Canary Islands “blackout” not as widespread as reported

Just in case you missed it, yesterday morning the Canary Islands apparently suffered from a “major blackout” which “swept the islands” leaving “residents and tourists in the dark” – even though it was 11 o’ clock in the morning.

You would certainly have missed it if you were on Lanzarote or any of the other islands apart from La Palma, where the lights went out for a couple of hours due to a breakdown at a substation.

It was a fairly normal event on the islands – power cuts aren’t common, but they do happen once in a while. La Palma is not one of the main tourist islands, so it is unlikely that many British nationals were affected.

But that didn’t stop British media including The Times, The Sun, The Mirror, The Express, The Independent and Metro reporting on the event and attempting to link it with the larger power cut that mainland Spain suffered last week.

The reports are the latest in a series of inaccurate and sensational stories about the Canaries that have appeared in the British media, raising alarm about mild weather warnings or peaceful demonstrations.

We don’t know why these stories have been appearing recently, although we doubt that it’s a deliberate attempt to sabotage Canarian tourism (and if it is, it certainly isn’t working).  Instead, it should be remembered that 5.6 million British citizens holidayed in the Canaries last year, meaning that hundreds of thousands are likely to click on news items about the islands that appear in their social media feeds. Stir in the fact that sensational, scaremongering stories get more engagement than good news and you end up with the alternate Canarian universe of power cuts, violent protests, airport chaos and terrible storms that British journalists have invented in order to get clicks.