New Delhi: Mexican investigative journalist Carmen Aristegui has been named recipient of 2023 World Press Freedom Hero award.The award, given by the International Press Institute (IPI) and International Media Support (IMS), honours journalists who have made significant contributions to the promotion of press freedom, particularly in the face of great personal risk.Aristegui has led several investigations into the functionings of successive Mexican government over decades, unveiling layers of corruption. The award notes her resilience and commitment to work in spite of targeted efforts to silence her.Among the range of abuses Aristegui and her family have been subjected to are public smear campaigns and politically motivated firings, the two awarding institutes note in a press release.The release notes how in 2015, Aristegui was fired from the radio broadcaster MVS shortly after she and her team reported on a dubious real-estate deal by the wife of then-President Enrique Peña Nieto and after she helped launch MexicoLeaks, a Wikileaks-style platform designed to help expose corruption.Aristegui and members of her family were also targeted with the military grade spyware Pegasus as early as 2015, in one of the first known uses of the powerful spyware against journalists. The surveillance also targeted her then 16-year-old son Emilio as well as two colleagues. Her sister, a producer, and a former assistant were also believed to have been targeted. The Wire was part of an international consortium of news outlets led by Forbidden Stories that unveiled the large scale use of Pegasus by purported state actors against dissidents and journalists, in 2021.Aristegui’s fortitude has also inspired a generation of women journalists in Mexico’s male-dominated media industry.“In a country where polarized political discourse and misinformation are on the rise, and where a journalist or media outlet is attacked every 13 hours, independent journalism, such as the kind that Aristegui practises and represents, is not only necessary but also a key element of democracy,” the IPI and IMS note.Aristegui continues to broadcast on ‘CNN en Español’ and on Aristegui Noticias, a site she founded and where she continues to produce hard-hitting investigative coverage on Mexico’s governing elite.Aristegui was selected by a jury comprising the IPI, the IMS, The Wire‘s founding editor Siddharth Varadarajan, Iryna Vidanava, co-founder and CEO of CityDog.io, a leading independent online media in Belarus, and José Zamora, chief communications and impact officer, Exile Content, and the son of imprisoned IPI-IMS World Press Freedom Hero José Rubén Zamora.The Wire had received the 2021 Free Media Pioneer Award given by the IPI-IMS.