In the middle of accusations of censorship against Spain’s RTVE, there has also been criticism of the role of Catalonia’s public broadcaster TV3 in spreading nationalistic ideology and manipulating its audience.
As with other political battles, the conflict surrounding the Catalan referendum for independence has largely been fought in the media, with the state-owned broadcasters playing an important role.Catalan TV analyst Ferran Monegal has repeatedly accused TV3 and the Corporació Catalana de Mitjans Audiovisuals of trying to manipulate viewers to vote yes at the referendum held on 1 October, which ended with strong police intervention in various locations in Barcelona and Catalonia.
Some journalist associations, such as the Pi i Margall, have also said that pressure was put on Catalan media that did not support independence and accused TV3 of delivering biased information.
In fact, the role of TV3 in reinforcing the Catalan nationalistic ideology has been highlighted in recent years by several papers, one of the latest being published in 2015 by researcher Iván Mauricio Durán from the University Autónoma de Barcelona.
Even Al Jazeera noticed the biased information delivered by both RTVE and TV3. “Much of the coverage of the referendum by Spanish and Catalan media has looked like one part journalism and one part propaganda,” stated the Qatar-based network in a report issued on 1 October.
Last weekend, and particularly on the day of the vote, journalists from RTVE accused the public network of manipulation and censorship, causing the news board of the Spanish broadcaster to initiate an internal investigation.
