One of Mexico’s best-known journalists said on Friday that two gunmen on a motorcycle attempted to kill him in a late-night attack on a Mexico City street.
Radio and television journalist Ciro Gómez Leyva posted a description of the attack and photos of his bullet-ridden vehicle on social media.
He said the attack occurred just before midnight on a street near his home and that he was saved by the fact that his SUV was bulletproof.
“Two hundred meters from my house, two people on a motorcycle shot at me, apparently with the clear intention of killing me,” wrote Gómez Leyva. Photos showed that at least two bullets had hit the vehicle’s window.
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The Mexico City prosecutor’s office said it had opened an investigation.
This year has been among the deadliest ever for Mexican media workers, with 15 deaths so far. But the killings and almost all of the bombings have targeted journalists in provincial cities.
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who often verbally argues with Gómez Leyva, condemned the attack.
A skyline of Mexico City, Mexico is pictured on September 23, 2022. A prominent Mexican journalist survives an attack by a gunman near his home in Mexico City.
(Cesar Rodriguez/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
“He’s a journalist, a human being, but what’s more, he’s a leader of public opinion, and injuries to a person like Ciro create a lot of political instability,” López Obrador said.
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“We have differences, they are known and public, we will continue to have them,” said the president, “but it is absolutely reprehensible for anyone to be attacked.”
On his popular morning radio show, Gómez Leyva said of the president: “I have no differences with him. We do our job as journalists.”
López Obrador often uses his two-hour morning press conferences to accuse Gómez Leyva and other well-known journalists who criticize him of being part of a conservative conspiracy against his administration.
The president has frequently verbally attacked journalists, calling them names such as “sellouts”, “mercenaries” and “thugs”. News groups say the president’s hostile comments have helped make journalists in Mexico less safe.
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2022 was one of the deadliest ever for journalists in Mexico, which is now considered the most dangerous country for journalists outside a war zone.
While organized crime is often involved in the murders of journalists, small-town officials or politicians with political or criminal motives are also often suspected. Journalists who run small news organizations in Mexico’s interior are easy targets.
