Al Gore's 7 Simple Rules For Blocking Media Access

Al Gore went to great lengths to avoid the press when he traveled to Mexico to give a speech last week—so much so that journalists trying to cover the event were given a memo with 7 commandments drafted—reporters were told—by Gore's representatives to block the media from getting anywhere near the lecture.

The speech took place in the state of Mexico's capital city of Toluca, where Gore was invited by state Governor Enrique Peña Nieto, a main contender in Mexico's 2012 presidential elections and a member of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI in Spanish initials), which until 2000 had ruled the country for 7 decades.

The Narco News Team was in the press room in Toluca, and obtained the memo, which was originally written in Spanish and included in press packets given to journalists trying to cover the event.

In English, the press advisory states:

In response to the policies established by Mr. Al Gore's office for the given conference, it is reported that:

• Those who carry press or photojournalist badges will not have access to the forum or alternative venues.
• Only the first five minutes of the keynote address will be transmited to the press room.
• There won't be any transmission of the address through any media after the first 5 minutes, neither live or in recorded form, by radio, TV or through the Internet.
• There will not be a transcribed version of this address, save for the first 5 minutes of it.
• There will be no interviews or press conferences with Mr. Gore.
• The Coordinating General of Public Relations with the Mexican State Government will make  photographs of Mr. Gore's appearance in the state of Mexico available to the press on the website www.edomex.gob.mx.
• The Coordinating General of Public Relations with the Mexican State Government will make audio and video copies of the first five minutes of the keynote address available to the press.

We appreciate your understanding of these rules.

Gore should be worried about questions—and not for reasons relating to massage therapy. He was paid to speak in Toluca by private sponsors, but state officials refuse to say how much he was paid and by whom. Then there's Peña Nieto, who in 2006 used his state police to viciously rape dozens of women and kill residents in the town of San Salvador Atenco. Gore failed to acknowledge those inconvenient truths during the first five minutes of his speech, when he praised Peña Nieto, saying, “I admire your leadership.”