Special Pages

This morning my devoted reader pointed out that La Vanguardia began to back the city's 2022 Olympic bid just a few weeks after it was made public. When the paper was thicker and private-sector ad revenue healthier--say, in 2008--La Vanguardia was a thorn in city hall's side, running strings of features for weeks at a time highlighting problems that had arisen from, or weren't addressed by, municipal policy. It could afford to. Now it can't. The largest advertisers in today's issue of the paper are La Vanguardia itself (its marketing branch and sister businesses in the same media group) and the public sector. A six-page special report for International Women's Day, headed "Páginas especiales" and placed by the Catalan Government in collaboration with the Province of Barcelona, will have cost over 100,000 euros. (I've taken the rates from http://www.publipressmedia.com/images/

stories/medios/1/1/tarifas/LA%2520VANGUARDIA.pdf.) Most of the articles in the report aren't signed; a few of them detail policy initiatives, but most cover things La Vanguardia reports on anyway. It's tailored reporting, and would be praise-worthy in itself if it weren't tailored by the state. Will La Vanguardia bite the hand that feeds? I doubt it will more than nip.