Problemas y contradicciones de la regulación de la cláusula de conciencia periodística

AbstractThe objective of this paper is to critically analyse the actual regulation of the journalists’ conscience clause, reflecting its practical shortcomings and contradictions, considering the doctrine has not reflected enough these particulars yet. When developing the journalists’ conscience clause, the Spanish legislator and the Constitutional Court have created a complex legal framework, where the professional integrity, the right to information and the safeguarding of pluralism are appointed as the fundamental basis of the right. However, its content is particularly poor and ineffective as an individual or collective mechanism of protection. The freedom of expression, visible form of the ideological independence of the information contents’ authors and an essential element of journalistic work, seem to be put to the background, but their guarantee is the best way to ensure the transmission of objective information that also meets the need for diversity required to satisfy the democratic principle. After analysing if the conscience clause is an effective protection mechanism of the journalist’s individual position or the social interests related to media informative activities, the conclusion is this institution should be redefined. It is necessary to give it a more modest role in the Legal System or to change its contents in order to really ensure the journalists’ freedom of communication in a media and the citizens’ right to correctly receive informative messages. ResumenEl objeto de este trabajo es realizar un análisis crítico de la actual regulación de la cláusula de conciencia de los profesionales de la información, evidenciando sus carencias prácticas y contradicciones, cosa que hasta el momento la doctrina no ha terminado de plasmar con claridad. Al abordar esta cuestión, el Legislador y el Tribunal Constitucional han optado por crear un marco jurídico de fundamentación compleja, donde la integridad profesional, el derecho a recibir información y la salvaguarda del pluralismo como fundamento de la opinión pública libre se entremezclan para justificar un contenido que, sin embargo, resulta particularmente pobre en sus previsiones e ineficaz como garantía individual o social. La libertad de expresión, materialización de la independencia ideológica de los encargados de generar contenidos informativos y un elemento esencial del trabajo periodístico, parece quedar desplazada a un segundo plano cuando, precisamente, es a través de su garantía como mejor se puede asegurar la transmisión de una información que, sin dejar de ser objetiva, responda a la diversidad exigida por el principio democrático. Tras analizar si la cláusula de conciencia es un mecanismo efectivo para proteger la posición individual del periodista o los intereses sociales en relación con la actividad de los medios de comunicación, la conclusión es que se hace necesario redefinir esta institución, ya sea bien reconociéndola unas finalidades y un papel más modestos en el Ordenamiento, o dotándola de un contenido que sirva realmente para garantizar la libertad de comunicación de los periodistas para generar mensajes cuando trabajan para un medio y el derecho los ciudadanos a recibirlos adecuadamente.AbstractThe objective of this paper is to critically analyse the actual regulation of the journalists’ conscience clause, reflecting its practical shortcomings and contradictions, considering the doctrine has not reflected enough these particulars yet. When developing the journalists’ conscience clause, the Spanish legislator and the Constitutional Court have created a complex legal framework, where the professional integrity, the right to information and the safeguarding of pluralism are appointed as the fundamental basis of the right. However, its content is particularly poor and ineffective as an individual or collective mechanism of protection. The freedom of expression, visible form of the ideological independence of the information contents’ authors and an essential element of journalistic work, seem to be put to the background, but their guarantee is the best way to ensure the transmission of objective information that also meets the need for diversity required to satisfy the democratic principle. After analysing if the conscience clause is an effective protection mechanism of the journalist’s individual position or the social interests related to media informative activities, the conclusion is this institution should be redefined. It is necessary to give it a more modest role in the Legal System or to change its contents in order to really ensure the journalists’ freedom of communication in a media and the citizens’ right to correctly receive informative messages.