Fundación Maldita.es has won the 2026 INMA Global Media Awards, one of the world’s most prestigious international awards for media innovation, for its project “La Buloteca: Transforming Newsroom Operations Through Collaborative Verification and Data-Driven Workflows.”
The award was received in Berlin by Clara Jiménez Cruz, CEO of Fundación Maldita.es, during the INMA World Congress of News Media. During the ceremony, she stressed: “Disinformation cannot be tackled alone. Faced with the enormous volume of disinformation and the speed at which it spreads, newsrooms also need to change. We can no longer respond only with traditional formats such as articles for every piece of content. We need to be as agile as those spreading disinformation and, to achieve this, we need more people involved, incorporating citizens and expanding our capacity to respond more quickly and effectively.” She added: “Only through a collective effort will we be able to confront a problem that affects our democracies and trust in information.”
Organised by the International News Media Association (INMA), these awards have recognised excellence in the global media industry for nearly 90 years, highlighting innovative initiatives in areas such as newsroom transformation, data use and audience development. Founded in 1937, they are among the oldest and most respected awards in the sector.
Fundación Maldita.es was recognised this year in the category “Best Innovation in Newsroom Transformation,” which honours the best initiatives aimed at transforming editorial processes. "La Buloteca shows strong operational thinking and a highly relevant model in the current AI-amplified misinformation environment", the jury said. In this category, it competed against projects from international media organisations such as Amedia (Norway), The Business Times (Singapore), Svenska Dagbladet (Sweden) and United Daily News Group (Taiwan). Previous winners in this category include Iltalehti (Finland) in 2025 for its AI-driven project to combat news fatigue, OVB Media (Germany) in 2024 for its newsroom integration model, Mediahuis Ireland in 2023 for its local journalism initiative, and The Miami Herald (United States) in 2022 for its “House of Cards” project.
This recognition places Maldita.es among the initiatives redefining how newsrooms can adapt to today’s information ecosystem by integrating technology, citizen participation and journalism to combat disinformation more effectively.
La Buloteca is a platform that transforms newsroom workflows by integrating community-submitted information, editorial decision-making and data management into a single system. This model centralises and organises citizens’ questions and tips, detects recurring disinformation narratives, avoids duplication and prioritises investigations according to their social impact. The tool also incorporates standardised verification stages that allow each case to be tracked from detection to resolution, improving coordination between editorial, technology and product teams.
This approach has driven a cultural shift within the newsroom, evolving towards a public service model based on continuously responding to citizens and encouraging their active participation in the fight against disinformation.