Editor’s note: This article was first published in August 2012. This news is from that month, and recently received refers to the 2012 Iris Award. Ana Pastor later worked for CNN en Español and laSexta.
Bad news for impartial journalism (good journalism) with the removal of Ana Pastor from Los Desayunos de TVE, the morning interview programme on Spain’s public television. The journalist, who recently received an Iris Award for best news presenter, has been dismissed for… being a professional from head to toe? At least she argues that she has been vetoed for doing good journalism, and the truth is that there is no other reason.
In the speech she gave when she collected the Iris Award, Ana Pastor said that an interview should please the public, not politicians: you have to be brave and have the courage not to bow your head before power. At that moment she did not know that those in power can get you out of the way if you make them uncomfortable.
Watch: Ana Pastor, award for best news presenter (RTVE)
I have always considered her a true professional journalist. She has put politicians from the left and the right on the ropes with a sequence of questions the politician might not like, but which we citizens appreciated, because we wanted an answer that rarely came.
Today press freedom dies at a public broadcaster. Today we know which news programmes and interviews will not show us the truth, because whoever takes over from Ana Pastor will behave as the interviewee expects, especially if they belong to the party concerned.
Still, it was a death foretold, since the Partido Popular had already signalled that it intended to do without her, allegedly because her interviews favoured the PSOE (the Socialist party) and were more hostile towards the PP. The truth is that I personally have always seen her go after politicians from both parties with equal energy.
All our support for this great professional because, whether some politicians like it or not, most of us citizens saw real journalism in her interviews.
And for anyone with the nerve to suggest that Ana Pastor favoured some and harmed others in her interviews, here is a summary of her most awkward questions. As the video shows, they cover every political colour.
Watch: Ana Pastor’s most awkward interview questions
Featured image: iRedes Burgos, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
