María del Carmen Aristegui Flores (; born January 18, 1964) is a Mexican journalist and anchorwoman. She is widely regarded as one of Mexico's leading journalists and opinion leaders, and is best known for her critical investigations of the Mexican government. She is the anchor of the news program Aristegui on CNN en Español, and writes regularly for the opinion section of the periodical Reforma. In March 2015, she was illegally fired from MVS Radio 102.5 FM in Mexico City following a report on the conflict of interests by then Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto, with a state contractor who would have built a millionaire residence for the mandatory and his family. She manages her own news website and hosts an online morning newscast, which is also broadcast on Grupo Radio Centro's XERC-FM. Early life Aristegui was born on 18 January 1964 in Mexico City, the fifth of seven children. Her father was a Basque Spaniard who had come to Mexico as a child as a refugee from the Spanish Civil War and her mother was of Spanish and French heritage. She has said that it was because of that family background that she has dedicated her life to journalism. Aristegui grew up in the Colonia Álamos, a neighborhood in the Benito Juárez division in the south-central part of the Federal District. She attended elementary school at the Escuela Primaria Estado De Chiapas, and attended secondary school at Club de Leones de la Ciudad de México. Her first job, at age 17, was with an accounting firm, Ayala and Associates. She attended the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), where she first studied Sociology and then switched to Communication Sciences. Television She began her television career on Channel 13, then Imevisión (currently TV Azteca) as an assistant on the financial-news program Monitor Financiero, hosted by Efrén Flores. Later she was on Imevisión's team of journalists. According to a profile in Quien, Aristegui's "communication skills and her tenacity at work ensured that she came to be part of the team of news readers and reporters on the more than fifteen daily news programs broadcast by Imevisión on its five or six channels. Before long, she and Javier Solórzano ranked as the cornerstones of the 7 AM news broadcast on channel 13." She worked on the program En Blanco y Negro alongside Javier Solórzano, broadcast by MVS, and in 2001 was also