This is a partial translation of a piece by Jenaro Villamil, which explains the ongoing controversy around presidential interference with journalism in Mexico. You can read the original in Spanish here.

After two yeas as the head of the news program First Edition (Primera Edición), from 6 to 10 in the morning on MVS radio, broadcaster Carmen Aristegui was abruptly suspended, with the justification that she had “transgressed the ethical code of the MVS by presenting rumours as news,” according to the spot aired by the company.

Internal information from MVS reveal that the reasons for her dismissal were related to pressures from the Presidency, which expressed their discontent with the question the broadcaster raised on Wedensday February 4^th at 9am: “Does or doesn’t Felipe Calderón have a drinking problem?”

During the program, Aristegui informed her listeners about a banner dropped on Thursday February 3^rd in the Chamber of Congress that referred to the President’s issues with alcohol. The broadcaster exhorted that the President’s office itself should respond in “a serious way” to the kinds of rumours that were being spread on social networks and inside the Chamber of Congress.

The firing of Aristegui was, it seems, a way of responding to the President’s office. The broadcaster refused to read a public apology, whose text was formulated in more response to pressure from the Presidency (Los Pinos) than to reasons relating to the ethical code.

It’s worth noting that the ethical code which the company alludes to was created in part by Aristequi when she joined MVS, after one year of being forced off the air because of another case of censorship, this time with the company WRadio, which is part of Televisa.

Aristegui’s program led commercial radio ratings in both morning shows that she was part of.