News Coverage Is About Being There, Despite Social Media

Michael Hedges July 29, 2013 - Follow on Twitter

Following every news event, large or small, comes inevitably the fusillade from media critics, more often than not by the Twitterati. Once upon the time these ‘armchair quarterbacks’ would be kept at arm’s length. Today they’re quoted.

Spanish public broadcaster TVE’s initial coverage of the tragic train derailment near Santiago de Compostela last week faced the full force of criticism. Flying around a curve at an estimated 190 kilometers per hour late Wednesday night (July 24) the passenger train left the tracks with devastating results. The accident took place about 20 minutes before the TVE’s regularly scheduled evening newscast. First reporting came 40 minutes later with full coverage an hour after that on TVE’s La 1 and rolling news channel 24horas.

Other Spanish channels following suit without interrupting scheduled football games and movies, said elPeriodico.com (July 25) noting the Twitterati found full coverage of the incident almost immediately on CNN and the BBC. Visual images used by TVE’s initial reports were from a 2003 train crash, provoking certain consternation. The Twitterati, we have learned, impose an immediate need for vicarious satisfaction.

The TVE News Council, the internal representative of journalists, took seriously the complaints and criticism. “The immediate reaction, in general, was good,” they said in a statement, quoted by publico.es (July 27), noting an absence of “effective coordination” early on. “There is a lack of resources that become apparent when the broadcast was not up to what one would expect from a specialized news channel,” referring to 24horas. Public broadcaster RTVE has gone through several reorganizations, including means of financing, during political wrangling over austerity budgeting.

“We have not kept pace,” said the far more critical RTVE Works Council (Comisiones Obreras – CCOO), quoted by El Mundo (July 28), which noted internal division within RTVE over news coverage.  “We have fallen short because we lacked a professional pulse. The broadcast was a continuous loop of poor, relentless and tiresome repetition. Severe shortages and serious mismanagement have put us in a bad light. We have failed to meet our obligation to provide quality public service.”

TVE’s Galician regional news center, closest to the accident site, was complimented for “good reflexes.” A “lack of proper maintenance” exacerbated the technical problems, said the News Council statement. Regional public channel TV Galacia (TVG) saw its web server crash under traffic demands. “Social media reactions occur because a significant portion of the audience is still relying on TVE news channels.”

A year ago Julio Somoano was named RTVE news director, widely criticized as a political hack aligned with the center-right Partido Popular (PP) of Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy. Sr. Somoano fired or otherwise reassigned several high profile TV news presenters and editors widely associated with different political affiliations. In the midst audience ratings for TVE news programs plummeted and last week (July 18) the news line-up, including award winning news anchor Ana Blanco, was reshuffled again. PM Rajoy is currently embroiled in a corruption scandal, which he denies, pointing the blame-finger at the news media.

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