## 1 Political Information, Press Offices and Democracy  
The dissemination of information is an essential requirement for the development of democracy, since only citizens with political knowledge can evaluate the management of leaders in power and make electoral decisions in a reasoned and rational manner [1]. However, to fulfil that role, that information must include all voices and compare diverse sources so that people can form their opinion by contrasting multiple points of view [2]. This plurality of sources is essential in order to construct the story and to have credibility, both in the facts that are told and in the process that was carried out to obtain the information [3]. However, despite the relevance of political information, it does not always meet sufficient quality conditions to fulfil its functions and frequently it limits itself to summarizing the opinions of leaders about events and other statements. Moreover, priority is often given to issues related to partisan confrontation over others of greater public interest, such as territorial organization, the budget, employment, or justice. In the public media, the opinions of opposition parties are not published, prioritizing government information, and defending the interests of those who currently exercise power [4]. However, considering the aim of our research, city council webpages are not the property of the local government; they are public media that must respond to the general interest and, therefore, must show political plurality with representation of all the parties in the institution. This means that elected members of the government and the opposition must be held accountable for their actions. In Spain, the major organ of the city councils is the plenary, the deliberative body composed by all the elected councillors (from all the different political parties) and presided by the Mayor that is not directly elected as he is invested by the councillors. Furthermore, in Spain, city council technicians are civil servants who work for the institution and not for the ruling party. Relying on complete information on the actions of all the elected representatives, citizens can make political participation decisions, such as their vote in electoral processes. In Spain, some local administrations already publish information on the decisions of the municipal government bodies, informing the public via news of the proposals of all the groups represented and the results of the votes, and even broadcasting the municipal plenary sessions in streaming, videos, or podcasts, so that all citizens can see how the proposals are presented and debated. In addition, some city council websites have specific spaces where political groups can post opinions or links to their sites and social networks [5]. The media's own agenda items are in the minority, while the majority is marked by the institutional agenda, which is fundamentally political [6]. The content of the messages disseminated mainly comes from or is related to press offices [7]. The economic crisis that seriously affected media outlets, together with a greater availability of the documents provided by these offices thanks to the Internet, has led to an increase in dependence on this institutional information. In local and regional media, with little advertising investment and few workers, it is even more noticeable [8]. It is therefore vital for the reconstruction of political journalism at the local level that public administrations provide complete information of good quality that can be used as a primary source [9]. It is also necessary to consider that in Spain, for example, there are 8131 city councils. Although many of them administer localities with a small population and scarce economic resources, it is not possible for the media to constantly report on local politics, keeping up with this broad complex situation, with a variety of sources and good quality information.