Rearview mirror journalism

A few months ago, the website equinoxmagazine.fr recounted anecdotes about taxi drivers in Barcelona. It was an exercise in friendly gossip, revealing a few moments of this business. A driver who didn't recognize Zidane and, since he looked familiar, asked him if he was the star of a Mango commercial. A large family who ordered two large taxis and, upon arriving at Sants station, discovered, like in the film Home Alone , that they had forgotten their youngest son. A talkative customer who, after a long conversation with the taxi driver, forgot his dentures in the back seat. And a few anecdotes about the impatience of lovers who can't wait to get to their hotel or home and display a passion that turns the taxi driver into a voyeur in the rearview mirror.

I was reminded of these stories watching Santos Cerdán and his lawyer, Benet Salellas, get out of a Madrid taxi (white, with the red stripe honoring the flag of Castile) on Monday before testifying in the Supreme Court. It's an iconic moment of this cruel immediacy that, disguised as news, persecutes alleged defendants—that is, presumed innocent people—and condemns them to what the same media outlets that practice it call "the TV news penalty." In this case, the protagonists must bear in mind that they will be scrutinized. Cerdán and Salellas acted naturally, and no one suspected that, shortly after, Cerdán would be sent to prison under provisional detention. The fact that they chose a conventional taxi and not one of those VTCs that Tito Álvarez likes so much (I've always been amazed by the name VTC, Vehicle for Transport with Driver, as if taxis weren't exactly that) seemed to me a calculated detail to distance themselves from the typical elitism of the black car with tinted windows, chauffeurs wearing sunglasses and a team of bodyguards.

I understand that among the taxi driver codes is not to reveal what happens inside the vehicle.

I understand that among the taxi drivers' codes is maintaining a certain level of confidentiality and not revealing what happens inside the vehicle. Then, as regular taxi users, we know that drivers can feel the need to tell anecdotes, sometimes with a respectful, generic reference and other times with details, signs, names, surnames, and even insults. Years ago, before this confidential respect, hidden cameras were used to detect abuse (by drivers) or crimes (by passengers), which led to complaints and, in turn, raw material for morbid entertainment.

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The confessions and the tracking of taxi drivers generated many documentaries and even an HBO series that, if I recall correctly, was based on the diary of a New York taxi driver. But if we could know what Salellas and Cerdán discussed just before reaching the Supreme Court—and so many other current protagonists—we would have access to a type of information that would help us understand reality, through the taxi driver's rearview mirror.