Leftist media outlets convicted of hoaxes sign a manifesto against 'disinformation'

The Spanish left has long been accusing its political rivals of things that the left itself does on a daily basis.

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In psychology, this is called "projection," and it consists of accusing others of one's own actions. Today we have a new example that illustrates this way of acting. Left-wing media outlets and journalists have published a manifesto in which they "demand that the Government and progressive parliamentary groups legal reforms that allow for sanctions and the withdrawal of public funding from those who spread hate and lies in an organized manner." Demanding that a government start sanctioning "hate" is an increasingly common way of supporting censorship, as we saw two weeks ago in Pedro Sánchez's threat against social media, in an attempt to censor its content for political reasons using the fight against "hate" as a pretext.

It should be noted that Spanish law already includes provisions against fake news when it infringes on the right to honor. These are laws that apply equally to everyone, that do not seek to censor legitimate opinions simply because they contradict the political establishment, and that, incidentally, have been used to convict two of the media outlets that signed that manifesto for publishing hoaxes.

One of these media outlets is the digital newspaper El Plural, which is very aligned with Pedro Sánchez's government and has a distinctly socialist slant. In 2012, the Supreme Court condemned this publication for publishing false information against Francisco José Alcaraz and his wife, Mamen Álvarez. The ruling ordered El Plural to pay Alcaraz €1,800 and Álvarez €900 in damages and to publish the judgment on its website.

Another media outlet that signed the manifesto is the far-left newspaper Público, which is also very close to Pedro Sánchez's government. In December 2025, the Court of First Instance No. 40 of Madrid condemned this media outlet for publishing false information about Eduardo Inda and Esteban Urreiztieta. The ruling ordered Público to pay €5,000 in compensation to the plaintiffs, to remove the false news story, and to publish the content of the court decision.

Furthermore, it is worth remembering that the Context and Action Foundation, one of the entities promoting this new manifesto, is linked to the leftist digital newspaper CTXT, which published another manifesto on April 26, 2024 in which it linked the journalistic and judicial investigations into Pedro Sánchez's wife to a "judicial coup and media", describing these investigations as "a new attempt to subvert the popular will expressed at the ballot box through illicit means."

A few months after that manifesto was published, Begoña Gómez was charged with four alleged crimes (influence peddling, corruption in business, misappropriation and practicing without a license), supposedly for taking advantage of her position in her private businesses. In August 2025, Gómez was charged with a fifth alleged crime: embezzlement. In the end, that manifesto came across as a clear attempt to criminalize media outlets and judges who were simply doing their job, which is to oversee political power and its surrounding circles to detect possible abuses of power and, specifically, alleged crimes.

It should also be remembered that CTXT has been publishing hoaxes such as linking Vox with the neo-nazi group Núcleo Nacional (which that leftist newspaper went so far as to describe as "Vox's neo-Nazi vanguard"), in two news articles published after the publication of a message from that neo-Nazi group against Vox, which it rejected, describing it as "a liberal center-right party, pro NATO, pro-EU, and Zionist." Are these the ones now clamoring against "lies" and "disinformation"?