## 1 Political Information, Press Offices and Democracy
Generally, the media focus their attention on the larger national or regional localities, depending on their scope, while also dealing with supralocal institutions. The lack of resources and the size of the problem are factors that contribute to the fact that information on local politics is, if it exists, a mere exercise in copying press releases with or without modifications. This plagiarism has been studied in Spain [10] but also in other countries such as Colombia [11]. Hence, the importance of having quality institutional information as a source for independent journalism. Local councils began to carry out communicative actions, mainly aimed at meeting the information needs of the media, at the end of the 1970s. From 1983 onwards, communication offices were created in numerous local administrations and this trend became widespread to a large extent, although not entirely, over the next decade [7]. During this consolidation of the offices, important transformations took place that were encompassed in the term \"professionalization of political communication\" and consisted of adapting the political discourse to the forms established by the media, assuming an increasing number of elements of a show, dynamism and impact, and nurturing the techniques of advertising, marketing, and public relations [12]. This media management of political messages used strategies such as the programming of events adjusted to the criteria of newsworthiness, the adaptation of the activities and declarations to the rhythm of news output, the promotion of leaders for their good looks or their ability to produce good headlines [13], and the extension of the techniques used in electoral campaigns to all circumstances, always using communication in order to hold onto power. This last characteristic turns the communication of public institutions into a \"rival communication, attack (or defense) communication of the opposition, with an eminently adversarial aspect\" [4] (p. 235). This circumstance conditions journalists' access to political information, provides them a more propagandistic than informative vision and limits their range of action [1]. On the other hand, press offices have an intrinsic duality that conditions the persuasive nature of their message: they are created to manage the information generated by councils and also to influence the opinion of society through the construction of a positive public image of that organization. The press offices of political institutions and of the public administration share this premise because, although their end goal is the management of public affairs, they need to obtain the trust of the people through their vote first. Therefore, they must also plan a communication strategy that creates an image that inspires credibility for the public. They have to model the profile of the leader and the organization, building a consistent image and creating a consensus around their management [14]. The head of the press or media relations knows the product and the journalistic message like any editor but must not lose sight of the fact that s/he is not exercising the work of a journalist, but of a manager of self-serving information. Therefore, all other journalists become instruments at the service of the client and their function goes beyond administrative and aseptic, designing communication strategies that are most effective for political leaders [12]. In this way, the messages that attempt to account for public management become a tool that allows government teams to explain, justify and legitimize the political decisions taken in each legislative period in order to create a positive perception in the public mind [15]. Therefore, although one of the functions of a press office of a political institution of the public administration is to regularly publish information on the activities carried out by the institution [14], the journalistic activity within the press offices has been diluted.