Police sources are a must-read because they provide juicy headlines for journalists. In keeping with the times, they have specialized, created communications offices, and even perfected and humanized the "body of the crime" by putting a face and eyes on the spokesperson format, a paradigm of journalist Patrícia Plaja, who has been in charge of communications for the Mossos d'Esquadra for more than one time.
Reader Carlos Guardia addresses the topic with the competence of someone who – as he himself says – in another life worked as a journalist, and did so at the level of excellence and in the issues he raises. He followed operations after 11-M, lived and saw spectacular trials of the Newscast that would end in nothing, "that whole hysterical wave was possible because we journalists were encouraged by the apocalyptic and sensationalist stories of the police forces and the star judges of the National Court," and now, from his implacable background, he challenges us:
"Benvolgut Mr. Batista, this morning [01/04/2025] the ARA has alarmed with a spectacular «Breaking News»: «Operation against the logistical structure of Hezbollah in the Eixample of Barcelona»! Damn, that's it! It was assumed that some reader will think. But to me it seemed like a very exaggerated headline. unnecessarily alarmist, especially after arriving at the text. Hi heu posat more than format: there are no detinguts, no explosions, no weapons, at the moment, as the «logistical structure» of a very powerful military force is a bluff with a house. you are at the press Barcelona that consists of "buying" without reserving all the police communications, followed by the officials, with the abocats to cau d'orella. You have experience knowing that the Spanish police forces (mostly the Mossos d'Esquadra, in the same way) tend to exaggerate the score a lot when it comes to telling their services. This is when they do not emit very gross falsehoods, especially in politically charged cases, be it the independence movement or jihadism."
Gemma Garrido, head of Society, and Cesc Maideu, editor of the news, give me their opinion:
"Mr. Guardia should refer to the first version of the news about the operation published in the morning, with few paragraphs, with confirmation of the facts by the Civil Guard. This was information that evolved throughout the day, so the gaps pointed out by the reader (as it is not stated whether there are any) were being explained. Finally, it was established that three people were arrested in Barcelona, the United Kingdom, and France in a simultaneous operation for having collaborated with the supply from Europe of parts to manufacture more than a thousand drones."
The ARA editors conclude that the information was of public interest "due to the state of terrorist alert activated in Catalonia and the current conflict situation around the world" and that it was handled rigorously, without exaggeration, and citing diverse and verified sources.
Indeed, as my colleague Carles Guardia points out, I'm familiar with the issue of police sources primarily from my coverage of the Basque conflict, and given the avalanche of questions and reflections, I decided to clarify things through academic analysis. Police communications offices have a propaganda function—in this, they're no different from other corporate communications, and they have every right to do so. The main problem for journalists is that police communications offices are on the threshold of the presumption of innocence, as contemplated by law and our code of ethics.
Police sources "come across"—in relation to the reader's "buying"—achievements and, with their dissemination, reinforce the sacrosanct idea of citizen security, a highly valued electoral force, such that the more criminal the detainee, the more the force and the political system feed back into each other. But it turns out that those arrested are presumed innocent, which will not be extinguished until a judge issues a sentence. Statistics tell us that quite a few cases of arrests end in nothing. Here my numbers coincide with those mentioned by Guardia, referring to operations following 11-M: "Of all the dozens of detainees, only a fraction were prosecuted and an even smaller fraction were convicted, many for crimes other than terrorism (falsified papers, theft, etc.)" with the .
My academic proposal was that, to address the potential violation of such a fundamental right as the presumption of innocence, legislation should be passed that police press offices, being institutional and funded by the public treasury, should also be the press offices of the detainee, if deemed appropriate. They should give voice to the detainee or their lawyer as a legal representative.
Considering this utopia impossible, journalism must activate all its resources to protect the presumption of innocence, beyond the usual rhetoric of the adverb-adjective game. allegedly-alleged or the reference to the sources; here I quote Àlex Gutiérrez, who in his Stop machines from the 7th of last month wrote"The apparent asepsis of recording what a source says ends up turning the person who acts as an uncritical spokesperson into a necessary collaborator, even if it is by omission."
Indeed, as Garrido and Maideu point out, the coverage of the news in question declined in direct proportion to the distance from the original police sources: most news outlets opened with the alarm, and as time went on, the news diminished. The following day's ARA newspaper not only failed to feature the news on the front page but relegated it to page twenty, the second-to-last current affairs page, with a light, two-column headline under the heading "Events."
Requiem for the reader and writer Amparo Pujadas
In the seventh section of the Reader's Advocate, August 4th Last year, I echoed the unusual communication from reader Amparo Pujadas Gilabert, who at 96 read the ARA every day with the satisfaction of being well-informed, and given my elevated role – let's say – sent me the book she wrote when she was 86. She had begun to run writing workshops since her retirement and twenty years later, like Dumas's musketeers, she dared to fill her pen and computer printer with ink.
Gratefully, at the beginning of the year she sent me the manuscripts of her complete works, which showcase a natural gift for storytelling, imagination, and a sense of humor. She passed away on March 30th at the age of 97, accompanied by her nephew, a doctor, Octavi Pujades, although her professional career had made her known as an actor. She was named after her uncle, who died at the age of 30 in the La Guiche sanatorium from tuberculosis contracted in the French internment camps where the CNT volunteer ended up at the end of the Civil War. Amparo saved his letters and gave them to the National Archives of Catalonia, culminating a life of civic service that she had already carried out in responsible positions with the ONCE (National Commission for the Liberation of Catalonia).
We kept in touch, and finally, on March 20th, ten days before she died and the day spring wears Serrat's shoulder bag, we met briefly at a public event. Small but full of vitality, beauty in spite of age, elegance, a penetrating gaze, and a handshake with the muscular strength of affection. She invited me to coffee at her house and, with that mischievous wit that her words exuded, told me to bring the sugar.
I'm not writing an obituary but a requiem, specifically that of maestro Pérez Moya (Josep Ma Casasús remembered him as Antes de ARA), whom she met when he was director of the ONCE Orfeón Santa Cecília. Amparo Pujadas loved music, from Bach and Beethoven to Llach and Sisa, the creator of the seventh heaven that must have welcomed her.
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