Booking Information

Journalism, a fundamental pillar of democratic societies, has become a symbol of the illiberal attrition which has taken off over the second decade of the 21st century, with emerging strands of populism, the victory of Trump, Brexit, Bolsonaro, and the situation in Catalonia to name but a few factors. These phenomena, which have demonstrated the weakness of journalism to defend the strength of the right to information, illustrate the loss of respect for the old fourth power of politics. If journalism is not feared, its function is not respected. What is more, the digital environment —atomising news into short bursts of reports that generate echo chambers within social networks, from which information is consumed according to the biases of each community of identity— has debased the currency of journalism. If truth lacks value, journalism loses its meaning.

Journalist Teodoro León Gross, author of the recent La muerte del periodismo, will explore this subject with three leading Spanish journalists: Jorge Bustos, Carlos Franganillo and Karina Sainz Borgo. Gross has worked with newspapers including El País, El Mundo and ABC. Bustos is Deputy Editor of El Mundo; political commentator in current affairs programs on Cope, La Sexta and Telecinco. He published Casi in 2024, adding to his other works Asombro y desencanto, Crónicas biliares and El hígado de Prometeo. Franganillo moved from his time at TVE to direct and present the evening news at Telecinco. He is the winner of the Ondas Award (2019), the gold medal at the New York Festival (2014) and the International Press Club’s award for best correspondent (2016). Venezuelan journalist and writer based in Spain, Sainz Borgo is currently a columnist and reporter for ABC; she has also worked with Onda Cero and Vozpópuli. A prominent figure in literature of the Venezuelan diaspora, her first novel, La hija de la española, was translated into 20 languages and became an international success. This was followed by Crónicas barbitúricas, El tercer país; and La isla del doctor Schubert.