Award-winning journalist Carmen Aristegui accused the Mexican government of pushing for her dismissal after she asked President Felipe Calderón to clarify whether he had alcohol problems, BBC reports.
Aristegui was fired by MVS Radio for allegedly violating its ethics code by “presenting and spreading rumors as news.”
"It is only imaginable in dictatorships...to be punished for opining or questioning rulers," she said, quoted by Proceso. (See her full statements in Spanish here.) According to El Universal, the Executive has denied any involvement.
Many journalists and international groups like Reporters without Borders and the Committee to Protect Journalists have come out against her dismissal, calling it censorship, while some of her Mexican colleagues think it was unethical to report on the alcohol rumor.
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Note from the editor: This story was originally published by the Knight Center’s blog Journalism in the Americas, the predecessor of LatAm Journalism Review.
