Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador could hardly be acting more irresponsibly, vindictively or cruel. Dozens of journalists have been killed in Mexico in recent years and five more have been killed so far this year — two in Tijuana — but the politician known as AMLO has repeatedly called journalists who report on his administration "thugs," "mercenaries" and "sellouts" over the past week. He's going to get other journalists killed.
The president's denunciations came after one of Mexico's most influential and high-profile media figures, Carlos Loret de Mola, reported that López Obrador's adult son had lived in a luxury home in Houston that was owned by a top official of a company that held lucrative contracts with Pemex, Mexico's state-owned oil company. At a news conference, AMLO showed a slide purporting to detail how much Loret earned last year — even though Mexican law says such financial records cannot be revealed. Loret said the slide included the claim he had been paid by a media firm he left in 2019 and had other errors as well. But López Obrador has continued to insist that Loret and other journalists who are "against" him are in the pay of his political rivals.
On Thursday, during a visit to a military barracks in Tijuana, AMLO repeated his criticism of what he called "mercenary" journalists even as members of the media inside and outside the barracks implored him to end his attacks. If he doesn't and more journalists get killed, he will have blood on his hands.
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