And I am not talking about war reporters or journalism subjected to dictatorships, but in times of peace and under a democratic government, although Winston Churchill already said:«democracy is the worst system of government, except for all the other that have been invented «.
After the restoration of the Bourbons in the crown of Spain, in the person of Alfonso XII, Práxedes Mateo Sagasta he founded the Liberal Party in 1880, a party that together with the Conservative Party de Cánovas del Castillo would constitute the two-party system with alternation in government that would characterize the Spanish Restoration during the final stretch of the 19th century and the first part of the 20th century.
With the arrival of Sagasta to power in 1881, the Printing Law was repealed January 1879 and the Printing Police Law was approved in 1883. In this new law, liberal and based on the principle of freedom of expression, the requirements for authorization of new publications are simplified and, for example, the representation of the press before the Courts and the Authorities now corresponded to the Director (previously was to the founder or owner). In this new legal framework, the figure of the “straw manager” was created. There was the real director and the fictitious, or straw, whose mission was to assume criminal responsibilities in the face of possible complaints as a representative of the newspaper. For example, the newspaper La voz de Cataluña , published in Barcelona from January 1, 1899 to January 8, 1937, the straw director was an editor named Corma. According to his contract, these were his rewards:
200 pesetas / month per editor
200 pesetas / month per fictitious director (of straw)
25 pesetas / day as allowance for day in jail in attribution of the functions of him as fictitious director
But there were more dangerous situations. Challenging a journalist to fight on the field of honor was like the current right of reply, but more personal… and much more effective! So many came to be the replicas of the offended that there was hardly an editorial where a set of pistols and a pair of sabers were not kept. And it was common for a newsroom to be set up for journalists to receive training. Art critics could also be challenged to a duel. Like the case of the theater critic Ignacio Escobar who had put the actor Julián Romea to the boil and he challenged him to a duel. Both of them were such bad shots that they didn't hit; Romea, who as an actor I don't know, but as a duelist was a disaster, pulled the trigger at will with such bad luck that one of his godfathers fell dead.
The last death of a journalist in Spain in a duel occurred on January 1, 1904. The director of the Diario Universal of Madrid, Augusto Suárez de Figueroa , harshly criticized the actions of the Captain General of Cuba, Manuel de Salamanca Negrete . And his son challenged him. On January 1, 1904 they fought in Malaga in a sword duel. The journalist, a veteran of wars and revolutions from which he had always emerged unscathed, could not survive journalism.
At the International Congress of the Press held in Liège in 1905, duels were prohibited and courts of honor, or arbitration, were created to resolve these differences. The information from the ABC newspaper of that August 5 ended with this sentence:“The only representation that has been missing has been that of Spain a". They were banned here in 1915.