A Media Circus

Who would have thought that it was possible to learn so much about another country in just one simple interview, with one person? Well need less to say, you can learn a lot. I had the pleasure of interviewing Adrian, an international student from Spain. Adrian, you is currently injured, is normally running around like a mad man representing the Lindenwood Soccer team. I was fortunate enough to grab him while he had a second to spare!

Adrian, like I said is from Spain and says that although they have free press, it wasn’t always like this. In the Franco era censorship was the rule of Spain. All of that changed with the launching of a new national daily, El País, in 1976. Adrian said that now the press is free, Spain still does not have the luxury of variety in their types of media like we do in the United States. He says that the biggest difference is most likely the amount of money and resources that US media have the right to use. I definitely agree with him, I think that we tend to take advantage of all the resources and money that our media sources have access to.

Since being in the United States, Adrian says that while in US he uses the Internet mostly, this way he can still have access to the Spanish newspapers. I asked him which type of media he enjoyed the most and not to my surprise he loves television and radio. Adrian is very knowledgeable about the media in Spain and informed me that in 1975 there were only two television channels, I can’t even imagine! He was very quick to add that today there are satellite servers and cable networks in Spain. Most cities and towns have access to more than 700 local channels.

I then started to become interested if whether or not Adrian has been following the US Presidential campaign and what his thoughts were on it. He had a very interesting view of the “circus” as he called it. Adrian said, “In US, the money for the campaign is private, so it creates many differences between candidates.” Which is very true, both Adrian and I saw eye to eye on how funny it is that American politicians spend so much money on their campaigns and yet there are still millions of Americans that go hungry and without health insurance everyday! The campaigns in Spain are very different, not only are they more serious Adrian says, but the Parties have money to spend on their political campaign depending on the votes they received in the previous elections. Another difference is that in Spain the media respects the privacy of the candidates, instead of focusing on their family members, he pointed out Sarah Palin’s daughter. “The media is so concerned about exploiting Sarah’s eldest daughter, I don’t even remember any of what Sarah is focusing on.”

I found that stepping in the shoes of another individual, especially one who is so different from myself could turn out to be extraordinarily enlightening. I am very pleased with having done this type of assignment and I think that it has taught me a lot.