In Portugal, journalists are ‘the armed wing of Chega’s narrative’

28 March 2023, around 11 a.m. A man kills two women at the Ismaili Centre, a shelter for refugees in Lisbon, Portugal. 1.45 p.m. André Ventura, leader of the radical right-wing populist party Chega, rushes to capitalise on the criminal's Afghan nationality and links the reception of refugees and immigrants to terrorism and crime on social media. 10:48 p.m. CNN Portugal organises a prime-time debate between André Ventura and Hugo Soares, secretary-general of the PSD. ‘Security and migration‘ were the words used to announce the discussion.

“I understand it from a commercial perspective; I understand it from a media perspective; but from an objectivity perspective, it is misinformation.” These succinct words are from João Carvalho, a political scientist with published work on migration policy and the impact of radical right-wing populist parties on this issue. This editorial choice “is not dangerous, it is extremely dangerous,” argues Miguel Carvalho, an investigative journalist who has been closely following Chega. Recognising the harshness of his words and the difficulty he has in even using them, he has no doubt that “often” journalists are “the armed wing of Chega's narrative.”

According to Paulo Couraceiro, debate on security and migration, an issue that many people care about and talk about, is desirable. The researcher in communication and media studies at the University of Minho sees it as “an opportunity to deconstruct” false ideas. In Miguel Carvalho's view, CNN Portugal merely “amplified” Chega's narrative, which is “often false and, above all, promotes polarisation that runs counter to the basic principles of journalism”.

When invited to debates like these, it is André Ventura who is “setting the news agenda”, not journalists, as he pumps out misinformation. It is the “most populist political actors” who are setting that agenda, which “should be of great concern to journalists,” stresses José Moreno, a researcher at MediaLab ISCTE. It is not “useful” for democratic debate, nor is it the role of a journalistic space, which becomes indistinguishable from social media by forgetting its function as a mediator, concludes Raquel Abecasis, a political journalist with over 30 years' experience: “Perhaps, if it were up to me, I would not choose these to platform these actors,” because “they don't understand anything about the subject.”

There is a justification for this decision: “the media realise that everything André Ventura touches, from an audience point of view, is gold”, however, José Moreno believes that “editors in the media must be able to resist these temptations”.

Cristina Figueiredo, political editor at SIC/SIC Notícias, agrees with the criticism: “it was clearly a case of taking the bait from André Ventura, which in this case ended up working in his favour”. “And it's a good thing it was on CNN and not on SIC,” but “in fact, it could have happened to us.” “Often, decisions in the television world are made without much time to reflect, desperately trying to keep up with events. Sometimes it goes well, sometimes it goes badly.”

“It's an episode that clearly fits in with the way the media facilitates radical right-wing parties,” says Riccardo Marchi, a researcher at ISCTE, and the media no longer worries whether it “has crossed a line.” The move does not “shock” him, because the pursuit of viewing audiences “is the bread and butter of how the media conduct their editorial lines,” he concludes.

No one at CNN Portugal responded to attempts to contact them, with the exception of Paulo Magalhães, currently senior advisor at UNOPS (United Nations Office for Project Services), who, at the time of the debate, was political editor at TVI and CNN Portugal. He claims not to remember the debate in question because he was not the presenter: that role, in fact, fell to journalist Ana Sofia Cardoso. Still, when asked why this debate should be held under these circumstances, he replies, "Why not? Why should we limit ourselves? (...) All debates can and should be held. The more discussion, the more information people have, the better.”

However, “misinformation can also be intentionally suggested ‘just by asking questions’; a technique that allows provocateurs to insinuate lies or conspiracies while maintaining a façade of respectability,” asserts The Debunking Handbook 2020. The result of an innovative process, all the recommendations in this handbook have been validated by researchers with academic status in the field, reflecting a broad scientific consensus on how to combat disinformation.

Article 9 of the Portuguese Journalists' Code of Ethics states that journalists “must reject discriminatory treatment.” Journalist Raquel Abecasis admits that this debate may constitute a violation of this guiding principle. Paulo Pena has no doubt that “debates like these promote discriminatory treatment of people.” Warning that “journalists are not immune to making mistakes when merging topics”, the Investigate Europe journalist argues that mechanisms should be put in place within newsrooms to ensure that “these false causal links do not become news or debates, because there is no link between insecurity and migration in Portugal, quite the contrary”.

‘The difference in airtime here is overwhelming’

The live debate on CNN Portugal on 28 March 2023 was, however, only one of 29 ‘live interview/debate’ slots in which André Ventura has had media exposure on the TVI/CNN Portugal group since 2019.

The difference skyrockets in the period between the 2022 and 2024 elections; between February 2022 and March 2024: TVI and CNN Portugal interviewed André Ventura 180% more than Luís Montenegro, the then leader of the opposition (14 interviews with the Chega leader vs. 5 with the PSD president).

“The difference in airtime here is overwhelming.” This was the first reaction of Paulo Magalhães, political editor for the stations for most of this period and responsible for conducting four live interviews (a record within the media, equalled only by Ana Sofia Cardoso). Explanations quickly emerge: “the Chega leader may be more available than the PSD leader,” he explains, revealing that André Ventura has never refused him an interview. The same cannot be said of other party leaders.

Ventura’s willingness and availability is highlighted by the overwhelming majority of journalists interviewed for this piece. “While others preferred to protect themselves because they have more responsibilities and more to lose,” explains Paulo Magalhães. André Ventura, “wants to expand his brand and reputation and is very interested in appearing in the media and, contrary to what he says, in being part of the system, because he knows that it is a system that can feed him,” notes Raquel Abecasis.

It remains to be seen whether the media outlets actively seek out André Ventura more than other politicians. In fact, this investigation found one case, on 26 July 2023, in which journalist Paulo Magalhães publicly revealed that Luís Montenegro refused to participate in a round of interviews with party leaders. However, around 80% of the interviews with André Ventura took place because of controversies or initiatives created by the Chega party that TVI and CNN Portugal wanted to go into more.

The political editor of SIC/SIC Notícias admits that television stations invite the president of Chega more often for various reasons. They know that “there is almost certainly a yes there” and “television stations need to fill the airwaves”, but Cristina Figueiredo also draws on the politician's communication instincts to justify the numerous requests they make to him.

SIC and SIC Notícias have conducted 15 interviews with André Ventura since 2021, compared to six with the president of the PSD – the face of the radical populist right was interviewed 150% more than the centre-right leader.

Public television channels (RTP1/RTP2/RTP3) are the only ones where the PSD president has been interviewed more often than the leader of the radical populist right (11 vs. 5) – the only ones where, at least in this parameter, there has been no overexposure of André Ventura from 2019 to June 2024.

‘What is gained from 27 interviews with the same person?’ 

On all of the main private channels, between April 2019 and June 2024, André Ventura was interviewed 57 times, while the PSD presidents in office at the time were interviewed only 34 times. Until the 2022 legislative elections, André Ventura did not surpass the media exposure of the leader of what was then the second largest Portuguese party, but he came very close. This does not mean, however, that the leader of the radical populist right has not enjoyed overexposure since 2019, given his parliamentary representation.

André Ventura was the only Chega Member of Parliament until 2022, a position he achieved with 1.29% of the vote in 2019. The lone voice who only received less than 70,000 votes had just two fewer interviews than the leader of the party that won nearly 1.5 million votes (at the time, Rui Rio, president of the PSD). The period under review (from 2019 to January 2022) accounts for the post-presidential election period, in which André Ventura managed to increase his support to 500,000 votes. However, the disparity in interview numbers was exactly the same even before this more significant election result.

Between received 7% in 2022 and 18% in 2024, André Ventura was interviewed 27 times. 400,000 votes in 2022 turned into more than double the number of interviews with the leader of the party that won 1.5 million votes, the PSD. “Even today, we still give André Ventura media coverage that does not correspond to his election results,” says Alexandre Malhado.

“What is gained from 27 interviews with the same person? Where is the informative value?” asks João Carvalho, who accuses the media of no longer caring about political pluralism: “They give much more attention to political figures who generate controversy, even though the informative value of this coverage may be very little.” Although Chega has “a strategy to saturate the news”, it is not the party that creates this much media exposure, “the media outlets provide it”.

The journlaist Miguel Carvalho, also points with concern to a paradigm shift in the news media: the “criteria of pluralism and in-depth coverage of current issues” have been replaced by the “need to generate audiences” – commercial value instead of informative value.

Hélder Gomes, a journalist for the weekly newspaper Expresso, also explains these discrepancies in the number of television interviews with the “worrying” idea that “television stations know that they can expect higher ratings with André Ventura in the studio than with any other political figure.” The audience figures provided by the responsible entities CAEM/MediaMonitor confirm this.

More than 85% of television interviews with André Ventura increased the average audience for the time slot in which they were broadcast. Inviting the leader of Chega attracted, on average, around 39,000 more viewers than the average for the last four broadcasts at the same time slot on the same day of the week. The presence of the radical populist right meant a 15.4% increase in the average audience.

Is journalism a ‘hostage’ to the market and becoming an ‘accomplice’ to the radical populist right?

One of the fundamental criticisms within the scientific literature on the relationship between the media and the radical populist right is, according to researcher Riccardo Marchi, the idea that “the market model in which the media in the West find themselves in forces them to talk about radical right-wing parties”.

André Ventura was interviewed 108% more than the president of the PSD (current prime minister) between the 2022 and 2024 elections on the main private channels. This reflects “the way journalism allows itself to be infected by the market,” argues journalist Pedro Coelho, who believes that it is not the majority of journalists who give in to the market. “It is the directors who give in. It is the businessmen who, faced with the sustainability crisis that has taken hold in journalism, resort to everything at their disposal to boost audiences”. With Chega and André Ventura as “audience generators”, the overexposure of the radical populist right shows how “media entrepreneurs and news directors, especially on television, are not caring about the role they have to play in society.”

He admits that he has always been “critical of the influence of the market on journalism”, including within the SIC newsroom where he works: “there are things that do not serve the interests of the public, they serve the interests of the businessman, but that is not our mission”. SIC's political editor, Cristina Figueiredo, stresses that “there is no point in us making programmes if they are not watched,” insisting that television must seek to reconcile two values: the public interest and the interest of the public.

Pedro Coelho, also president of the 5th Congress of Journalists, held in January 2024, said that the congress had decided that “capitalism does not meet the needs of journalism” because it forces journalistic activity to make a profit and “journalism is no longer profitable” and “there is no way to make journalism profitable” without compromising the necessary quality. Public funding of the media and non-profit journalism are solutions to be implemented, according to the university professor, but they are far from unanimous even within the profession itself.

The sustainability crisis in the media and the growth of Chega go hand in hand; “I have no doubt about that,” says Alexandre Malhado. The Sábado journalist explains that without public funding, journalism is held hostage by “an attention market” in which “people are attracted by the name Ventura”. Researcher Paulo Couraceiro points out that as long as funding is not guaranteed to allow journalism to focus on “scrutiny” and preserving the “integrity of information”, “the basic commercial incentives of journalism grow” and “there is clearly a political programme that is more favourable to commercial incentives than to others”.

The case of Wallonia: an exception at a European level?

The fascination of Portuguese journalism with the radical populist right rings true in most European countries. But are there no alternatives to media complacency? In Wallonia, a region in southern Belgium, commercial interests have not yet replaced the social function of journalism in preserving democracy. The media have established guidelines for dealing with the arrival of radical right-wing populist parties, which are ‘considered racist’, i.e. ‘hostile to freedom’.

The media have voluntarily and by mutual agreement formed an “impenetrable cordon sanitaire”, explains Léonie de Jonge in a scientific article published in 2018. There is no media blackout: the rule is that the radical populist right “should not have a direct voice or live access to the media”, preventing it from participating, in particular, in live interviews or debates.

Journalists can quote politicians from these parties, whether national or foreign, but “these quotes must always be put into context,” Maria Udrescu, a journalist for one of Wallonia's most popular publications, the newspaper La Libre, explained to Deutsche Welle. Despite this, some consider this strategy undemocratic.

“As journalists, we are the watchdogs of democracy and, as watchdogs, it is our job to bark and, if necessary, bite,” said an official from the Belgian public broadcaster RTBF in an interview with Léonie de Jonge, seeking to clarify the democratic legitimacy of the cordon sanitaire.

The truth is that in this southern region of Belgium, the radical populist right has not yet invaded democratic institutions. In the 2024 elections, Chez Nous, the new radical right Walloon party, remained outside the regional parliament, despite expectations to the contrary.

“It is essential that, rather than amplifying the far right, we focus on those who are actively engaged in combating it,” suggests Katy Brown, a media studies expert at Maynooth University in Ireland, in response to our research. Aurelien Mondon, co-organiser of the Reactionary Politics Research Network, also stresses that “the effort not to create platforms for the far right seems to have worked [in Wallonia], but it needs to be concerted”.

This has not been reflected in Flanders in Belgium’s north, where the radical right-wing populist party, Vlaams Belang, has historically been more successful. In the 2024 Belgian federal elections, it was the second most successful party, still falling short of the victory predicted by the polls. Although the far right is not part of the new government, that government is preparing the country for a shift to the right under the leadership of Flemish nationalist Bart De Wever.

The big question regarding the exception in the southern region is whether “there is no far right in Wallonia because of the ‘cordon sanitaire’, or whether that ‘cordon sanitaire’ is easy to maintain because there is no far right in Wallonia?” asks Maria Udrescu.

“There is no doubt that the absence of a credible right-wing populist candidate [in Wallonia and Luxembourg] makes it easier to maintain a media cordon,” but there are other factors to consider, such as the media landscape in which journalists work and its history, stresses Léonie de Jonge. In her research, the political scientist analyses how the media deals with the radical populist right in the Benelux countries, which includes the various regions of Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg.

In Flanders and the Netherlands, the media “have become more complacent” towards radical right-wing populist parties. In Luxembourg, where, as in Wallonia, journalists have adopted a ‘strict demarcation’ towards these radical and extremist right-wing political actors. This is the main conclusion of the article The Populist Radical Right and the Media in the Benelux: Friend or Foe?.

The shift towards a “more commercial” model of journalism, which focuses on “the most extreme and scandalous aspects of politics” in the “fight for readers and viewers”, has been more pronounced in Flanders and the Netherlands than in Wallonia and Luxembourg, suggests Léonie de Jonge.

The success in combating the growth of right-wing radicalism and extremism in southern Belgium can also be explained by the early institutionalisation of an “impenetrable cordon sanitaire” prior to the electoral expansion of this political faction.

“Once the worm is in the fruit, it will continue to make its way through the apple,” said a Belgian public radio and television official in an interview with Leonie de Jonge, seeking to explain the importance of anticipation. The more “flexible” stance of the media in northern Belgium and the Netherlands may have contributed to their openness to the radical populist right, suggests the academic.

It was still 2018 when this research suggested that the cordon sanitaire against right-wing extremism and radicalism only works “if it is truly airtight and established before” a successful populist and disruptive politician enters parliament. In Portugal, that key moment came a year after the publication of de Jonge’s research.

However, the scientific literature cited in the research on the effectiveness of the cordon sanitaire dates back to at least the early 2010s. The implementation of the cordon sanitaire in Wallonia emerged as early as the 1990s. Only decades later, in 2019, André Ventura was elected for the first time as a member of the Portuguese Parliament for the Chega party.

“Since the turn of the 21st century, there seems to be a growing consensus in the literature that the mediatisation of politics has played in favour of populists,” says Léonie de Jonge. Political science has long pointed to ways of dealing with this phenomenon, which is new in Portugal but old in Europe. Was Portuguese journalism naively asleep or did it not even want to wake up?

 🤝 This article is published within the Come Together collaborative project