This Spanish reporter has come under fire after grossly mistranslating a young British holidaymaker’s opinion about face masks during a viral interview at a beach in Barcelona that has notched up millions of views.
The controversial translation occurred during a live feed in the television program ‘Espejo Publico’ (Public Mirror) broadcast by Antena 3 at a beach in the city of Barcelona in the Spanish autonomous community of Catalonia on Thursday 1st April, which has gone viral with at least 2.3 million views on Twitter alone.
The programme was talking about the harsher restrictions that had been put in place by officials and had gone into effect on 31st March.
The new mandate forces people to wear a face mask at all times when they are outdoors whereas before they were free to take them off in open-air places where they could ensure a safe distance from others.
(Newsflash)
During the broadcast, one of the reporters found a British holidaymaker soaking up the sun at a beach with nobody else anywhere near and who was not wearing a face mask.
She asked about it and he told her he did not understand Spanish.
The reporter told him: “You are not wearing a face mask. You know you have to wear a ‘face mask’?”
However, her entire question was phrased in Spanish with the exception of the word ‘face mask’ leaving the young Brit confused, and answering if she could repeat it in English.
However, she simply said ‘face mask’ in English and pointed the microphone at him.
The confused man said: “What about the face mask? What do I think? I don’t like it but I understand why it’s necessary and it’s just one of those things that I think we have to accept, that it is a small price to pay for potentially helping Spain get back to normal.”
However, the reporter said: “He is telling us he is not wearing the face mask because he considers it is not necessary to wear it when he is here at the beach with a safe distance and there aren’t many people here at the beach of Barceloneta at this moment.”
The show’s presenter Lorena Garcia, who anchored in Easter week, reiterated the point saying: “Because he doesn’t like it he said, well other people don’t like it either and they have to wear it.”
(Newsflash)
The incident caused several netizens to take to social media to voice their anger at the report with ‘blxepxnk’ saying: “What about this f*cking disgrace?”
‘lauriiiita_’ wrote: “When you lie on your CV and say you have a high English level.”
‘Nopanaden’ said: “This is outrageous. Completely.”
There have been no reports on statements from the reporters or the network involved regarding the outrage that has appeared on social media over the mistranslation.
