Friday, March 29, 2024

Belief, utopia or reality

Júlio Magalhães, Journalist

I have been advocating the decentralization of the Media in Portugal for a long time. And that’s why one day I decided to leave TVI to head Porto Canal. I insisted over and over again on the slogan of a “Porto Canal made from Porto to the world” and not a closed regional television channel between the city’s ring road and the Douro River, against everything and everyone. I also insisted on the idea that there are about 20 television channels concentrated in Lisbon and just one, Porto Canal, outside the major centre which is the capital of the country.

That is why we launched a generalist channel which became a brand in a matter of years. It was supposed to be a TV channel for the masses, but rather a brand that could make a path of its own.

Over the course of seven years, this path was followed but, at some point in time, legitimate strategic issues of the majority shareholder, FC Porto in this particular case, reduced the generalist margin of this channel, which was becoming a more limited, local TV station owned by a club. Nothing against it because shareholders invest and decide which strategies to follow and which people they should have on board.

I cherished this dream of a comprehensive channel in Oporto that would broadcast from the Northern region to the world and not against anyone. I may have lost this round, but I stay true to my beliefs.

I am confessed supporter of regionalization by belief, consolidated through my experience and not out of ideological belief. As many say and I have always championed, the country is too small to be divide into regions, but Lisbon in turn thinks it is too big to be distributed. And in that centralist cavalcade and lack of sense of state, Lisbon amassed the whole economic process and the country withered. The hinterland became deserted, the population rushed to the capital in a first impulse and to the coast on a second wave, and the coastal side of the country chose between greater Lisbon and greater Porto.

Today we look at the country and we have an unbalanced demographic distribution, with overwhelming costs for the big capital that absorbed the best, but also the worst. And when I say the worst, I am mean above all the over-occupation of the population, a drop in quality of life, dramatic social problems, glaring economic imbalances, not to mention the fashionable themes such as ecology and the environment.

Today many people try to leave the big cities, but the hinterland and the deserted regions have clearly little to offer. There is a lack of work, teachers, healthcare workers and infrastructures that allow people to be settled in and, above all, young people in areas far from the large economic and decision-making centres.

I believe, therefore, that the lack of vision of many right-wing and left-wing politicians and governments over many years has led to this absolute need for the regionalization of the country, to ensure that decisions made in Lisbon without knowing the local reality will be in the hands of those who work with the populations every day, the municipal councils in this particular case.

But those in the capital and those who rule the country are not the only ones to blame. The truth is that the main economic agents in the regions decided to work following the motto that “everything happens in the capital” and hence the need to be close to where decisions are made. And everybody ran to the ministries and the banks, leaving a desert behind.

I usually say that I was more negatively impressed in Lisbon at those who came from the North and who settled there than at those who actually live there. The need to assert themselves in a highly competitive and lobbying society quickly led them to be consumed by centralism and engage in short-term strategies that led many to bankruptcy.

I would like to recall that six million people live in the regions north of Leiria and that most of the large industries are concentrated in the north of the country.

And this brings me to the issue of the media.

I firmly stick to the idea that regionalization shall only become a reality when the regions have their own media. Newspapers, radios, television channels, digital platforms to communicate with the world and inform on what they have. The country is largely unaware of what the Algarve, Alentejo, Trás-os-Montes, Centro or Minho regions manufacture and produce today in a wide range of highly sophisticated and high-end areas. The country is unaware of what is currently being done in universities, in healthcare or the economy or even socially in several regions, simply because they don’t have media channels.

There are approximately two dozen televisions, radios or newspapers in Lisbon and if we look closer we see that opinion-makers are always the same, take turns in the different media, always conveying their message from the perspective of those who live in the big centre, e.g. the capital, and as for the country they only know about accidents, fires, misery, social dramas and lack of projects and future. A future that is only there if, like many others, they are offered an opportunity that would take them to Lisbon.

Following a more simplistic view of what I referred to above see the particular situation of the only mayor with an active opinion and a permanent presence in the media space being the Mayor of Lisbon.

As far as I’m concerned, I did my best. When I left RTP to join TVI I did, provided I would be heading TVI in Oporto and there would be a studio in this TV channel’s facilities which was not there at the time.

When I took over Porto Canal I did it provided we would have a decent and capable studio for a generalist channel with a focus on the North.

I am not expecting recognition or laurels, but I humbly believe I did help with my work and effort in the North to have a more active voice. Many agents from the North had a voice on Porto Canal as well as politicians, representatives from various areas and the country realised the importance of having Porto Canal on their agenda. As I mentioned above, I ended up defeated, but not convinced and I am certain I made some contribution without having to establish a compromise of any kind. Always with my own voice, firm ideas without subservience, intrigue, lunches, dinners, trips or personal strategies.

This lack of media space and decentralized decision-makers has also tapered the political and economic structures of the regions. Looking at what I know best, in this case, the Northern region, the last decades have been of quarrels, intrigues and an endless search for a privileged position in the ministerial corridors to obtain the best fertilizers for its farm. In other words, individual interests and of small groups prevail, institutions and those in charge are permanently on a collision course and this vision leaves no room for major common strategies. And this leads to something that is a deep-rooted culture in our country: the absence of meritocracy.

I venture to say that 60 to 70 per cent of decision-making positions are in the hands of people who are not qualified to do so, but rather of people who have joined lobbies, parties or factions, people who bow to everything and everyone to get a position, who fail to perform their work with an objective sense of bringing benefit to the community, focused rather on personal benefits.

Many people reach leadership positions because they have positioned themselves often as dealers of favours. In all areas, I repeat, in all areas, without exception.

The country needs strong regions open to the world and that doesn’t fight the neighbour next door or complain permanently and bitterly about centralism. The country needs trained people in decision-making places.

Across Europe there are regions where, in every corner, pardon my overstatement, there is a television, a radio, a newspaper and now digital platforms. It is these media spaces that let us know what each of the regions is doing and produces best. It’s these spaces that let us know people who Deliver, people who W ork hard and who do not expect that subservience and favours might put them in desirable positions.

This pandemic is an example of how it is necessary that each region has its voice, decisions following the interests of the community that they know well and not taken in distant offices of the Power.

We would have much to gain from, regions would gain, the country would gain, I am sure that Lisbon would gain, thus becoming a stronger and much more pleasant capital.

We just needed this strategic vision to allow us to have a rectangle with an assertive distribution of population, a solid economy that would reach everyone, good treatment of spaces, forests and the sea.

All of this would lead us to a cleaner, more unpolluted country with quality of life for everyone.

It will be a utopia, an illusion, a mirage. But it is a firm belief. To be closer to Europe and not so close to the third world.

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