A new Spanish daily newspaper, Público, will begin publication on September 26. The money behind it is Jaume Roures, and Ignacio Escolar will be editor-in-chief.

Roures is a media mogul, boss of Barcelona-based Mediapro, a movie and TV production company that is part-owner of the TV network La Sexta. Mediapro put up some of the cash for Woody Allen's Barcelona movie, and owns the rights to FC Barcelona games, along with Barça's and Real Madrid's TV channels. Roures is part of the Catalan Socialists' patronage network, and is considered close to Montilla and Zapatero. Escolar, an anti-American lefty, is probably Spain's most popular blogger, at escolar.net.

Público will be "clearly to the left of El Pais," according to El Mundo, and they're going to sell it for fifty cents, half the price of every other Spanish newspaper. Great, just what Spain needs, another America-bashing Zap mouthpiece spouting sustainability, solidarity, and surrender.

They've been running an extremely offensive ad on La Sexta--I saw it several times last night during the Barça game--that leaves no doubt about Público's political attitude. The theme of the ad is that Público is going to be everybody's newspaper; viewers see a series of shots of diverse people doing various things. One of them is a young girl who comes dancing out on her balcony wearing a tank top that says, "FUCK BUSH," apparently displeasing an old lady who pours water from the balcony above on her. Then the old lady turns around, and the back of her blouse also says, "FUCK BUSH." So it wasn't the message on the tank top that offended her, you see.

What's sad about this: The Mediapro people, experienced TV and advertising pros in Spain, have determined that using this insulting anti-American slogan is going to help their sales, not hurt them.