The recent change of sectional authorities set the tone for the pattern and “pateros”. The complaint of the recently inaugurated head of communications of the municipality of Cuenca revealed an extortion attempt that led to the unpleasant conclusion that there are “vaccinating journalists” in the union: enough to live according to the current semantic constructions of insecurity and organized crime.

The question is not new. The facts, according to Jorge Revilla, the complainant and in charge of technical and legal decision-making on the allocation of the communications budget of the new municipal administration, begin with the envoy. The message: advice in exchange for money, and if they, as a utility company, do not allow themselves to be advised, “public opinion will turn against the management”.

paper soul

The complaint jumped to Twitter, and then to the Prosecutor’s Office: “The vaccinators of journalism.” In pure wolf style. 1 photographer on behalf of 4 journalists goes to the municipal agency with a message: if they don’t give them advice or give them ‘some small thing’, they will turn public opinion and turn the press against him. Unacceptable,” Revilla wrote.

Yes, the issue is not new: already in the administration of former mayor Pedro Palacios, there were allegations of irregular payments to “journalists loyal” to the regime – and to the status quo, as we concluded in this case – who charged large sums of money for advertising items in a small group of owners accounts which are generously named “media”, or commissariats for commissioners and commissions.

Journalism for change or for injustice?

The current mayor, Christian Zamora, supported his official and asked the Prosecutor’s Office to investigate. And, on the contrary, in the local journalistic environment there is a kind of unprecedented deontological classification, in the style of “I wasn’t there”. In a few days, clothes were torn, graves were painted over, erased and new accounts were prayed for…

Personal, professional and institutional ethics will always be crossed and conditioned by a critical view, and above all by the self-criticism of those who dedicate themselves to the journalistic profession. And although those mentioned already hastened to request urgent investigations – that is, self-investigations – no sanction is in sight, because the crime has not been completed.

The old practices of bad journalism still apply as before, only the “new business model” of “emerging journalism” takes it to extremes: extortionists speak or negotiate on their own account because they have accumulated a social media following with diverse accounts; They are almost “influencers”, and this is their negotiating strategy today, which, according to some sources, suits them.

This is how it becomes “the best job in the world”, without pretensions to the generalization of corruption in this area. The panorama is darkened by the incredible fact promoted by the fact that any “vaccinator” opens an account on a social network and calls himself a “free and independent journalist”. And the darkest clouds hang over the election campaign. Horror! (OR)