In his statement, the businessman stated that the distributor had been “for a year trying to have a project to help publishers, to reach the interior of the country”. “But we’ve been in meetings for a year. Meetings after meetings and each time it seems further away. And VASP is not the Portuguese State. We do our duty, but we cannot replace the duties of the Portuguese State”, stated Marco Galinha on that occasion.
At that time, the same news read that VASP and the main groups of media nationals had asked the Government for an urgent meeting so that “urgent measures” could be taken to avoid these problems. Furthermore, the “consecutive postponement” by the Government in launching “an international public tender for the distribution of publications throughout the country” also generated concern among those responsible.
News deserts intensify. Scenario is worse than in 2022
If the scenario is confirmed, this could mean that the populations of these interior districts will be limited in access to information, being able to consume it only through television, digital media, or radio. But there is more: in many of these places, there is no registered local and regional information body, which makes the situation more critical.
Second a study carried out by Labcom researchersfrom the University of Beira Interior (UBI), the so-called “news deserts” (total or semi-total) have worsened in relation to the previous survey, made in 2022. In three years, the number rose from 78 to 83 municipalities. The Alto-Alentejo region, which covers the Portalegre district (one of the eight in danger), is considered critical, having only nine registered media outlets for a population of 109 thousand people.
According to the investigation, The regions of Alentejo and Trás-os-Montes are those with the main information needs.
The data released by UBI also shows that 171 of the 308 municipalities in Portugal (55.5%) have some problem with local news coverage. This represents a slight increase compared to 2022, when there were 166 municipalities in this situation.