Tonight, the journalist Lourdes Mendoza presents her book “Con la Frente en Alto”. Testimony against acts of corruption by Emilio Lozoya Austin, former director of Pemex during the government of Enrique Peña Nieto and defamation of the author.
With her peculiar “light” style of writing, as she herself describes it, but without sacrificing one iota of truth and facts, Lourdes, with 25 years of practicing journalism, recounts how her evolution has been in that profession, where she began as a social chronicler, learning and researching from the great pens of this genre, such as Agustín Barrios Gómez or the Duke of Otranto and other publications of the time, which were “a revelation” for her.
Thanks to this, she became intuitive and learned to investigate, journalistically speaking. Yet she left the world casabolsero and she resumed her interest in economics and finance, which naturally led her to also deal with political issues.
One of his recurring themes has been Pemex, and, getting into the recesses of power and society, he began to learn, develop and document how Emilio Lozoya gradually became the icon of corruption during the six-year term of Enrique Peña Nieto.
The book reveals the networks of corruption, the abuses of power, the careless management of Pemex’s resources, which she recorded in her columns in the newspaper. The financial, where many of his deliveries have been a trend and obtained high reading rates on multiple occasions.
She says that she cannot explain why, among the dozens of people that Lozoya denounced, the only woman that he pointed out was her. Perhaps in what was said in the previous paragraph is the answer. Lourdes never stopped exhibiting the abuses and cochupos of the former director of Pemex.
Since then, Lourdes and her little daughter have suffered hell, living in fear and restlessness. But she did not give up, with dignity she defended her quality as a journalist, as a woman and as a mother, and she faced power and the powerful.
In the book you will be able to learn about the hell that this family suffered and the relentless struggle that it led, in the face of threats, discredit and lies, which, instead of intimidating it, made it stronger.
The book also narrates the story, in detail, of the famous photo of Lozoya having dinner at the Hunan restaurant in Mexico City, where he was caught red-handed, violating his home ties, a photo that appeared on the front page of the main newspapers. and catapulted the subject and the journalist to another dimension.
I don’t want to be a spoilers, so I better invite you to open the pages of “With the Head Up”, a testimony of struggle and perseverance, and a sample of the value of journalism, in its double meaning: courage and appreciation. Congratulations Lourdes Mendoza.