This week in Television Española (TVE), the state-owned TV channel, the Prime Minister and leader of the Socialist Party, Mr. Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, confronted questions from 100 regular citizens for two hours.
One of them asked Mr. Zapatero: Do you know how much a cup of coffee costs?
The politician’s face was frozen and then he said: 0.80 euros ($1.05)
Well, all Mr. Zapatero needs to do is walk into any Starbucks or similar place to know that he could pay two or three times that!
EL PAIS put the question and the anwser on a big headline on the front page.
But more important that this lack of knowledge, were the topics of 90% of the questions.
Housing.
Education.
Inmigration.
Jobs.
Courts.
Salaries.
Poverty…
A citizens agenda that it is very different than the usual policitian’s agenda and the media agenda.
The big surprise of this program was how five million spectators watched the Prime Minister unable to respond to many of these real issues with sincere and genuine words.
Instead he presented numbers, generic concepts, slogans and no real anwsers.
Another reason to cover elections not from the point of view of the candidates, but from the point of view of the voters.
Politicians, like many editors, need to talk more with real people.
They are the ones that buy and read (or not) our newspapers.
