In Portugal, practically every electricity consumer contributes each month to the funding of RTP through the so-called Contribuição para o Audiovisual (Audiovisual Contribution). It matters little whether they watch its programs, prefer other media outlets, or never tune in to any of its channels. They pay all the same.
It is precisely for that reason that RTP is subject to a moral, institutional, and democratic obligation greater than that of any private station: to serve all Portuguese citizens, without distinction of political conviction, ideological orientation, social condition, or party preference.
When a citizen is required by law to fund a media outlet, that outlet ceases to belong to a particular audience, to a cultural elite, or to a political current. It must, necessarily, come to belong to the Nation as a whole.
Its mission should be clear: to inform with rigor, to educate with responsibility, to preserve the national culture, and to promote a genuinely pluralistic debate — one in which the various political and social sensibilities find fair and balanced representation.
It is precisely at this point that the problem lies.
In my view, RTP has progressively drifted away from that ideal of neutrality. On too many occasions, the selection of themes, the choice of commentators, the framing of questions, the presentation of the news, and the distribution of airtime convey the perception of an ideological orientation predominantly leaning to the left.
This is not about demanding a right-wing public television. That would be as wrong as what is being criticized. It is, quite simply, about demanding a public television that is neither of the left, nor of the right, nor of any other party camp. RTP should stand above the political trenches.
Naturally, any media outlet may make errors of editorial judgment. The problem begins when those errors cease to appear occasional and start to reveal a persistent pattern. Public trust does not vanish suddenly; it wears away slowly, whenever the citizen feels that his convictions are systematically dismissed, caricatured, or excluded.
In a mature democracy, dissent does not constitute a threat. It constitutes a necessity.
True pluralism is not measured merely by the number of guests present in a studio. It is measured by the effective diversity of opinions, by the impartiality of the questions, by the balance of the analysis, and by the absence of ideological prejudice in the handling of information.
A public television does not exist to politically educate the people according to the vision of a particular intellectual class. It does not exist to guide consciences, to select convenient truths, or to transform opinion into news.
It exists to provide citizens with the facts necessary so that each of them may freely form his own judgment.
If a private channel decides to adopt an editorial line of the left or of the right, it falls to the market, to viewers, and to advertisers to reward or penalize it. Freedom of the press also comprises the freedom of editorial orientation.
But RTP does not live only from the voluntary choice of the public. It benefits from mandatory funding, borne by taxpayers through the electricity bill. That circumstance imposes upon it a far more demanding duty of independence, balance, and neutrality.
Whoever is compelled to fund a public service should not feel that he is funding an ideology.
The conservative citizen pays. The socialist citizen pays. The liberal pays. The communist pays. The monarchist, the republican, the believer, and the agnostic pay all the same.
Everyone contributes. Consequently, everyone has the right to demand respect.
RTP cannot confuse public service with political activism, nor pluralism with the merely decorative presence of dissenting voices. It is not enough to invite someone from the right onto a panel if that voice is constantly interrupted, placed in the minority, or treated as an intellectual anomaly.
Impartiality is not a concession. It is an obligation.
The credibility of a public television does not depend solely on ratings, on the popularity of its presenters, or on the technical quality of its productions. It depends, above all, on the trust of the citizens who sustain it.
That trust is built through rigor, through independence, through ideological restraint, and through respect for the intelligence of the public.
RTP should represent the whole of Portugal, and not merely the Portugal that thinks in a particular way.
Because, when everyone is required to pay, no Portuguese citizen should feel that public television speaks only for a few.
César DePaço
Businessman and Philanthropist
Consul ad honorem of Portugal from 2014 to 2020
Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Summit Nutritionals International Inc.®
Founder and Chairman of the Board of The DePaço Foundation
Unwavering Defender of Law Enforcement and Conservative Principles
This is an opinion column by its author and does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the newspaper.