The First 30 Years of CONFIDENCIAL

On National Journalist Day, we share good news for press freedom and freedom of expression in Nicaragua.

On July 7, 2026, CONFIDENCIAL will complete its first 30 years of work, practicing the best journalism possible to investigate and tell the truth.

We were born in 1996, as witnesses and participants in Nicaragua’s democratic transition. Three decades later, we face the Ortega-Murillo totalitarian dictatorship, confronting censorship every day until freedom is restored.

These have been 30 years of independent public service journalism. Three decades of producing journalism that serves citizens — accompanying them as they make their own decisions in building a freer, more just, and more democratic society.

Public Service Journalism: Holding Power Accountable and Promoting Debate

When we founded CONFIDENCIAL as a 16-page weekly print newsletter, our first goal was to create a trustworthy news outlet that would fill the gap in analysis and investigative reporting in newspapers and television.

Our second goal, even more ambitious, was to build an influential outlet capable of holding power accountable and promoting public debate, in order to strengthen Nicaragua’s emerging democracy.

From our very first edition, our calling has been to uncover what those in power try to hide, to rigorously verify information, and to explain the consequences of the news.

We set out to report on current events while also investigating issues in depth to tell meaningful stories. Not to be the first to repeat versions circulating on social media, but to provide only confirmed and verified information. We have always tried to remain faithful to that commitment.

At CONFIDENCIAL, we brought together the best journalists of the new generations of reporters, audiovisual producers, and professional editors to renew journalism and the way stories are told.

Thanks to the technological revolution, new paths opened for producing quality journalism for mass audiences — first through the program Esta Semana on Channels 2, 8, and 12, and later through the internet and social media.

Since 2010, CONFIDENCIAL has operated as a digital daily, bringing together its investigative newsroom, the television programs Esta Semana and Esta Noche, and Niú magazine on a single multimedia platform.

In this way, we expanded to new audiences as a reference outlet committed to transparency, the defense of human rights, and accountability in the exercise of power.

Corruption, State Capture, and the Dismantling of Democracy

Over these 30 years, CONFIDENCIAL has investigated dozens of emblematic cases of public corruption, state capture, and the dismantling of democracy:

• “The Superhighway and Arnoldo Alemán’s Hidden Fortune,” and “Byron Jerez’s Terrace in Pochomil,” built with funds intended for victims of Hurricane Mitch.

• “The Alemán-Ortega Pact and the Division of State Powers,” and “The Route of FSLN Electoral Fraud in the 2008 Elections.”

• “Extortion in Tola,” the first major corruption case of Daniel Ortega’s government.

• “The Illegal Tax Exemption for the Pellas Tower,” “Tax Breaks for Big Business,” and “Authoritarian Corporatism and the Cosep Model.”

• The aftermath of environmental plunder in “Emergency in the Forest,” “The Granadillo Mafia,” and “The Decline of Bosawas.”

• “The Web of Chinese Businessman Wang Jing and the Great Interoceanic Canal Scam,” and the resistance of the peasant movement.

• “Corruption and the Million-Dollar Dance of Venezuelan Petro-Dollars,” “The Business Piggy Bank of Albanisa and Caruna,” and migrant smuggling networks.

• “Daniel Ortega’s Rings of Power,” and “Rosario Murillo’s New Power Operators.”

• “The 39 Fake Antennas that Monitor Cell Phones,” and “The Russian Espionage Center at the Mokorón Military Base.”

• “The Private Business Network of the Ortega-Murillo Family Under State Protection,” energy distribution deals, “Credicoop’s Slush Fund,” and “The Dictators’ Grandson’s Parcel Delivery Business.”

• “The ‘Social Housing’ Business of the Managua Mayor’s Office,” and the major fraud of false solidarity tied to loans from the People’s Republic of China.

• Rosario Murillo’s endless “purge” to decapitate “historic Sandinismo” and imprison operators loyal to Daniel Ortega.

The Pain of the Victims: The Demand for Truth and Justice Without Impunity

Over these 30 years, 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 that the dictatorship seeks to erase and silence:

• The order to “Go all in” against the April 2018 Rebellion; the police and paramilitaries who were “Shooting to kill”; 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 the Countryside,” “The 19 Minors Killed by the Dictatorship,” and “The Mothers Who Became the Mothers of April.”
  

• “Official Negligence and the Spread of the Pandemic,” and “Excess Covid-19 Deaths Concealed by the Health Ministry.”

• “The Machinery of Torture Against Political Prisoners,” and “The Police as Enforcers of the Police State.”
  

• “The Surrender of General Avilés,” “The Army’s Complicity,” and “The Wall of the 25 Generals.”

• “The Machinery of Exile, Statelessness, and Crimes Against Humanity,” and “The Persecution of the Catholic Church and the 39 Church Properties Confiscated.”

This is the journalism the dictatorship has criminalized and seeks to discredit as “coup-mongering” — for the alleged crime of informing, explaining, investigating in depth, and telling the truth.

The Trust of Our Audiences and the Reinvention of Journalism

Because of the rigor and quality of its journalism, CONFIDENCIAL has become the leading international reference outlet on Nicaragua. It is also a media organization that covers the broader region for its audiences inside Nicaragua and for the Nicaraguan diaspora in the United States, Costa Rica, Mexico, and Central America — as well as in Spain, across Europe, and in every country where our audiences have made their home.

CONFIDENCIAL reaches its first 30 years as a media outlet that was illegally confiscated, with its offices raided twice by the police, and its entire newsroom forced to work from exile.

The dictatorship stole our newsroom, our computers, and our television equipment — but it could never confiscate our journalism.

They criminalized our advertisers in an attempt to suffocate us financially, but they were never able to strip us of the trust of our audiences.

They tried to silence us by every means possible — and we kept doing journalism.

Over these 30 years, CONFIDENCIAL and its journalists have been honored with professional recognition from institutions such as Columbia University, the Gabo Foundation, the Inter American Press Association, Agencia EFE and the King of Spain Awards, the Latin American Conference on Investigative Journalism, El País’s Ortega y Gasset Prize, the Golden Pen of the World Association of News Publishers, and many others that distinguish our work among the best in international journalism.

But the most important award of all has been maintaining the trust our audiences place in us.

When no law or institution can protect journalism under the collapse of the rule of law, our only protection comes from the credibility of our reporting — and from the commitment of our journalists to stand by the truth, at any cost, and from their professional talent to continue reinventing journalism, even from exile.

For CONFIDENCIAL, reinventing journalism is not an aesthetic change, but a strategy of resistance and sustainability.

We reinvented ourselves when, after the raid on our newsroom and television censorship, we became a fully digital outlet and reconnected with audiences who seek us out through their cell phones.

We reinvented ourselves by transforming the trauma of exile into a transnational newsroom that, despite the persecution of our journalists and sources, continues reporting inside Nicaragua — jumping over walls of censorship and digital blocks.

We reinvented ourselves by transforming the language of investigative reporting into innovative formats and new narratives to connect with new generations and build a community.

In essence, we have reinvented ourselves while keeping intact the journalistic rigor and ethics that have inspired us since 1996 — because we refuse to be silenced and we continue telling the truth.

That is our commitment as we celebrate our 30th anniversary: to practice the best journalism possible for our audiences and to continue renewing journalism amid censorship and disinformation.

We salute and congratulate the entire family of La Prensa, the dean of national journalism — its leadership, journalists, and audiences — which on March 2 celebrates 100 years of work.

In 2026, Nicaraguans are called upon to celebrate these two anniversaries: the 100 years of La Prensa and the first 30 years of CONFIDENCIAL, until we fully achieve press freedom and freedom of expression.

And we invite you, starting now, to take part in the forums, events, and activities we will convene in 2026 to celebrate this great milestone of independent journalism in Nicaragua.

Thank you to all our audiences, to the international press, and to the institutions that support CONFIDENCIAL’s independent journalism for your solidarity during the most difficult moments of these 30 years. Thanks to you, we continue doing more, and better, journalism.