Wednesday morning, TV3 and 3CatInfo simultaneously broadcast the control session of the Congress of Deputies. The journalist Ares Riu was in charge of introducing the different interventions and giving way to Paula Florit to summarize each of the speeches.
The speaking turns of Gabriel Rufián and Miriam Nogueras were offered in full to the viewer. The Junts deputy did so in Catalan. Next, Mertxe Aizpurua, from Bildu, took the floor. She began her speech in Spanish, and then continued in Basque. We viewers did not understand her because we did not have simultaneous translation. After a minute and a half, she switched back to Spanish. And when, shortly after, the deputy returned to Basque, the 3CatInfo journalist spoke over her to address the audience: “This lady, excuse me, this deputy, Mertxe Aizpurua, was speaking in Basque and is now speaking in Spanish again” and, then, when she heard that she had returned to Spanish, we could hear her again.
The next appearance was that of deputy Maribel Vaquero, from the PNB. She began her speech in Spanish and we followed it entirely, until she switched to Basque. Then, after a prudent forty seconds, the presenter again addressed the audience, talking over what the Basque deputy was saying in her language and leaving her inaudible in the background. The presenter commented with Paula Florit that Vaquero, until then, had not asked for elections to be brought forward. Perhaps she was saying it in Basque, we don't know: first because there was no translation for the audience and, second, because, for the same reason, interventions in this language do not deserve the same television attention and were being talked over.
For this to happen on Catalan public television is hypocritical. The rights we claim for Catalan should be respected for the rest of the co-official languages of the State, for coherence and for aesthetics. We cannot prioritize discourse based on the language spoken. If TV3 does not assume the cost of a Basque interpreter, how will we defend that others invest in the translation of Catalan? If, despite this, it turns out to be a luxury that TV3 cannot afford, then facilities should be claimed to connect with the simultaneous translation that takes place in the Congress itself for the rest of the deputies, but this translation should also be in Catalan. If when Basque is spoken, 3CatInfo refrains from listening to it or speaks over it, how can we complain when this is done with Catalan? It also conveys the idea that what is said in this language is less important. TV3 cannot copy the approaches of Spanish channels by making differences and treating co-official languages as secondary.
