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The Telemadrid council proposes as director a journalist who was dismissed by Aguirre and who signed for the Carmena City Council

2022-01-25T10:53:38.545Z


The candidate, Alfonso García, defended the informational independence of the entity before the former president and has a difficult time convincing the PP and Vox in the Assembly


Telemadrid headquarters in the City of the Image of Pozuelo de Alarcón.JVS

The Telemadrid Board of Directors has decided to propose the journalist Alfonso García as the new general director of the public company to the Madrid Assembly, according to three sources familiar with the process consulted by EL PAÍS.

If the proposal attracts the support of two thirds of the Chamber, which would force the right and left to reach an agreement, the controversial José Antonio Sánchez will cease to be the provisional administrator of the entity, a newly created position that he occupies by election of Isabel Díaz Ayuso, and with the endorsement of her controversial career on RTVE, or her status as a self-confessed PP voter, to which is added that she appears in

the papers of Bárcenas

.

However, few trust that García's candidacy will prosper.

More information

Telemadrid, public service as a political weapon

The reason?

García (Toledo, 1962) knows Telemadrid inside and out, where he has worked for more than a decade, and has also worked on public television in Castilla-La Mancha.

As a manager, those who know his professional biography well point out, he stands out for having directed Onda Madrid and the house news (2002-2004).

With the arrival of Esperanza Aguirre to power (2003) he defended the informative independence of the entity until he was dismissed.

Thus, it works against him that he denounced the PP's attempt to control public television ("Esperanza Aguirre ended up with me directly (...) [they wanted] Telemadrid to become the counterweight to Prisa at that time") and that he signed on as Head of the Communication Department of the Municipal Housing and Land Company of Madrid during the mandate of Manuela Carmena (2016). A work history that would condemn him in the eyes of PP and Vox, according to the sources consulted by this newspaper.

In any case, the election of García by the Board of Directors of Telemadrid culminates a public process that was attended by only three other candidates, and reflects the attempt to find a turning point in the direction of the company: from within the company there are voices that they assure that the Government of Díaz Ayuso preferred that the contest be deserted to having to vote in the Assembly.

After winning the 4-M elections, the first decision of the PP in the legislature was to propose a legal reform of the law that regulates the public entity.

The content of the proposal caused such a stir that it even deserved the reproach of Pedro Sánchez, the Prime Minister, during the interview he held in July 2021 with Díaz Ayuso in La Moncloa.

The reason?

The reform has ensured that the control of public television and radio remains in the hands of PP and Vox, since it meant the dismissal of the previous management (uncomfortable for Díaz Ayuso);

the creation of the figure of the provisional administrator (proposed by the Government, and without a dismissal mechanism);

and the appointment to the position of a PP affinity who could remain in office even if another party governed (if to appoint him only an absolute majority is necessary, to replace him a general director must be elected, which requires that left and right agree to reach two-thirds of the House).

Thus, the opposition of Más Madrid, PSOE and Podemos considers that it has gone from Tele-Espe to Tele-Ayuso: Sánchez, who charges 97,000 euros a year, like his predecessor, decided on 17 appointments in news services in his first weeks;

he contracted a Bertín Osborne program already broadcast on Canal Sur;

and he saw how the price of his remaining in office was to reduce the network's budget by 10% (which Vox demanded in exchange for his decisive vote).

Since then, Sánchez appears in the Assembly, where he leaves samples of a level of irony bordering on the bravado to which the deputies are not accustomed.

One day, for example, a Vox deputy complained that Telemadrid spent 15,000 euros to send a journalist to follow Díaz Ayuso's tour of the United States, "a trip," he said;

“without real political relevance, without appreciable content, with zero local repercussion”.

This is how Sánchez replied: “I think you are right in everything you have said, but as long as it was true, and then, already, I disagree with you on many things;

Now, if what you say is true, well, you're right.

The problem is that sophism;

call it “when it rains, the streets get wet, but not always when they are wet it has rained because they can be irrigated.”

That's the little nuance, right?

So, of course, I can't admit it, but I can't admit it because I don't perceive it, because I think it's not true that Telemadrid's sole purpose is to glorify, praise and praise the president;

I am not aware;

It would seem absurd to me and people would stop watching Telemadrid”.

It is foreseeable that Sánchez will continue to leave these phrases in the Assembly in the coming months: although the process to replace him with García will begin as quickly as possible, nobody is betting that it will end successfully.

Faith of errors

A first version of this article stated that Alfonso García was still working for the Madrid City Council, as stated in his professional profile on LinkedIn, but the Consistory specifies that this is no longer the case.

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Source: elparis

All news articles on 2022-01-25

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