The subscriber Antoni Soler Ricart sends me a very detailed email in which he shows his disgust and disagreement with the editorial of May 10, titled “Defence and technology: a Catalan bet”, as it represents “the official position of the newspaper”. The reader understands that in the Opinion section there may be articles for and against the defence and security industry, but adds: “I find it very hard to understand why a newspaper like yours, which has always been characterized by its sensitivity against wars and militarism, for a progressive vision of international relations and for its independence, should pronounce itself so enthusiastically on such a sensitive and controversial issue”. Immediately afterwards, Antoni Soler, former president of the Peace Foundation (FundiPau) with a recognized pacifist track record, develops his position at length and with criteria, emphasizing the discrepancy between, for example, the resources allocated to the military industry and those that go to health or education, in a Catalan society that has excelled in the “no to war”.The deputy director, Ignasi Aragay, specifies that the editorial “was indeed focused exclusively from an economic and business point of view”. He highlights the “strong roots of pacifism in Catalonia from the Spanish Civil War onwards”, but already coming from a tradition and looking to the future from Europeanism which, “strengthened after the Second World War, has also been based on the idea of avoiding new wars on the continent”. However, “the Russian aggression in Ukraine and the fact that the United States is renouncing its role in ensuring security in Europe via NATO in the face of Putin's threat, has changed the situation”, and it is considered that “the need for Europe to assume its own defense implies, indeed, having to think about the military industry”, not only from an economic point of view but also for geopolitical responsibility. Aragay concludes: “Defending Europe against the danger of Russian aggression is, in ideological terms, defending social-liberal democracy and consolidating this democratic space worldwide. The alternative is to be at the mercy of the military and economic power of a United States that is no longer a reliable partner or of a dictatorial China”.The head of Opinion, Toni Güell, reviews the articles that have profusely defended pacifist positions: “In the newspaper, the dissemination of opinions from experts in the antimilitarist and/or anti-armament line is mainly distributed between the Debate and International sections. In Debate, opinion articles by Vicenç Fisas or Jordi Armadans, stand out in this regard, as well as those by analysts who, like Carme Colomina, David Fernàndez or Natza Farré, have pointed out from different perspectives the cost that European rearmament could entail for the maintenance of the welfare state. For its part, International monitors reports and positions from organizations such as the Delàs Centre, the ICIP (Catalan Institute for Peace) or the SIPRI (Stockholm International Peace Research Institute). The newspaper also dedicated a dossier to the position of pacifism in present-day Europe and produced an interactive on unarmed civil resistance to the war in Ukraine”. The final sentence of the complaint that Antoni Soler Ricart has put in my hands has made me think a lot and a lot: "If they continue on this path, my conscience will oblige me to unsubscribe." We talk about the habit of the conscience clause of professionals, but little or nothing about that of users, who nevertheless also have it: a patient can choose to change doctors and a newspaper reader can decide to stop reading it or unsubscribing from it. Defending the reader is, therefore, proclaiming this right. Another thing is that, by synecdoche in the customary tradition of embezzlement of generalizations, a punctual and thematically circumscribed editorial can be considered the editorial line of ARA, and that the newspaper has effectively published articles of the opposite sign, as Toni Güell demonstrates. Based on all this, I thank the subscriber for putting his rights in black and white and I ask him to renew his trust in us and help us keep the ethical ceiling high.Of you or of usted and a consideration about Saint George's dragon
Reader Fèlix Tarrida sends me a reflection on the treatment between journalists and interviewees. He says: “Yesterday, Monday [May 4th], it was published an interview with Ms. Vania Arana, founder of the Las Kellys union, where the journalist addressed her as 'tu' and not 'vostè'. Yesterday, in an interview with a water polo player, he was addressed as 'vostè'. I would say that the newspaper should always use the 'vostè' form. I can't imagine an interview with any politician, for example, being addressed as 'tu'. In the case of Las Kellys, moreover, someone could see a certain lack of respect for who they are and the work they do. So, Mr. Batista, what are the newspaper's criteria regarding this matter?”Newspapers, in general, have maintained the vostè if not formally in their interviews, in the spirit of the distance that is also proclaimed when we invoke the third informative person. It is distance rather than respect, because tu does not necessarily imply a lack of respect, one would have to impute connotations and context to attribute negativity to it. The criterion of the ARA that subscriber Tarrida asks me for is flexible, it varies according to people, generations, situations, formality or relaxation. Without this ad hoc criterion, there would be tuteigs as forced as treatments of vostè, and sometimes the corset makes interviews made from tu to tu, for example due to friendship between journalist and interviewee, be transcribed as vostè. Salvador Espriu gave me a true masterclass on the subject. He, the national poet of Catalonia, the ultimate “patum” – as he used to say, making fun of himself –, treated me, a budding journalist, twenty-three years old and with a zero resume, with the formal “vostè”, and explained the reasons. Catalan is a very rich language, which has three registers for personal address: tu for familiar closeness, friendships, colleagues...; vostè for elegant distance and vós as an expression of respect for those who, by generation or custom, were not new to a form that can be considered archaic in our habitat of “viral” informal address. And from the words to the image, Xavier Abertí writes to me: “It's not that I want to give it any importance, and I think it's more due to comfort than centralism, but the fact is that, in the Sant Jordi special where a good bunch of dragon images were inserted, I think they were all from Barcelona. And we have more beyond. Just to mention three close to home and which I think are very successful: one from Cassà de la Selva, under the balcony of the Can Trinxeria house (today municipal); the other, contemporary, in Plaça de Catalunya in Figueres. The first is the work of Enric Clarassó and the other of Mercè Riba. And yet a third, the mysterious dragon of Sant Feliu de Guíxols. And surely they would find hundreds more.”Albertí elegantly sidesteps the issue, but from this platform his commentary has the value of highlighting what other readers have also reproached us for: the prevalence in the newspaper of a Barcelonian perspective of Catalonia, "city Catalonia" –I refer to the studies by Oriol Nel·lo, who was precisely Secretary of Territorial Planning appointed by Pasqual Maragall–. Newspaper mastheads explain the world from their national viewpoint, but this must begin by explaining well all possible registers of their own internal reality, which at times means a dispute against the metropolitan potential for news creation. Let us leave to Saint Eulalia and La Mercè the patronage of Barcelona and, given that Saint George is the patron saint of Catalonia, it would have been more appropriate if we had looked for dragons in the biodiversity that remains outside the walls of The City of Wonders.The Reader's Advocate takes note of doubts, suggestions, criticisms, and complaints about the newspaper's content in its digital and paper editions, and ensures that the treatment of information is in accordance with deontological codes.To contact the Reader's Advocate you can send an email to eldefensor@ara.cat or record a message of no more than one minute to the WhatsApp number 653784787. In all cases, identification with name, surnames and ID number is required.
