JOURNALISM AGAINST POWER

Last week we saw like the journalist role is changing, and now, we will see one of the most important reasons: the relation between the Journalism and the Power.

The role of the journalist over the history has become in a key for the democracy. He has fought against political corruption, has denounced the abuses of power, has helped to create new laws covering needs and rights ... Its role like social observer at the service of a massive public with interest in knowing stories, stay informed, has become itself in an intermediary of the reality. A truth interpreted in a look that should always be critical and independent. But the reality also shows us that its independence could be damaged in an easy way by the powers who control de mass media.

Political power, economic power. Two brothers who always go hand in hand. That is the major problem of democracy. Now the powers are not exercised by politicians but big business. And we not only have to worry about, as journalists, for the tentacles of political interests but, specially, we have to take a look at business interests. Today, companies may have more power than some countries.

The best example to explain that is, according with the Spanish journalist Arturo San Agustín, the Watergate case: "Many journalists of my time say that the Watergate case reflects how two Washington Post journalists beat to President Nixon. By this way they want to demonstrate the power of the press. But power was which use that two journalists to load a member of power who in those times didn’t interest to someone. Behind the journalist has to be a power that uses it, which is almost always economic. And he, consciously or unconsciously, gets involved in the manipulation. Journalist is the ideal vehicle for declare war”.