justify and whitewash the violence they suffer on the streets." Days later, Ruiz revealed the threats he had received following the tweet.
Loneliness in private
In any case, beyond the public sector, Sánchez has few allies in the private sector. And the few who weren't openly hostile have turned their backs on him. Everything is a lie He has had clashes with both the Socialists and the Popular Party (PP). In a television landscape where Pablo Motos, Ana Rosa Quintana, and Susanna Griso criticize Sánchez day in and day out, the Barcelona publicist's balances tended to be considered more pro-PSOE than pro-PP. After all, his company has had the PSOE as a client, and the show he hosts on Cuatro has counted among its collaborators precisely José Luis Ábalos, who joined the panel just two months after being dismissed.
Be that as it may, Mejide's tensions with Sánchez have been ongoing for some time. In February of last year, the party's communications director, Ion Antolín, sent a WhatsApp message to the program in which he scolded him for revealing his email address. "You won't have anyone from the PSOE as long as you depend on me," he wrote, and Mejide displayed the threat of a veto on screen.
If there was any trace of harmony with the PSOE, it was blown to bits this week. In a message on the social network X, Mejide wrote: "Don't get involved, Pedro. If you don't resign, you're not taking responsibility for anything. You had to choose good organizing secretaries. And you didn't. And you had to ensure that they behaved decently. And you didn't know that either and you're not involved and you're taking responsibility for citizens. The rest is insulting posturing." The message provoked an angry reaction from Javier Cárdenas, his arch-enemy with whom he has had several clashes, who accused him of being a "rat" who was abandoning ship, reproaching him for the disgraced socialists he welcomed on his show.
Therefore, Sánchez is only left with La Sexta, where names like Antonio García Ferreras, Jordi Évole, Ana Pastor or Gran Wyoming are usually in the right's sights. And here, too, some dissent is beginning to emerge. Ferreras, for example, was reluctant to describe the PSOE leader's reaction to the release of the audio recordings as "meager, poor, insufficient, and very deficient in a tsunami." Wyoming also expressed disappointment in front of the cameras.The intermission"How is it possible that a party that prides itself on being modern, progressive, creative, feminist... would place that amount of power in such figures? What did they see? What did they contribute, apart from tons of filth?"
The digital desert
The digital landscape isn't exactly rosy for Pedro Sánchez's interests either. Not only is there a majority of right-wing or far-right newspapers, but those with a progressive nature tend to lean more toward positions closer to Podemos or Sumar, such as, for example, Eldiario.es, Tide, Ctxt.es either PublicThe only thing that maintains an editorial line specifically aligned with the PSOE is The Plural, founded by Enric Sopena and currently directed by Angélica Rubio, who joined the Socialist Party's communications team in 2000 and, four years later, became personal assistant to President José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero and Director General of Information Coordination at the State Secretariat for Communication. Beyond that, the rest of the online landscapeHe is openly opposed to Sánchez.