ERC reviews Lusa's request for appointment as interim director

A Regulating entity for the Social Communication (ERC) is analyzing the request submitted by the Lusa administration for the appointment of interim director, today told the official source news agency.

Contacted by Lusa, the ERC reported that “on November 6th, at 5:00 p.m., the Lusa Board of Directors received a request for prior opinion with exceptional urgency for the appointment of interim/ transitional director of information from Lusa.”.

The same source pointed out that “the entity is examining the application submitted”.

Lusa also questioned in writing whether the opinion of the ERC on an interim director in Lusa is mandatory, and, given the urgency of having a director and not having an opinion, what is happening, but has not been clarified on this matter.

The administration of the company and the Ministry of the Presidency, which has the guardianship of the agency, have also been contacted by Lusa, and have not yet provided any clarifications.

Lusa’s Drafting Board (CR) announced that the news agency is without a director of information (DI) in office since 00:00 today, due to the “absence of an answer” of the ERC.

“ Since 00:00, the Lusa agency, for the first time in its history, does not have a DI in the exercise of office, even in an interim manner. This violates the law and the principle of good faith management”, one can read, in a note from the Writing Board sent shortly after 00:00 today.

The news agency’s CoR said that on Friday, the “less than seven hours after the end of the term of exercise of the interim information management, the Board of Directors (CA) requested an opinion “of exceptional urgency” to the CoR and the ERC, to indicate the editor Pedro Sousa Carvalho for interim DI”.

“ This is at a time when the ERC is already examining the name of journalist Diana Ramos for the same position in finality, indicated seven days ago”, he also stressed.

The deadline for ERC to comment on Lusa's new information director is still running.

The choice of CA came on the day when the mandate of the current interim director, composed by Nuno Simas and Maria de Deus Rodrigues, ended, following the departure of information director Luísa Meireles.

After the choice of CA had been disclosed, the CoR had already accused the administration of exposing the agency to “total misgovernment” and decided to abstain on the appointment of Pedro Sousa Carvalho as new interim director.

The CoR stressed in its note at dawn today that, in the absence of an opinion from the ERC on either of the two nominees, the “DI of the Lusa agency is vacant, violating the law and good management practices”.

For this body the situation “is the full responsibility of the current CA, appointed in January by the Minister of the Presidency and the chill of the European Media Regulation, as the regulator himself indicates.”.

According to the elected members of the CoR, the situation “brightly violates the law, in particular Article 19 of the Press Act, which requires that ‘periodic publications should have a director’”.