Press groups slam Mexican President Lopez Obrador for targeting media over ‘lie of the week’
- Each week, Lopez Obrador presents news articles he feels are unfair, an exercise he calls “Who’s Who in Lies”
- His supporters often launch social-media pile-ons against reporters he criticises
Press and human rights organisations have criticised Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s weekly “contest” that roughly translates as “Lie of the Week”.
Each week at his daily morning press conference, Lopez Obrador presents a few news articles he feels are unfair, an exercise he calls “Who’s Who in Lies”. It mirrors other segments like “Who’s Who in the price of petrol?” which is meant to embarrass stations that charge high prices.
The authors of the news articles and opinion columns are singled out for criticism by Lopez Obrador, who talks more to the press – but is also more openly hostile to them – than almost any of his predecessors. The president’s supporters often launch social-media pile-ons against reporters he criticises.
The Inter American Press Association says the practice stigmatises and intimidates journalists in a country that already has a high level of violence against reporters. The IAPA said in a statement that it “calls for the immediate end to its aggression”.
Carlos Jornet, the IAPA’s president on the Committee on Freedom of the Press and Information, wrote that “in the case of Mexico, one of the countries where exercising journalism poses the highest risk, direct speech with insults against journalists and the media from the presidency is doubly dangerous, a type of aggression that, as experience indicates, usually ends up in acts of violence”.
The InterAmerican Human Rights Commission has also expressed concerns about the segment.