President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s disclosure of a journalist’s telephone number last Thursday triggered a range of repercussions, including an investigation by the national transparency agency INAI and the leaking of the telephone numbers of the two women vying to become Mexico’s first female president.
At his widely-watched morning press conference, López Obrador displayed and read aloud the telephone number of the New York Times’ bureau chief in Mexico, Natalie Kitroeff, when responding to questions put to him by the newspaper about an inquiry in the United States into allegations that people close to him, including his sons, received drug money during his presidency.
The president denied all the allegations before the Times had even published them in an article headlined “U.S. Examined Allegations of Cartel Ties to Allies of Mexico’s President.”
The Times’ report noted that the “the United States never opened a formal investigation into Mr. López Obrador, and the officials involved ultimately shelved the inquiry.”
Nevertheless, it gave further ammunition to critics of AMLO, who were quick to label him a #narcopresidente after three media outlets last month published allegations that his 2006 presidential campaign received millions of dollars in drug money. The president’s disclosure of Kitroeff’s telephone number was widely criticized in a country where violence against journalists — and women — is a major problem.
Here is an overview of the key events following López Obrador’s doxing of the NYT’s Mexico bureau chief at his morning presser.
The NYT denounces the president
The Times — which the president had slammed as a “filthy rag” — responded to López Obrador in a post to its public relations account on the X social media platform.
“This is a troubling and unacceptable tactic from a world leader at a time when threats against journalists are on the rise. We have since published the findings from this investigation and stand by our reporting and the journalists who pursue the facts where they lead,” said the statement posted to the @NYTimesPR account.
INAI announces a probe
The National Institute for Transparency, Access to Information and the Protection of Personal Data (INAI) announced in a statement on Thursday that it would commence an investigation into López Obrador’s disclosure of Kitroeff’s telephone number in order to determine whether he had violated Mexico’s personal data privacy laws.
AMLO stands by his actions and responds to INAI
At his Friday morning presser, López Obrador doubled down on his decision to divulge Kitroeff’s phone number, denying the suggestion that he had made a mistake in doing so and declaring that he would do it again.
When a reporter noted that “anyone” could call the journalist and “anyone” could threaten her, AMLO asserted that “absolutely nothing” would happen, even though aggression toward members of the press is a major problem in Mexico.
Probed about his alleged violation of the law, López Obrador claimed that his “moral authority” and “political authority” are “above that law.”
“We’re not criminals, we have moral authority,” he said, adding that neither The New York Times nor anyone else had the right to “put us in the dock.”
The head of INAI — one of the autonomous government agencies López Obrador would like to get rid of — subsequently said that “absolutely no one” is above the law.
In a post to X, Adrián Alcalá also underscored “the seriousness” of the president disclosing the personal details of any person, “especially” those of a journalist.
Press groups denounce the president
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) and Article 19 both denounced the president for disclosing Kitroeff’s phone number.
“It is unacceptable and dangerous that Mexican president Andrés Manuel López Obrador reveals the contact information of a reporter in response to critical questions asked of his administration by her outlet,” said Jan-Albert Hootsen, CPJ’s Mexico representative.
Article 19 called the president’s actions “a serious attack on freedom of expression rights and on the privacy of the journalist,” adding that he was seeking to “intimidate” The New York Times.
White House spokesperson: “Obviously not something we support”
White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre was asked about López Obrador’s doxing of Kitroeff at a press conference on Friday.
“I’ve not seen that. Obviously, that’s not something we support. We believe in the freedom of the press, obviously, which is why we do this on [an] almost on a daily basis,” she said.
Telephone numbers of Sheinbaum, Gálvez and AMLO’s son all leaked
The telephone number of José Ramón López Beltrán, the president’s oldest son, was leaked on social media in the wake of his father’s widely-criticized disclosure last Thursday. The online publication of the numbers of ruling Morena party president candidate Claudia Sheinbaum and opposition candidate Xóchitl Gálvez followed.
“Today I have been receiving non-stop calls and messages of hate … because someone published my cell phone number on social media,” Sheinbaum said on X on Saturday.
“It’s clear what they want to do [but] again their attacks are as crude as they are inoffensive. The numbers they should worry about are those from the polls,” she wrote, acknowledging that she is the clear frontrunner in the contest to become Mexico’s next president.
Sheinbaum published one of the messages she had received and indicated she would change her telephone number.
Gálvez said in a video message that her number was also leaked as a “result of the terrible example set by López Obrador.”
She said that she too had received many messages, but highlighted that many of them were to express support. Gálvez, who will represent a three-party opposition alliance in the presidential election, said she wouldn’t change her number and even read it aloud in her video message.
For his part, López Beltrán asserted that the leaking of his number was “a form of revenge and an attempt to do harm,” adding that it put his family in danger.
“This situation began with a letter that contained threats and lies directed at the president of Mexico and his sons. What happened afterwards was a consequence [provoked] by the journalist herself, who exposed her telephone number thinking that the president would respond to her libel by calling her,” he wrote on X. “… What do I have to do with all this?”
López Obrador described the leaking of his son’s telephone number as “shameful.”
AMLO: Mexico doesn’t allow “the interference of any foreign government”
In a video posted to social media on Saturday, López Obrador declared that, “we don’t allow the interference of any foreign government in our country.”
He said last week that the allegations published by the NYT wouldn’t affect Mexico’s relations with the United States, although he indicated last month that the previous drug money allegations could have an impact on bilateral ties. He also accused the United States government of involvement in their publication.
Speaking from Mazatlán, Sinaloa, on Saturday, López Obrador said that “Mexico is an independent, free, sovereign country” and “the president of Mexico cannot be slandered.”
“… It must never be allowed. … I’m not going to accept anyone’s calumny. … I don’t accept calumny without proof [from] foreign governments and their agencies, nor do I accept it from newspapers no matter how famous they are,” he said.
YouTube removes videos of president’s press conference, AMLO accuses it of “censorship”
YouTube took down videos of last Thursday’s press conference that had been posted to government channels and López Obrador’s personal channel, which has over 4.2 million subscribers. The video sharing platform said the footage was removed because it violated its policy on harassment and bullying. The footage was later reposted to YouTube after the president’s disclosure of Kitroeff’s number had been edited out.
On social media, López Obrador accused YouTube of “censorship” and declared that it had demonstrated “an arrogant and authoritarian attitude.”
“… The Statue of Liberty has become an empty symbol,” he added.
History repeats itself
At his Monday morning press conference, López Obrador once again presented the letter in which Kitroeff sought responses about the allegations people close to him received drug money. The journalist’s telephone number was once again displayed, albeit just for a brief period before the president asked for it to be removed.
López Obrador subsequently described Kitroeff’s telephone number as “institutional” and “public,” effectively asserting once again that he had done nothing wrong by disclosing it to his large online audience.
By Mexico News Daily chief staff writer Peter Davies ([email protected])
Jorge Zepeda Patterson is by far my favorite Mexican journalist. He is off-the-scale fair and decent, always analyzing issues and controversies from the perspective of justice. Sometimes he criticizes AMLO, sometimes he defends or praises him, just.like he treats everyone else.
Shown below is a google translate of an article published last week. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
Jorge Zepeda Patterson: “The New York Times” vs. López Obrador
February 25, 2024, 2:00 am
Jorge Zepeda PattersonJorge Zepeda Patterson
Without a doubt, in President López Obrador’s reaction to the article published in “The New York Times” there are a couple of reprehensible outbursts (I will return to them).
But what is truly delicate is the other, a piece of questionable content in journalistic terms and published, whether one likes it or not, at a time when it affects the electoral processes in Mexico and the United States. In a way, a chapter of what we could call Newsfare, which with the so-called Lawfare, or war through legal instruments, attempts to neutralize and delegitimize the government of change.
The NYT report refers to an investigation that was closed a long time ago, now recovered ten weeks before the elections, right in the context of a major campaign under the #narcopresident turned opposition crusade. Buying into the thesis of journalistic ethics and respect for press freedom is irresponsible. The propaganda impact that the note has in Mexico is huge, but in the United States it is no less: it strengthens the positions of the right that fights for a policy of direct intervention under the argument, precisely, that the Mexican State is dominated by cartels. .
Let’s go to the NYT article. What we know is that one or more protected witnesses tried to negotiate their sentences by offering information about alleged links between drug traffickers and collaborators of the Mexican president, already in office. The information was dismissed by the Department of Justice as unsubstantiated.
The NYT tries to inoculate itself against the weakness of the content with a paragraph in the middle of the story: “Much of the information collected by US officials comes from informants whose accounts can be difficult to corroborate and sometimes end up being incorrect.
“Investigators obtained the information while investigating drug cartel activities, and it was unclear how much of what informants told them was independently confirmed.” The NYT is deliberately vague here, because what the documents say is that they could not find confirmation of such accusations.
To save face, the note continues with an absolutely speculative thesis: the Department of Justice would have discarded the investigation not because it lacked veracity but for political reasons.
They don’t say it in these words, but the argument is categorical: “if they came out innocent it is surely not because they are innocent but because there was an arrangement.”
An approach unworthy of an investigative report, because to argue it they can only cite the same officials who made the accusation and it was rejected due to lack of elements. Worse yet, the NYT very conveniently does not reveal who such officials might be or to what agency they belong.
And it doesn’t, I suppose, because that would damage the legitimacy of the note. He prefers to hide the source so as not to weaken the impact of the accusation. And that source cannot be other than the DEA or elements associated with it, since the information comes from interrogations of drug traffickers.
With so few elements, the NYT goes to great lengths to provide a context that makes its accusation credible, recounting corruption in Mexico and the relationship between bosses and authorities. As if that were new or from there the inevitable guilt of the Q4 government emerged. If you wanted to give interpretive context, why not refer to the strained relations between López Obrador and the DEA? An agency that the president has accused of being interventionist and toughening the conditions for his operation in Mexico.
A hard-won animosity between the two parties. It is enough to remember the information that appears in the article published on January 29 in ProPublica, also American, about a previous attempt by the DEA to show links between drugs and López Obrador’s campaign in 2011.
Such research was also abandoned due to lack of elements; But the note reveals a significant fact: in that year the DEA proposed an approach to collaborators of AMLO’s campaign to offer them 5 million dollars supposedly coming from drug trafficking; With that they tried to show their thesis. But even the State Department considered the initiative too interventionist, as well as illegal. Curiously, the DEA never proposed to do so with the PRI or PAN candidates.
Furthermore, the relationship between the president and the NYT has become cloudy over time and has ended up generating an unprofessional relationship on both sides. It is enough to do a search with the president’s name on the newspaper’s website for a string of publications about his government to appear: invariably negative.
THE NYT ended up buying the opposition’s vision. The content and timing of this latest publication confirm the anti-Lopezobrador bias.
But it must also be said that in the hostile relationship between the press critical of López Obrador and his attacks to defend himself, there are no innocents. In other texts I have lamented the slide of many media outlets from journalism to militancy. A selected, and sometimes magnified, inventory of the bad news coming from the administration, abandoning all attempts to account for a complex reality full of chiaroscuros and referring primarily to a propagandistic disclosure.
The president’s responses have been no less militant. An obvious effort aimed at discrediting critics, to reveal their political motivations or ideological vision, and no interest in responding with timely information to specific accusations. In that task there have been unfortunate phrases and moments, without a doubt. The display of personal financial information or insults by the president are undesirable in any situation, much more so in the context of a country in which the vulnerability of journalists to political violence is evident.
Understanding the need to respond to the blows received, it seems to me that some of the president’s attitudes and phrases, uttered in moments of irritation, disfavor his cause. The thing about the reporter’s phone number and the reason for disclosing it was unnecessary; affirm that the moral authority of the sovereign is above the law, too.
That said, we should not lose the proportions of what is at stake here. Supporting the campaign of a #narcopresident with million-dollar investments or publishing forced articles causes enormous potential damage to the stability of the country and its institutions.
It is highly irresponsible on the part of the NYT or Claudio X (who tweeted it) and their equivalents. That the supposed defenders of democracy and its institutions play irresponsibly in order to win some votes is what is truly worrying.— Mexico City.
@jorgezepedap
Journalist
The NYT has also recently played fast and loose with the unsubstantiated claim that Hamas had set up a systematic trained-for campaign of rape when it attacked Israel in October. Follow up investigators who checked reliable channels like hospitals, crisis centers, etc. found no validation to those claims but the Times has not retracted any of the incendiary claims.
Thank you for sharing Mr. Zepeda’s excellent reporting! He brings light to this ongoing controversy. It’s clear that The NY Times has ill intentions.
I totally agree that the New York Times has evil intentions. Perhaps, the U.S. should be looking into the motivation(s) of the Times. The sick right wingers apparently don’t just want to bring down the U.S., but México, too.
So, the New York Tuimes is infested with right-wingers? Hmm…
Sure it’s always a “right-wing” conspiracy. Meanwhile they ignore the NYT left leaning opinions on almost everything. One of the few things that AMLO has correctly stated is that it is a rag.
The NYT is a large, influential corporate media outlet. Sometimes that looks right wing, other times left wing. Sometimes it’s even objective. In this case, great discussion about that paper’s political interests. Also good to point out that AMLO behaved badly. Arguing the president is “above the law?” Now where have I heard that before?
Very true. The NYT has supported and even promoted every war and invasion that US has undertaken. I can;t think of an exception. Not exactly left leaning.
Thank you Ms. Hoover for sharing Mr. Zepeda Patterson excellent article. For once Mexico has a president that is fighting corruption at all levels and is actually doing good for the people and then he gets this unwarranted attack by the NYT. Ms. Kitroeff and the NYT are acting unethically and unprofessionally by publishing allegations with no proof.
The New York Times has in the past acted as a political arm of the U.S. government.
In the Iraq War, the New York Times was caught publishing stories fabricated by the CIA that were created to boost support for the U.S. invasion of Iraq. The newspaper subsequently apologized.
The NYT is currently embroiled in a controversy over publishing false claims that the Hamas conducted mass rapes during its Oct. 7 attack on Israel. Creating sympathy for Washington’s ally, Israel.
Since AMLO was elected, the U.S. has been interfering in Mexico’s sovereignty by using various methods of subterfuge to cast the President in a bad light, thus weakening his political power.
The timing of the AMLO-cartel-allegations stories is probably no coincidence, as it would serve Washington’s paranoic obsession with ridding itself of a socialist leader heading its neighbour to the south.
I don’t blame the prez for being POed.
Doxing a journalist is an evil thing to do. No surprise that AMLO retaliated this way when faced with some awful truths, or that his family and allies were re-doxed.