The Federation of Associations of Journalists of Spain (FAPE), the Association of Journalists of Madrid (APM) and the Association of Parliamentary Journalists (APP) have published in the last few hours a statement in which they condemn the “incident” carried out by the hoax agitator Javier Negre, owner of the digital ultra EDATV, in the press conference room of Congress last Tuesday.
“The Association of Parliamentary Journalists (APP) deplores the incidents that occurred in the press room of the Congress of Deputies on October 29, when a person accredited in the Lower House, accompanied by three others, rebuked and hurled serious insults against the and the journalists who carry out their work in the Chambers,” the APP has written in a release in which they “trust” the “action of the Congressional authorities” so that journalists can continue doing their work and do not consent to “the commission of inadmissible acts and behaviors, which even conflict with the Chamber’s own rules.”
Some of the facts that the press associations condemn have been recurring for several years in Congress. Negre and other people accredited as part of his company interrupt the operation of the press conference, taking the floor without permission in many cases to echo unverified news or outright hoaxes. This Tuesday, while the socialist spokesperson, Patxi López, appeared, the agitator turned on his microphone, stealing the turn of the editor who had received the speaking turn to accuse him of “bullying” one of the workers of his company “with the complicit silence of the rest of the journalists.”
The press conference had not ended, but the journalists decided to leave the room in protest. Minutes later, a journalist asked one of the EDATV workers to cut the video he had recorded of his boss while he was interrupting the press conference, so that his face did not appear on the screen. Recording without authorization in that press room is completely prohibited.
While that conversation was going on, Negre appeared again, with his cell phone in his hand, to defend his worker and respond to the criticism of the journalists, who rebuked him and asked him to stop constantly interrupting the normal work of the editors in Congress. “Are you afraid?” he even said to the journalist who had asked that her face not appear in the video.
A little later, both Negre and his workers mounted an online campaign with the video of that press conference, pointing out one by one the journalists who had rebuked him. The agitator uses the video signal broadcast by Congress and accompanies the image with audio recorded from the cell phone he had in his hand, since the microphones in the press room at that moment are closed.
“That small minority of those accredited to Congress tried to destroy, in a repeated attitude, the constant, professional and excellent work of parliamentary journalists, in the very free, plural and diverse context in which political life takes place. and parliamentary,” says the APP in its statement, which the APM and the FAPE have subsequently supported.
“The monitoring and control of the public activity of political power by journalists is essential in a democratic society and must respect the deontological standards of the journalistic profession. Any conduct that hinders the exercise of journalistic work, whether by politicians or informants, is an attack on citizens’ right to truthful information. A right that belongs to citizens and not to journalists or politicians,” he protests.
“They can threaten us, they can scold us or slander us. These attitudes will not diminish one bit the will of the vast majority of journalists who work in Congress and the Senate to carry out their work. A job that consists of telling, narrating, investigating everything that happens in the Chambers, what is seen and what is not seen. Parliamentary journalists dedicate themselves to this in plenary sessions, in committees, in informal and formal situations. This is the work of parliamentary journalists,” the statement added.
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