Investigative journalism

El filtrador is the person who leaks, and the Spanish verb behind it says the opposite of ours. Filtrar is to filter: coffee, water, a list of results. A filter is a thing that holds back. But filtrar un documento a la prensa is to leak it, and la filtración is the leak — the same noun a plumber uses for water coming through a wall. English took its word from the pipe, Spanish from the paper cone, and the two pictures pull in opposite directions: ours is something escaping, theirs is something seeping through what should have stopped it. Which is, if you think about it, the more exact description of what happens in a ministry.