Among the different subgenres of clickbait fishing, one of the crudest is the one that profits from the death of (relatively) unknown people. I was thinking about this in light of this headline from El Nacional: “Commotion over the tragic death of a beloved presenter and actress, hit by a train. She was only 54 years old”. This refers to Ernestina Pais, who had her peak over 20 years ago, in the Argentinian version of Caiga quien caiga. The media explain that she was now participating in the umpteenth edition of MasterChef. In other words, she was someone of no relevance to the Catalan or Spanish reader. But the formulation of the headline is constructed to generate the incógnita of whether it is someone the reader knows. This same headline, stating her name — which in other times would have been an essential requirement — would generate two and a half clicks. Every week there are several similar pieces, and the practice extends not only to experts in trawling but also to prestigious publications. Like when a news report is made about the passing of an actor who appeared in two episodes of Friends; this is trafficking in the morbid fascination with the death of someone you know your audience doesn't care about — it's blunt to put it this way, but we're among functional adults — with the bait of invoking a known brand. But when you don't even have that, a “commotion” and a “beloved” fix it, even if the reader later says an “oh, right” when they read a name or see a face that doesn't even remotely ring a bell. 

The United Kingdom's ministers plan to implement a series of measures to ensure that traditional media outlets appear more prominently in social media feeds. They adopt the arguments of the BBC and other public broadcasters who claim that their content is drowned out by the vast tide of content creators who often spread misinformation. Furthermore, the enormous volume of videos produced in the United States in English makes it difficult for British offerings to stand out. (If the UK, with its splendidly healthy English, is worried... let's stop for ten seconds to think about what state of panic we who worry about Catalan should enter).The idea is as commendable and reasonable on paper as it is impossible to apply in practice. Perhaps it works in the United Kingdom, but here it would be impossible to import. Because even assuming – and that is a big assumption – that the tech giants would allow a government to tinker with their algorithm, the very delicate question of how a medium is given the seal of quality necessary to enjoy this boost in views and how it is denied to the one next to it would need to be resolved. If a government does it, it opens the door to ideological arbitrariness. Can anyone imagine the PSOE deciding who gets on the list? Or a government of the PP and Vox? Would the list be redefined with each change of government? And if it is the sector that validates the media, it opens the door to spurious corporatism, first, and then to partisan biases: one only needs to see who sits in certain television talk shows or which awards the majority of guild entities give to friends, acquaintances and acquaintances to confirm that they are anything but neutral. We will have to follow this British proposal with attention, therefore, but also with skepticism, to see if it comes to fruition. That is, if a prime minister lasts more than ten months, of course.

Telegraphically, as the background could fill the space of three Stop the presses: Alfaguara, Prisa's publishing house, publishes a book by Daniel Verdú, a journalist from El País, about the mysterious deceased editor of the magazine Jot Down, who operated under a pseudonym and electronically due to the agoraphobia she suffered from. It is said that she managed to get the best male signatures by sending suggestive photos of her stunning hairdresser and thus saved herself from paying for collaborations at market price. If the reader is still wading through X, they will have seen that this social network has been colonized for weeks by this serial – of a chicken run – with mutual accusations between one and another.

The pituitary glands are fused from the different humors emanating from the circles closest to Pedro Sánchez, but democracy has guarantor norms that shield governments from diverse impulses. In moments like these, they are perhaps difficult to reason with, but they are there for a reason. That is why I find the constant appeal from the cave to the supposed illegitimacy of the PSOE leader to be dangerous. The latest broadside is delivered by Abc with an editorial titled “A president against democracy”. Placing him outside of democracy is frankly dangerous, because it invites decisive action, torch and pitchfork. Everyone to the Capitol to restore freedom! Coming from a newspaper that lived through the Civil War, it is even more disturbing. And to further inflame tempers, the front page opens with another headline that fuels the offense: “Sánchez despises justice and Parliament”. The narrative from this trench always has the same blind spot: the inability to seriously analyze why the immense majority of political forces in Congress turn their backs on the PP and Vox. Without this consideration, their narrative falls apart: they should explain to their reader that the terrible management of integrations into the state project by right-wing parties forces the perfidious periphery to opt for the lesser evil, however lame the duck may walk.

Nineteen men pull the cable that will transport the gigantic corpse of 3,200 fathoms to the tomb. This is the premise of Donald Barthelme's sublime novel, The Dead Father, by Donald Barthelme. The son and his wife lead the arduous expedition, wondering how that omnipresent being can still dictate his law even after death. Because there is a problem: the father continues to give speeches, issue edicts, and unleash his censoring paternal fury.In another order of things, Felipe González today tops two of the Madrid right-wing newspapers' front pages. I'll stick with that of El Mundo, where they highlight this quote of his: “There is a political responsibility: he resigns or calls elections”. This is the man who claimed to learn about the Filesa or Roldán case through the press to the point that this excuse became a recurring phrase to ridicule him. And he is exactly the same man who accompanied former minister José Barrionuevo and former secretary of state Rafael Vera to the prison gate when they were convicted of the kidnapping of Segundo Marey. Genial and true to form, Felipe González now demands the assumption of responsibilities, he who attributed all the rot that surfaced through El Mundo –who would have thought, now such a friendly newspaper– to a media campaign by what he called the crime syndicate. Who would have told him, years to come, that the newspaper founded by Pedro J. Ramírez would be the one to restore his lost moral authority.Returning to Barthelme, in the story Views of my father weeping the last word is “Etc.”. Just like that. It is interpreted that the author wanted to emphasize the cyclical nature of history, the inevitable repetitions, and a certain cosmic impotence. It will be interesting to see if, in thirty years, Pedro Sánchez is hailed as a new hero in El Mundo, criticizing the socialist president of the day and his scandals.

We often talk about the penalty of the news, which is the reputational damage of seeing someone's name dragged through the media mud. But there is also the anti-penalty of the news, which is when the peculiar media system of this region spares you this dragging because, on its game board, you are actually a mere pawn. They have just sent a former minister to prison for a major sentence of 24 years, but the headlines of the right-wing press do not put Ábalos's name in the headlines, but someone else's. Let's see: “Sanchismo, condemned” (Abc), “Unanimous and implacable condemnation of the corruption that arrived with Sánchez” (El Mundo), “First judicial setback for Sanchismo with a historic conviction” (La Razón). To top it off, Pedro Sánchez occupies the photographs of the first two dailies: you would think that he is the one they have put behind bars. Good thing they haven't painted bars with artificial intelligence. Time will tell.

There is a scene from Stanley Kubrick's The Shining that always chills my blood. The cook Halloran is talking to the child Danny about the sinister hotel where he will have to spend the winter, cut off from the world. In the background, half out of focus, are some knives hanging on a column, and the composition of the frame subtly makes them point towards the poor child's head. It's one of those details that you might overlook on a first viewing – even though your subconscious picks up the sense of threat – but afterwards you can only see those points directed at the innocence embodied by the little character, and it's unbearable.

“Never say of that water I will not drink nor of this priest he is not my father”. The traditional saying my father often repeated to me (!) and I always keep it as a vaccine before writing a prophecy. But we will agree that the probabilities of Begoña Gómez kicking the bucket towards Pernambuco while her husband is president of Spain are frankly remote. Therefore, her passport withdrawal by order of Judge Peinado has caused surprise in the press, even in the right-wing press. Some even venture a Machiavellian maneuver: they overturn this provision, which is harmless despite everything, the system is reinforced as a guarantor and they can now attack the core issue, which is to try to send her to jail. Over the top? Never say of that water, etcetera. In any case, it was surprising to see this subtitle in El Mundo: “The instructor prohibits Begoña Gómez from leaving the country and indignates the police by stating that her escorts can help her escape”. It is revealing that the newspaper shows more loyalty to the police force than to the magistrate. Even in the ecosystem of the sewers there are hierarchies and deference among the ranks. Another relevant right-wing voice that has criticized the judge in question is José Antonio Zarzalejos. In a column in El Confidencial he says: “Peinado's resolution seems to be the outburst of an irresponsible magistrate who compromises not only his reputation but also offers a recital of poor technical competence and diminished personal judgment”.

Someone zoomed in a lot and left a couple of diopters to explain that Lamine Yamal, on his World Cup boots, wears small flags of Morocco (for his father) and Guinea (for his mother), but not that of Spain. It doesn't matter that the team's crest and flag appear everywhere: the essentialists do not forgive him this betrayal of the homeland. This is how Cristian Campos captures it in a column in El Español" titled "I don't care what Lamine Yamal's ID card says". The author assures – without having asked the interested party – that if Morocco were a football power, the Barça player would then wear the Arab (and Amazigh) country's jersey. Yes, they are right to open the windows, because the Islamophobic stench is starting to be noticeable and it is not pleasant. Campos considers Ilia Topuria, born in Germany and of Georgian origin, more Spanish than the one from Rocafonda. That the fighter is a sympathizer of Vox is a contextual detail that perhaps helps to understand the peculiar reasoning of the article.“What does your ID card say?

Newspapers can be analyzed for what they say but also for what they leave unsaid, hide, silence, or minimize. Front pages are often more eloquent than editorials, both for what they include and for their omissions. The European Court of Human Rights has endorsed the imposition of 25% Castilian as a vehicular language in schools, against any sociolinguistic criteria that analyzes the reality of Catalan in classrooms, playgrounds, and streets. Not long ago, this humble typewriter would expect to be buried by raging headlines from the cave, hurtful columns, and various proclamations. But this Friday morning, only El Mundo among Madrid's newspapers includes a small mention on its front page. The interpretation is clear: the issue of Catalan is considered won, one only needs to look at usage statistics and the dwindling mobilization capacity of Catalanist initiatives. Europe, which neither looks at us nor listens to our language, has made a pronouncement without legal consequences – what counts will be the Constitutional Court's ruling – but in other times with much less fuss, the usual newspapers would have manufactured a whole Easter candle about the persecution of Castilian in schools.

So it has happened: a former Spanish prime minister, who is now no longer dared to be remembered by the nickname Bambi, has declared as an accused for the first time. The newspapers digest it and the headlines are, almost unanimously, critical of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero because his explanations, partial and ethereal, convince no one, starting with the judge. That the cave would go for the jugular was taken for granted, but it is that even this disappointment seeps onto the front pages of newspapers usually friendly to the PSOE like La Vanguardia (“Zapatero denies receiving payment for the Plus Ultra rescue, but does not convince the judge”) or El Periódico (“Zapatero does not convince the judge, but keeps his passport”). There is only one newspaper that sides with him, El País, with “Zapatero declares that he did not influence the rescue: ‘I ask for trust’”. It is the only newspaper that does not mention the magistrate and the indications of corruption that remain. There are headlines without judicial gluten and this is one of them. With the addition of a small trick: the phrase in quotes does not correspond to the declaration before the magistrates, as it might seem, but is a phrase extracted from the subsequent press release. And it is an empty phrase, which appeals to trust out of the blue, or out of the eyebrow (but the public's eyebrows are even more angled than his, after details of the investigation were leaked).

Spread across three host countries, with more selections than ever and an extremely long duration, this is the most complicated World Cup to follow. Fortunately, from the press, there are beacons that stand firm to illuminate us with their great knowledge of the king of sports, bringing that added value that escapes us laymen in the matter. I'm talking about distinguished figures like Mariano Rajoy, who emerges from his hibernation to give us sports journalism columns again in El debate. His return begins with a sentence that kept me for half an hour with my toothbrush suspended and foam in my mouth, while I tried to grasp all the layers of meaning it offered me:

The Civil Guard is in turmoil and the different political factions that lean the armed institute one way or another are evident. The PSOE sewers have emerged to the surface and, among the detritus, there are the undignified pressures from the "plumber" Leire Díez and her entourage for the Central Operational Unit to stop meddling. Right-wing newspapers pounce on it, of course. In El Mundo, for example: "58% of socialist voters demand the resignation of Mercedes González." It is the typical ad hominem-instigated poll with conclusions already decided from the outset and which has no value if they do not tell us what percentage of PSOE sympathizers – my bet: very few – knew who on earth the director general of the Civil Guard was. The judo chop is completed with the deceptive use of the verb "demanar, for example: “58% of socialist voters are asking for the resignation of Mercedes González”. It’s the typical commissioned poll In any case, Lorca already sang it, in the poem "Romance de la Guardia Civil española": "They pass, if they want to pass, / and hide in their heads / a vague astronomy / of imprecise pistols". The interference against the UCO is serious, but we should also know if the grievances are founded and if the classic crust is detected, which is in a hurry with some cases and very little with others. Right, Cristóbal Montoro?

Broadly speaking, the cliché is that many young people vote for the far-right because they get their information from toxic sources on social media. I would like to add some comments to this idea. Disenchantment is a driver of young people's votes, certainly, but the information equation is a bit more complex. Thefake news, according to the dominant school of thought, are more prevalent among older age groups. Facebook and WhatsApp groups are particularly conducive to spreading all sorts of false information. In the case of young people, however, the effect is indirect. It's not so much that they swallow lies as that they have grown up in an environment where manipulation was the order of the day and, therefore, their instinctive reaction has been to reject the communication paradigm wholesale. And they have done so because, in large part, many traditional media outlets have tenaciously contributed to this discredit. Once the idea of "You can't trust anyone, they're all deceiving you" sinks in, it's easier to fall into the traps of content creators with a certain personal charisma who dish out easy solutions to complicated problems. See how it wasn't that difficult, if you speak plainly? And these are usually the positions embraced by the far-right. In the end, fatxa and fatxenda are related words.

"This is our best album" is a phrase that hundreds of bands have said after releasing all the albums they have released. And while it is true that greater mastery of their art is increasingly expected, experience tells us that many gradually fade and lose the energy that made them unique in their time. Something similar happens with Pedro Sánchez. It is always his worst week. "The PSOE is dragged along by Zapatero in Sánchez's worst week: 'The membership cries'," headlines El Mundo on the front page, with a tearful anonymous quote. I will not underestimate the problems that plague the socialist leader, but knowing him, I wouldn't write him off so quickly either. In any case, I recall that Abc already said in May that Sánchez was "at his worst moment." And in November, also in El Mundo, they spoke of a "horribilis week for Sánchez and the PSOE." This same adjective had already been used in July 2024 by several regional newspapers of the Promecal group. But we can go back further, to February 2024, to find that El Español resorts to this same Latinism. Or in January 2024, and then it was La Razón that paraded the "horribilis" week. And do you know how Europa Press described the third week of May 2022? Exactly: horribilis.

The list of 61 journalists friendly with the PSOE for Leire Díez that has been circulating these days has the unmistakable taste of garlic, delicious if you don't plan on smashing your face into someone else's lips, but not a culinary discovery that should make you call your friends to tell them you could make soup out of it. Right-wing journalists rage about it, point fingers on social media, and promote their particular walk of shame, or public shaming with tweets instead of wilted escaroles. Obviously, there are journalists sold out to political parties. And quota journalists who travel from one talk show to another carrying the talking points sent by the politburo fresh each morning. But not all journalists specialized in a political party are puppets, nor are all panelists on someone's payroll for a party.

Chema Garrido, director of El Plural, wrote this message on X which I think very clearly illustrates the lustful relationship between politics and the media in Madrid: “The deputy director of El Español, Jorge Calabrés, defames me on Horizonte. They will never understand that I did not agree to change the editorial line of El Plural. That I rejected proposals to make another The Objective. They can't stand that I said no to their sewers. But I am not for sale”. Indeed, Iker Jiménez's program has become a kind of coven where almost everything to the left of Vox is demonized. And there, Jorge Calabrés explained that Garrido was one of the 61 journalists on the list that has delighted the fatxosfera these days and who are, presumably, the scribes that Jacobo Teijelo used to do favors for the PSOE plumber, Leire Díaz. The UCO report, as he stated, describes the director of El Plural as “impressionable”. He, on the other hand, denies ever having spoken with Teijelo. Believe whoever you want, you will do well to read today's Pareu with a pinch of salt.

No matter how much Manolo Lama and Paco González shouted themselves hoarse at the Bernabéu, Real Madrid's stadium was the scene of another defeat, in this case without footballers on the pitch: the Barcelona ceremony marked an abysmal contrast. Sobriety and good taste gave a helping hand to the saccharine cayetanismo. Complacency is nauseating, but the autoestima boost was necessary. In any case, a great contrast between the Barcelona and Madrid headlines this Thursday. The cave insisted on its obsession: Spain, Spain, Spain. "Blessed Sagrada Família, a sign of 'concord in Spain'," wrote El Mundo. It would have been nice to refer to the concord shown by the police on September 11, 1924, when they arrested Gaudí for refusing to speak Castilian. Abc also highlighted the temple's power to maintain state cohesion and La Razón, for its part, spoke of "unity," which we all know that under its masthead – that rojigualda in the corner of the flag – means, also and always, Spain. All in all, one way or another of not addressing the evidence: there are two different cultures, which are also expressed in aesthetics and the externalization of religious sentiment.

The Church has a long tradition in the business of issuing messages ambiguous enough to be interpreted at the convenience of the times (and of the other powers with which it has to triangulate). The Pope urged Catalans to be “builders of unity” and, of course, the cave has not taken long to put it on the front page. Because, in their mental framework, the word unidad is just the tip of the iceberg of the phrase unidad de la España entera. And, thus, when Abc or El Mundo print this papal exhortation in favor of unity on their respective front pages, they do so to convey that the pontiff is demanding that the independence joke cease once and for all. On the other hand, let's compare it with this subtitle from La Vanguardia: “Leo XIV asks «people from Barcelona and Catalans» to become «builders of unity», beyond polarization”. Adding that the plea is also for the people of Barcelona is important, because it deactivates the strictly national reading of the matter. And the reference to polarization reinforces the idea that we are not talking about the territorial integration of Catalonia with Spain, but about another issue that, incidentally, points out these enthusiastic headlines quite a bit, as a source and generator of eternal friction.

Political (or spiritual, as the case may be) leaders, when preparing a public address, are clear about the key idea they would like to see replicated and amplified through the leverage of the media. If they have communication advisors, they try to place a specific headline in as many places as possible. But polarization has caused Pope Leo XIV to stumble upon the multiplication of loaves, fishes, and interpretations of his words. El País highlights that he urges bishops to fight against "the plague" of pedophilia, but El Mundo underscores his request to politicians for "moral limits to power," meaning that Pedro Sánchez should call elections once and for all. Abc focuses on "the defense of life" (i.e., against women's right to abortion) and La Vanguardia dwells on "fleeing from permanent political disqualification," because this way there's no way to negotiate peacefully with whoever is in charge, man. El Periódico focuses on "human dignity" and ARA on the criticism of the "national priority" of PP and Vox. In other words, among the newspapers from Barcelona and Madrid that highlight an element of his speech –La Razón and El Punt Avui have headlines without specific accents – there are no two ideas that are repeated: so many heads, so many miters. Communication dispersion is usually a symptom of a missed shot, but here it could also be a symptom of great intelligence: give a little feed to everyone and, look, day by day, the pope pushes forward.