The danger of playing the commuter rail card

It is significant that, among the Madrid press, it is The Country who is speaking most prominently about the commuter rail chaos (pardon the redundancy). He's not doing so, of course, because he's decided to bury his long-standing Jacobinism, but because it allows him to downplay the fallout from the Adamuz accident, now that the right-wing establishment has come out openly to hunt for Óscar Puente's head. Just look at how this Saturday The World, heABC and The reason They were trying to make him blush, while the Prisa newspaper asked John Williams to provide some background music for the front page, using the inspirational theme "The Heroes of Carriage 4 of the Alvia." They didn't call Tom Hanks because it was too expensive. Human interest stories are always welcome. But never at the expense of demanding accountability and holding those in power accountable.

I wonder if the Madrid newspapers are aware that the Cercanías (commuter rail) scandal (again, pardon the redundancy) of 2007 was the trigger for discontent evidenced in massive demonstrations that many consider the beginning of the process. Seventeen years (and too many other things) have passed to magically pretend that the staff can simply be transferred. But looking at today's front pages, I wondered if this will be a factor in how they frame the issue on the front pages of Madrid and Barcelona. The Country It suits them well to deflect attention to minimize the fallout, but they must be aware that they pay the price of fueling the (well-founded) feeling that being Catalan in Spain entails an extra burden (moral and economic) in the form of underfunding and media noise. Similarly, I suspect the right wing won't make a big deal out of the issue, however much it might serve to stoke their Catalanophobia, lest the independence movement be reignited by the commuter rail crisis (excuse my language, blah, blah, blah).