Editor’s note: Carlos Fernando Chamorro, the author of this article, is the founder and director of CONFIDENCIAL, one of Nicaragua’s leading independent news organizations, and a co-founder of the Network of Exiled Media Outlets (NEMO). Following years of repression under the Ortega-Murillo regime, ncluding newsroom raids, censorship, and the confiscation of CONFIDENCIAL’s offices, he and all of his newsroom were forced into exile. This article marks CONFIDENCIAL’s 30th anniversary and reflects on its mission, resilience, and commitment to independent journalism despite continued persecution.
__________________________________________________________________________
Producing quality journalism at CONFIDENCIAL and Esta Semana for the past 30 years, the last eight under a totalitarian dictatorship that raided our newsroom twice, criminalized journalism, forced me into exile twice, and ultimately drove my entire newsroom into exile, has only been possible thanks to the trust of our audiences, the support of our sources, and the commitment of our journalists to investigate and tell the truth, whatever the cost.
My list of people to thank is long, and much as I would like to, I cannot mention their names here:
- To the entrepreneurs who, 30 years ago, placed their confidence in me and made it possible to found CONFIDENCIAL and Esta Semana;
- To the dozens of journalists from several generations—reporters, editors, video producers, photographers, and graphic designers—who have made this news outlet a laboratory for renewing investigative and narrative journalism and for finding new ways to tell stories;
- To the audiences who first read us in print and watched us on television, then followed us from television to YouTube when broadcast censorship was imposed, as well as the digital natives and the overwhelming majority who now follow us on their mobile phones;
- To the sources who continue to place their trust in the rigor of our journalists, providing us with information of the highest public interest about corruption and the workings of power;
- To our commercial advertisers, our international donors, and especially to our audiences, whose contributions provide the financial foundation for our editorial independence.
- And to the unwavering support of my family, who, despite the reprisals and the cruelty of repression, have never accepted silence or self-censorship as an option.
Our deepest thanks to all of you for making it possible for us to practice journalism at CONFIDENCIAL throughout these first thirty years.
We were founded in 1996, as both witnesses to and participants in Nicaragua’s democratic transition. Three decades later, we are confronting the Ortega-Murillo dictatorship, which in 2021 ordered the confiscation of CONFIDENCIAL. But it has never been able to confiscate our journalism.
Here we remain, defeating censorship every day until freedom is restored.
These have been 30 years of independent, public-interest journalism, providing our community of readers with information they can rely on to make informed decisions.
When we founded CONFIDENCIAL as a 16-page weekly print newsletter, our first goal was to create a trusted news outlet that would fill the gap in investigative reporting and in-depth analysis left by the newspapers and television.
Our second goal—more ambitious still—was to build an influential news organization capable of holding those in power to account and fostering public debate, in order to strengthen Nicaragua’s young democracy.
From our very first edition, our mission has always been to uncover what those in power seek to conceal, rigorously verify information, and explain the significance of the news.
We set out not only to report current events, but also to investigate issues in depth and tell stories that matter. Not to echo the versions of events that now circulate on social media, but to publish only information that has been confirmed and verified. We have always tried to remain true to that commitment, and to correct our mistakes whenever we have made them.
The technological revolution opened up broad new opportunities to produce quality journalism for mass audiences—first through Esta Semana on Channels 2, 8, and 12, and later through the internet and social media.
In 2010, the weekly CONFIDENCIAL became a digital daily, bringing together on a single multimedia platform its investigative journalism, the television programs Esta Semanaand Esta Noche, and Niú magazine.
This is how we grew and reached new audiences, becoming a trusted news outlet committed to transparency, government accountability, and the promotion of democracy and human rights.
Over these 30 years, CONFIDENCIAL has investigated dozens of emblematic cases of public corruption, state capture, and the dismantling of democracy:
- The aftermath of environmental destruction in “Emergency in the Forest,” “The Granadillo Mafia,” and “The Decline of Bosawás.
- “The Web of Chinese Businessman Wang Jing,” “The Great Interoceanic Canal Scam,” and the resistance of the campesino movement.
- “The Ortega-Murillo Family’s Network of Private Businesses Under State Protection,” “The Front Man Behind the Purchase of Disnorte and Dissur,” “Credicoop: The Regime’s Slush Fund,” and “The Dictators’ Grandson’s Parcel Delivery Business.”
We have also investigated and told the stories of the collective suffering of the victims of repression, and of their demands for truth and justice—demands the dictatorship seeks to erase and silence.
- The order to “Go all in!” against the April 2018 Civic Uprising, the police and paramilitary forces who “Shot to Kill with Deadly Precision,” and the “Caravans of Death” that spread terror across Nicaragua.
- “The May 30 Massacre,” “The Attack on UNAN and the Divine Mercy Church,” and “Operation Clean-Up” against Monimbó, Lóvago, and Carazo.
- “Extrajudicial Executions in Rural Nicaragua,” “The 19 Minors Killed by the Dictatorship,” and “The Mothers Who Became the Mothers of April.”
- “The Machinery of Exile, Statelessness, and Crimes Against Humanity” and “The Persecution of the Catholic Church and the Confiscation of 39 Church Properties.”
This is the journalism the dictatorship has criminalized and seeks to discredit as an attempted coup, simply for committing the supposed crime of informing, explaining, investigating, and telling the truth.
Because of the rigor and quality of its journalism, CONFIDENCIAL has become an authoritative source on Nicaragua for international audiences and for the Nicaraguan diaspora in the United States, Costa Rica, Mexico, Central America, Spain, Canada, and every country where our audiences have made their homes.
Over the past 30 years, CONFIDENCIAL and its journalists have been honored with professional recognition from international institutions that rank our work among the finest in Latin American journalism. But the most important recognition of all has been earning—and preserving—the trust of our audiences.
When no law or institution can protect CONFIDENCIAL’s journalists amid the collapse of the rule of law, our only protection comes from the credibility of our journalism, from our reporters’ commitment to the truth—whatever the cost—and from their professional talent for continually reinventing journalism, even in exile.
For CONFIDENCIAL, reinventing journalism is not a matter of aesthetic change; it is a strategy for resistance and survival.
We reinvented ourselves after our newsroom was raided and television censorship forced us off the air, becoming a fully digital news outlet and reconnecting with audiences who now find us on their mobile phones.
We reinvented ourselves by transforming the trauma of exile into a transnational newsroom that, despite the persecution of our journalists and sources, continues to report on Nicaragua, overcoming censorship and digital blockades.
We reinvented ourselves by transforming investigative reporting into innovative formats and new forms of storytelling that connect with new generations of readers and expand our community.
We reinvented ourselves while preserving the journalistic rigor and ethical principles that have guided us since 1996, because we refuse to be silenced and remain committed to telling the truth.
That is our commitment as we celebrate our 30th anniversary: to produce the best journalism possible for our audiences and to continue renewing journalism in the face of censorship and disinformation.
Thanks to our audiences, our sources, and our journalists, we will continue producing more—and better—journalism.
_________________________________________________________________________
This article was originally published by CONFIDENCIAL. It has been reproduced here with the appropriate permission.