What we have traditionally called the right has achieved two undeniable victories. The first is the shift of economic issues to its own territory. Both the PSOE and El País are considered left-wing, but only by simple opposition: what they defend in terms of money is different, but in no way do they represent the two equidistant extremes of the center of the same axis. The second victory is the erosion of the left-wing brand, which in Spain had a good press, even if only as a reaction to Francoism: now it is associated among a good part of the electorate with naive do-goodism, corruption, or arrogant moral superiority. To be fair, part of these considerations have been earned through hard work and their own merits.
I was thinking about this when I read these two headlines. El País leads with: “The PP-Vox pact in Andalusia is the most right-wing leaning”. El Mundo, on the other hand, opts for: “The PP considers the Vox dilemma overcome 'without losing centrality'”. The two sentences suggest contradictory things, but they have many elements in common: they are interpretations that are difficult to scrutinize if they are pertinent, they play with the ambiguity of placing the center or the right in different points, they do not contain strictly factual or informative elements, even if they try to appear so, and they are published to prolong the topic for another day. They are headlines more thought for talk shows than for the reader. They are argumentative headlines. And very predictable. Increasingly, studies indicate that this approach to political journalism as a battering ram for certain partisan options generates rejection of the population towards the media, as they end up being perceived not as a counter-power but as an extension of a system that, moreover, is in crisis. A bad dance partner to cling to, because in the comings and goings of this perverse tango, the press ends up losing its step, adopting movements that are not its natural ones, and, in general, causing a certain discomfort to watch.
