Tuesday 11 August 2009

Fantasy news in La Vanguardia

Sometimes I wonder what newspaper foreign correspondents get up to that their reporting is so unreliable and often just plain wrong.

Many of us are used to the ignorant reporting of Spanish and in particular Catalan politics by the usual rent-a-word suspects who write for The Independent, Guardian, Times, and even The Economist and the FT. They tend to recycle whatever El País or El Mundo says without contrasting viewpoints or providing any insight whatsoever. I tend not to read them because there is just nothing to be gained from someone else’s ignorance.

I thought they were poor until I read this article from Rafael Ramos in La Vanguardia about Scottish politics. I almost choke on my porridge. According to Sr Ramos, the SNP government in Edinburgh has postponed the Referendum Bill.

I happen to spend the first 10-15min of my working day reading the news and I had not noticed such a big manifesto u-turn. Neither the FT nor any other newspaper had carried the big news. I normally watch Reporting Scotland at 1830h and they also seem to have missed this significant development. How is it possible for La Vanguardia to get such a scoop beating all of the Scottish media?

Except, of course, there is no scoop, because the SNP has not dropped the Referendum Bill and according to Salmond, they have no intention of doing so.

If La Vanguardia or any other media organisation need a Scottish correspondent who knows what is actually going on in this rainy corner of Europe, I am sure we could agree on a reasonable fee.

4 comments:

trevor said...

Apart from when he's plagiarising, Ramos has been writing complete bollocks about the UK for years. He once briefly tried to write in English but couldn't. Strangely, his seems to be the only job at LaVa not under threat. Even I'd proffer enthusiastic support for any campaign to get you to replace him, although by the sound of things there your annual salary might be rather less than the Count spends on lunch.

Rab said...

I had read complaints about him in other blogs but this is the first time I realise how much nonsense he can get away with.

Would €0.25 per word for a weekly 500-word piece be too high a price?

trevor said...

British rates for insignificanti doing this kind of thing used to be 3-4 times higher. Maybe they'll get back there if Murdoch has his way. Of course, I don't know what proportion of his hooker ad revenues el Conde de Jesucristo shares with the proles. Maybe you should try this kind of thing: http://www.thepoint.com/

Rab said...

I wonder if Mr Ramos had too many pints during his Festival visit....

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