LET’S TALK ABOUT TV. Stir up the bonfire

The broadcasts from the scene of the events become political trials, natural relief from relatives of those directly and seriously affected by painful events that – with an adequate Intelligence policy – could be avoided. Likewise, the opinions of hosts, entertainers and news readers are confused with speculation, displays of ignorance and simple reckless judgments.

José Luis Córdova. Journalist. “The century”. Santiago. 4/29/2024. Once again, Chilean television faced the challenge of reporting on a serious attack that cost the lives of three police officers, but – unfortunately – it did so with the spectacular nature of a new showwithout delving into the origin, consequences and responsibilities of these tragic events.

It is outrageous to corroborate that shameful situations of political exploitation by the right are repeated in the face of a police incident that truly deserves the greatest responsibility in the investigation of the causes and effects of what happened.

For Chilean television, the Biobío and La Araucanía area seems like a setting for movies from the American Wild West. It would be a region devastated by heartless assailants, ignoring serious situations such as disastrous large-scale forestry activity, theft and self-theft of wood, mistreatment and humiliation of displaced indigenous peoples, and the systematic violation of human rights against ancestral communities and other crimes perpetrated in the so-called Wallmapu.

The strategy of the opposition to the current Government is to show ineffectiveness in the fight against crime or apathy in the face of acts that constitute crimes and take advantage of the natural discontent of the population in those sectors to hold the central government responsible for everything that happens there. “Journalists” such as Rodrigo Sepúlveda and Mónica Rincón, among others, join this chorus.

Everything indicates that the State of Exception nor the presence of the Armed Forces is not enough, much less the actions of the Carabineros body in the face of these events. The unfortunate death of uniformed personnel has occurred in the midst of operations that did not have weapons, personnel, communications, or support for effective and positive action.

At this point in the level of crime, drug trafficking and organized crime, Carabineros cannot travel through streets, highways, much less remote places without relevant equipment, in vehicles without the minimum protection measures.

The news media – including TV – avoid guilty references such as that, for example, the police officer murdered on Matta Avenue and the one killed in Quinta Normal, confronted the underworld – which has heavy weapons -, without any security measures, without alerting its corresponding unit and only in front of the world with the “trigger-happy” thesis.

No one dares to demand that a uniformed police force responsible for our security also protect its personnel with minimum security measures that the three police officers killed between Tirúa and Cañete did not have either. What good then is the presence of the Armed Forces? The constitutional State of Exception?

The role of the media is to communicate, but also to guide, form a balanced opinion, providing reliable and responsible information, everything that has been conspicuous by its absence on television in recent hours.

The broadcasts from the scene of the events become political trials, natural relief from relatives of those directly and seriously affected by painful events that – with an adequate Intelligence policy – could be avoided. Likewise, the opinions of hosts, entertainers and news readers are confused with speculation, displays of ignorance and simple reckless judgments.

National mourning is as justified as the widespread annoyance in the country is explainable, but it must be responsibly oriented towards the causes of these regrettable events. That television fuels the bonfire, that puts out the fire with gasoline does not seem the most convenient at a time when crime is increasingly violent, when organized crime and drug trafficking are spreading, not only in Chile, but throughout the world. with unusual vigor.

It is essential that the Intelligence apparatus – military and civilian – work together, that the Public Prosecutor’s Office develops its work with rigor and more agilely and that justice acts with the same effectiveness among collar and tie criminals, the Creole underworld, emigrants who violate national laws and any citizen without distinction of any kind.

The powers of the State cannot be forced to act as they are constitutionally entitled just because of what television or people on the street tell them. In a rule of law – as former President Lagos said – we must let the institutions work. And not asking for a State of Siege or the heads of Tohá or Vallejo, as some feverish parliamentarians demand.

In this regard, we must consider that the media in Chile remain in the hands of a couple of powerful families, with great economic interests, and journalists are barely employees of these groups and are forced to be mere spectators of another spectacle as regrettable as painful as is the murder of three police officers left to their fate on a rural road between Cañete and Tirúa, without logistical support from other uniformed officers and who were first helped by firefighters.

Sad mourning of an entity that, upon celebrating its 97th anniversary, surprises its questioned general director on the eve of being formalized, but as an institution – and with each of its regular members – continues to have the affection of the people, despite everything. .