One of Mexico’s most respected journalists has become embroiled in a bitter feud with a controversial Televisa daytime presenter over the apparent misuse of government resources as rescue teams assisted victims of tropical storm Manuel in the state of Guerrero.
On her nightly MVS program Carmen Aristegui accused Peruvian-born Lauro Bozzo of dressing up as a rescue worker and utilizing State of Mexico government helicopters for the benefit of her show.
Although Proceso magazine had previously broken the story, Aristegui charged that the helicopters should have been carrying aid to the victims, not Bozzo and her crew, who were being ferried around to film segments for her program.
The claims led to Bozzo becoming a target for abuse on social media amid calls for Televisa to remove her from their programming.
Bozzo, a larger-than-life figure who has seen her fair share of legal controversy in her homeland, fired back denying that she was doing nothing more than providing humanitarian aid to storm victims. “What was my sin?” she asked on Twitter before canceling her account.
Bozzo hosts the popular daytime show “Laura,” a Jerry Springer clone that showcases family strife, with wife beaters, adulterers, drug addicts and hysterical wives placed center stage in front of a booing, hissing audience. Bozzo is both judge and jury, shouting, interrupting and reprimanding her way through the 90-minute show.
The program has been fiercely criticized by many civic groups in Mexico for its lowbrow content. This week, CREAMOS Mexico said the show “forms part of the dynamic that day after day impedes millions of Mexicans from having access to richer content that will allow us to break the chains of intellectual poverty that we suffer from today.”
The current outrage provoked an online petition at Change.org asking for Bozzo to be taken off the air and even deported. The petition garnered 110,000 signatures in less than 24 hours, according to one report.
A trained lawyer and former municipal councilor, Bozzo began her show business career in 1998 with “Laura en America,” a show picked up by Telemundo and broadcast around Latin America. However, the program was cancelled after suspicions surfaced that some of the guests were not authentic and may have been paid actors.
Meanwhile, Bozzo was charged in Peru for a range of offenses, including using her show to discredit opponents of former President Alberto Fujimori, a service for which she was allegedly paid three million dollars. According to several sources, she has been charged in Peru with crimes ranging from conspiracy to influence peddling to appropriation of public funds. For this reason, it is alleged, she cannot return to her home country.
Ratings have never been a problem for Bozzo – one reason why network chiefs are so keen to have her on their schedules, despite the frequent fallout from her polemic content.
Bozzo is unrepentant about her confrontational style, always arguing that she is simply standing up for the rights of the poor and oppressed – and particularly women and children.
Others argue that she exploits the misery of the underclass for high ratings.
Bozzo has reacted with typical indignation and bravado to Aristegui’s “attack,” as she calls it. But the fact that many Mexicans are now publicly baying for her blood should come as no surprise.
“I am loved like crazy or I am hated completely,” she once told the New York Times.
State of Mexico authorities say they are investigating whether Televisa or Bozzo broke any laws during the recent rescue efforts in Guerrero.
“Laura” airs from Monday to Friday, 3 p.m.-4:30 p.m. on Televisa’s Canal 2.