The “Qatargate” scandal is the case of the suspected corruption and money laundering of members of the European Parliament and employees of EU institutions and agencies on behalf of government officials in Qatar and Morocco. The revelation of an international political scandal in the news impacts the reputation of the countries involved in it. Inevitably, they face a reputational security threat, meaning that there are cracks in their nation image projected in the news. Considering that avoiding scandals is an essential motive and ongoing activity of individuals, groups, and institutions (Adut, A., American Journal of Sociology 111:213–248, 2005), we suggest that part of the defensive reputation building strategy (Cull, 2022) is analyzing and understanding the negative stories about a corrupt state that were revealed in the news, when avoidance of revelation fails. Through the employment of the state mapping method, this chapter aims to discuss the impact of the “Qatargate” scandal in the formation of images of nations in terms of reputational security threat. Quantitative content frame analysis was employed. We analyzed the francophone press (Le Monde, La Libération, Le Figaro, Le Soir), from December 2022 until February 2023, while the unit of analysis is the depiction of a nation state in a news item.