During his daily televised briefing on the morning of February 22, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, commonly known as AMLO, read aloud the phone number of a New York Times journalist. It was after the outlet published a story -- citing U.S. records and three unnamed officials -- that the U.S. had previously investigated whether people close to the president had taken money from drug cartels.
Mexico's freedom of information institute immediately opened an investigation into the president's conduct, and, a few days later, journalists and academics published an open letter calling on government officials to exercise their right of reply without putting journalists in danger.
