The president of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, criticized The Washington Post for asking President Joe Biden to “scold” him for his differences with newscaster and columnist Carlos Loret de Mola.
“They are asking President Biden to call my attention,” said López Obrador, who laughed at his morning conference. “For the harassment of journalists! Don’t you know how corruption prevailed? How did a group feel about the owners of Mexico?”
The Post editorial, published this Tuesday, puts the conflict between Loret de Mola and López Obrador on the same level as the journalists murdered in Mexico , most of them independent, ‘freelancers’ or small media.
“Mexico is experiencing one of the deadliest periods on record for journalists, with five murdered so far this year”, indicates the article. “But instead of addressing these dangers, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador devoted much of his usual Friday press conference to attacking one of the country’s most prominent media figures, Carlos Loret de Mola.”
It should be remembered that Loret de Mola is an editorialist for the Post and is mentioned in the text, in addition to noting that he is “very famous” in Mexico, but does not talk about the lawsuit against him for staging reports, as the accusation he faces for the Florence Cassez case, which he allegedly helped set up with former Secretary of Public Security Genaro García Luna, who is currently facing legal proceedings in the US for drug trafficking.
El Post , in effect, asks President Biden to “condemn the attacks on Mexican journalists” and to call for a “free press”.
“The Washington Post is asking President Biden to call me out for the a I sew journalists”, commented @lopezobrador_ in the ‘morning’. pic.twitter.com/EVQxt688dC
– El Financiero TV (@ElFinancieroTv) February 16, 2022
The Mexican president decided to reveal that Loret de Mola received $35 million pesos ($1.75 million dollars) in one year, although he did not give financial details, but that unleashed criticism from his opponents. This after an article by Latinus about López Obrador’s son, José Ramón López Beltrán, and his alleged life of luxury in Texas.
The report “How a new digital media became President López Obrador’s biggest opponent”, by journalist Alejandra Ibarra for Rest of World, exposes how Loret de Mola and his funders created the site Latinus to focus on the current government, but without being transparent about who is investing in that project, although links have been revealed with Roberto Madrazo, a staunch political enemy of López Obrador, as well as businessmen who reject his government.
The Mexican president affirmed that he will report at least every two weeks the advances on murdered journalists, but he refuses to lower the volume against the group of journalists like Loret de Mola focused, he says, on attacking his government.