More than 100 professionals and 30 cameras have moved RTVE to Pamplona to broadcast Sanfermines 2023 in detail. Every day, from July 7 to 14, at 7:15 a.m., La 1 and RTVE Play connect live to provide all the information . Broadcasting San Fermín is never easy. These are holidays, celebrations, a lot of fuss. However, this year the limits have been exceeded as denounced by one of the RTVE reporters.
Adrián Arnau, one of the reporters displaced to Pamplona, ??has denounced in a thread on Twitter the situations of “harassment, aggressiveness and violence” that the professionals of the public channel have been suffering during these days.
“If you’ve been in Pamplona these days, it’s likely that you’ve seen us. This RTVE News team has done about 40 live broadcasts on the street to recount the Sanfermines festivities program. And this is an example of what we’ve also experienced: harassment, aggressiveness and violence”, he points out in the first tweet, which is accompanied by one of the videos that make visible the harassment suffered during these days.
In the images you can see and hear how Arnau tries to carry out his live show surrounded by about twenty people who surround him and who begin to shout “vote you Txapote”. Even one of his people pushes the cameraman and it is Arnau himself who calms down his partner so that she does not enter the rag.
Last week TVE started the special broadcast of the Sanfermines with the different daily broadcasts of the running of the bulls each day. The entire team from La Hora 1, the program run by Marc Sala and Silvia Intxaurrondo, connected live with the streets of Pamplona, ??at which point a young man jumped on the bus to release the famous phrase “I vote for you Txapote”.
The event occurred while the TVE reporter was chatting with the young people about how they lived the Sanfermines while the program valued the first confinement. While one of those young people was exposing the preparation prior to the race, suddenly, another young man slipped into the live broadcast shouting into the microphone “Txapote vote for you, Sánchez; Txapote vote for you” to quickly leave amid laughter and applause from those present.
However, the videos that Arnau has posted go further. So much so that hours after posting her thread on Twitter, Consuelo Ordóñez, president of the Collective of Victims of Terrorism, very critical of the slogan that has been established of “vote Txapote for you” has also pronounced: “We already lived this in the Basque Country and Navarre years ago, carried out by pro-ETAR members. That hate has become fashionable in our streets, even though it now has another political sign, is very worrying. Victims of terrorism are victims of hate”.
In the next one, the reporter is seen again in the same area as the previous one trying again to do his live show when several young people who are perfectly identifiable in the images begin to insult him: “Socialists, sons of bitches! Let’s eat seafood bastards “. Arnau, unable to do his job, approaches his camera and whispers something in his ear while someone is heard urging to make “an avalanche”.
“We have endured threats, abuse, humiliation and aggression. We do not point to the people of Pamplona, ??we have heard insults with all accents. The reason? Telling about the running of the bulls, the parades, the traditions, the cultural activities, the customs and the history of this party”, denounced the RTVE journalist.
But it is not the last video with which the editor has wanted to make the harassment visible. In the next one, while Arnau chats with his colleagues, shouts of “Txapote vote for you” continue to be heard. When the editor positions himself to start the live broadcast, a dozen people surround him, corner him and push him while one of his colleagues tries to protect him and the screams are getting louder.
“We reporters who are on the street are simple workers and most of us try to do our job to the best of our ability. Can you imagine if your grandparents, parents, siblings or children were treated like this? Would you accept this behavior towards judges, doctors, workers or bakers?”, laments the editor in his publication.
Despite the harsh images, Arnau believes that “the saddest thing is that this violence has been assimilated as something normal and acceptable.” “There are no limits: they have offended us, pushed us, yelled and spit on us. They have grabbed the microphone, they have pulled the cables or they have touched the camera. All around, all laughter. Because humiliating ourselves is fashionable,” he points out.
“Practically all of the TVE journalists that you will find on the street are normal people, like you,” he continues. “And honest enough to try to fulfill their public service obligation and work outside of colors and labels”, he concludes, finishing “grateful”, despite everything, for the experience of covering the Sanfermines.
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