UC author exposes Mexico's media 'tiger' tycoon

Kristyn Comino

29 May 2014: Few people can say they have written a best-selling autobiography, let alone one that’s written in Spanish and been re-launched 13 years later. But this is the case for University of Canberra research communications officer Claudia Doman (nee Fernández), who travelled to Mexico last year to
re-launch her book El Tigre, or ‘the tiger’, about Mexican media mogul Emilio Azcárraga Milmo.

“Azcárraga was the Latin American equivalent of Rupert Murdoch. He was a larger-than-life entrepreneur whose company still has a large control over Mexican media—TV in particular and entertainment in general,” Mrs Doman, originally from Mexico, said.

“He wined and dined with presidents, senior officials, businessmen and bishops and had four wives and many mistresses including a former Miss Mexico, so it was a story that just had to be told.”

Claudia Doman has re-launched her book on Mexican media mogul Emilio Azcárraga Milmo - who was known as  ‘the tiger’. Photo: Michelle McAulay

Mrs Doman said the now late Mr Azcárraga was, at one point, the richest man in Latin America, having founded the giant conglomerate Grupo Televisa – the world's largest Spanish-language broadcaster and magazine publisher – earning his tiger nickname for “both his personality and his tiger-striped hair”.

The unauthorised biography of his life was co-written with British author Andrew Paxman and has sold over 70,000 copies since first released in 2000.

Mr Azcárraga passed away of cancer in 1997, but Mrs Doman said his son Emilio Azcárraga Jean continues to “run the empire”, and the latest edition includes a new preface on his son’s impact.

Having travelled home to Mexico City for the re-launch of the book last August, Mrs Doman had a “whirlwind schedule” of 40 media interviews in just a week, including for television network CNN and the Spanish edition of Rolling Stone magazine.

Mrs Doman has a master’s degree in international journalism from the University of Southern California. She worked as a business reporter for the Mexican daily newspaper El Financiero and as an investigative reporter for both El Financiero and El Universal newspapers and has had her work published in a variety of US papers and magazines. She was a founding member of the Mexican branch of Investigative Reporters & Editors and of Mexico's Society of Journalists.

Mrs Doman has lived in Canberra for over a decade with her Australian husband and two children.  She was nominated for a Vice-Chancellor’s Excellence Award in 2013 for her promotion of the University of Canberra’s research.

The book El Tigre can be purchased online (please note it is written in Spanish), or you can read an English summary here.

Read more about Mrs Doman's book in the latest Monitor magazine, which is available in hard copy around campus or to view online.