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Huatulco

Power of the Press: The True Heroes of the Mexican Revolution

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By Carole Reedy

“It is a newspaper’s duty to print the news and raise hell.”
― Harold Holzer, Lincoln and the Power of the Press: The War for Public Opinion

The quotation above accurately describes how the press exposed the abuses of the Porfirio Díaz government (1876-1910), leading eventually to its decline and the establishment of a new democratic Mexico. The journalists and newspapers of that era have been described as the “true authors” of the Mexican Revolution.

It was not a short journey. The Revolution and struggle for power lasted for ten years, and the repercussions and discontent in the country lasted even longer.

The seeds of revolution were planted by the press and the Flores Magón brothers, as well as by other journalists and periodicals of the era beginning in the late 1800s and early 1900s.

REGENERATION, A NEWSPAPER
The newspaper was the creation of the Flores Magón brothers – Enrique, Jesús, and Ricardo – lawyers by day and journalists by night. It called for a return to the principles of Mexico’s 1857 constitution: free elections, free press, and term limits, all of which had been conveniently forgotten during the 30-year reign of President Porfirio Díaz.

They called the Díaz administration a “den of thieves,” thieves of land, wages, life, and democracy. On August 7, 1900, Antonio Horcasitas and the Flores Magón brothers published the first issue of Regeneration.

Ricardo Flores once said: “Paper is an idol to me, and I think that will soon be my great weapon.”

The mission of Regeneration was “to seek remedies and, where necessary, to point out and denounce all of the misdeeds of public officers who do not follow the precepts of the law, so that public shame brings upon them the justice they deserve.” The focus of most of the articles centered on misconduct of the police, lawyers, and judges.

Porfirio Díaz was not always a despot. In 1857 he supported the principles of the new Mexican constitution and those of Benito Juárez. But once he gained the power of the presidency in 1876, Díaz gradually became authoritarian, favoring land grabbing by rich (often foreign) land owners and industrialists. He was never criticized by the press. Regeneration even accused him of “muzzling the press.”
In 1904 Regeneration and the Flores Magón brothers were forced to leave Mexico for fear of arrest for their radical views. They fled north of the border, where they continued to publish their paper in various US cities, smuggling copies back to Mexico weekly to their 26,000 loyal readers. “Tyranny has thrown us out of our country, forcing us to seek liberty on foreign soil.”

During their exile in the US, political differences deepened among the brothers. Jesús split from Ricardo and Enrique, who had adopted anarchist ideas. Jesús returned to Mexico in 1910 to edit – along with Antonio I. Villarreal – a moderate version of the newspaper Regeneración in Mexico City. Meanwhile, in Los Angeles, brothers Enrique and Ricardo continued to publish their radical version.

The story doesn’t end here, however. For the complete telling, do read Bad Mexicans: Race, Empire, and Revolution in the Borderlands by Kelly Lytle Hernández (2023), an excellent rendering of and resource on the Mexican Revolution and the Magonistas, named one of the best books of 2022 by The New Yorker and winner of the Bancroft Prize.

VESPER AND FIAT LUX, AND OTHERS
Juana Belén Gutiérrez de Mendoza, known as “The Progresista,” was one of the most prominent woman activists pushing for change during the Mexican Revolution. She authored both feminist and radical political literature for 45 years.

In 1901, she became the first woman to publish and edit a periodical that decried the abuses of the government of Porfirio Díaz, along with his legislators and judges, as well as the powers of the church and the state. She has been called “our Joan of Arc,” and the Flores Magón brothers in their newspaper Regeneración supported her journalistic work calling for freedom for all people.

Gutiérrez de Mendoza was constantly imprisoned by Díaz for her stances, but she kept on fighting for the workers, being a particular supporter of Emiliano Zapata and his causes, among them The Plan de Ayala. Her publications were shut down nearly 40 times by the government, eventually leading her to do as the Flores Magón brothers had and move her operation north of the border. She eventually returned to Mexico and continued to pursue her convictions.

Gutiérrez de Mendoza also wrote with and for other women, some of whom she met in prison. Many of her articles centered on the mistreatment by the church and state of the indigenous population in Mexico. Mistreatment of miners was another of her principal concerns. ¡Por la Tierra, Por la Raza! (For the Earth, For the Race! 1924) is one of her more popular and significant publications.

Some of the women Gutiérrez met in prison became her partners in publishing. One of these was Dolores Jiménez y Muro, from Aguascalientes, a former teacher and writer in rural Mexico. In 1902 Jiménez moved to Mexico City, where she wrote and published articles against the Díaz regime. She was promptly arrested and imprisoned, but that didn’t halt her radical activities. Gutiérrez and Jiménez, along with other women prisoners, published a radical journal Fiat Lux (Let There Be Light). Jiménez also joined the staff of another leftist periodical, La Mujer Mexicana.

Elisa Acuña Rossetti, one of their associates from prison, also had been a rural teacher in Hidalgo. She worked with the Flores Magón brothers on the newspaper El Hijo de Ahuizote in Mexico City and co-founded and wrote in Vesper and Fiat Lux.

EL HIJO DE AHUIZOTE
This is one of the most critical publications regarding the reign of Porfirio Díaz. It first appeared in 1885 and was packed with political cartoons and satirical writings. In 1903 the paper reported “La Constitución ha muerto” (The Constitution has died).

Ahuizote is derived from a Nahuatl word for an otter or water dog, an animal that takes its place in Mexican mythology. “Ahuízot a(tl),”means water, and “huiz(tli),” means thorn – it is often translated as “the annoying one,” and hijo (son) of the ahuizote would be a pain.

Started by Daniel Cabrera, Manuel Pérez Bibbins, and Juan Sarabia, the periodical was taken over in 1902 by our old friends Ricardo and Enrique Flores Magón. The Díaz administration promptly shut down the operation, seizing the equipment and arresting the Flores Magón brothers. It would not be their first or last arrest.

To learn even more about the Mexican Revolution and the men and women behind it, I suggest on your next visit to Mexico City that you visit the National Museum of the Revolution, located in the National Monument of the Revolution.

It’s conveniently located just one Metrobus stop north of Paseo de la Reforma on Avenida Insurgentes. There you’ll find a stunning building with an elevator to take you to the top for a spectacular overall view of the city. On a lower floor is the Museum of the Revolution, where a basic timeline helps you understand, in a clear format, the series of events that led up to and occurred during and after the Revolution. This is essential to understanding present-day Mexico.

There you will also find more extensive information about the people and periodicals from this article.

Huatulco

Seven Things the World Thinks about Mexican Journalism

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By Deborah Van Hoewyk

Ethical Journalism Network (U.K.): Truly independent media are found only in the most developed cities – Guadalajara, Monterrey and México City. In outlying states, governors control the media and journalists have little or no culture of independence.
http://www.ethicaljournalismnetwork.org/

Salzburg Global Seminar (Austria): Ownership of the media is concentrated in the hands of two entities – TV Azteca and Televisa. With close ties to government, the media giants get the bulk of their funding from public sources, which in turn influences media coverage.
http://www.salzburgglobal.org/news/latest-news/article/protecting-reporters-and-improving-journalism-in-mexico

Columbia Journalism Review (U.S.): There are 51 community radio stations across Mexico, serving poor rural and indigenous areas that lack other forms of media. They’re often prominent advocates in local human rights struggles, giving voice to social movements not covered in the mainstream press. In a country where both journalists and activists face serious repression, community radios are at the nexus of the struggle for freedom of expression. http://www.cjr.org/analysis/mexico-radio-news-media.php

Reporters without Borders (France): Press freedom is guaranteed in the Mexican Constitution and a specific Law Regarding Freedom of the Press was passed in 1917. Censorship abounds, however, imposed with threats or direct attacks against the journalists rather than lawsuits, imprisonment, or official suspension of broadcast or distribution activities. http://www.rsf.org/en/country/mexico

University of Navarra (Spain): Between 2000 and 2022, 150 journalists in Mexico were murdered. In the first three years of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s term, 36 were killed [it reached 55 by the end of year 4, 2022]; for Enrique Peña Nieto, it was 19, for Felipe Calderón, it was 29. Under AMLO, the first three years saw an 85% increase in all attacks on journalists.
http://www.unav.edu/web/global-affairs/the-skyrocketing-number-of-journalists-murdered-in-mexico

Amnesty International (U.K.): In 2012, Mexico created the Mechanism for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders and Journalists. The Protection Mechanism is considered a failure, with enrolled journalists still experiencing attacks; two have been killed. The Protection Mechanism needs a major overhaul, and analysis “reveals an increasing tendency by the Mechanism to deny, weaken or withdraw journalists’ protective measures, despite the clear and present dangers journalists continue to face.”
http://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2024/03/mexico-killings-journalists-strengthen-federal-mechanism

Committee to Protect Journalists (U.S.): Part of the John S. and James L. Knight Press Freedom Center, the CPJ maintains an “Impunity Index” of countries where journalists are killed, and their murderers go unpunished. In Mexico, 90% of journalist killings go unpunished; Mexico has appeared on the Impunity Index for the 16 years it has been in existence. http://www.cpj.org/2023/10/faces-of-impunity-across-the-world/

    Huatulco

    Journalists, Avocados, and Cartels

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    By Julie Etra

    Journalists
    We recently made a trip to the state of Michoacán, Mexico, specifically to the monarch butterfly reserve at ‘El Rosario’ (which was a magical amazing experience), and then on to Morelia, the capital of the state. After spending a few days in Mexico City, we hired a driver to take us on the three-hour drive to the reserve. From the reserve to Morelia required an initial ‘taxi’ ride in two small pick-up trucks (to accommodate the four of us and our luggage) to the central bus terminal in Zitácuaro where we took the very comfortable 3.5-hour bus ride to Morelia.

    We were traveling with friends, and I did not tell them until the trip was over that Zitácuaro was recently featured in the Sunday N.Y. Times magazine section as one of the most dangerous places to be a reporter in all of Mexico. Mexico follows the Ukraine in being the second most dangerous place in the world to be an investigative reporter.

    According to the article, under the Presidency of Felipe Calderon, starting in 2006, and his ineffective crackdown on drugs, at least 128 reporters have been killed in Mexico, 13 of them last year alone. The article focused on the founder and lead reporter of the local media outlet Monitor Michoacán, Armando Linares, who was dedicated to exposing corruption in Zitácuaro, hinting at the connection of the mayor to cartels. We were highly unlikely to be exposed to that sort of risk, being uninvolved foreigners, during our two hours at the central bus terminal. Nonetheless, I recalled the article, as it was on my mind during our departure from the reserve, our few hours in Zitácuaro, enroute through the town, and then on to Morelia.

    Avocados
    Avocados (Persea americana), a fruit and not a vegetable, most likely originated in the vicinity of Puebla, Mexico, about 10,000 years ago (similar to the domestication of corn). The English word avocado is derived from the Spanish word aguacate, which the Spaniards derived from the Nahuatl word ahuacatl (meaning testicle). It is called oon in Maya, and palta in Quechua. In the United States of America (US) avocado trees were first planted in Florida in 1833 and then in California in 1856.

    Although the US lifted its 83-year import ban in 1997, shipments to California were not allowed at the time due to concern over competitive lower priced Mexican avocados and supposed fear of foreign pests. California finally began imports in 2007, as the state, with limited suitable growing conditions, simply could not meet the demands of this increasingly popular fruit. In 1985, Americans ate 436 million pounds of avocados per year. By 2020, that number exploded to 2.7 billion pounds.

    Avocado consumption in the US peaks during the Superbowl, although the average consumption is said to be seven lbs. of avocados /year. I can attest that in our Huatulco household we average eight avocados per week. This seemingly excessive consumption is vastly curtailed when back in the US due to cost and sometimes quality. Even with the peso at 16.3:1 US dollar as of this writing, one avocado averages 90 cents in Huatulco as opposed to an average of $1.50 per avocado at the bargain outlets in the US and as high as 2.98 for one organic avocado.

    Michoacán produces more avocados than any other state in Mexico, as the small trees thrive in well drained soils of volcanic origin, and sunny climates. It is followed by Jalisco and the Estado de Mexico. Mexico (the country) exports about half of the avocados consumed worldwide. In 2022 this was valued at just under 3.5 billion in US currency, with the US being by far the biggest consumer estimated at 3 billion, receiving 86% of Mexican exports (95% of these are Hass avocados).
    From Mexico City to the reserve, in the vicinity of the reserve, and on our way to Morelia we certainly noticed all the monocultures of avocado orchards. There is concern that deforestation and land use conversion to avocado orchards is destroying the oak/pine woodlands, increasing water demand, and the only sanctuary for monarch butterflies in the world, for which Michoacán is famous. A 2016 Associated Press report said that as many as 20,000 acres of forest was being converted to avocado orchards, with an estimated loss of one-fifth of the native forests from 2001 to 2017 and increasing dramatically since 2017.
    Avocados consume 50 – 60 litres of water per day. In contrast, a native pine tree consumes roughly 11 liters of water per day. However, avocado trees are not particularly fertilizer consumptive. Irrigation can be reduced with inoculation of symbiotic mycorrhiza, a type of soil fungi that greatly increases uptake of phosphorus and water. One study I read concluded that the growth rate of inoculated avocado trees was a massive 250% higher than uninoculated trees. Producers of quality inocula are extremely reluctant to approach growers, for reasons addressed below.

    Cartels and Avocados
    Are cartels involved in this rapidly expanding agro industry? In August 2023 National Public Radio (NPR), a USA nonprofit radio network podcast, featured a story entitled: Caliber 60: The violent underbelly of the avocado industry (www.npr.org/podcasts/1162033047/caliber-60). It is well known that Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generación has been involved in the industry, extortion and extreme violence being common practices.
    In response, some communities in Michoacán have formed their own citizen self-defense groups like Pueblos Unidos, who, according to the podcast, turned out to be equally bad as the narcos. The title refers to the fact that at least 80% of the firearms in Mexico can be traced to the US.

    While we were in Morelia, I picked up a local paper (February 29, 2024) that included an article about a meeting between the governor of Michoacan and the US ambassador to Mexico, Ken Salazar. The meeting focused on the US’s desire to only import avocados that have been grown on land that has not been illegally de-forested (I assume recently) and certified accordingly. Further, ‘This is consistent with both countries’ efforts to combat climate change and is in the interest of American consumers and members of the Indigenous communities of Michoacán and Jalisco who are at risk for defending their forests and water,” said Sen. Peter Welch, a Democrat from Vermont, alluding to organized crime.

    Journalists
    Full circle, back to journalists and journalism; Mexico can be a tough country. In 2021, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (aka AMLO), took aim, so to speak, at three reporters during his morning press briefing, including Ciro Gómez Leyva, a well-known T.V. anchor. Leyva subsequently barely escaped an assassination attempt; his car was protected with bullet-resistant glass windows.

    As for the media outlet, the Monitor Michoacán, the cameraman was assassinated first, and the subject of the article, the founder and lead journalist determined to expose a link between the local government and the cartels, was murdered in his home 46 days later. From the NY Times article, the author wrote ‘Mexico is a hall of mirrors to any journalist. It is so hard to tell who is telling the truth because the line between crime fighter and criminal has become so blurred it often ceases to exist.’

    Huatulco

    AMLO and the Press: From the Mañaneras to Murder?

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    By Deborah Van Hoewyk

    When Andrés Manuel López Obrador, better known as AMLO, was elected president of Mexico in 2018, he promised to “fix” many things – from government corruption to cartel violence, from income equality to uneven development. Some have seen progress, some have not.

    AMLO keeps Mexicans apprised of his progress with five-day-a-week press conferences that start at 7 am and last 2 hours on average – these are called his mañaneras. Let’s just set aside the question of how the president of the world’s 10th largest population, 12th largest economy, and the 14th largest area, has that much time to spend talking rather than doing. What do the mañaneras contribute to AMLO’s agenda for governing Mexico?

    At his daily press conference, AMLO would in theory be discussing the most important issues facing the country, responding to questions from reporters. This represents a sharp departure from previous presidents, who were mostly seen at formal public events if at all – Enrique Peña Nieto, the last president, in particular.

    The Mañaneras – How – and What – AMLO Communicates

    According to Francisco José de Andrea Sánchez, who holds a doctorate of law from UNAM and serves as principal investigator for UNAM’s Institute for Legal Research, the mañaneras “are the cornerstone of [AMLO’s] communication” with his followers, the people of Mexico, and even members of the government. The mañaneras are a logical outcome of the way AMLO achieved the presidency. Without social media, Andrea Sánchez argues, AMLO would not have been elected – he used social networks to get around “the media monopoly” that would not have argued his case.

    The daily press conferences “avoid that same monopoly,” in a way that no other president of a major democracy has managed to do. Andrea Sánchez argues that AMLO’s two previous defeats in the presidential election led him to look for “non-censorable direct communication alternatives” to get around the “monopoly of the written and electronic mass media” that covers Mexican elections. (Earlier, AMLO had staged frequent press conferences as mayor of Mexico City, carried by BBC Mundo.)

    In an interview with the LatAm Journalism Review in March of this year, Javier Garza Ramos, an independent Mexican journalist who specializes in security and protection, said the mañaneras “started as an exercise with a lot of promise, a promise of transparency where we hoped that the president would be open and answer questions from the media about important issues. But really within a few months we realized that it had become a propaganda exercise.”

    Garza Ramos now describes the mañaneras as “useless,” because they are being used as a “tool of government.” For example, AMLO can put topics on the agenda that turn out “to be so frivolous” that “they absorb a lot of discussion that sometimes we don’t turn to see more important things” – like recent news about corruption or violence: “The president uses [the mañanera] to divert attention” from what he doesn’t want to talk about.

    Article 19, an international organization that works to protect freedom of expression, has its hub for Mexico and Central America in Mexico City. They find that the key factor undermining the nature of the morning press conferences is that AMLO only answers questions from journalists seen as favoring his administration.

    A Space to Attack Journalists

    And what happens when AMLO encounters journalists who ask, when and if they get a chance, critical questions? The mañaneras are widely seen as “favorable spaces for attacking media and journalists, and even for the spread of disinformation.” When a reporter does manage to ask a question that makes AMLO uncomfortable, he is likely to reply “You are vendidos (sell-outs), you are corrupt,” or “You are plotting against the government,” or “You are attacking the government.” He describes his responses as defending the government’s honor and public power.

    One of AMLO’s “defense strategies” is “doxing” journalists – that is, he approves of the release of information from personal documents (“dox”), identifying information that, in the case of journalists, encourages harassment and worse. In January of this year, information on all the journalists who attend the mañaneras was released. AMLO said the database was hacked. The New York Times said it was “a troubling and unacceptable tactic from a world leader at a time when threats against journalists are on the rise.”

    In 2022, Reuters – in an undignified headline, “Mexican president names salary of critical journalist in row over reporting” – reported that AMLO said the increase from 2021 to 2022 in journalist Carlos Loret de Mola’s salary was because he was paid to do “hatchet jobs” on AMLO personally and his government. Doxing Loret de Mola was a defense of his “political project of ending injustice and corruption … This is not a personal matter. My conscience is clear.”

    This winter, on Friday, February 23, AMLO doxed Natalie Kitroeff, bureau chief of The New York Times for Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean. The doxing came in tandem with the publication in the Times of an article headlined “U.S. Examined Allegations of Cartel Ties to Allies of Mexico’s President”; note that, although the U.S. spent years on the investigation, they declined to investigate AMLO himself, as (according to unauthorized anonymous sources) the “government had little appetite to pursue allegations against the leader of one of America’s top allies.”

    When queried as to whether he was endangering Kitroeff and had broken Mexico’s law of Federal Protection of Personal Data, AMLO said the doxing was not a mistake. He would do it again “when it comes to a matter where the dignity of the president of Mexico is at stake. The political and moral authority of the president of Mexico is above that.” Although he has come very close, even former U.S. President Donald Trump has not said he is above the law.

    AMLO went on to say that murders of journalists were overstated, and that critical media outlets and journalists were seeking “economic and political power.” According to the LatAm Journalism Review, he said to the assembled journalists: “You feel you are embroidered by hand, like a divine, privileged race, you can slander with impunity as you have done with us … and one cannot touch you even with the petal of a rose.” One might wonder whether AMLO’s hostility to the press is a matter of deep-seated personal psychology.

    Article 19 analysis also focuses on AMLO’s use of disinformation in the mañaneras. The group asked for corroboration on 34 statements AMLO made at the mañaneras or in public speeches; 32 of the 34 statements were not corroborated.

    Violence against Mexican Journalists in 2023

    The Mexican press, according to, among others, The Guardian (a global English-language news outlet), believes that attacks against the country’s journalists stem directly from AMLO’s mañaneras, which are an “invitation to violence.” Reporting on an open letter from Mexican journalists after an assassination attempt on news anchor Ciro Gómez Leyva in December of 2022, The Guardian asserts that conditions for journalists, which weren’t great when AMLO took office, “have deteriorated dramatically” since then. Although AMLO apparently condemned the assassination attempt, “just 24 hours earlier [he] had been publicly denigrating the journalist, warning Mexicans that if they listened to such people too much they risked developing brain tumours.”

    In its 2023 report on violence against the Mexican Press, Violencia contra la prensa en México en 2023: ¿cambio o continuidad? (Violence against the press in Mexico in 2023: Change or continuation?), Article 19 defined three kinds of attacks: direct intimidation and harassment; the illegitimate use of public power to stigmatize or use judicial processes to harass; physical and digital threats. AMLO’s behavior in his mañeras is the second type, the abuse of public power. (According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, part of the John S. and James L. Knight Press Freedom Center in New York City, AMLO has accused Article 19 of “being funded by the U.S. government” to work against AMLO, thus “violating our sovereignty” – he made these accusations on World Press Freedom Day, May 3, 2023).

    Article 19 found that there were fewer attacks on journalists and media outlets in 2022, which saw 561 attacks on the press, including 5 murders and 1 disappearance of journalists, than in 2023, when there were 696 attacks on the press and 12 murders.

    Of the 561 attacks in 2023, 224 (40%) comprised intimidation, harassment, and threats, while 106 (19%) were abuse of public power. The remaining 41% of attacks were divided into 13 categories, with blocking or changing journalistic content, physical attacks, hacking, destruction of property, and false arrest making up 33% of the total.

    Over half the attacks on the press were committed by “officials” – public employees, police, national guard, and other armed forces. The remaining attacks were carried out by individuals (actores particulares, including AMLO in his mañaneras), the cartels (10%), political parties, and unidentified attackers.

    Attacks on the press appear to be related to the topics reporters cover: 53% of attacks were on those who report on politics and corruption; 24% on reporters on security and justice; and just under 10% each on those who report on protests/social movements or human rights. About 54% of attacks were on men, 30% on women, and 16% on media outlets.

    The reduction in overall attacks between 2022 to 2023 is about 20%, but Article 19 still asks whether this is a real change, or merely a matter of fewer reports of violence. The report covers the next-to-last year of AMLO’s term of office, but Article 19 cites a similar reduction in attacks on the press in the next-to-last year of Felipe Calderón’s term – only to see an increase in the last year.

    We will have to wait and see.

    Huatulco

    Carmen Aristegui: An Unyielding Force in Journalism

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    By Kary Vannice

    There’s one woman every Mexican president since Felipe Calderón (2006-12) has feared, and that’s Carmen Aristegui, one of Mexico’s most influential and fearless journalists. Known for her sharp, tough demeanor and relentless investigative journalism, Aristegui has become a powerful voice against injustice, corruption, and attacks on press freedom in Mexico.

    Aristegui’s 20-plus-year career is marked by an unwavering commitment to truth, transparency and accountability. She has worked in every facet of journalism, print, radio and television. Most notably, she anchored the news program Aristegui on CNN en Español and currently hosts a daily CNN podcast of the same name. In 2012, she started her own news website, Aristegui Noticias, a highly renowned news program in Mexico and Latin America, with a vast viewership of over 45 million people each month.

    One of the most notable aspects of Aristegui’s career is her refusal to stay silent in the face of adversity. Shockingly, Mexico has the highest death rate of journalists in the world. When asked about this in an interview, Aristegui said, “It’s a disgrace that persists because it goes hand in hand with the impunity of a country without a justice system willing to punish those responsible. Few of the perpetrators have been prosecuted, which is almost an invitation to murder for those who feel threatened by journalism.”

    During her acceptance speech in 2023 for the UNESCO/Guillermo Cano Grand Prize for Press Freedom, Aristegui stated: “Mexico is one step away from being considered a country with high restrictions on press freedom, significantly related to the ‘constant’ attacks by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador against the media, journalists, critics and other powers of the Republic.” She went on to say, “When a journalist is murdered, a person is murdered, a professional is murdered, but society’s right to be informed and to know what that journalist had to report is also murdered.”

    Throughout her illustrious career, Carmen Aristegui has faced numerous challenges and has been a constant target for those who seek to silence her. Her fearless pursuit of truth and unwavering commitment to investigative journalism have made her a thorn in the side of those in power. Her illegal termination from MVS Radio in 2015, following her report on the conflict of interest concerning home purchases by then-President Enrique Peña Nieto, was a glaring example of the pressures she faced. The termination, widely regarded as an act of censorship, sparked outrage and widespread public protests that resulted in Aristegui’s reinstatement a few days later, but nonetheless drew attention to the vulnerability of journalists in Mexico who dared to expose corruption at the highest levels of government.

    Aristegui’s resilience in the face of adversity became even more apparent as she endured not only censorship but also personal attacks and ridicule throughout her career. At the end of last year, she was once again at the center of the high-profile “Pegasus” spyware, used by the Mexican government for covert surveillance of Mexican citizens. She was called to give testimony about how she and her teenage son were allegedly spied on during the years Enrique Peña Nieto was in office.

    Her sharp and critical reporting style, aimed at holding those in power accountable, has made her a lightning rod for criticism, yet Aristegui has weathered the storm with grace and determination, refusing to be deterred from her journalistic mission.

    Despite the many attempts to undermine her credibility and silence her voice, Aristegui has emerged as a symbol of journalistic integrity and resilience. Her ability to persevere in the face of censorship and ridicule underscores the importance of a free press and the crucial role of journalists in holding the powerful accountable.