Lourdes Maldonado served up Tijuana news with a unique and irreverent style

Lourdes Maldonado arrived in Tijuana in the early 1990s as a journalist in her 30s. But she was no beginner. Her career as a news anchor, reporter, correspondent, and content producer had begun years before.

She first worked for media companies in the ‘70s in Cancun and Yucatán, even before studying at the Carlos Septién García School of Journalism in Mexico City. In 1988, she was part of a team of news correspondents at ECO, a Mexican television channel aimed at Spanish-speaking audiences owned by Televisa that covered stories across Mexico, Latin America, the United States, southern Canada, North Africa and Europe.

Maldonado carved out a role in ECO, even being sent to Russia and Germany to report on the fall of the Berlin Wall, recalled her niece, Renne Maldonado. “She would not stop. From morning till nightfall... Journalism was her passion,” she said.

A photograph of Maldonado next to her casket at the Gayoso Funeral home in Zona Rio in Tijuana.

(Alejandro Tamayo / The San Diego Union-Tribune)

Maldonado was born in the city of Gómez Palacio, in the northwestern state of Durango. She was three weeks from her 67th birthday when a bullet took her life on Jan. 23. Maldonado had just driven home and was sitting in her car outside her house in a southeast neighborhood of Tijuana when she was attacked. So far, there have been no arrests in connection with her murder.

“My sister had a lot of guts. She did her job the way she was: strong,” said her brother, Carlos Maldonado, a longtime restaurateur in Tijuana, now retired.

Maldonado found her way to Tijuana, too, on assignments and once told an interviewer that she found the people in the then-small town friendly. That helped her make the decision to leave Mexico City in the 1990s, joining a group of young reporters at Notivisa on channel 12, Tijuana’s Televisa local news program.

Maldonado was assigned to local and political coverage in Tijuana. She started closing her TV segments with a special tone in pronouncing her name, emphasizing the o and the e sound at Lourdes. At 5’8”, with a round face and curly hair, she was easy to recognize among the local reporting corps.

A photo of Lourdes Maldonado held by one of the participants at a protest against the murders of two journalists, Maldonado and Margarito Martinez, in front of the federal prosecutors building in Tijuana.

(GUILLERMO ARIAS / AFP via Getty Images)

At the time, Gerardo “Chacho” Reyes was a cameraman in Televisa Tijuana. He said that Maldonado’s style was imprinted in her sign-off, but also in the way she presented the news.

“She was very insightful. She would look for the story, researched it, ask questions, and followed it,” he said.

Odilón García, Maldonado’s long-time friend and co-worker at Notivisa Tijuana, rattled off the long list of media companies where she was employed: Televisa, Eco, Notivisa Tijuana, Radio Centro, 1420 AM, PSN, channel 73 (in Rosarito), and most recently at the social media channel Sintoniza sin Fronteras (Tune In Without Borders). She wrote for Mexican newspapers such as Semanario Séptimo Día de las Californias, La Prensa, El Sol de Tijuana y Esto. On her most recent project, she was producing a three-times-a-week, one-hour news show called “Brebaje” (Potion).

“Luby (Maldonado’s nickname) never got married, she never had children,” said her friend and colleague, Rocío Galván. “She was irreverent, her personality was like that, and I learned to love and respect her like that.”

Renee Maldonado shows a photo of her aunt, Lourdes Maldonado, who was shot and killed on Jan. 23, at a funeral home during her wake in Tijuana.

(Marco Ugarte / Associated Press)

Lourdes asked questions in a loud tone that seemed to give voice to the injustices she witnessed and reported. She was not afraid to shout a curse word or to call out government officials’ failures.

That bluntness was on display in March 2019, when Maldonado went to the press conference held every morning by Mexican president Andrés Manuel López Obrador and claimed that she was fearful for her life after receiving threats and had sought government protection. “I come here to ask for your support, help, and labor justice because I even fear for my life,” she told López Obrador.

Two days after she attended a vigil for slain photojournalist Margarito Martínez Esquivel, Maldonado was herself shot dead, making her the third journalist killed in Mexico in 2022. Reporter José Luis Gamboa was found stabbed to death in Veracruz earlier this month. There have been 148 reporters killed in Mexico since 2000, according to human rights group Article 19.

On Thursday, Maldonado was buried at the Monte de los Olivos cemetery in the South East area of the city she had come to call home.

Besides her craft, Maldonado had a profound love for animals, especially cats. Four of her five cats were taken to her funeral and burial service. Her dog would be adopted by one of her nieces in Arizona.