The journalist Manuel Gómez Fernández (Alicante, 1971) will be, starting in April, the new presenter of the Buenos Días program on Aragonese regional television.
An appointment that is raising blisters due to the ways and political past of the person who until now was the network's Madrid correspondent for the morning magazine shows.
Gómez Fernández was a PP deputy in the Valencian Parliament for several terms (1995-2007) and also worked for the Popular Party in the Communication cabinet of Minister Fátima Báñez until the motion of censure removed Mariano Rajoy from the Government.
But none of this appears in the journalist's own Wikipedia, where now only his professional experience is detailed.
Nor his friendship with the current president of the Valencian Community, Carlos Mazón.
With a degree in Journalism from the European University of Madrid, and a master's degree in Antena 3 Television Journalism from the University of Nebrija, Gómez Fernández includes in his resume having worked in media such as La 8TV in the Valencian Community, Negocios TV, the SER network in Dènia, or having been “presenter in all its time slots of the Intereconomía newscast.”
Nothing about his political past.
Right now, this journalist with profuse and extensive political experience under the leadership of the PP, was participating in Aragón TV, reporting from Madrid for the regional magazine programs.
But what the Company Committee of the production company Chip Audiovisual, a subcontractor of the Henneo Group responsible for the news content of public television, complains about is the “non-compliance with the Company Agreement” that the appointment of him as presenter of the program entails. Good morning.
According to the statement released by this body this morning through social networks, “at no time has an internal promotion offer been made to fill this position,” which, according to the complaint, violates article 9 of the aforementioned pact.
Nor, according to the committee, has there been any selection test to fill the position.
For all this, and for “the clearly political profile” of this journalist, the workers' representatives criticize what, in their opinion, is a “loss of plurality, objectivity and rigor” of the channel and they “reserve the right to take legal action so that the position is offered to the rest of the staff.”
The program Buenos Días, of interviews, information and debate that is usually political, has two presenters who have the approval of the General Directorate of the Aragonese Public Television Corporation.
At this time, the acting general director is the journalist Ana Gimeno, after the resignation, with political controversy included, of Raquel Fuertes, who left this position after not having been granted the leave she requested from the job she held as a communications officer in the Delegation. of the Government of Spain in Aragon.
Something that even caused a political confrontation between the two major parties, PP and PSOE, and the matter reached the Cortes of Aragon, where the affected person and the president of the Television Administration Council, Antonio Suárez, appeared.
This is now joined by the new controversy over the appointment of Manuel Gómez Fernández.