In the face of a catastrophe, there used to be a twenty-four-hour grace period during which the news narrative strictly revolved around what had happened, leaving the assigning of responsibilities for after the shock of deaths and injuries had been processed. This is no longer the case, and some digital media outlets were calling for the head of Transport Minister Óscar Puente a few hours after the incident. They did so using dishonorable methods. La Razón and OK Diario asked their readers via respective polls. Of course, 98% of their following demanded his resignation, when it is evident that it will not happen, even less so in the middle of an emergency situation like the current one.

"It is normal that people can say what they think." This is read on the mural that is seen behind his photo, on his WhatsApp profile. But just because it is normal does not mean it is common. Member of the group Esquirols, a priest who stopped being one for love, author of more than 350 'auques' and scholar of Verdaguer, Joan Vilamala lives up to the motto and Enderrock Llibres publishes a volume where he narrates his life, with an accent on his musical facet.

“Ecstasy of Spanish football”, says Marca on its front page, regarding the Ballon d’Or gala. “Kane wins, Spain sweeps”, seconds As, also from Madrid. On the first two pages, the word Barça appears only in the last subheading, when it explains that the blaugranes were chosen as the best women’s team. In Catalonia, of course, the approach had a very different mental framework: “Barça sweeps”, wrote Mundo Deportivo recalling the awards for Alexia Putellas, Lamine Yamal, Vicky López, Cata Coll, Pere Romeu, and the women's team. Smaller, it also recalled the triumph of the Spanish national team, for Luis de la Fuente and Unai Simón, and left the big prize of Harry Kane for the very end. In Sport, the headline was “Blaugrana Party” and all six photographs were of Barça, including a proud Joan Laporta in the last of the cards. L’esportiu, for its part, gives the lead to Putellas, above the headline “Three golds”.

The nonconformist and committed voice of Montserrat Roig resonated metaphorically among the curtains of the Saló de Cent at Barcelona City Hall during the celebration of the awards that bear her name and serve as a tribute to this fundamental writer. The deputy director of ARA, Ignasi Aragay, has been recognized with the career achievement award. The jury highlighted his profile as a “creative, discreet, well-read, and hardworking person, with a great social disposition. He is a good professional and a good person, as well as a teacher and mentor to journalists from one of the country's reference newspapers”. He received the award ex aequo with journalism professor Xavier Giró, one of the theorists of so-called peace journalism, in which aseptic neutrality is rejected.

A tweet from the Popular Party ironizes that Pedro Sánchez's latest interviews have been in friendly media (El intermedio, Mañaneros, La revuelta, El País) and that on Sunday he will complete the poker hand on Salvados, also considered a friend. And, on the other hand, they explain that Feijóo visited presumed hostile territory by going to Cadena SER (alas, but without Barceló) and that this weekend he will be interviewed inEl País and La Vanguardia (which are the main printed scaffolds that support the Sanchista narrative today). “The Spain without walls that we defend is also shown with details like these,” they say. All in all, of course, it makes you laugh and highlights how the current era is characterized by the ability of political parties to maintain the narrative with a straight face even when the facts dismantle it.

The right-wing newspapers took advantage of their Sunday editions to interview different profiles from the PP, to see if they can finish shoring up the majority of 200 deputies they aspire to. Xavier García Albiol did a double act in La Razón and Abc, while Cayetana Álvarez de Toledo starred on the front page of El Mundo, the newspaper that fawns over her the most. A few days ago, these same papers were talking about the two souls of the PP, the moderate one and the hard one. It is clear which one is being brandished in the media and which one occupies the subjugated and cosmetic positions. Mind you, at least the Popular Party members had done their homework and read the talking points. Let's compare Albiol's headline (“It is in Sánchez's interest to inflate Vox to weaken the PP”) and Toledo's (“Sánchez wants division, for Vox to rise so that the PP loses”). Forget Laplace's game of seven differences.

How do we fight against fake news? “With media literacy!”, the choir responds, in unison, with the smug satisfaction of knowing the answer. But, beyond chanting this self-complacent clamor, what are we actually doing to increase it in our democracies? I understand that this is the underlying concern that has motivated the manifesto of the Platform for Media Education, which demands that the government translate good words into concrete measures. Indeed, since it is a cross-cutting issue that in no way only affects the Department of Education, there is a danger that –by passing the buck– no relevant policies will be implemented to help improve people's resources when it comes to navigating informative waters with many more currents, whirlpools, breakwaters, and siren songs than ever before. And we know that the rough seas are here to stay.

He just published The Oligarch's Son (Periscopi/Seix Barral, Catalan translation by Ricard Gil), a painful and fascinating investigation into a young man who dies after plunging into the Thames from the fifth floor of a luxury apartment in London's Riverside. Patrick Radden Keefe delves into the motives for that leap, into the double life he was leading and, above all, into the contrast that arises between the resplendent facade that is modern-day London and its interior, corrupted by money.

In politics, dancing to someone else's tune usually leads to problems and twisted ankles. The PP has long been trying to stop the hemorrhage of votes towards Vox and, in its graceless and uncoordinated gesticulation to follow this frantic cha-cha-cha, it only widens the dance floor for Abascal and his followers to puff out their chests, Saturday Night Live style. The press plays a role in all of this, of course. And so, we find that this Friday El País took advantage of the signing of Cayetana Álvarez de Toledo to write: “Feijóo reinforces the lists with profiles from the hard wing and regional positions”. On the other hand, in El Mundo the front page was very different and the headline was “Feijóo combines with Álvarez de Toledo and Sémper the two souls of the PP on the lists”. The contrast of keywords is evident: hard and souls. The whitewashing of the most extreme positions and the politics of resentment also happens through a semantic sterilization of the concepts.

New shake-up at iCat, the cultural station of the Generalitat. As ARA has exclusively learned, starting in the second half of January, it will cease to be strictly a radio station to become a channel that incorporates video. The change will be progressive and will involve readapting some of the existing programs so they can also circulate better on social media or be watched on the 3Cat platform, and also incorporating new formats. In fact, this Monday a public call will be published so that production companies have the option to present their projects. The intention is for the final schedule to be completed by the end of 2027.

Press photographers have the power to stop time and freeze action in the most eloquent hundredth of a second. An image of Javier Milei and Isabel Díaz Ayuso about to merge into a hug is making waves this Thursday on the front pages. It is a grotesque scene: the profusion of arms in disharmonious directions and the erratic torsos (oh, the Madrid president and her verticality) make them look like two puppet characters in a hysterical children's play: the only thing missing is for the puppets to shout "If you see the perro, shout very loudly, children!" Perhaps that is why La Razón opts for a more discreet image, where a serene and balanced handshake can be seen. Newspapers most sympathetic to Sanchismo, such as El País or La Vanguardia, take advantage of this strident photograph and try to neutralize the meeting by reminding readers in the front-page texts that Alberto Núñez Feijóo avoided sharing the frame with the anarcho-ultra-liberal-carajista, who on this occasion did not bring his chainsaw. They also explain that Abascal preferred to do a Zoom, which is like the poor man's handshake when you don't want to go to the trouble of actually meeting someone. Once again, we see how this campaign is being articulated around rage baiting or the clickbaiting of anger: the photo of Sánchez and Begoña larger in the right-wing newspapers, to inflame their readers, and that of Ayuso and Milei in those of the other trench, to achieve a symmetrical effect.

Two Catalan boys, Ahmed and Youssef, have been through an ordeal because someone took their photographs and claimed they were the murderers of an 83-year-old woman in Burgos. Far-right profiles massively spread their respective images to fuel racist discourse and, as always happens, corrections travel slower than rumors, which roll and roll and go much further. I want to focus, in any case, on the media outlet El Imperial, which was one of those that amplified this lie. The name, of course, says it all. “The identity of two boys completely unrelated to the case was published by mistake. The incompetent person who published the news has already been expelled from the media outlet”.

A stuffed animal with anxiety, protected by a hood. The doll appears as a prop in her series Segunda temporada, co-created with Miguel Ángel Blanca for Filmin, and Berta Prieto not only kept it because of everything it says about our times but has also turned it into her WhatsApp profile picture. After the success of Autodefensa and theater plays like Del fandom al troleig, this multifaceted artist demands time to continue developing her voice.

To me, the fact that the Bernabéu starts singing “Polaco the one who doesn't vote” affects me between zero and nothing. People go to the stadium to vent their base passions and act like cavemen: it is normal for them to utter environmental slogans, among which Catalanophobia always occupies a place of honor. Getting angry at the Real Madrid crowd is missing the mark because one must point at the sprinklers of this hatred. An example: the clip that has gone viral from a Movistar+ program in which they commented with sarcasm on how the Real Madrid delegate explained to Mbappé what this meant by polaco. The commentators of the video found it hilarious and, therefore, the viewer received the message that this belittlement was valid. Media professionals who would quite rightly censor the intolerable racist insults against black players when they are called monkeys normalize in a mass medium that the derogatory polaco –which made its fortune in the barracks during the Franco regime– is something to laugh about. If they did it without realizing it, they should apologize and go to the corner to think and reflect on the social responsibility of those of us who have a loudspeaker at hand.

Andrea Gumes is expecting a baby. She hosted the daily magazine Tardeo on Ràdio Primavera Sound for four seasons. She has partnered or currently partners with Anna Pacheco on the podcast Ciberlocutorio. And with Andreu Juanola on La cullerada. And with Berta Gómez on Demasiadas mujeres. She has hosted the program Nervi on TV3. She co-hosted and co-directed La turra, before Alba Riera did it solo. She has published articles in Rockdelux about series. And she talks about books on Tot es mou with Helena Garcia Melero. I won't go on any further about her resume, but I assume the list is enough to understand why she would be upset by the following headline, published in El Nacional: “Clara Molins, indie singer and new TV3 presenter, replaces a pregnant woman”. Reducing her to her condition as a pregnant person, to the point where you don't even mention her by name, means belittling her and exudes a disturbing sexism.

The only thing missing was Ángela Carrasco blaring through the speakers with those shrieks that said “si tu eres mi hooombreee y yo tu mujeeeer, donde quieras que estés amooor, contigo estarééé”. Pedro Sánchez’s kiss to Begoña Gómez is one of the campaign’s images, and most newspapers included it on their front page. The scene, being prefabricated, had a touch of discomfort and, in the wide shots showing the crowd applauding that display of intimate affection, also a dose of political pornography. Perhaps that is why the headline in El País (“Sánchez puts Begoña into the campaign”) expressed a certain discomfort and was identical to that of El Mundo.

We usually consider resignations an honorable (and rare) gesture but they are often more cosmetic than decisive. In the case of the socialists' spokesperson, it is obvious that it is an aesthetic issue: it looks bad for someone to come out making grand proclamations in favor of tenants while their partner is actively pursuing evictions in the courts and speculating in the real estate casino, where the bank also always wins. Now, I would bet a pea, or a penthouse in Madrid if I had one, that she must not be the only politician caught in this contradiction. The thing is not to get caught. From there, the day's press made it evident that the situation was a lose-lose for Sánchez. And the right-wing newspapers fell into amusing contradictions. For example, El Mundo headlined: “Hypocrisy over housing wipes out the PSOE spokesperson” and said in a subtitle that “Sánchez asked her to stay because she was 'a great asset' to the party”. According to this thesis, it is Montse Mínguez who decides to quit, knowing that she has become a burden. And the newspaper, of course, tried to attach this dead weight to the leader of the PSOE, to see if there is any luck and he sinks with her in the process. On the other hand, the ABCexecuted a different (and incompatible) strategy. On the front page they wrote: “Sánchez sacrifices the PSOE spokesperson to cover up the housing fiasco”. Here they did not buy that the Spanish president wanted to retain her and they portrayed him with the executioner's axe, merciless, capable of decapitating one of his own to survive another day and divert the focus from the umpteenth scandal.

On December 27th, Marc Sarrats will settle accounts with 2026 in the show El 2026, vist per sentència, at the Teatre Coliseum in Barcelona, with tickets already on sale. Taking advantage of the occasion, we talk unhurriedly about comedy, fatherhood, politics, and ghosts.

Katie Zacharia has been Trump's latest hire as press secretary and her debut in front of the journalists could not have been more disastrous, to the point that he has already fired her. Clinging to a piece of paper without which she seemed incapable of articulating a minimally coherent speech, she even suffered while reading because she stumbled and it was obvious she did not know where to place the emphasis in the sentences. Furthermore, her profile was under scrutiny because she had been presented as a lawyer and it is unclear if, beyond graduating from Pepperdine University, she passed the subsequent mandatory exam to be able to practice. In English, they distinguish between attorney and lawyer, and after multiple inquiries from the media, it was not clear if she is one or the other. But everything suggests that more than a lawyer she is a liar, that is to say, a blatant liar, which, considering who hired her, is not exactly a surprise.