And out of desperation, some victims sought another way out, a way out, no matter how fragile, that they would be reunited with their biological family. In the 2010s, daytime talk shows began devoting most of their airtime to the infant theft scandal. The producers assembled street teams, anonymously interviewing witnesses by changing their voices or wearing hidden cameras as they confronted doctors and nurses at their apartments.
In many ways, these shows have done the previously unthinkable: openly address the horrors of the Franco era. But they also sensationalized those horrors to millions of viewers back home. On an early 2011 episode of “El Diario,” an afternoon talk show where guests talk about family conflicts, a host introduced Alejandro Alcalde, a struggling middle-aged father. find the mother of his adopted daughter. As Alcalde shares details of his life, the camera cuts to an unidentified woman backstage, sitting on a white couch with her back to the camera. At the bottom of the screen appeared the words: “I am looking for my daughter, they took her from me the moment she was born.” The father is then shown on a split screen along with dramatic footage of a car driving to the set. A woman in a white lab coat stepped out of her car and pulled out a large envelope containing DNA evidence proving that the mysterious woman on the couch was in fact the child’s mother. The family reunited in the cheers of the audience.
The wave of media attention has also had some unintended consequences: Any mother of a stillborn child has reason to believe that the child can live a healthy life and simply live with a other family. A 2013 segment of “La Mañana,” a Spanish morning show, opens with a scene in a cemetery as men wearing hard hats and hammers open a grave. Inside was a small white coffin, apparently made for a baby. The reporters, who were standing just outside the grave, turned to the mother, who was dressed in black. She said that after giving birth, she was told by the hospital that her baby was stillborn, but now she suspects her baby was stolen, even though the baby was born in 1992, nearly a decade after the last recorded kidnapping. take. The coffin was not empty, as she had hoped. A DNA test of the remains later confirmed that the baby was hers.
Pintado, like millions of other viewers, has watched talk shows and has even been contacted by one of them. After her father’s death, a producer on “El Diario” called her at home, saying she may have had an identical twin. Pintado hung up. But years later, while searching for her mother and pulling any ropes she could, she personally came to the set. The manufacturers could not find any files about her case. Perhaps they had just fished that day, following a dead end. So Pintado decided to put on a talk show on his own.
“I will introduce you all to Ana Belén,” host Viva la Vida began in January 2018. The camera zoomed in on Pintado, who looked nervous. The presenter continued: “This is what I believe television is for. This woman is looking for her biological family, and you are all watching from home. Now, we need you to give us any clues or clues so that she can fulfill her dream of finding her family.”
Pintado begins to tell his story. There were forged paperwork from after she was born. Visits to Madrid with envelopes of money. Pintado explained that she learned that the local church likely helped connect her parents to Sister María. She said, someone even said that her adoptive mother pretended to go into the room where her biological mother was born, to see what she looked like and see her grieving mother. “If someone is seeing this and recognizes me, then the truth is I want to see them, because I am always lonely,” Pintado said, as the screen dimmed.
Pintado was hoping that someone would call with information; time passed, no one did. But she won’t allow herself to feel discouraged. After she went public about the harm done to her, it was as if a switch had been flipped. She will never stop looking for her mother. So she decided to call every journalist she could find.
