The Spanish media landscape was shaken by a candid statement from Iker Jiménez, one of the most recognizable faces on television. In a recent broadcast, he lifted the veil on what many had suspected but were hesitant to say out loud: modern journalism, especially in its print and digital forms, is mired in manipulation. The TV host shared his bitter experience, which led him to make a radical decision—to virtually cease all interaction with members of the press.
The turning point for this stance was a series of unpleasant incidents. Jiménez explained that his patience ran out after repeatedly encountering blatant misrepresentation of his words. He recalled the pandemic period, when he was flooded with as many as eighty interview requests. On the rare occasions he agreed to speak, the result, by his own admission, was extremely frustrating. None of the outlets, as he observed, conveyed either the essence or even the general sense of what he had said. Headlines screamed of nonexistent sensations, while the articles wove in hints and claims that had nothing to do with reality.
The host expressed confusion about the direction his profession—one he considers his own—is heading. “I can’t recall a time in our trade when there was such a gulf between what you say and what ends up in the headline,” he noted. Jiménez is convinced that the root cause of this decline is the all-pervasive influence of “damned politics” and commercial interests, which have turned the news pages into a battlefield for clicks rather than the truth. He cited a telling example: on one occasion, a major newspaper ran a headline portraying him as an opponent of Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, even though in the actual interview he hadn’t even mentioned the head of government’s name. When an outraged Jiménez contacted the author of the piece, the journalist merely shrugged, referring to direct instructions from the editor-in-chief, who had personally changed the headline.
According to the television presenter, it is precisely such situations that led him to decide to stop giving interviews to the print media. He realized he was being used as bait to attract social media traffic. However, he recently made an exception. He was approached by an independent journalist, a freelancer, and Jiménez, who himself spent many years working in that capacity and knows how tough it can be, couldn’t refuse. Yet even here, disappointment awaited him. The interviewer honestly warned him: “I’ll write everything as it is—unless the editor-in-chief or the director makes changes.” This episode only confirmed his worst fears—even an honest professional is powerless against the system.
Reflecting on the state of the information sphere as a whole, Jiménez compared it to a minefield, where each news story hides someone’s interests and smokescreens. He pointed out how easy it is to manipulate even scientific information. As an example, he cited the recent surge of publications about possible signs of life on Mars. According to him, this is a classic “Lazarus phenomenon” in the news—the revival of old data to pursue goals far removed from science. Concluding his monologue, he posed a question to the audience that lingered unanswered: how can ordinary people protect themselves from this flow of recycled and distorted information and get to the original source?
