TVE journalists report serious errors in the interview to Abascal

Ojournalists of Spanish public television TVE denounced today “serious errors” committed with an interview to the leader of Vox, Santiago Abascal, in a program usually of humor and with audience chosen by the far right party.

TVE issued on Monday evening an interview with Santiago Abascal on the show “La Revuelta”, by humorist David Broncano.

At a time when Spain is in pre-campaign for the November 29 elections, other party leaders, including the Socialist Party (PSOE) and Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, have been through the program in recent weeks.

The program is recorded in a theatre in Madrid and Broncano himself told at the beginning of Monday’s broadcast that the Abascal team, “for fear of the usual public”, asked to be Vox to take responsibility for the audience.

“ And they're the ones who took care of bringing him through an agency. We thought he was fine,” said Broncano, who during the hour and a half of the program was, according to all the analyses today, “uncomfortable and nervous”.

The public received Abascal with applause and shouts of “president” and continued to systematically applaud all the interventions of the Vox leader.

At the end of the program – which summed up an interview, without humor or other usual participations – the humorist himself confessed “doubts and concerns”.

“ This decision raises my doubts, concerns me and makes amends, because your opinions have been unanimously supported and so it seems that they will be validated. If there was a random audience, there would be opinions that wouldn't applaud you. And this is not the real public,” Broncano told Abascal.

The humorist also confessed at the beginning that he did not feel comfortable “making a mockery program” with the leader of the Spanish extreme right and would therefore “do less”.

The program turned out to be a serious interview (or almost a debate between host and guest, as it qualified Abascal), with journalists and analysts stressing that Broncano was not prepared for this format.

The humorist assumed that a few years ago he would not have considered inviting the leader of the far right to a program, but considered that he now has “more responsibility for being on public television”.

The TVE Information Programmes Council (similar to a Drafting Council representing journalists in a media media) today condemned the “serious errors” committed on Monday with “La Revuelta” and asked for responsibilities, while the chairman of the Spanish radio and public television (RTVE) board, José Pablo López, admitted that “it was not the ideal stage” and that the result “calls for reflection”.

In a statement, the TVE Information Programmes Board considered “serious errors” to change the usual audience of the program and dispense with the humor and entertainment that characterize “La Revuelta”.

For the representatives of journalists, the program became a “space of information without the journalistic rigor that this requires” and “someone at RTVE allowed the interview to appear as ‘serious’”, making the professionals who work in writing “very uncomfortable”.

The Council argued that what has happened shows that interviews with politicians, especially in elections, must be conducted by RTVE journalists and be produced in full by public television.

“These conditions were not fulfilled. For this reason, we ask those who have taken these decisions to assume the responsibilities ", stressed the body in the same communiqué, which has as its title: “The importance of journalism and own news programs to ensure RTVE’s public service.”.

The president of RTVE acknowledged that “it was certainly not the ideal stage” and “invited to reflection”, but considered that it is easy to comment and decide ‘a posteriori’.

“Many will say that it was enough to tell them no. But at RTVE we offer no excuses to shout censorship or create martyrs in a theater”, he added, in a publication on social network X.

José Pablo López also expressed support for the host and his team, after lamenting “the background” of what Abascal said to Broncano at the end of the interview: “I wish you luck because you will need it.”.

The phrase is being interpreted as a threat to the presenter at a time when polls give as a result of the elections an absolute majority of the People's Party and the Vox, which will allow the far right to enter the Spanish Government.

Several political leaders and other voices also criticized the format in which the interview with Abascal was held on public television.

Monday’s “La Revuelta” had a record average audience for the show of 4.8 million viewers.