À Punt workers rebel against the channel's management

ValenciaThe shadow of the old Canal 9 is very long and the employees of À Punt, many of whom worked in the old Valencian public broadcaster, do not wish the channel to suffer the degradation of its predecessor. At least, not with their silence and complicity. That is why this Sunday they have filled social media with posts denouncing that they do not share the practices of the new corporation.

The spark that has once again ignited the workers' discontent has been the management's decision to broadcast a bullfight from 1997 instead of an informative special on the massive demonstration that took place on Saturday, and on the occasion of the commemoration of the first anniversary of the storm on October 29 last year, to demand the resignation of the Valencian president, Carlos Mazón.

Accompanied by the hashtag #LaPlantilladAPuntNoCalla, many employees have disseminated a letter in which they regret that the management of the chain has once again "subjected the Valencian public radio and television to an avalanche of criticism and an unacceptable degree of discredit." “With the complicit silence of the management of Information Services, À Punt turned its back on the clamor of the people to demand responsibilities from President Mazón and his government in the greatest recent tragedy in the Valencian Country,” they add.

The union sections of CCOO and the Intersindical Valenciana have also joined the protest. In fact, the works councils in full have requested the immediate resignation of the president of the chain's board of directors, Vicente Ordaz, the general director, Franscisco Aura, the head of information services, Josep Magraner, and the director of programs, Paco Picó. In the case of the latter two, they are two former officials of the old Canal 9, recovered by the PP for the new broadcaster. In the case of Ordaz, he was the head of information services for Cope in Valencia and is a communicator particularly resistant to the promotion and use of Valencian.

The denunciation of this episode joins others recently made by the staff of À Punt. In the previous one, it issued a statement in which it denounces that with the management appointed by PP and Vox, the public television station has become “a transmission belt” for the Valencian government, in which informational “manipulation” and the creation of “news on demand” are not uncommon. In this regard, they highlight that the suppression of the Citizens' Council and the temporary suspension of the News Council, added to the new regulations of this body, “has eliminated all decision-making power from the newsroom, and has erased the necessary exercise of transparency”. On the other hand, they explained that they are ashamed of “the deterioration that the Valencian language suffers”, and that they understand that it is “a deserved object of mockery on social networks”.