The filigrees with the Kitchen case

The start of the trial in the Kitchen case has led right-leaning programs to seek narrative and visual strategies to minimize the impact on the PP. The most ingenious maneuver was that of Antena 3 Noticias. When opening the news program, they opted for a dispersal narrative: announcing the spring judicial calendar. First, they referred to the Kitchen case, but then they recalled all the cases affecting the socialist party: the mask case, which will begin to be judged this Tuesday; that of Pedro Sánchez's brother, which will start on May 28, and they also added the cases of PSOE financing, of Leire Díez, and of Santos Cerdán, which do not yet have a trial date. They thus made evident the imbalance of the scales between the PP and the PSOE. They projected the calendar on the news screen, and among the faces of the accused, the PSOE logo stood out in red. The PP's was nowhere to be seen. Sandra Golpe announced: "Intense judicial calendar that will reactivate the clash between PP and PSOE". Later, she insisted: "This judicial spring is coming very intensely!".When focusing on the Kitchen case, a visual strategy that had already been repeated throughout the morning became evident. To explain the case, they used archive images that focused, above all, on Luis Bárcenas and, a little less, on José Manuel Villarejo. At Espejo Público and El programa de Ana Rosa —with Quintana on vacation—, they did the same. Bárcenas' images were repeatedly shown in a loop in different contexts: leaving prison, testifying in a trial, sitting on the defendant's bench, entering the courts, or walking down the street with his son or his lawyer. Therefore, Bárcenas did not seem like the popular prosecution but the main defendant. Secondly, Villarejo's figure was the most used. In a more fleeting and sporadic way, Jorge Fernández Díaz, Francisco Martínez, and Eugenio Pino were shown, but in most cases, they were more general shots that did not personalize the involvement as much. On Espejo público, the face that occupied the large screen behind Susanna Griso's desk was Bárcenas'. On Informativos Telecinco, the graphic layouts on the screen continued to point to Bárcenas as guilty. "The PP's kitchen against Bárcenas", they titled in huge letters. And below, they put an image of the treasurer and another of Mariano Rajoy. But with a singularity: on Bárcenas' photograph, they put a label in capital letters: CONVICTED. The explanation of the facts was correct and rigorous, but the entire visual construction continued to point to the treasurer. A structural scandal affecting a party's apparatus and the sewers of the State now has a visual narrative that diverts attention and visually centers everything on two figures: Bárcenas and Villarejo. The choice is not innocent. This personification does not correspond to the magnitude of the facts being judged and serves to reduce the reputational impact of Rajoy's government's top brass.