[ad_1]
João Noronha Lopes, leader of List B in the Benfica elections, issued a statement pointing a finger again at Luís Filipe Vieira for refusing to hold debates, mainly through the club’s television.
Here is the statement:
“On October 30, the elections of the governing bodies of Sport Lisboa e Benfica will be held for the four-year period 2020-2024. This electoral act is expected to be the busiest in the last twenty years and, considering the different candidacies, it will require, more than at any other time in the club’s history, that members see their right to be duly informed.
Despite this, the Benfica Board, through its president Luís Filipe Vieira, candidate and interested in the elections, has publicly assumed that it constitutes the editorial policy of Benfica TV, the club’s “official information vehicle”, as stated in the activity license assigned. by ERC – does not cover the electoral act. For absurdity, if a Benfica player only accessed the information through the official channel of the club, he would not know that there are elections and he would not even know that there are lists that compete with the governing bodies.
Now that we have formalized the delivery of our candidacy to the governing bodies, it is our duty, once again, to alert Benfica members of a manifestly illegal option and a very serious attack on their right to information on all aspects of the life of the club.
This option is the result of the “unanimous approval of the club’s governing bodies” and is an interference in the editorial direction of Benfica TV. Benfica TV is responsible for defining its editorial and programming policy, the rights it holds as a television and media operator, and which links it to the principles of exemption, rigor and pluralism. The fact that the club’s management or its governing bodies can define what Benfica TV covers is an attack against the guarantee of independence enshrined in the Journalist Statute and against the obligations to which Benfica TV itself is subject in the terms of the Television Law.
On the other hand, Luís Filipe Vieira affirms that this option is part of a prior “editorial policy”. However, at no time did he show the document that accredits that same policy. It does not do so for a reason: that document does not exist or has never existed. And it does not exist because, if so, it would constitute a serious violation of Benfica TV’s obligations. Under the television activity license, you must cover “all areas of interest of the club”, including “interviews and discussions about the club”; in terms of the channel’s own editorial statute, it guarantees “a program that is harmonized with the requirements of its target audience, respecting constitutional and legal principles.”
In other words, the coverage of the current electoral period is not only excluded from the “editorial policy” that governs Benfica TV, but also constitutes a duty imposed by the most elementary deontological rules of the Journalist Statute, as well as by the obligations that are they derive for Benfica TV. activity as a media and television operator.
In addition to this, all the situations in which Benfica TV commentators have used their broadcast time to “praise” Luís Filipe Vieira and denigrate the rest of the candidates. We do not intend to argue that such comments may be justified by the freedom of expression of the respective authors. What we want to show is that, since this freedom is invoked by Benfica TV, it is reserved for fans of a single candidacy, by the way, that of the current Chairman of the Board.
Everything that has just been said would be reason enough to complain to the ERC, an entity with oversight functions of the media and which is responsible, among other functions, for guaranteeing the free exercise of the right to information and freedom of the press .
In a responsible stance, we chose not to do so, aware that, given the consequences that the complaint could bring, the main victim would be, not the author of the illegalities, but Sport Lisboa e Benfica.
We can only hope that Benfica members know how to draw the correct conclusions about a behavior that does not respect them in their diversity and plurality, and does not honor the motto and pluribus unum. We hope that the members of Sport Lisboa e Benfica will be able to find information, discussion and debate that Benfica TV denies elsewhere, so that, with knowledge and rigor, they can consciously decide on the future of the club the next day. 30th of October “.
