Barça goalkeeper Marc-André ter Stegen issued a very painful statement with the presenters of the program Don't let him out of here, because they spread a – painful – rumour about their divorce.
Someone might say that Catalunya Ràdio has other obligations than a private one and that there should not be a laundry programme. But the obligations – musical, books, territory, feminism – are fulfilled and with success. A few years ago, making Crimes either Euphoria It would also have been unthinkable. Benet and Jornet said that we would not be a normal country until we had "laundry programmes in Catalan". We have the right to bad taste, banality and vulgarity in our language so that we can complain, like everyone else. If, out of exquisiteness, we give up these programmes in Catalan, the space will simply be occupied by another language and its own national framework.
Thus, I am surprised that the College of Journalists and the Information Council of Catalonia accuse the station of malpractice for having "violated the ethical principles of the code of ethics of journalism". It is as if the Catalan Academy of Gastronomy now issued a statement to say that at Bar Manolo the bread is from a petrol station. If such an ugly rumour had been spread on the RAC1 news, it would be different. The dean of the College of Journalists would have had to reprimand the head of news. And I give this example because, as the dean of journalists and the head of news at RAC1 are the same person, I understand that everything would have ended well.
With this I mean that accusing the station –all of it– of violating the code of ethics perhaps does violate it. The journalist Jofre Llombart tweeted on Monday that there has not been any statement like this in cases in our recent history and in news programmes. I don't remember with Tamara Carrasco, accused in news programmes of being a terrorist, nor with the false accounts of Xavier Trias, nor with the teachers of Sant Andreu de la Barca... Here we are talking about the presenters of a youth programme, with a light tone, who have already asked for forgiveness.
