Spain launches crackdown on fake news: Newspapers must register their owners and investors

SPAIN will force newspapers to declare their owners and investors in a bid to improve transparency, it has been announced.

The data will be held in a specially created ‘media registry’, managed by the National Securities Market and Competition Commission (CNMC).

The initiative is part of the Action Plan for Democracy and it is hoped it will reduce ‘misinformation and fake news’.

The Minister of Culture, Ernest Urtasun, said the CNMC will be reformed and given new powers.

These will include defining what a media outlet is and differentiating newspapers or news sites from social media and entertainment platforms whose sole purpose is not news.

All media organisations will also be required to present the sources of their advertising revenue annually ‘in a clear and accessible manner.’

The Law on Institutional Advertising will also be amended to include clauses on transparency, proportionality and non-discrimantion ‘in the allocation of funds’, which will ‘prevent the financing of media that promote disinformation or fake news.’

But industry leaders say the proposed laws need to be made much clearer.

The general director of the Open Club of Editors (CLABE), Juan Zafra, said the measures ‘need greater specificity’, but recognised they have ‘positive’ aspects.

The Government’s plan also includes a law to better protect journalists and their sources, and the implementation of a European directive demanding the protection of reporters from ‘external harassment’ and ‘the abusive and unfounded demands they face on a daily basis for doing their job.’