In this episode, we are talking to Ximena Villagrán, Chief Operating Officer of Maldita, a Spanish outlet that grew from a fact-checking Twitter account into a big media outlet. It fights disinformation through journalism technology, education and new narratives. We are going to delve into HR management in an ever-growing organization.

Maldita was founded by Clara Jiménez and Julio Montes, originally as a fact-checking organisation focusing on disinformation. As it grew, they decided not to aim for a traditional for-profit media organisation, and Maldita is today a foundation.

From the humble beginnings, Maldita is now a major news organisation with 57 employees, divided in an editorial section with roughly 60 per cent of the staff and a non-editorial section with roughly 40 per cent. The editorial staff works in different thematic areas such as migration, gender, access, science, or technology. Most are journalists, but not all.

Maldita intends for decision-making to be non-hierarchical and for everyone to have a say in decisions. But in reality, it can be difficult, Ximena Villagran says. There are team leaders and directors who have responsibility for different areas. When new employees come in, it can be difficult to create the same feeling of equality that you can establish with staff members who have been there throughout the development years.

An initiative to remedy that is to describe every role in the newsroom in detail. This began in recruitment, but has spread, so Maldita at the moment is describing every staff members role and responsibility in detail. That makes every employee secure in what he or she is doing, shows where each is filling out space in the organisation and shows that once new opportunities arise, no-one is irreplaceable.