Ética Periodística a Principios del Siglo XXI - Monitorando

Journalism and the media benefit with the test of values and
characteristic principles of liberal democracy as much as this benefit from their
scrutiny. That is why a solid formation and democratic awareness is necessary,
in my humble opinion, for journalists, as it is for lawyers, managers of the public
administration or political staff (SILVA, A. S., 2008: p. 2746).
JOSÉ MANUEL BARATA-FEYO (1998) states that the result of the subjection of informative
media business groups and their strategies for gaining market are mainly verified in television. In the past
is, since the early 90s of the last century, television was based on the triptych inform, educate and
entertain. Commercial TV highlighted the economic role, which has changed the very concept of
information and the attitude of the journalist.
JESPERS (1998) considers TV news (as is the case of “Jornal Nacional de Sexta”) a television
genre itself with its own rules of selection and hierarchy, narrative structuring and mediation. About the
role of the news presenter, says that the same tells information with the function of a narrator's family,
with the appearance of a nice and polite person, not aggressive. And the most important: What makes a
credible and effective presenter is primarily a stubborn will to communicate clearly and intelligently and
a concern of collusion with the public. The high levels of audience of this program are an example of this:
viewers were confronted with an “armed woman” who personally signed the program and announcing
objectivity and accuracy of information. In this list of inconsistencies, note the first refusal of Manuela
Moura Guedes (the former news presenter) when asked to speak to ERC: she just [was] willing to do [it]
under a process with assurances that there would be no disciplinary retaliation by TVI (ERC, 2009: p. 9).
She ended up speaking to ERC’s Regulatory Council later.
Since the beginning, this case has been linked to the political level. The differences
between the socialist government led by José Sócrates and the news program anchored by Manuela
Moura Guedes are known, with the Social Party leader himself, at the opening of the one of the party’s
congress, stressing it. In question were news broadcasted by “Jornal Nacional de Sexta” about the case
“Freeport” and the alleged interferences of José Sócrates when he had other duties in the government.
Following this, the journalist also drove a criminal complaint in court against him, the Prime Minister. To
this situation should be added the fact that Spanish company Prisa, owner of Media Capital (TVI’s
holder), is chaired by Jose Luis Cébrian, a former journalist who was associated to connections to Spanish
socialist government. Due to this, it could have had an important role in this process, in the sequence of
alleged pressures from Portuguese socialists. However, his discourse has always been consistent
throughout this episode, addressing responsibility to the managing director of Media Capital and the
leadership of TVI. Despite the fact that ERC excluded the alleged political pressures from the cessation of
the program, the truth is that, days later, decided to investigate whether this episode had interference from
political or economic power.
All these issues arise in an environment of overlapping and changing games of tactical and
strategic interests at stake where news is displayed as a “trophy” which, while not objective and
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