The Gag: A World Losing Its Free Press

I want to ask you something personal, Octavio.

You spent years at El País.

Spain's ranking has bounced around quite a bit over the years.

What does it feel like from inside a newsroom when the political pressure starts coming?

Es sutil al principio.

It's subtle at first.

Una llamada telefónica de alguien cercano al gobierno que pregunta si es necesario publicar cierta información.

A phone call from someone close to the government asking whether it's really necessary to publish certain information.

Una fuente que de repente deja de hablar contigo.

A source who suddenly stops talking to you.

Un anunciante importante que retira su publicidad después de una investigación incómoda.

An important advertiser who pulls their ads after an uncomfortable investigation.

Ninguna de estas cosas, por sí sola, parece una amenaza directa.

None of these things, on their own, looks like a direct threat.

Pero el efecto acumulativo es que los periodistas empiezan a pensar dos veces antes de publicar ciertas historias.

But the cumulative effect is that journalists start thinking twice before publishing certain stories.

That's the real mechanism, isn't it.

It's not that someone stops the story.

It's that the story doesn't get written in the first place.

Autocensura.

Self-censorship.

That's the word I keep hearing from journalists in countries where things are getting worse.

La autocensura es el veneno más difícil de detectar porque es invisible.

Self-censorship is the hardest poison to detect because it's invisible.

No aparece en las estadísticas de periodistas encarcelados.

It doesn't appear in statistics about jailed journalists.

No aparece en los informes sobre ataques físicos.

It doesn't appear in reports about physical attacks.

Es simplemente el espacio que se encoge, las preguntas que no se hacen, las investigaciones que se abandonan antes de comenzar.

It's simply the space that shrinks, the questions that don't get asked, the investigations abandoned before they begin.

Y el lector nunca sabe lo que no está leyendo.

And the reader never knows what they're not reading.

I want to talk about where this is worst right now, because it's easy to point at the usual suspects, Russia, China, North Korea, and call it a day.

But the RSF report tells a more complicated story.

Mucho más complicada.

Much more complicated.

Porque los descensos más graves en los últimos años no han sido en esos países, que ya estaban en el fondo.

Because the steepest falls in recent years haven't been in those countries, which were already at the bottom.

Los descensos más graves han ocurrido en democracias que se suponía que eran estables.

The steepest falls have happened in democracies that were supposed to be stable.

En países donde los periodistas no van a la cárcel, pero donde el entorno se ha vuelto cada vez más hostil: la polarización política que convierte a los reporteros en objetivo de ataques en redes sociales, los medios que se vuelven brazos propagandísticos de un bando u otro, la confusión entre opinión y noticia.

Countries where journalists don't go to prison, but where the environment has become increasingly hostile: political polarization that turns reporters into targets for social media attacks, news outlets that become propaganda arms for one side or another, the confusion between opinion and news.

The United States.

We should just say it.

The US has dropped significantly in the index over the past decade.

That's a real thing, not a talking point.

Sí, y es importante señalarlo precisamente porque Estados Unidos se ha visto históricamente como un modelo de libertad de prensa.

Yes, and it's important to point that out precisely because the United States has historically seen itself as a model of press freedom.

La Primera Enmienda, la tradición del periodismo de investigación, el Watergate.

The First Amendment, the tradition of investigative journalism, Watergate.

Ese legado sigue siendo real.

That legacy is still real.

Pero cuando el presidente llama a los periodistas enemigos del pueblo, cuando los medios se fragmentan en ecosistemas que solo confirman lo que sus audiencias ya creen, eso tiene consecuencias.

But when the president calls journalists enemies of the people, when news outlets fragment into ecosystems that only confirm what their audiences already believe, that has consequences.

Look, I lived that.

I came back from years abroad and found a media landscape I barely recognized.

The thing that worries me most is trust.

Not whether journalists are free to publish, but whether anyone believes them when they do.

Y ahí está el problema central.

And there's the central problem.

Porque la libertad de prensa no solo requiere periodistas que puedan trabajar libremente.

Because press freedom doesn't only require journalists who can work freely.

Requiere una sociedad dispuesta a escucharles y a distinguir entre información verificada y desinformación.

It requires a society willing to listen to them and to distinguish between verified information and disinformation.

Cuando esa capacidad de distinguir se erosiona, la libertad formal de prensa pierde gran parte de su valor.

When that capacity to distinguish erodes, formal press freedom loses much of its value.

Fletcher Haines, meet the social media era.

Twenty years ago when I was filing from Beirut, you worried about getting the story out.

Today the story gets out in thirty seconds, and the problem is that nobody can agree on which version of reality is true.

Es una paradoja brutal.

It's a brutal paradox.

Nunca ha habido tanta información disponible, y al mismo tiempo nunca ha sido tan difícil saber en qué información confiar.

There has never been so much information available, and at the same time it has never been so difficult to know which information to trust.

Antes el problema era el acceso.

Before, the problem was access.

Ahora el problema es la saturación y la desconfianza.

Now the problem is saturation and distrust.

Y los gobiernos autoritarios han aprendido a explotar esa confusión de manera muy eficiente.

And authoritarian governments have learned to exploit that confusion very efficiently.

Russia is the textbook case, right?

They don't just censor.

They flood the zone.

Create so much noise that people give up trying to find the signal.

Exactamente, es una táctica deliberada.

Exactly, it's a deliberate tactic.

El objetivo no es convencer a la gente de que el Kremlin dice la verdad.

The goal isn't to convince people that the Kremlin tells the truth.

El objetivo es convencer a la gente de que nadie dice la verdad, de que toda información es igualmente sospechosa.

The goal is to convince people that nobody tells the truth, that all information is equally suspect.

Si logras eso, neutralizas al periodismo independiente sin necesidad de suprimirlo directamente.

If you achieve that, you neutralize independent journalism without needing to suppress it directly.

I want to spend a minute on the parts of this story that don't get enough attention.

Latin America, for instance.

Mexico has been one of the deadliest countries for journalists for years, and it barely registers in the conversation outside of journalism circles.

México es un caso especialmente dramático porque la amenaza no viene principalmente del Estado, sino del crimen organizado.

Mexico is an especially dramatic case because the threat doesn't come primarily from the state, but from organized crime.

Los cárteles han entendido que controlar la información local es tan importante como controlar el territorio.

The cartels have understood that controlling local information is as important as controlling territory.

Y muchos periodistas regionales en México trabajan en condiciones de miedo absoluto, sin protección institucional, sabiendo que si publican ciertas cosas, las consecuencias pueden ser mortales.

And many regional journalists in Mexico work under conditions of absolute fear, without institutional protection, knowing that if they publish certain things, the consequences can be fatal.

I've had colleagues killed.

Not in Mexico, but in other places where the math was similar.

And what stays with you is not the drama of it.

It's how ordinary the moment is before it happens.

They were just doing their jobs.

Lo sé, Fletcher.

I know, Fletcher.

Y es importante que lo digas, porque a veces hablamos de estas estadísticas como si fueran abstractas.

And it's important that you say it, because sometimes we talk about these statistics as if they were abstract.

Cada número en ese informe es una persona, una familia, una historia que no se contó, un editor que tuvo que decidir si valía la pena el riesgo.

Each number in that report is a person, a family, a story that wasn't told, an editor who had to decide whether the risk was worth it.

El periodismo en zonas de conflicto o bajo presión criminal requiere un tipo de valor que no siempre se reconoce suficientemente.

Journalism in conflict zones or under criminal pressure requires a kind of courage that isn't always sufficiently recognized.

And here's the thing that connects all of this to the RSF number we started with.

When you lose those journalists, when they're killed or jailed or driven out of the profession, you don't just lose individual people.

You lose institutional knowledge.

You lose the sources, the context, the understanding of how things work in that place.

That's not recoverable in a year or two.

Hay una frase que me parece muy precisa: cuando silencias a un periodista local, silencias a toda una comunidad.

There's a phrase I find very precise: when you silence a local journalist, you silence an entire community.

Porque el periodismo local, el que cubre los ayuntamientos, los juzgados, las empresas, es el que hace que la corrupción sea más difícil de esconder.

Because local journalism, the kind that covers town halls, courts, businesses, is what makes corruption harder to hide.

Es el primer nivel de vigilancia democrática, y es el que está desapareciendo más rápido en muchos países.

It's the first level of democratic oversight, and it's the one disappearing fastest in many countries.

The local news crisis.

That's a real thing in the US too, completely separate from the political drama.

Hundreds of local papers have closed in the last fifteen years.

You end up with what people call news deserts, entire counties where nobody is watching the county commission vote on anything.

Y los estudios muestran que, en las zonas donde desaparece el periodismo local, la corrupción municipal aumenta de forma medible.

And studies show that in areas where local journalism disappears, municipal corruption increases in a measurable way.

No es una hipótesis ideológica, es un dato empírico.

That's not an ideological hypothesis, it's empirical data.

La prensa libre no es un lujo democrático.

A free press isn't a democratic luxury.

Es una parte del mecanismo que hace que las instituciones funcionen, igual que los tribunales independientes o las elecciones libres.

It's part of the mechanism that makes institutions work, just like independent courts or free elections.

Which brings me to something I keep turning over.

Is this reversible?

We've seen places improve.

Georgia bounced back at some points.

We mentioned Poland.

What does it take to actually reverse a decline in press freedom once it's set in?

En general, lo que más importa es un cambio político que venga acompañado de una voluntad real de reformar las instituciones mediáticas, no solo de prometer que las cosas serán diferentes.

Generally, what matters most is a political change accompanied by a genuine willingness to reform media institutions, not just promises that things will be different.

Polonia es un buen ejemplo: el gobierno de Tusk ha tomado medidas concretas para restablecer la independencia de los medios públicos, aunque hay mucho trabajo por delante.

Poland is a good example: Tusk's government has taken concrete steps to restore the independence of public media, though there's a lot of work ahead.

No es automático, y hay resistencias enormes.

It's not automatic, and the resistance is enormous.

Because the people who benefited from the captured media don't just go away.

They still own things.

They still have leverage.

Exactamente.

Exactly.

Y hay otro factor que no podemos ignorar: el modelo económico del periodismo sigue en crisis profunda.

And there's another factor we can't ignore: the economic model of journalism is still in deep crisis.

Aunque desaparecieran todos los gobiernos hostiles mañana, los medios independientes seguirían luchando por encontrar fórmulas de financiación que les permitan sobrevivir en la era digital.

Even if every hostile government disappeared tomorrow, independent news outlets would still be struggling to find funding models that allow them to survive in the digital age.

El periodismo de calidad es caro, y alguien tiene que pagarlo.

Quality journalism is expensive, and someone has to pay for it.

La pregunta es quién, y qué condiciones pone.

The question is who, and what conditions they attach.

Subscriptions, foundations, reader-funded models.

I've watched colleagues try every version of this.

Some work.

Many don't.

And in the meantime, the platforms that absorbed all the advertising revenue have very little interest in paying for the journalism they distribute.

Ese es quizás el problema estructural más grave de todos.

That's perhaps the most serious structural problem of all.

Las grandes plataformas tecnológicas se han beneficiado enormemente del contenido periodístico, han acaparado la atención de las audiencias, y al mismo tiempo han destruido el modelo publicitario que sostenía a esas redacciones.

The big tech platforms have benefited enormously from journalistic content, they've monopolized audience attention, and at the same time they've destroyed the advertising model that sustained those newsrooms.

Es una paradoja que todavía no hemos sabido resolver colectivamente.

It's a paradox we haven't yet managed to resolve collectively.

Alright, we should probably land this somewhere.

The number in the RSF report is alarming.

The trend line is alarming.

But I don't want to end on pure gloom.

What's your read?

Is there anything in this picture that's genuinely encouraging?

Lo que me da esperanza, aunque suene paradójico, es que el informe existe.

What gives me hope, paradoxical as it may sound, is that the report exists.

Que cada año hay organizaciones que miden esto, que documentan los casos, que presionan a los gobiernos, que defienden a los periodistas encarcelados.

That every year there are organizations that measure this, that document the cases, that pressure governments, that defend jailed journalists.

La conciencia pública sobre la libertad de prensa es mucho mayor hoy que hace treinta años.

Public awareness about press freedom is much greater today than thirty years ago.

Eso no resuelve el problema, pero es la condición necesaria para que algo cambie.

That doesn't solve the problem, but it's the necessary condition for anything to change.

That's a fair point.

And the journalists who are still doing this work, in the hardest conditions, knowing the risks, that still means something.

It's not nothing.

I want to ask you one more thing before we wrap, though.

Adelante.

Go ahead.

Earlier you said something I keep thinking about.

You said the goal of certain governments is to make people believe that nobody tells the truth.

And you used a phrase, es que si logras eso, neutralizas al periodismo.

That construction, es que.

I know what it means in context, but I've never quite understood the mechanics of it.

What's it actually doing in the sentence?

Bueno, es que tiene varios usos y es muy versátil.

Well, 'es que' has several uses and is very versatile.

En ese caso lo usé para introducir una explicación o una justificación.

In that case I used it to introduce an explanation or a justification.

Es como decir 'la clave está en que' o 'lo que pasa es que'.

It's like saying 'the key is that' or 'the thing is that'.

No es una traducción literal de nada en inglés.

It's not a literal translation of anything in English.

Es una forma de señalar que lo que viene a continuación explica o aclara lo que se acaba de decir.

It's a way of signaling that what comes next explains or clarifies what was just said.

Los hablantes nativos lo usamos casi sin darnos cuenta.

Native speakers use it almost without realizing it.

So it's a sort of pivot word.

It says 'here's the part that makes sense of everything.' And you can also use it defensively, right?

Like when I'm late to something and I say 'es que había mucho tráfico.'

Exacto, Fletcher, esa es la otra función.

Exactly, Fletcher, that's the other function.

Cuando alguien te reprocha algo y tú empiezas con 'es que', estás introduciendo una excusa o una justificación.

When someone reproaches you and you start with 'es que', you're introducing an excuse or a justification.

Los niños españoles lo aprenden muy joven.

Spanish children learn it very young.

En ese caso el tono cambia completamente y el que escucha ya sabe que viene una explicación que intenta reducir su culpa.

In that case the tone changes completely and the listener already knows that an explanation is coming that tries to reduce your guilt.

So the same two words can mean 'here's the important explanation' or 'please don't be angry with me.' Context does a lot of work in Spanish.

El contexto hace todo el trabajo.

Context does all the work.

En eso no somos tan diferentes del inglés.

In that we're not so different from English.

Y la próxima vez que llegues tarde a algo, ya sabes qué decir.

And next time you're late to something, you know what to say.