Abstract
There was something faintly surreal about sitting in my home in Mexico City in June 2012 and watching the anchor of the main nightly news show on Milenio TV tear into my credibility. “The Guardian has no source!” he said. I remember him repeating the phrase, perhaps even banging a hand on the table. The veteran broadcaster was channelling this righteous defense of journalistic standards against stories I had written about deals promising politicians friendly exposure from the media giant Televisa. The stories were based on digital documents obtained from a credible source and dating from 2005. The political fortunes of most of the politicians involved had since faded, but one of them — Enrique Peña Nieto — looked set to win the following month’s presidential election after years of positive coverage on Televisa’s networks.