Lilly Téllez

María Lilly del Carmen Téllez García (born 14 November 1967), professionally known as Lilly Téllez, is a Mexican politician and journalist. She has served as a senator from Sonora since 2018, initially representing Morena before joining the National Action Party in 2020. She previously worked as a journalist for television broadcaster TV Azteca.

Career

As a journalist

Téllez was born in Hermosillo but spent her childhood in Ensenada, Baja California. From 1984 to 1994, she worked at Canal 6 in Hermosillo, where she received the State Journalism Award in 1992. In 1994, she was hired to host the morning edition of TV Azteca's main news program, Hechos, and to be an investigative journalist. In 1999, she became a full-time investigative journalist.

On June 22, 2000, her car was shot by a group of unknown men, but she was unharmed. She attributed this attack to a recent airing of an investigation related to the Arellano Félix family of drug dealers; the case was closed with no suspects found. In 2005, she began a new investigative program for Azteca Trece, Mitos y Hechos (Myths and Facts), broadcast twice a month. The program came to an end when TV Azteca, evidently ceding to government pressure, did not air the third part of a report on the sale of Grupo Financiero Banamex to Citigroup and the controversy surrounding the winding down of the Fobaproa bank contingency fund.

In 2007, Téllez received the Premio Antena award from the National Chamber of the Radio and Television Industry (CIRT) for her broadcasting career. In 2010, she debuted the program Diagnóstico reservado (Diagnosis Reserved) on Proyecto 40. Téllez later left TV Azteca to write columns and make video content for the digital news site SDP Noticias.