At the call of their union, Portuguese journalists massively joined a 24-hour strike intended to protest against working conditions and professional insecurity. The last journalists’ strike took place 42 years ago in Portugal.
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With our correspondent in Lisbon,Marie-Line Darcy
Portuguese journalists are at their wits’ end. And, a very rare phenomenon, they went out into the street to say it.
Pedro Coelho chaired the journalists’ congress last January, where the strike was decided.
“ Portuguese journalism is going through a dramatic crisis, he said. We’ve hit rock bottom, we can’t go any lower. We alert society and politicians to get us out of the hole. This strike is a cry of warning about the situation in which we find ourselves, with the complicity of everyone, including the journalists themselves. »
Against the backdrop of committed songs and under signs calling for a strike, the journalists responded. Isaura Almeida is staff representative at the newspaper News Diarya history reduced to a team of 16 journalists.
“ The newspaper is 159 years old, she recalls. We have done the past, the present and we want to be there in the future. And the future of journalism, and of democracy, lies with free, independent journalists who can inform people about reality. And this is not the reality of social networks written by people about whom we know nothing. »
Precariousness, insufficient salaries, disrepute are denounced by a profession on the verge of disappearance in Portugal.
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