The latest barometer from the Center for Sociological Research (CIS), published last Thursday, raised a question that has created great controversy by suggesting the possibility of giving up freedom of expression to fight the expansion of hoaxes. But the controversy is much deeper. The CIS's allusion to consulting only “official sources” in the information on the coronavirus pandemic, a very recurring recommendation in the fight against disinformation, detracts from journalism's role in verifying the information disseminated by both political powers and public institutions or international. In addition, it undervalues the importance of other sources that, not being the official ones, have helped to uncover corruption and lies spread from official areas. Official sources or their representatives can also lie and hide information of public interest.
The CIS question: “Do you think that the dissemination of hoaxes and misleading and unsubstantiated information by social media and networks should be prohibited at this time, referring all information about the pandemic to official sources , or do you think that Should we maintain total freedom for the dissemination of news and information? ”
Obviously, resorting to information from public institutions is one of the basic tools of journalism. However, the fact that the sources are official does not mean that they are always truthful. Precisely in the covid-19 pandemic, official information has raised doubts about the number of deaths caused by the virus. In Madrid, for example, the data from burials suggests that deaths from coronaviruses may be 3,000 more than from official statistics. The Ministry of Health asks the communities to communicate the figures of the deceased confirmed by covid-19, that is, only that of those who have had a test. The criterion excludes those who have died in a nursing home without entering a hospital or at home without being tested.
These three examples show historical cases in which official sources, or their representatives, lied or withheld information. And a room in which an unofficial source uncovered a global spy plot:
The 'little lines of plasticine' of the 'Prestige'
On November 19, 2002, the oil tanker Prestige sank in two parts off the Galician coast, causing the worst environmental catastrophe in Spain. But that same afternoon, a scientist from the Superior Center for Scientific Research (CSIC), José Luis García Fierro, from the Institute of Catalysis and Petrochemicals, assured the press that the "sinking" was good news that would prevent the oil spill, according to the report. Carlos Elías Professor of Journalism and Bachelor of Chemistry in Environment, Political Manipulation and Media Risk Control. Analysis of the case of the sinking of the Prestige oil tanker . According to García Fierro's argument, which responded to political needs and not to scientific criteria, when the ship was at a depth of 3,600 meters, the fuel would solidify. This was the thesis handled by the Executive, which left a phrase for history. "The fuel is still cooling, a few small threads come out, they tell me that they are solidified streams that look like plasticine in vertical stretching," said Mariano Rajoy, then government spokesman who was running José María Aznar.
WHO concealed that its influenza A experts charged pharmaceutical companies
A key WHO report on the influenza A pandemic (2009-2010), which urged governments around the world to buy antiviral drugs against the H1N1 virus, concealed that some of the experts who produced it had links to pharmaceutical companies. Roche and Glaxo, makers of Tamiflu and Relenza, according to a study by the British Medical Journal ( BMJ ), one of the leading medical journals. The WHO analysis recommending governments to store these two drugs - the only two drugs effective against the H1N1 virus - had been published in 2004, before the pandemic broke out, and was supported by publications by three experts who did. they declared in their papers their ties to the pharmaceutical industry. However, the WHO concealed this information in the reports it submitted to governments. Based on that report, in 2009 Spain, for example, bought some 13 million doses to deal with the pandemic, of which it only used two.
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The 11-M: "It has been ETA"
Ángel Acebes, Minister of the Interior during Aznar's last stage in the Government, held for 56 hours, since the attack of March 11, 2004, until the first arrests were carried out, that those responsible for the massacre had been members from ETA, even when the clues pointed to jihadist terrorism. At 13:30 that same day, he stated: “It is absolutely clear and evident that the terrorist organization ETA was looking for an attack that would have a great impact, that would generate pain, that would generate fear, with a large number of victims and, as I have insisted during these days, ETA was permanently, at this precise moment, seeking that goal. Therefore, it seems to me absolutely intolerable any type of intoxication that is directed by miserable people to divert the objective and those responsible for this tragedy and this drama. ” Asked if there was any possibility that the perpetrators were members of Al Qaeda, he replied: "At this time, the Security Forces and Bodies and the Interior Ministry have no doubt that the terrorist gang ETA is responsible for this attack." .
The leak that uncovered massive US espionage
It is unlikely that any official source in the United States Government would have recognized that the country's National Security Agency (NSA) was carrying out a massive espionage through mobile phones. The revelations that former CIA employee Edward Snowden made to journalist Glenn Grenwald, published in The Guardian and The Washington Post , demonstrated the existence of a spy network that operated worldwide through the collaboration of intelligence agencies from various countries. to transfer metadata and records to the NSA, which this agency used to investigate citizens around the world.
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