On March 12, the Círculo Ecuestre held the third installment of the cycle of talks: Opinion Leaders, led by Nacho Cardero, director of El Confidencial.
After the welcome from the president of the Círculo Ecuestre, Enrique Lacalle, the journalist had a dialogue with the lawyer and also journalist Ricardo Fernández Deu.
The moderator of the event wanted to start the dialogue by knowing the journalist's opinion on the current situation in Catalonia. Cardero recalled that “the stage of the process, between 2012 and 2022, was turbulent to say the least”, and he was also positive about the current times: “At that time I saw sadness and a certain decline, but I think a certain vitality has been recovered”. "The process is a completed stage and, today, people think about entrepreneurship or the real problems that occupy Catalonia: education, health and drought".
The director of El Confidencial, faced with the controversial amnesty law, assured that “if there was a consensus among the entire society and people recognized their mistakes”, he would agree, but “since this does not obey, I don't care if it is legal or No, I think it is immoral because it is based on a slogan that is to continue in the Government”, he said. “The amnesty law is poorly thought out, in the shortest possible time it will be a ruse, but I do not believe that the next phase will be the self-determination referendum”, he added.
Regarding the executive's position, Cardero said that "I don't think Sánchez is thinking about giving a letter to make the self-determination referendum possible". “Sánchez is going to hold out until the end of his term, which is going to be a via crucis from the first moment due to the amnesty law”, he said.
Regarding the reports that were made public a couple of days before Congress voted and approved the amnesty law before sending it to the Senate, Cardero expressed that “the opinion is bad”. “The last wording is quite abstract and gives a lot of play to the interpretation of the judges in the crimes of high treason, terrorism and embezzlement and this is going to make us drag out the process,” he added.
Continuing along the political line, the speaker assessed that “the degree of interventionism of this government in all spheres is brutal”. “Freedom is in danger and there is a demonization of companies and their benefits and great pressure and tax persecution of people who are powerful for economic activity”, the journalist said. “The activity of the tax inspectors has been parallel to certain interests of the administration”, he stated.
After concluding the political section of the dialogue, the moderator and speaker covered the current journalistic landscape and its future as a result of the emergence of determining factors such as artificial intelligence. Cardero said that “paper is very good to have on the tables, but journalism is digital”. Along these lines, he told the public that “practicing journalism has never been so complicated or so necessary”.
The director of the leading digital native in Spain argued that “journalists are an instrument of democratic hygiene, we are in charge of explaining what many do not want” and introduced the public to some of the changes that the sector has had to face in recent years, such as “fakenews and Artificial Intelligence”, which have led to “a moment of crisis for the media”. Cardero said that “it would be very naive to think that the media crisis that has occurred in the United States will not happen in Spain”.
Faced with the grayish drawing of the future of the press, Fernández Deu wanted to know “where are the media going?” The journalist, winner of the prestigious 2017 Pulitzer Prize for The Panama Papers, from ICIJ and El Confidencial, explained that “a newspaper is no longer a site for information consultation”, but rather “what it can offer is investigative journalism, which means quality journalism”. “This shows us that we must return to the origins of journalism and go towards greater transparency in financing, corporate, a greater code of ethics and greater ease for readers to know what they are consuming,” he defended.
Cardero expressed that “the subscription is necessary, but it is not sufficient” and that, given that, “we must look for alternative sources of income”. Likewise, he assured that “editorial independence goes hand in hand with economic independence, and that is what our subscribers give us”. The director of the media ended his presentation by arguing that “At El Confidencial we bother the reader with opinions that he does not share, since we advocate promoting critical thinking”.