TILTING AT WINDMILLS: NOTHING JOLLY ABOUT JOLY

Saturday, May 16, 2009

NOTHING JOLLY ABOUT JOLY

The English word “jolly” means “alegre” in Spanish – happy or cheerful. Sadly there is nothing jolly in the life of many of the employees of the Grupo Joly newspaper empire right now.

On Friday evening there was a demonstration in support of the journalists at Europa Sur and other regional titles who face an uncertain future. Cuts are being made across all the titles with over 100 people so far affected.

The tactic of this media group seems to be economic death to its journalists by a thousand cuts – the old Chinese method of torture. A few professionals are booted out here, then a few there. It avoids the Grupo Joly having to comply with the Spanish labour laws of presenting an ERE redundancy agreement and thereby its economic accounts to justify the action to the Andalucía government.

I am led to believe that the titles within the Grupo Joly – Europa Sur, Diario de Cádiz, Málaga Hoy and so on - are each independent. Hence if one is profitable the company pockets that money and if another makes a loss then the journalists are let go to reduce the overhead. There is no subsiding of one title with another.

Curiously Grupo Joly has run advertisements showing how Europa Sur and Diario de Cádiz are the leading publications in this province by far – and yet their journalists live in fear of ending up on the streets. It also leaves those professionals who remain too scared to speak out in case they are suddenly shown the door as well. If there were mass sackings then there could be large scale union action but the family-run media group is too smart for that.

Of course this desperate situation not only exists within the Grupo Joly but in other newspaper operations in Spain, Britain, Ireland and beyond.

According to El Observador the Grupo Joly has benefitted the most along with Prisa from contracts handed out by the socialist Andalucía government. A contract of 213,912 euros was signed for the period from last September to December alone. Obviously PSOE is intent on protecting its friends in the media from the full impact of the financial crisis. Sadly such generosity does not extend to the working journalist.

You can check out the current situation for journalists in Britain, Ireland and Spain at these websites:

National Union of Journalist – http://www.nuj.org.uk/

FAPE – http://www.fape.es/

1 comment:

Lenox said...: Indeed - there's nothing like 'publicidad institucional' to keep the 'freedom of the press' in perspective.; May 18, 2009 at 10:15 AM

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TILTING AT WINDMILLS

Sancho Panza is much less learned but a good deal saner than his master.

"At this point they came in sight of thirty or forty windmills that are on that plain.

"Fortune," said Don Quixote to his squire, as soon as he had seen them, "is arranging matters for us better than we could have hoped. Look there, friend Sancho Panza, where thirty or more monstrous giants rise up, all of whom I mean to engage in battle and slay, and with whose spoils we shall begin to make our fortunes. For this is righteous warfare, and it is God's good service to sweep so evil a breed from off the face of the earth."

"What giants?" said Sancho Panza.

"Those you see there," answered his master, "with the long arms, and some have them nearly two leagues long."

"Look, your worship,'' said Sancho. "What we see there are not giants but windmills, and what seem to be their arms are the vanes that turned by the wind make the millstone go."

"It is easy to see," replied Don Quixote, "that you are not used to this business of adventures. Those are giants, and if you are afraid, away with you out of here and betake yourself to prayer, while I engage them in fierce and unequal combat."”