This past Thursday one of the most uncomfortable moments of the season occurred in Espejo Público. Joaquín Torres, architect and regular collaborator of the program presented by Susanna Griso on Antena 3, ended up leaving the set after trying to clarify information about profiles that buy fake followers on the networks, which included the person involved. Nando Escribano's explanations did not convince him at all.
“When the headline says 'bought profiles' written in large letters, the fact that you are now talking about profiles that are not used is like a laugh, making fun of the viewer and of us,” he explained live. After this incident, another person who stopped collaborating after eight years in the magazine has appeared to harshly attack the team and management. In this case, it is the writer Lucía Etxebarria, who has taken advantage of the opportunity to speak out.
“It would be in bad taste to tell what the director did to me, but after doing something to me that seemed wrong to me, when I said I was angry (off set, not like Joaquín Torres) not only did he not apologize, but he kicked me out.” . For me it was extremely painful because they didn't even give me the option to say goodbye to the team, as I would have liked. You can't imagine how much I cried. It was very hard, I had not imagined it would be so hard,” he commented through his X profile (Twitter).
“I had not said anything until now, but I experienced a trap that was different in content from the one they did to Joaquín Torres, but similar in form,” he added. Different sources and media have pointed out what happened on October 3 as the cause. It was then that Etxebarria told how he had collected 7,000 of the 11,000 euros pending compensation for calling a non-binary person a man.
It was a later connection, with the journalist and LGTBIQ activist Daniela Requena, that ended up lighting things up on set. Requena accused Etxebarria of “generating hoaxes that lead to hatred and discrimination,” to which the writer responded forcefully: “Stop calling anyone a transphobe, many of my friends before you were born were trans.” This response did not sit well with the program's management, judging by her explanations.
“When you point out a person publicly as transphobic, the next thing is that they may receive attacks on the street, as has unfortunately already happened to me and as has happened to so many colleagues. And so I conveyed it to the program management. They didn't even answer me. Some of us don't have to put on shows nor do we make a living from telling about our private lives, and we don't like to be treated like that," said Etxebarria.
