Joseph Oughourlian is the main shareholder and president of the PRISA group published by the Spanish newspaper The country. In a recent interview, he explained why it is necessary to charge to read the newspaper online: the world is full of fake news And that is why it is important that readers can trust the seriousness of the newspaper, know that it investigates, that it tells the truth, that it analyzes and interprets the facts. But that costs money, for which they must pay a subscription that allows them to maintain the standards of quality and professionalism and above all of independence, without owing favors to the government or businessmen.
Something similar says in a Lionel Barber book, who was director of the English newspaper Financial Times, and who managed to get a million people to pay for their subscription, so as not to depend on advertising that, as he says, is always accompanied by having to pay for it with favors.
In Mexico this is very evident. This government has stopped paying publicity in the media in which it is criticized (“I don’t pay to be beaten,” said a former president) and only supports those who accept its version of which news should be given and which should not. and how they should be approached. The result is that things like this happen: In the last three months of 2020, there were three orange alerts at the nuclear power plant in green lagoon in Veracruz, something about which Mexicans were not informed, despite the risk that this entailed, and who we found out about was from a foreign newspaper.
And as incredible as it may seem, when the spokesperson for the CFE, the company responsible for said plant, what it did was to minimize the problem, which is the same as they did in other cases, from the serious flooding in Tabasco due to not having exhausted the dams on time, to the 10-hour blackout that affected more than 10 million users.
The government’s response is always the same: disqualify the media for having told it. It is done over and over again, that is remarkable in the case of the pandemic, because from the President to the Undersecretary of Health they bother with them for reporting from a point of view that is not the official version or for analyzing and criticizing.
What about Veracruz and what about pandemic These are just two examples, but they are enough to show, on the one hand, how important the media continues to be for citizens to know what is happening and to make their own ideas about problems and solutions. And on the other, how important it is for the media to be independent in order to fulfill this task.
This is relevant because since December of last year, THE UNIVERSAL began to require a subscription to access the reading of some news and articles, after the online newspaper had been free. A white cross wrapped in a yellow circle indicates the texts that require this if they are to be read.
However, to this day readers do not seem to want to pay and prefer not to be able to read the texts. But hopefully they would realize that if we want to ensure the quality, professionalism and independence of the newspaper, that’s the way it has to be. More so now, when the Presidency blames the media and journalists for all the national problems, even because there are not enough doctors!
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