When President Andrés Manuel López Obrador was elected in 2018, I read news stories that claimed he was “Mexico’s Trump” for his anti-establishment rhetoric—and his attacks on the press. My goal with this project was to gain a better understanding of attacks on the press in Mexico and their impact.
For this thesis project, I went back to Mexico to speak with journalists and academics about the country’s political history, the history of its press, and what it is like to work as a reporter under the López Obrador administration.
This project uses qualitative interviews with Mexican and American reporters and academics in Mexico and the United States with firsthand experience reporting on Trump and AMLO and thorough knowledge on Mexican culture and history. It will attempt to explain how, even though attacks on the press are similar on both sides of the border, López Obrador’s attacks on the press in Mexico have a larger impact because of the Mexican press’ relatively young independence, influenced by a system of government censure and control over the media, as well as the lasting effects of the Mexican political system in the 20th century.

President Donald Trump announced his candidacy in June 2015, and the America immediately knew that he was an unorthodox candidate. Early on in his campaign, Trump isolated groups of people and treated them as enemies, but none so consistently as the news media. What began as criticism of "fake news," turned into calling the news media "the opposition party." However, media professionals agree that when the Trump administration called the news media the "enemy of the American people" \u2014 a line had been crossed. In the last two years Trump has denied simple fact and credible journalism countless times. His avid use of social media allows his messages to reach millions of people in moments - which had the potential to be a positive thing. However, Twitter is often where Trump turns to dispute the media, science, fact or anything else that "opposes" him. If Americans cannot believe the news media, cannot believe science, and cannot believe established fact, what can they believe? Allowing one man, in this case, Trump, to become the beacon of truth is dangerous and destructive to democracy. The news media must do their best to recapture the trust and faith of the American people by producing good, honest journalism. Seasoned journalism professionals say that his attacks on the media are likely a facade, just another way to appeal to his base, but that those attacks have the potential to wreak havoc in American society. Regardless of Trump's intentions, the toxicity between him and news media could have consequences that reach far beyond his presidency.