La Sexta and TVE clash with viewers over Trump's victory coverage

La Sens and TVE face backlash over Trump's victory coverage

What happens when a segment of the audience stops believing what they see on screen? Donald Trump's victory in the US elections triggered a direct confrontation between Spanish television networks and their viewers. According to the narrative that spread after election night, a TVE correspondent described the winner as a "incivil," while at Antena 3, Vicente Vallés reportedly labeled him misogynistic, racist, and an autocrat who admires dictators. At La Sens, the prevailing sentiment was different: ass on fire.

The fact remains undisputed: Trump won. The debate centers on how the story was told. Here, election coverage became a mirror where each side saw what they wanted to see, and media bias shifted from suspicion to mutual accusation.

How TVE and La Sens narrated Trump's victory

Labels were the trigger for the anger. A portion of the audience understood that describing the winner with sarracena qualifiers is not informing, but editorializing. The defense of the profession is the usual one: describing a politician by what they say and do is not taking sides, it is reporting.

The most unsettling part came with the analysis. The framing that caused the most discomfort attributed the victory to voters with less education or to the economies of rural areas. This type of reading sounded like classism to those listening from the other side of the dial. Linking an electoral victory to the educational level of those who vote for it explains nothing. Label, and that's it.

Why is the end of traditional media being discussed?

The most repeated thesis on election night was not about Trump, but about who is telling the story. That channels dedicated disproportionate coverage to Kamala Harris while social media played their own game lit the fuse. Whether exaggerated or not, the diagnosis has a solid basis: the gap between what is seen on a studio set and what is experienced in a country.

One voice summarized it bluntly: "I was in the USA this year, and the perception the media here give us has nothing to do with reality." It may be a personal impression or the radiography of a structural problem. No one proved it, but the discontent is real and does not seem fleeting.

The role of Elon Musk and X on election night

A significant part of the conversation revolved around a single person: Elon Musk. Some describe him as the true winner, "the most powerful human being in history," capable of tilting public conversation from his platform. The hyperbole is excessive, but the substance is not unreasonable: a social network ceased to be a simple loudspeaker and became an actor with its own interests.

This is also debated across the Atlantic. If someone with that capacity decides to amplify a message, traditional media lose the monopoly on deciding what is news. The uncomfortable question is who then audits the one distributing the megaphone.

The real vote versus the narrative: women and men

An insight that breaks the caricature is the vote of women. "In the white women's graph, Trump sweeps," points out an analysis, against the idea that his victory was only a matter of angry men. The data disconcerts those who had bought into the simplistic frame that Trump's electorate is a homogeneous block. Reality rarely fits in a headline.

Theories about the 2020 election fraud

Appears, as expected, the ghost of previous elections. It is claimed there was fraud with mail-in votes and trucks full of ballots, an accusation never proven in court. It is important to distinguish: part of the electorate believes it; that does not make it true. Repetition without proof is not a fact, it is a belief.

The background noise lies elsewhere. There is a shared weariness with the official narrative and a suspicion running through much of Spain: that the media no longer informs, they opine. Seeing a journalist with a funeral face while counting the results is, for many, the proof they had been looking for years.

The reaction in Spain: euphoria and tears

A foreign victory was lived here almost as if it were our own election. For some, it was revenge against years of what they call social engineering; for others, a bad ordeal with no body left to be indignant, with recent floods still lingering. A result that decides nothing in Spain nonetheless mobilizes battles that have been brewing here for years.

That a foreign victory provokes more euphoria and more rage in Madrid than in Ohio says much about how information is brewed on this side of the Atlantic. Trump will govern for four years. Laughter and tears, too.