Who has the right to define what a journalist is? (and 3)

After two days arguing the need to establish a definition of who should be considered a journalist (and who should not), based on non-ideological but professional criteria, I close this miniseries by outlining what the consequences should be. In this era of free identities, I will not be the one to start handing out press cards. But I do think that pseudo-media should not be able to operate, engaging in unfair competition with legitimate journalism. 

The first issue, a thorny one, is that of public subsidies and institutional advertising. It must not only be transparent so that citizens can judge whether the allocations are in line with the criteria (audience-based, but not only), but it must also be considered embezzlement if invested in pseudo-media that bypass the code of ethics, because that harms the message intended to be disseminated. And the other pressure must be exerted against big tech. The sector is looking to agree on compensation for the vampirization of journalistic content that they practice. It should go further and demand that all contextual advertising they serve (the kind that, after you search for 'potatoes' one day, keeps showing you potato ads for three generations) be limited to media outlets that act with rigor. It cannot be that dishonest 'merdiodismo' (media garbage) is more profitable because it is more viral (thanks to the algorithms that these corporations also control) and cheaper. Establishing this census is not easy and we must avoid the clutches of (bad) politics. There is an interesting incipient international initiative, by the way. And it must be defended as a matter of corporate responsibility, exigible from companies that have destabilized democracies. They should favor an economic system for the media without the perversion of manipulations being more profitable. Because the victims are not only journalists; they are the citizens as a whole.