Photo: Google

By KELIN DILLON

Following social media platform YouTube’s removal of Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s (AMLO) Feb. 22 press conference from its site due to its public reveal of New York Times journalist Natalie Kitroeff’s personal phone number, López Obrador doubled down on his attacks against the NYT during his daily morning press conference on Monday, Feb. 26.

López Obrador originally broadcast the letter the journalist sent to Jesús Ramírez Cueva questioning purported financing made by Mexico’s cartels to AMLO’s 2018 presidential campaign to show the “ultimatum” issued to his administration by Kitroeff and the NYT.

Though YouTube reportedly told the federal executive he could re-upload the Feb. 22 press conference so long as he removed the portion exposing Kitroeff’s information, AMLO refused the platform’s conditions.

“When I found out I respectfully said ‘no, no’ because I’m going to put back the letter Kitroeff sent to Jesús so you can see the tone, the manner and then the report they did,” said AMLO at the time. “They questioned without any evidence, but with a poisoned dart,” 

Despite being warned against posting Kitroeff’s data to the public again, AMLO once again broadcast the documents showing the journalist’s phone number – albeit with the actual digits redacted – during Monday’s conference, saying that “the truth will set us free.”

López Obrador went on to say that he was not the first to post Kitroeff’s number, claiming that the journalist’s data was already public information.

“It is nothing more than to have a context of how they act with arrogance, first, nothing more than that they did not take it into account, the journalist colleague is doing public work, journalism is a public activity like politics, and we all have to act with transparency,” said the federal executive.

AMLO likewise alleged that YouTube collaborated with Mexico’s conservative political party coalition in the takedown of the Feb. 22 conference’s video and subsequently requested an investigation by the company into its removal.

Finally, López Obrador concluded his talk on the matter with an attack on the NYT, accusing the publication of slander and questioning the paper’s stance on public information disclosure during its coverage of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.