There have been developments in the communications sector this past week. Cristina Garmendia, who served as Minister of Science in José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero's government, has decided to step down as president of the Mediaset television group. Mario Rodríguez, until now the company's corporate general manager and director of institutional relations, takes over as the new president. Also in the audiovisual world, the Mediapro Group is strengthening its market and advertiser services with the creation of a market research department. This new division is headed by Kike Lozano, formerly the general manager of the audiovisual consultancy Geca.

On Tuesday, pundit Sarah Santaolalla left the debate table of the program En boca de todos in tears, on Cuatro. Not only did she suffer the abusive and degrading treatment of another collaborator, Antonio Naranjo, but the most sensationalist and cynical presenter on current television, Nacho Abad, tolerated it for the sake of the show.Santaolalla has become a very popular progressive and feminist political analyst on various debate shows. Her combative spirit has made her a highly sought-after collaborator. She has been the victim of harassment, threats, escraches and aggressions by the far-right, including the pursuits of the incendiary Vito Quiles. For a week now, the pundit has had her arm in a sling due to a tug from this character when he was provoking and filming her with a camera. Last monthLast month she also received the sexist disdain of Rosa Belmonte on El hormiguero, who sexualized her to intellectually humiliate her.All of this has gone viral on social media. Logically, the confrontation scene on En boca de todos too. Later, Santaolalla issued a statement renouncing her continued participation in the program. The spectacle, which provokes revulsion, hints at the aggressiveness allowed against female pundits, especially if they are young. Naranjo, Ayuso's soldier in debate tables and a propagandist on her Telemadrid show, turns incessant and inflammatory verbosity into a weapon of destruction. It was sad that, after this scene, Pilar Rahola, who was observing it via video call, instead of lamenting it as a pundit experienced in these discussions, limited herself to listing all the threats she had received as if it were a competition with Santaolalla. Ego over common sense.The show alerts us to two not-so-innocent television trends, which have to do with the programs that have at some point hired Santaolalla as a pundit: En boca de todos, Todo es mentira, Mañaneros 360 and Malas lenguas. They call them talk shows, but they have become confrontation machines to generate viral clips. Provocation is encouraged, and antagonists are chosen to maximize the clash. Everything is designed to favor clickbait. Covertly, it is a disciplinary practice, because the participants themselves know that they must contribute effectively to the circus if they do not want to be expelled. It has nothing to do with journalism. It is a way of polarizing and degrading public discourse. The codes of reality are invading the talk show genre. This strategy brings to light another more subtle aspect: these programs look for young and vehement female pundits who best fit hegemonic beauty standards, so they contribute to the appeal. It is easier for veteran men to attack them. No matter how valid they are, more and more aesthetic pressure is exerted on political analysts to aestheticize the battlefield. Words matter less and less to them.

On Monday, current affairs programs reacted to the war between the United States, Israel, and Iran. In situations of crisis and gravity, the informational miseries are most evident. One of the recurring situations consisted of interviewing Spaniards trapped in the Persian Gulf. On Espejo público, they made a certain Ofelia Hentschel, a former contestant on MasterChef, famous. Over the weekend, she had announced on social media that she could not return to Spain from Dubai. With a victimistic attitude, she ranted and groaned as if she were the only person in her situation and even suggested that Spanish citizens should not pay taxes because they were useless. It is unnecessary to list the absurdities she uttered, but the recordings were a grotesque spectacle. A repertoire of unprecedented moods, full of demagoguery and with a worrying lack of maturity. The phenomenon demonstrates how television, in symbiosis with social networks, has ended up normalizing forms of exhibitionism based on narcissism.After showing a selection of Ofelia's stellar moments, Susanna Griso interviewed her for fifteen minutes and even had her participate in the discussion to attack Pedro Sánchez. The presenter showed her the videos the president had posted on social media riding a bicycle so that the influencer would criticize him. In the afternoon, she was interviewed on Y ahora Sonsoles,on Antena 3; El tiempo justo, on Telecinco, and Todo es mentira, on Cuatro. Both Sonsoles Ónega and Joaquín Prat and Risto Mejide were also very interested in delving into her absurdities and her opinion on paying taxes. After all, these are programs that feed on sensationalism and turn anecdotes into categories. They claim to be doing journalism, but they are dedicated to variety shows. They all put on faces of gravity and contrition in the face of the escalating conflict, but they reveled in the psychodrama of the former MasterChef contestant. Posing as daring interviewers, they gave her moral lessons about the duty to pay taxes.In the height of incoherence, on Más vale tarde, on La Sexta, they went even further. Iñaki López and Cristina Pardo made faces about the case and dedicated a report to the girl's farce. The presenters wanted to demonstrate their high moral standing by belittling Ofelia's discourse and asked the experts at the table to join in. Even the singer Ramoncín chimed in. “Let's see if we can talk to Ofelia and understand this change of opinion better”, the presenters said ironically after seeing that the influencer was already saying she felt “supported by Spain”. They later lamented not being able to establish a live connection with her.What is perplexing is why on earth they wanted to interview this girl, who had been spouting nonsense for twenty-four hours. The television presenters' eagerness to shock us and achieve virality does nothing but fill television with the kings of foolishness.

Wednesday morning, the Spanish Prime Minister regretted, in a parliamentary session, that Iker Jiménez, presenter of the program Horizonte, on Cuatro, had an audience. He did so with resignation, after pointing him out as a source of lies and misinformation linked to right-wing parties.Sánchez has caused a Streisand effect. Mediaset has closed ranks with the presenter. The same evening, Informativos Telecinco reported on it, and several stars rushed to support their colleague. On Wednesday night, Iker Jiménez felt powerful and euphoric: “Well, well...”, he exclaimed at the start of Horizonte, playing the interesting card. He boasted about the large number of supportive messages he had received. And he invited Pedro Sánchez to the program, admitting that he was surprised by the importance the president had given him. “I even like it”, he said. He proudly assumed that Horizonte was annoying to power because it was a space of freedom. He took credit for the audience and the investigative capacity. “For a journalist like me, who has a bit of an ego, being there in that debate also fascinates me”. Carmen Porter, Jiménez's wife and co-presenter, joked: “You haven't done me any favors, I'm the one who has to put up with you. And I have to take that ego home with me. I don't know whether to thank you, Mr. President, or ask you not to mention him again, because if you do... he'll get carried away!”. Needless to say, Horizonte saw a surge in audience after the controversy.Pedro Sánchez's comment has activated what we could call strategic victimology: turning facts into proof of truth. Iker Jiménez and other presenters who attack the left have long maintained the narrative of dissent persecuted by power. Sánchez's comment serves to confirm it. The Spanish president's words do not erode Jiménez's credibility, but rather reinforce it and validate the supposed interference of political power in the media sphere. Mediaset, an expert in manufacturing artificial conflicts, could not have imagined a better spectacle than this duel. Neither Iker Jiménez could have aspired to more, nor Pedro Sánchez to less.The other presenter who had a busy day was Pablo Motos, after one of his panelists, Rosa Belmonte, disparaged a Cuatro panelist, Sarah Santaolalla, with a very sexist comment. The next day, the presenter apologized. The controversy is so elementarily sexist that it does not need to be elaborated on. However, the facts are not accidental. Belmonte throws the dart because she is in a space of complicity, sharing that mental framework. The laughter of Motos and Juan del Val, and the fact that the presenter was unable to immediately reject the offensive and crude comment, demonstrate this. Laughing is taking a position, and the late apologies the next day are part of a simple damage control. Because both El hormiguero and Horizonte have long used informational degradation as a promotional engine. These are the kinds of low blows that bring them new followers.

After almost three decades working at Mediaset, the corporation has decided to dismiss Alessandro Lecquio, who will no longer be on the program he currently collaborates on. Let's see, from Ana Rosa Quintana's production company, Unicornio Contento. In October, his ex-partner Antonia Dell'Atte gave an interview to The Country in which she denounced how she suffered physical abuse at the hands of the Telecinco collaborator in the late 1980s. These statements were no secret: in the early 2000s, Lecquio had sued Antonia for alleged slander and for labeling him an abuser on television, but she has not been afraid to repeat these words on several occasions.

On Thursday night we discovered that on the beaches of Cayos Cochinos there is an indigenous population that is silenced and suffers the consequences of reality TV shows. from Telecinco. Jorge Javier Vázquez started the program by warning the audience that they would not be able to carry out the tests and games with the contestants: "Unfortunately, and for reasons beyond our control, we are forced to alter our planned program due to a dispute between one of the indigenous communities and the local authorities. Our games beach has been disrupted. Of course, we respect their right to express themselves however they see fit, and that's why at this time we don't know if we'll be able to hold the planned games. We hope the situation can be resolved throughout the evening. This is the spirit of 'Survivor,' overcoming adversity.", he sentenced, with the effusive response of the audience on the set.

Isabel Pantoja's freedom of movement is restricted as a result of her inclusion on the Tax Agency's list of defaulters. The singer's debt exceeds one million euros and, for this reason, she is prohibited from leaving the country and requires prior authorization to move within the country. The decision directly affects the artist's plans, who had planned to move to the Dominican Republic and tour Latin America.

The end of Frank Cuesta's deception. Or, at least, the end of the first part. Legal pressure has forced him to publish a video in which he admits he's always been an imposter: he's neither a veterinarian nor a herpetologist, nor does he have professional knowledge of animals. Nor has he rescued the animals. He simply bought them to perfect the scam. He ran a sad illegal farm, not a rescue sanctuary. Now he says it was all for show. He admitted the animals were dying from neglect. He also fabricated the fact that he had cancer to attract attention and maintain the spotlight that feeds his ego. In the supposed apology video he recorded, all you have to do is look at the background. The room is filled with junk piled against the wall: food boxes, pillows, mattresses, plastic bags, and wrinkled clothing. A backdrop that gives a glimpse into the decadence of this individual and his personal circumstances.