Alfredo Urdaci talks about RTVE’s news coverage
Alfredo Urdaci, ex-head of news at RTVE, has decided to break his silence and address the news coverage of the Spanish public channel after the attacks of 11-M in 2004. In an interview with the medium El Debat, the journalist has categorically denied that he manipulated public television in the hours following the attacks to focus the information on possible ETA authorship. In addition, he has admitted “some pressure” from the Spanish government, but denies having acted under the orders of José María Aznar.
Comparison with other media and reference to the interview with George Bush
Urdaci, widely noted for having been one of the main communicators of the theory that ETA had attacked the trains in Madrid, assures that he “did not censor” any information. It even compared its coverage with that of El País, for its first cover, but leaves behind the fact that the newspaper closed its edition on March 12, 2004 pointing to a possible authorship of jihadist terrorists. He also referred to the interview with former American president George Bush, recorded the day after the attacks. Urdaci assures that he did not slow down its publication, he has charged against Lorenzo Milà for having so far maintained a version of the story and says that a piece of the thirty minutes of the interview was broadcast from the conversation with Bush.
Defense of the actions of Urdaci and Aznar
Bush’s statements hinted, almost clearly, that ETA would not have been the author of the attacks. Until then, and during all the reports they had made from RTVE, Urdaci pointed to the Basque terrorist band and not to jihadist terrorism. Urdaci spoke on the same day that José Maria Aznar came out in defense of his own management. “No official document ever came into the hands of the Spanish government that definitively ruled out the Etarra authorship and unhesitatingly affirmed jihadist responsibility.”
Aznar, who is the president of Faes, assured that he “neither remains silent nor accepts the repeated lies” that he considered to have come from “certain media terminals of the left” in recent days to “heat up” what should be a mournful ephemeris “We regret that the spirit of division prevails over harmony,” the statement said.