Shutting The Presses: Local papers in Mallorca

Reports of the death of the local newspaper have not been greatly exaggerated. It was put into intensive care some years ago and has waited for the seemingly inevitable moment when the life-support system has to be switched off. As with the local newspaper almost anywhere, so it is with the Mallorcan local newspaper, and one of its sources of life support, public money, has been switched off.

Does it matter if newspapers which serve local communities in Mallorca cease to be? In Alcúdia, as an example, its local paper (magazine in fact) stopped quite some while back. Whether it has made any difference to the life of the town is debatable.

Local papers do have a role to play. They add to a sense of local identity and they are a key medium for the dissemination of news that is specifically relevant to individual towns. New media have, however, undermined their function, and the withdrawal of advertising revenue has made most virtually untenable.

Though the papers fulfil an important role in local communities, there are questions regarding them that go beyond the selling of advertising and the impact of the internet and social media. One of them has to do with that source of life support - public money.

Would you be surprised to learn that several million euros of grants were paid to newspaper publishers in the Balearics by the previous government? These grants have been ended by the current government, but the decision has more to do with lack of finance than with what the Balearics Supreme Court once described as the arbitrary nature of grants to the press by the former government.

The press, in theory, is independent. It isn't of course because it often operates according to specific agendas. Whether public money influences these agendas or not, the mere fact of it being made available can create a perception of independence being compromised.

As with papers produced for the island as a whole, so it has also been the case that the local papers have received grants - from the government and the Council of Mallorca, from the directorate for language policy and from town halls. With the partial exception of the latter, these grants have also been withdrawn.

A case can be made for public money to support the press, as it does enable there to be means to provide local media. This is especially so with those local papers that don't operate as businesses as such; some are run as cultural societies. Nevertheless, the same perception can be created; that they might not be genuinely independent.

The recent history of local radio and television in Mallorca has been one in which there have been clear suggestions as to political influence and to stations being in effect political mouthpieces. In the same way, it is hard to not at least think that local papers might have been influenced by, for instance, a generous town hall administration.

If the press is merely a medium by which local issues are reported, then it is only performing part of its job. Journalism falls into three general categories. One, reporting, is factual, or should be, but it can be prone to its own inherent bias, dependent upon the source or the paper's agenda. A second is comment and opinion, while a third is more of the investigative or forensic variety, an expensive form of journalism of which there is almost none in Mallorca.

Of the second category, it is fallacious to believe that comment should be balanced; by definition it isn't. To quote the broadcaster and journalist Jonathan Meades: "fairness (aka balance) is a jurisdictive virtue not a journalistic one". But so long as there exists a relationship of trust with the reader that opinion is that of the author and not one that may have been guided by whatever force, including public money, then the reader can accept the writer's integrity, even if he or she may disagree with the opinion. It's known as the freedom of the press, a concept enshrined in the Spanish constitution and a concept that goes beyond the imposition of censorship; it has to do with independence of thought.

But how free is the press in Mallorca? Parts of it are more so than others, and there are some outstanding and challenging local journalists. Other parts are not, and as much as economic hard times and changing media, a failure of independence, one caused by various influences and pressures and not just public money (now no longer a double-edged sword of influence), is what also closes down the life support, especially when there is life elsewhere - on the internet and in social media.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.