Reading the headlines, it was clear that the marriage of Iker Jimenez and Carmen Porter it was so dead that it seemed that not even with one of the Ouija boards to which they are so accustomed they could build bridges. “Carmen Porter separates from Iker Jiménez”, said dozens of publications that simply referred to the television emancipation of the co-host of Cuarto Milenio, who will have a solo program on Cuatro, ‘Futura’, with which from Tuesday it will replace ‘Everything is true’ by Risto Mejide. The ball became so big that even Iker had to go out on his social networks to deny this rupture born of ‘click-bait’. “Good people on the street telling me it’s a shame we’ve broken up & mldr;,” he tweeted earlier this week.
Beyond the anecdote, something is clear: the preferred marriage of occultists –criticized because his conspiratorial obsession has often paid for the discourse of the far right– has become Mediaset’s new media asset. An award for corporate loyalty, since both have been directing ‘Fourth Millennium’ in Cuatro since 2005year of foundation of the chain.
In their first broadcast they defined themselves as “a team of journalists that neither believes nor disbelieves”, “they simply look for evidence and data” and that, as Carmen added, was born to tell what “is not usually told in the media and It doesn’t make it to the front page.” His first televised mystery was in Ochate, a ghost town in Burgos in whose ruins, according to believers, ghost voices are heard through EVP. A true declaration of intent, not only for the program, but also for the couple, who had been dealing with paranormal issues on the radio for years.
“Boycott Campaigns”
In their early years they were perceived as a geek niche. Midnight stories that served as fuel for lovers of the occult, without much more social interest than having a good time. For critics it was the Spanish ‘remake’ of ‘Unsolved mysteries’the eighties program hosted by Robert Stack that, three years before ‘Cuarto Milenio’, went off the air due to the presenter’s death.
But as their presence on television became established and they became a media icon, this role of objective analysts of the paranormal was questioned and, before the word post-truth existed, dozens of scientists warned of the dangers of promoting these conspiracy theories, falsehoods and misinformation on the air. Years later, Iker disqualified these scientific concerns as “boycott campaigns” with the aim of wanting to silence his program and the topics he covered.
They defend their position by appealing to the “freedom” to speak even of “what cannot be spoken of” for “hidden interests”
Related news
And like a prophecy, the dangers that his critics warned about were fulfilled in the pandemic. The program, where all kinds of conspiracy theories had always had a place, now went on to give shelter to ‘fake news’ that mixed geopolitics and disinformation related to covid. “It gives the impression that there are many factors that make it not good to wonder what happened,” said Iker in a program dedicated to the supposed origin of the virus in a laboratory, supported by scientific sources. conspiracists.
Of course, both Iker and Carmen defended these positions, appealing to the “freedom” to “talk about everything”, even about “what cannot be talked about” due to “hidden interests”. And also with good results: feeding content to critics and covid deniers not only gave them audience records, it has also established its reign in Mediaset with new projects such as ‘Futura’.