Mexican president performs joke on media, bluffs over ending press conferences

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador on Monday performed a trick on the media, pretending he was going to finish the day by day information conferences that he has used to pillory critics and dominate the nationwide information cycle.Taking benefit of Dec. 28, Day of the Holy Innocents, a celebration related to sensible jokes in Mexico, Lopez Obrador opened his information briefing by saying he would in future maintain just one convention per week, at noon on Wednesdays.Adopting a line in stark distinction to what he usually argues, Lopez Obrador mentioned with a straight face he had made the choice as a result of the standard of public data was enhancing.“The majority of the news media in the country are carrying out their duty professionally, there is accurate, real news, the media are objective,” he mentioned.However, round 40 minutes later he returned to a well-recognized chorus, referring to “conservative” media as “hypocrites” – then famous with a smile that he would, in actual fact, proceed to carry his morning information conferences as his proper to answer.“Do you really think we’re not going to have the morning conferences? All the subsidized conservative press would be rubbing its hands,” he mentioned, including that a lot of the conventional print and broadcast media within the nation have been in opposition to him.On social media, skepticism had greeted the president’s announcement that he was severe about ending the conferences.Before he admitted it was a joke, lots of Mexico’s fundamental newspapers didn’t carry a narrative on the entrance of their web sites about what would have been a serious change in coverage.Since taking workplace two years in the past, Lopez Obrador has used the conferences, which start at 7 a.m. and might final over two hours, to set the political agenda and take critics to activity.