The president of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, is the national political leader who grants the most interviews to the media. and by far. The objective of making himself known throughout Spain to aspire to the Presidency of the Government and the campaign of closeness that he is already leading have led him to a kind of media hyperactivity.
Since Pablo Casado left the seat and his positions in the PP on April 1, 2022, Feijóo has granted no less than 47 interviews to 32 different media, including newspapers, radios and televisions, as this newspaper has been able to calculate.. This offers an average of 3.6 interviews per month or, in other words, one interview every eight days.
His figures are not only striking for the number, but also for the fact that he grants interviews to media outlets of all editorial lines, something unusual in the leaders of other parties.. “He has given to almost everyone who has asked him and, of course, to all the media groups in the country,” they say from his team.
[Feijóo: “If 1.7 million jobs are not created, the pension system is unsustainable”]
Pedro Sánchez, for example, concedes much less and, when he does, he usually turns to more related media and with an editorial line tending to the left.. The journalist Carlos Alsina complained last February that the president had only gone, of all the radios, to Cadena SER.
In the same period of time, since April 1, 2022, Sánchez has granted only eight interviews. He has done it to six different media, repeating on RTVE and laSexta.
It's not the only one. It is impossible to find an interview with Ione Belarra in media such as La Razón or ABC, as is the case with Yolanda Díaz. Santiago Abascal, leader of Vox, directly shies away from the traditional media and barely gives interviews except to limited media such as El Mundo.
Feijóo, on the other hand, has gone through media such as Cadena SER, La Vanguardia, El País or laSexta since Pablo Casado left the party leadership. Of course, the Galician's favorite medium is Onda Cero, to which he has gone four times. They are followed by El Mundo and Telecinco, which he has attended three times each.
“It has a lot of public exposure because we are in the maelstrom,” they acknowledge from their team. In addition, he is treading “a lot on the street and does not lock himself in a capsule”. In fact, as Feijóo is ahead in the polls, a more close campaign can be allowed and that focuses exclusively on people getting to know him and feel close to him.
The month in which he has granted the most interviews was last December, with a total of seven. There, the leader of the Popular Party especially confronted the President of the Government on issues such as the renewal of the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ) and his presence in the media increased.
[Feijóo summons the barons of the PSOE to leave the party if Sánchez does not “break the pact with Bildu”]
He also made numerous appearances in September 2022, a total of six times, to mark the new political course in which everything is at stake.. And in April 2022, another six times, when he landed in the presidency of the PP and his main objective was to make himself known.
However, from the PP team they assure that these days that remain before the elections of the next 28-M the rate of interviews will drop significantly. The president of the party is going to get fully involved in the campaign, some days even with four events, going to all the autonomous communities, as well as Ceuta and Melilla, so it will be impossible for him to attend to the media as before.
“It is about being in all possible places, but with a certain order. It doesn't make sense to do four interviews on the same day, which is something the media are not interested in either.. But there is a lot of exposure and he will return after the generals. Nothing to do with others, who shy away,” the sources support.