Carmen Aristegui. Photo: Josep A. Vilar.
Mexican journalist and TV and radio anchorwoman Carmen Aristegui is widely regarded as one of Mexico's leading journalists and opinion leaders, and is best known for her critical investigations of the Mexican government. She is the anchor of the news program Aristegui on CNN en Español, she writes regularly for the opinion section of the newspaper Reforma, and runs Aristeguinoticias.com, a news and analysis site. In 2012 she was named a Chevalier of the French Legion of Honour in recognition of her "struggle for freedom of expression, and her commitment to the defense of those who often have no voice in the media, as well as her work for democracy and rule of law in Mexico”, in 2016 she was chosen as one of BBC's 100 Women, and in 2017 as one of 50 “World’s greatest leaders” by Fortune magazine. She has received many awards for her work, among them the National Award for Journalism (five times), the Gabriel García Márquez Prize, the PEN Mexico Prize and, recently, the 2017 Casa Amèrica Catalunya Prize for the Freedom of Expression in Latin America, which she received, to a full house, at Barcelona City Hall on July 19 - a prize extended, though her, to all the journalists in Mexico, "a high-risk country for our profession", as she herself has said.
Indeed: in 2017, Mexican journalists Miroslava Breach, Ricardo Monluí, Cecilio Pineda, Maximino Rodríguez, Filiberto Álvarez and Javier Valdez have been assassinated in the states of Guerrero, Veracruz, Chihuahua, Baja California Sur and Sinaloa; and from 2000 to 2016, 105 journalists lost their lives violently in Mexico according to data from the Special Prosecutor's Office for Crimes committed against Freedom of Expression.
