No murders of journalists were recorded in this period. However, intimidation continues, especially in high-crime areas, where small media outlets that cover security issues are under siege.
The Mx Media Alliance has reported intimidating calls, persecutions, shots, and burning of the communicators' property.
On December 15, a commando of armed men shot at journalist Ciro Gómez Leyva in Mexico City, who was unharmed for driving around in an armored truck. Gómez Leyva has been one of the constant targets of presidential criticism, including as an "enemy of the regime." President Andrés Manuel López Obrador condemned the attack, although he did not rule out a self-attack "from the right" to discredit his government. For this attack, 13 criminal gang members were arrested, although the mastermind is unknown.
The president maintained his hostile speech against the media. He has not stopped accusing journalists of being part of a business conspiracy to affect his government. He accuses them of being angry that he took away their advertising privileges and perks.
On Wednesdays, the president maintains the "Who is who in the lies" section within his daily morning conference. He refutes what the media criticizes about him and argues in his defense with falsehoods, partial data denied, and offers no evidence. In November, due to increased criticism, he announced that the section would be daily, although it is still weekly.
In January, the Chamber of Deputies, with the support of the official Morena party, approved the General Law on Social Communication. Article 26 placed a cap of 0.1% of official advertising in the budget of each government entity. However, two months later, after a constitutional controversy, the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation annulled the reform and left governments free to hire advertising for the amount they wanted.
In January, Jorge Sánchez, son of the murdered journalist Moisés Sánchez, on behalf of 30 families of murdered journalists, demanded that President López Obrador neglect the prevailing cases in these cases. "Maybe we are not that important to you, or El Chapo's mother is not here, right? But for us, you must know our feelings," said Sánchez, referring to statements by the president in which he proposed requesting the extradition of Joaquín "el Chapo" Guzmán so that he is close to his family.
The president accused Sánchez that these were not arguments to demand justice. "You say about Chapo's mother, and that is what Claudio X. González, Loret de Mola, Ciro, and the civil society organizations that receive money from abroad and are against us say," he stressed.
After some criticism of Article 19 in support of Sánchez, López Obrador said that he had "proof that (this organization) is delivered to the conservative bloc" and that it receives money from abroad and they are "phonies."
In February, the Governance Commission of the Chamber of Deputies, at the initiative of the official Morena party, tried to reform the Printing Crime Law of 1917 to raise fines against those who insulted the president and other officials.
In February, the IAPA urged the governor of Campeche, Layda Sansores, of the official Morena party, to stop harassing journalists from her program Martes del Jaguar. Similar to what the president does in her morning conference, the official systematically attacks the media that criticize acts of corruption in her administration.
In March, journalist Denisse Dresser filed a criminal complaint against the president for constantly insulting her at her morning conference. "I decided to exercise my right against an abusive government."
Also in March, several media outlets revealed they had evidence that, during the current government, the Army used the Pegasus software to spy on journalists and human rights defender Raymundo Ramos. Ramos was supervising the extrajudicial execution of three people that occurred that year in Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas. The president denied the accusations and attacked the reporter Nayeli Roldán of Animal Político, who confronted him at the morning conference on March 10. Angry, the president criticized the media for being against his government and said he set the agenda in his space, not the media. He acknowledged the espionage but called it "intelligence work."
