This week marks eighteen months since Pedro Sánchez published a letter questioning his tenure and labeling media as a 'mud machine'. The government has since pushed reforms to regulate media funding and journalistic secrecy, drawing criticism from opposition and independent bodies. These steps aim to safeguard democracy but have heightened tensions with the press.
The tensions began with Sánchez's 'letter to the citizens' on social media, mentioning a 'constellation of ultra-conservative headlines' and coining 'mud machine' to encompass media and other agents. 'They are media with a marked right-wing and far-right orientation', the president wrote, referring to digital outlets reporting on his wife before a judge opened proceedings. Five days later, he reiterated: 'pseudomedia' pose a 'challenge' and democracy must be 'cared for'. 'I defend press freedom, but what is unacceptable is defending all this mud, all these hoaxes, all this disinformation', he stated.
In September last year, the government approved the 'Action Plan for Democracy' with 31 measures, half related to media. It includes a registry of owners and advertising investment data, plus limits on public funding to prevent media from being 'driven by' or 'dependent on' governments. Sánchez had previously criticized 'web pages funded with different money, both from regional and municipal governments of the PP with the far right'. The Popular Party opposition called it a 'witch hunt' and accused Sánchez of 'persecuting critical press'.
Other reforms, approved in July, amend the Official Secrets Law, which does not exempt journalists from penalties for revealing classified documents, though it mitigates fines under the 'right to freedom of information'. The new regulation on professional secrecy has been questioned by the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ), whose report, to be approved this Wednesday, warns of 'insufficiencies and flaws' that reduce current protections.
Criticisms have been complemented by direct clashes, such as that of Minister Óscar Puente, who on social media mocked an ABC journalist: 'Another patriot from ABC with accreditation to ask questions at the White House who uses it to ask Trump every day about Spain's supposed NATO non-compliances'.