Comparative Populist Communication: AMLO and GustavoPetro in Their Relationship with the Media

Abstract

Raul Cort´es, holding a degree in Journalism from the Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, has built a robust two-decade career as a correspondent and media executive across Latin America, serving as director of the EFE News Agency in Bolivia, Uruguay, and Mexico, while currently contributing to Reuters and teaching at the Escuela de Periodismo Carlos Septién García (Cortés, 2022). This extensive fieldwork experience, combined with his deep understanding of regional media dynamics, grants him the authority to analyze, in his work “El choque inevitable”, the complex and fraught relationship between political power and the press under the administration of Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO). The text goes beyond a mere chronicle of clashes; instead, it advances a central thesis: the confrontation with the media is not a circumstantial accident, but rather the cornerstone of a governance strategy built on deliberate polarization, control of the media agenda, and the reshaping of public truth.