El Confidencial

In 2001, the six founders of El Confidencial rented a house in Madrid, hired 12 people and turned the garage into a newsroom. They envisioned becoming an independent digital media outlet that would compete in audience and credibility with legacy media without public aid or bank loans, recalled co-founder José Antonio Sánchez in an article.

According to its website, today the outlet has reached 25 million unique visitors monthly.

El Confidencial started as a digital media outlet specialising in financial and business information, and has evolved into a generalist medium with a special emphasis on politics and economics.

According to its website, it employs 185 people, and its primary source of revenue is advertising. It also has a content agency called EC Brands, which offers strategy, communication, branded content services, and event productions.

In 2020 it implemented a paywall, and two years later, it reached 35,000 subscribers, according to its website.

"In this critical moment a rigorous, analytical, editorially and economically independent press is required, one that does not allow itself to be influenced, that uncovers information and also helps to think about the future," an article written by its director, Nacho Cardero, stated. One of its hallmarks is investigative journalism. It was one of the international media outlets that won a Pulitzer Prize in 2016 for publishing The Panama Papers together with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ). In 2020, the Spanish energy company Iberdrola filed a 17.6m euros lawsuit against El Confidencial for an article it published about the company's executives being under judicial investigation for their possible relationship with an espionage plot.Its director, Nacho Cardero, wrote an article in which he defined his legacy: "In 20 years, I want El Confidencial to be remembered as a media that has contributed to making a better world."

The information in this media profile was collected through desk research.