¿Hay una Brunete mediática en España?

Abstract

The 1998 Regional election in the Basque Country left a fragmented and polarized legislature and a minority Government. The institutional deadlock fell in with an unprecedented escalation of the national conflict and the opening up of a line of understanding amongst basque-nationalist forces which ended up in some new developments, like the Lizarra-Garazi/Stella Pact and the truce announced by the ETA. In the meanwhile, the 2000 Spanish General Election returned a majority PP Government and the political confrontation in the Basque Country intensified yet again. A new Regional ballot had to be held in 2001, and things remained pretty much the same. During the period, a good deal of political fighting took place in and between the media. The media, firmly trenched at both sides of the «nationalist» divide, were so belligerent against each other, that the basque-nationalist side called the other one a «Brunete mediatica» (which implies media favouring a kind of «coup d’état»). This research, which goes from 1998 to the Regional election of 2001 tries to gauge to which extent the Spanish media deserveor not deserve such a derogatory expression.