Carmen Porter's statements about the alleged customs of Tangier's inhabitants have received a deontological reproach. The Arbitration, Complaints and Journalism Deontology Commission has concluded that the presenter of 'Horizonte', the Cuatro program she co-hosts with Iker Jiménez, violated the duty of truth and source verification by asserting that residents of the Moroccan city place bottles with urine in front of their houses.
The Federation of Journalists' Associations of Spain (FAPE) made public this Tuesday the resolution, which examines an intervention from last September 3. The ruling rejects that those words can be justified as an opinion or a joke and points out that Porter presented as a known custom an assertion she had not verified.
The conversation took place during a discussion about the conditions of some migrant settlements in Ceuta. After the collaborator known as Dr. Cabrera questioned Moroccan health infrastructure, Porter introduced her comment about the bottles. "In Tangier, we have seen that these are their customs," she affirmed, linking what was being said about Ceuta with a generalization about the population of another city.
Iker Jiménez intervened to complete her sentence with the word "filth". The presenter repeated it and continued describing the alleged practice. "There, you walk through the streets of Tangier and in front of their door they have bottles with pee, in most neighborhoods, well, in certain neighborhoods where tourists go."
The complaint was filed by Mohamed Abbassi El Guetti, who denied that explanation. According to him, the bottles placed at the entrances of homes and businesses are used to try to scare away stray cats and dogs and prevent them from urinating in those places. He rejected that they contained human urine and that they responded to a hygiene custom of the Moroccan population.
The Commission examined both the reported fragment and the complete program, titled 'The Hidden Camps of Ceuta'. After reviewing that context, it noted an association between facts about the conditions of certain settlements in Ceuta and "generalized uncertain affirmations" about the customs of the citizens of Tangier.
The joke explanation also fails to convince
The response sent by Porter and Jiménez's lawyer, Ricardo Ibáñez Castresana, did not clarify the statement or provide verification to support it. The lawyer alleged that he had not located the specific moment of the program. "If such a phrase existed, it can only be iocandi causa," he wrote, resorting to the Latin expression that alludes to an intention of joking. He added that the words might not have been pronounced that way or might have been taken out of context.
The Commission rejects that defense after reviewing the broadcast. It considers that the supposed humorous intention does not follow from the expressions used by Porter, who described a situation of denigrating and untruthful appearance within a program that was addressing a serious matter.
Nor does it accept that freedom of opinion serves to protect these statements. Porter formulated them as a description of customs that he claimed to know. For this reason, the opinion recalls that they should be subject to the duty of verification and points out that the allegations offered an opportunity to clarify or rectify what was said, but they merely maintained that the intervention had not been located.
The reproach affects a basic obligation of journalistic work. In that conversation, a statement about the habits of a population was incorporated into the debate as an explanation of the conditions of some settlements, with the verbal backing of the other presenter. The Commission places the non-compliance in that connection and in the absence of contrast, although it favorably values the investigative work of the rest of the broadcast.
The resolution declares Criteria I.1 and Article 13.d of the Deontological Code, related to the duty of truth and source verification, to have been violated. It is a professional self-regulation pronouncement by a commission without sanctioning power.
The body dismisses the other two infractions raised in the complaint. Regarding the duty of rectification, it explains that it was not proven that Porter had been asked to rectify and considers, based on the allegations, that there was no intention to offend. It also rules out a violation of respect for the dignity of the Moroccan people by circumscribing what happened to a specific mistaken statement and valuing the context of the program. The non-compliance it does declare is having disseminated those words without respecting the duty of truth and source verification.
