Another red line hit in the networks: children of journalists targeted | Spain

If the journalist Carmen Sastre had not transformed it into a viral tweet, few would remember the live broadcast on the sentence of the State Attorney General’s Office broadcast by Canale 24 Ore shortly after 4.30 pm. on November 20th. But Sastre, former councilor of RTVE, on a proposal from the PP, decided to cut 77 seconds of video of this information to attack the public institution’s journalist Xabier Fortes, presenter of The night in 24 hours. The reason? The young informant holding the TVE microphone in the news shared on X is the son of Fortes, one of the most well-known faces of the house. In his tweet, dated November 20, Sastre said he was “curious” that Fortes had already “placed” his son in TVE, earning points for future opposition, when he had previously criticized “families in TVE”. Without any supporting evidence, the idea has been circulating ever since that Fortes’ son received preferential treatment from TVE. At the time of writing, the tweet had more than 2.4 million views.

Fortes was not the only similar case. Since November 20, at least three other journalists, all with distinguished professional careers, have been attacked using similar techniques. This is Jesus Maraña, Infobook; Isaias Lafuente, of Cadena SER; and Esther Palomera, from elDiario.es. In no case was evidence presented that there was nepotism, but in all it was suggested that children benefited from their parents’ position to achieve a certain position.

Fernando González Urbaneja, president of the Journalism Arbitration, Complaints and Ethics Commission, says attacks on journalists who use their children are “regrettable” and “worrying” for the profession. In his opinion, they constitute “further proof” of the fact that “social networks are totally irresponsible” and that “anything goes” on them. Facts like these, he adds, demonstrate that networks not only “ruin” the work of journalists, but also leave media professionals defenseless against those who disseminate content without any rigor. “All solidarity to these colleagues. We cannot accept (such behavior). If you have no other reason to criticize someone than mentioning their children, you are defining yourself,” says María Rey, president of the Madrid Press Association, who believes that “the saddest thing” is that there are those who present themselves as “journalists” and engage in this type of practice.

Sastre’s message against Fortes was the one that sparked the most controversy. Former TVE journalist Miguel Ángel Idígoras has given him support in far-right accounts such as those of agitator Javier Negre, who has almost 400,000 followers on The tweet is approaching three million views.

Another ultra user, Mr. Liberal, with more than 160,000 followers on X, accused the popular presenter of “corking” his son. From Vox, its president in Cadiz, Ramón Aumesquet, joined the attack by publishing, like Negre, a close-up of Fortes’ son: “Remember this when your son or daughter spends 4 years studying journalism to end up on the unemployment list. They collect from your taxes. This is socialism,” he underlined. The message is approaching one million views.

In addition to criticism, there were many demonstrations of support for Fortes, shared by journalists from public bodies such as Silvia Intxaurrondo or Carlos del Amor and from other media such as Luz Sánchez Mellado (EL PAÍS) or Joan Guirado (ABC), among many others. On Saturday, the TVE News Council published a message condemning the “insults towards TVE workers”. “We remember that every person deserves to be valued for their commitment, their merits and their conduct, regardless of their personal environment,” the council said, a message of thanks to Fortes, who in several tweets explained that his son studied journalism at Complutense, did unpaid internships at TVE and now has a “training contract” that expires in two weeks.

“He’s an intern, with a non-renewable contract that’s about to expire,” summarizes Xabier Fortes on the phone, who starts from the assumption that journalists must accept that they can be “analyzed and criticized”, but sees it as “very bad” to use a child. “By circulating frozen images of the video with your face and surname, you expose yourself to some simpleton who says something to you on the street,” adds Fortes, who does not believe that situations like this should be used to consider leaving social networks. “If we leave that space in the hands of scoundrels, things will go badly. We have to respond to the lies,” adds Fortes.

In a telephone conversation, Sastre denies having “qualified” the hiring of Fortes’ 24-year-old son. “I didn’t say that he had preferential treatment, I said that he already works at TVE, which is evident,” says the journalist, now retired, who assures that she cannot imagine the repercussions of her words. Given the effect, was he wrong? “I won’t back down,” replies Sastre, who says that what she wanted was to highlight the alleged contradiction between the hiring of Fortes’ son and the fact that his father, when she was director, protested against what was then called the “parallel editorial team” of TVE. But is it justifiable to target Fortes’ son for this? She denies “targeting” the young man, despite posting a video with her link claiming her father had already “done it”.

The “Steve Bannon Method”

A day after Sastre’s message against Fortes, a tweeter with more than 70,000 followers is called Pablo Haro, collaborator of Digital freedompublished a series of messages in a thread on Haro publishes the names and photographs of the editorial director’s daughters InfoLibre. The first message in Haro’s thread against Maraña has more than 320,000 views.

As in the case of Fortes, other users echoed the publication to attack Maraña, who on EL PAÍS asked Haro if he was aware of any irregularity in the careers of Maraña’s daughters that justified its publication. The answer was no.

“They are already at the point of using their children to destroy journalists. It doesn’t seem coincidental to me that on the same days they attack journalists with a similar profile with the same system,” Maraña says by phone, who believes that going into detail to discredit these types of attacks is giving them a notoriety that their perpetrators don’t deserve. “They use Steve Bannon’s technique, flooding everything with garbage, and expect the rest of us to follow,” he says.

“Pure delinquency”

Among the multiple supports received by Fortes and Maraña is that of Esther Palomera, linked to the director of elDiario.es. Precisely following his defense of Maraña, a tweeter with more than 71,000 followers on X, Arturo Villa, published a message in which a son of Palomera appears next to the Minister of the Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska. Regarding this photograph, Villa notes that Palomera’s son works at the public affairs consultancy firm Acento, of which former minister and former socialist leader José Blanco is the founder. The message, with more than 147,000 views, accused without evidence Palomera’s 26-year-old son of being “connected” and for this attacked the journalist, even in vulgar terms. Villa justifies his tweet by saying that in Brussels, where he lives, “there is a lot of talk” about “lobby”, so he knows that Acento “doesn’t smell good at all”.

Palomera, who for five years put up with network and pseudo-media accounts that published that her son – a member of the Socialist Youth – received a payment from Ferraz when this did not happen, says by telephone that she no longer responds to these types of comments. Naturally, she regrets that on social networks the insults and falsehoods directed against her and her son, including her photos, remain unpunished even when she reported them.

He also saw how his son Isaías Lafuente, from the SER channel, was exploited against him. An anonymous X account, called Disconnectorshe published together a photo of herself and another of her son, 26, with a message that implied that he had managed to write pieces as a contributor to EL PAÍS thanks to his father. Lafuente responded forcefully and the user deleted the message and then the account, but not before staging the classic Twitter stir.

“I have to deal with people who make fun of me. But I am firm towards my family. We need to put a limit there”, explains Lafuente by phone, who considers the attacks against his son, who has obtained a master’s degree in EL PAÍS and has already collaborated with the media without being part of the staff, “absolutely unfair”. “Things like this cross all limits, they are shameful. It’s pure criminality, it’s a humiliation,” he says.