El País accused of staging fake Moroccan migrant minor story

El País under suspicion over the staged story of the fake migrant minor in Ceuta

A video has become the evidence of the alleged staging: a migrant minor in Ceuta appears perfectly clean when, according to the newspaper's account, she had been sleeping on the beach for twenty days. The footage contradicts the story and has triggered accusations against the paper. The piece, about a presumed Segarro unaccompanied migrant minor, has been described by critics as a fabrication designed to manipulate public opinion. Some claim the girl had been staying in a hotel and had been in Ceuta since July, which reinforces the staging theory.

The matter goes beyond a journalistic error. The outlet receives public money in the form of institutional advertising, and some argue that such an extreme level of manipulation should be punishable by the withdrawal of those funds. The original video, with its second-by-second contradictions, is spreading fast among those denouncing the case. The harshest voices are calling for the outlet to be shut down. The precedent of the "upper-class migrant minors", a phenomenon already documented by another national outlet, has also resurfaced.

The contradiction is so blatant that it is hard to believe they expected it to pass unnoticed. The uncomfortable question: if a media outlet receives public money, who controls what it publishes?