The vast majority of Europeans are unaware of Turkmenistan’s existence, but it is a country with more ties to the West than we think. The United Arab Emirates has set its sights on the business of sustainability, even though its eccentricities have been polluting for decades. And misuse of antibiotics could trigger the great silent pandemic in the near future. Journalist Jalis de la Serna (Madrid, 49 years old) travels the world to show the hidden face behind situations we consider trivial in the fourth season of Special Envoy. With these six new investigative reports he questions our current lifestyle. The program returns to La Sexta this Tuesday, October 24th at 10:30 p.m.
“The intention is to surprise the viewer and realize that we live with other countries, other societies and other circumstances without being aware of it,” comments the journalist in a telephone conversation this Monday morning. “Every report tries to open the eyes of the audience so that they realize the world we live in,” he says. His research decodes the butterfly effect that arises from our daily actions. “For one child in Europe to have instant cocoa for breakfast, another in Ivory Coast has to wield a machete and work in the jungle instead of going to school,” he reveals. One of the space’s deliveries will focus on cocoa, the most consumed sweet in Spain.
Of the six problems this season, antibiotics are the one that concerns De la Serna the most. He considers it “one of the most important challenges we face as a society.” India is the perfect example of how the excessive and incorrect use of these drugs in humans, livestock and agriculture has led to the progressive emergence of bacteria resistant to them, “which can cause the deaths of 10 million people worldwide every year.” World in Year 2040,” the reporter remembers. In fact, they are already the third cause of death on the planet.
The trip that the program team is taking to Turkmenistan to analyze the energy crisis in Europe promises to be just as impressive. It is one of the most unknown and secretive countries in the world, often compared to the dictatorial regime of North Korea. It has the fourth largest natural gas reserves in the world, which makes its relations with the European Union uncertain, although the majority of the continent’s citizens are unaware of the extreme undemocratic conditions imposed by the government on this nation.
Journalism in crisis in front of an increasingly informed viewer
The rise of the non-fiction genre allows the viewer to be more and more informed, praises the reporter, who defends that the intention of his program is not to shift the responsibility for the ills of the planet to the citizen, but rather to give him the keys to give correct certain habits. . It happens with another issue that is addressed in this episode. Fast and cheap fashion allows for quick consumption of clothing due to its low cost. This practice has not only made this industry the second most polluting industry in the world, but has also made Ghana the textile dumping ground of the West. De la Serna keeps track of some of the clothes we donate in clothing bins, thinking we’re doing something good, when in reality they end up in second-hand shops in Europe. “Or, if they are of poorer quality, in an African country that is unable to cope with the millions of kilos it receives weekly. “The clothing ends up in illegal landfills, in rivers and on beaches that no longer exist because there are now mountains of clothing,” he denounces.
At a time when contemporary journalism, both on television, radio and the digital press, is characterized by immediacy, “its professionals are faced with making split-second decisions that can lead to human error; We don’t always practice self-censorship and we don’t realize that in reality sometimes it’s not necessary to scratch so much,” comments the journalist, referring to the controversial reporting by several media outlets about the body of Álvaro Prieto. “It is important to immediately make amends and apologize for the potential pain caused to the family, as TVE has done.”
New threats
Another “serious threat” to the profession and society, according to the Madrid native, is the technology applied to information. Artificial intelligence makes it possible to create deepfake videos that show people in situations they have never experienced before in a matter of seconds. He also creates recordings with statements that were never uttered but sound absolutely convincing. Augmented reality has already created a kind of Photoshop for moving images, with which images can also be manipulated in live connections. “The problem is that we still don’t know where AI can lead in the journalistic field,” he warns.
“For this reason, we are particularly proud of the veracity and image quality of this season’s reports,” says De la Serna, having worked in places where capturing with a camera is not easy. The special envoy will also analyze sex tourism in the Dominican Republic, where he visited cities exclusively dedicated to this activity and which are practically “open-air brothels”, defines the journalist.
Jalis de la Serna returns to La Sexta with a fourth season of “Special Envoy”. Roberto Sastre
In another report, the research team of Atresmedia’s second channel will explain how the international community chose the United Arab Emirates to celebrate COP28, the United Nations conference on climate change in 2023. The La Sexta space will be relocated to Dubai, one of the regions in the world with the largest ecological footprint. It is the site of artificial islands and thousands of tourist helicopter flights every day that require enormous amounts of fuel. Without forgetting one of its trademarks: the huge skyscrapers that are constantly cooled with air conditioning in a country where temperatures sometimes exceed 50 degrees. There are more than three decades of whimsy that now coexist with a new one: using economic muscle to do business with the sustainability industry. One of his latest ideas is to distribute chemical elements in the atmosphere to manipulate the clouds and try to make it rain as he pleases.
Anyone who sees all these stories, defends De la Serna, “will see how we, often without being aware of it, contribute to the deterioration of the planet, its environment and human rights.”
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