Mexican president fights reporters over security and drug cartels, claims journalist is DEA informant

A reporter told the Mexican president on Tuesday that his supporters had harassed her while she was covering an event in June, and he complained that his polarization of Mexican society is a danger to journalists.

When she asked him what he would do about it, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador responded with a mixture of disdain and disinterest, saying simply, “Nothing, nothing, nothing.”

During his daily press conference on Tuesday, the president also claimed that another reporter he doesn’t like is a DEA agent or an informant. In a country dominated by drug cartels, that’s a potentially deadly accusation; at least 142 reporters and media workers have been murdered in Mexico since 2000.

Just a few days ago, a journalist reporting on one of the country’s most dangerous crime zones, killed by gunmenand two of his government-assigned bodyguards were injured.

Journalists have long complained that they are regularly verbally attacked by López Obrador, who has wrongly accused some of them of being paid spokespeople for conservatives.

Although López Obrador has given far more press conferences and answered far more questions than any other president, reporters also complain about the insults he receives online and in person from the president’s loyal supporters when they ask him tough questions.

It reached a peak on Tuesday when independent reporter Reyna Ramírez described an incident in June when an angry crowd of the president’s supporters approached her, angrily shouting, “Sold reporter,” and forced her to leave the event she was covering.

“I’m at risk because of this, now anyone can attack me in the street,” Ramírez said. “You’ve polarized society. Don’t you have anything to say about this?”

“Have you gone on long enough?” López Obrador responded. When asked what he would do to keep his supporters in check, he said “nothing, nothing, nothing.”

Minutes later, López Obrador attacked journalist and author Anabel Hernández, whose latest book details alleged ties between the current administration and Mexican drug cartels. The president claimed that Hernández “is an agent or informant for the DEA.”

The Mexican president refuses to confront the drug cartels, saying that drug traffickers are people who have chosen the wrong path in life, but they claim to “respect the citizens.” López Obrador denies making a deal with the cartels and claims, without providing evidence, that the accusations are part of a DEA plot to smear him.

It is not the first time that the president has attacked Hernández.

“It is frustrating that the president sees drug criminals as part of the people, but considers the journalists who investigate them as the enemy,” Hernández said.

In May, she complained that López Obrador’s hostility and accusations were making it difficult for her to work.

“With the president’s aggressiveness and hate speech, there is no way to hold a book launch,” Hernández said at the time. “It would be too dangerous for me and for the people who were there.”

Although López Obrador claims to be more open to the press than any Mexican president, his daily morning newsletters typically feature light-hearted questions from sympathetic news organizations.

In the past, López Obrador has used confidential tax and bank information to publish the salaries of journalists he dislikes, and he also gave away the personal phone number of a foreign correspondent.

International press freedom groups have criticized the president’s attacks on the press, as have the U.S. State Department and the Organization of American States, saying the attacks put already troubled journalists in even greater danger.

Media workers are regular target in Mexicooften in direct retaliation for their work on issues such as corruption and the country’s notoriously violent drug traffickers. 2022 was one of the deadliest years ever for journalists in Mexico, with at least 15 dead.

Except for a handful, all of the murders and kidnappings remain unsolved.

“Impunity is the norm for crimes against the press,” the Committee to Protect Journalists said in its March report on Mexico.

Claudia Sheinbaumwho will be Mexico’s first female leader in the country’s more than 200 years of independence, will take office this fall.