MRC Latino Whines That Spanish-Language Disinfo Is Being Called Out, Soros Money Helping Buy Radio Stations

We’ve noted how the Media Research Center’s MRC Latino project joined its parent’s war on George Soros by whining about non-right-wing owners with a tangental link to Soros are buying several Spanish-language radio stations in Florida and elsewhere — many of which are right-wing, pro-Trump peddlers of misinformation. As the deal moved closer to completion, the freakout continued — coupled with whining about how that misinformation was being called out. Jorge Bonilla huffed in a Nov. 6 post:

You can tell we’re at the tail end of another election cycle where the GOP is doing well with Hispanics, because as a recent report from CBS Mornings shows, the media have gone back to their favorite trope: “Spanish-language disinformation”. 

OK, maybe “interesting” isn’t exactly the right word. “Weird”, perhaps, is a more accurate descriptor for correspondent Enrique Acevedo’s report that aired on CBS Mornings and throughout the rest of CBS’ footprint.

Watch the hosts’ exchange at the end of this strange report on the sale of Radio Mambí and 17 other stations owned by Univision to the Soros-backed Latino Media Network, and feel their sheer panic at the idea that Hispanics would dare obtain information beyond designated approved sources[.] […]

As we noted when the “Radio Soros” transaction was first announced, the deal was a panic move aimed at shoring up lost narrative control over Hispanics. We’ve reported on the decreasing trust in Spanish-language media, and on data that shows that corporate Spanish-language media are the biggest disseminators of Spanish-language disinformation.

Actually, Bonilla’s freakout over the sale shows he’s the one who’s panicking, and that “data that shows that corporate Spanish-language media are the biggest disseminators of Spanish-language disinformation” he referenced is actually nothing more than a poll conducted by the right-wing Latino group Bienvenido. He went on to whine:

In its one-sidedness, the report makes no note of the reasons why Hispanics are abandoning their designated media gatekeepers- only that they must be doing so due to “disinformation”.

Acevedo positions Radio Mambí as a boogeyman, but fails to mention that the station’s top talent left the station rather than work for a Soros-backed outlet, and landed at conservative Americano Media. So Radio Mambí as we knew it is essentially dead.

Given that Radio Mambi was filled with disinformation, that’s not the bad thing Bonilla wants you to think it is, and perhaps those hosts quit to avoid being held accountable for their lies. Despite all that, Bonilla thought his post to be so important that it was translated into Spanish.

In a Nov. 13 post (also translated into Spanish), Bonilla complained that it was “obnoxious and bigoted” for former White House press secretary Jen Psaki to point out the “massive disinformation problem in Spanish language media” that fed a narrative of Hispanics shifting rightward that was dispelled by the results of the midterm elections, going on to huff:

This talking point was echoed half an hour later by Latino Media Network (“Radio Soros”) board member, former Univision anchor and current ABC contributor María Elena Salinas, who tried to reassure liberals by saying that the GOP’s Hispanic vote blowout in Florida is “not indicative of the national Latino vote. Florida is a very small fraction of the Latino vote on a national level, so, we have to be careful not to read too much into this. This is just Florida.”

The right-wing narrative is totally real, Bonilla insisted, actual election results notwithstanding:

No one said that the ongoing Hispanic shift to the right would happen in one or two cycles. The shift is rooted in things that have been happening over the course of several decades, separate from the current issue arrays. The effort to conflate the shift to the stillborn red wave is intended to be disinformation and suppressive.

Going forward, expect further attempted tamping down of the Hispanic shift, and expect a renewed interest in “Spanish-language disinformation” as a means to prevent conservatives from entering communications spaces in some of these hotly contested states throughout the Southwest- which is all the proof you need that the very thing the left says isn’t happening is, in fact, very real.

When the radio deal was cleared by federal officials, Bonilla went into another freakout in a Nov. 22 post (again, translated into Spanish):

As expected, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has cleared the way for the Soros-backed Latino Media Network’s (LMN) purchase of 18 Televisa Univision radio stations, among them Miami’s Radio Mambí. 

[…]

There was nominal opposition to the deal, which the FCC promptly shot down. That is, in part, because the best time to kill this deal was in 2017- when the incoming Republican Congress had the power to do so under the Congressional Review Act. Recall that it was under cover of the Obama-Trump transition that the FCC approved a sweeping rule change that enabled Univision to increase its foreign ownership stake from 25 to 49 percent.

The Republican Congress — caught sleeping — failed to review and repeal the rule when it had a chance. This, in turn, created the precedent that eventually allowed Univision to become a wholly owned subsidiary of Televisa. The result of Congress’ inaction is that a foreign-owned corporation is now in the position, by virtue of this sale of significant assets to a domestic partisan group, of exerting undue influence upon our elections.

You mean all those partisan right-wing disinformers in right-wing Hispanic radio weren’t exerting undue influence upon our elections?Only liberals are capable of “exerting undue influence,” apparently. Bonilla’s whinefest continued:

With the last significant roadblock removed, the Soros-backed Latino Media Network can finalize its purchase of the Univision stations, neuter or kill anti-communist bastion Radio Mambí, and attempt to exert influence upon the 2024 election across the nation’s top Hispanic markets, which include such places as the Rio Grande Valley (McAllen, TX) and Las Vegas.  

The establishment of “Radio Soros” as a trusted purveyor of information is critical to the next stage of The Great Spanish-Language Disinformation War we’ve seen unfold over the past few years. As conservative alternatives finally emerge, it remains to be seen whether *this* venture will be successful.

Bonilla ignores the fact that those right-wing disinfo-pumping stations were found not to be trusted purveyors of information — portraying Radio Mambi as “anti-communist” doesn’t give it exemption from facts.

Bonilla continued whining in a Nov. 26 post (yes, it’s also in Spanish) complaining that PolitiFact is hiring a Spanish-language fact-checker:

The hunt for “Spanish-language disinformation” is proving to be America’s fastest-growing grift: so much so that Politifact is now itching to get into the game.

We have a pretty good notion of what a Spanish-language Politifact is going to look like, thanks to a recent MRC study showing that Politifact is 6 times more likely to defend Joe Bidenthan it is to fact-check him.

[…]

A core element of Politifact’s foray into Spanish-language fact-checking is the belief that Hispanics are unable to discern between fact and fiction without proper assistance from institutions designated by the enlightened elite as approved purveyors of information to the heretofore underserved community. 

In reality, these moves are about power and control- and are no different from the reincarnation of the failed Univision America talk radio network as “Radio Soros”. Hispanics continue to move away from the left and its institutions, including Spanish-language news media. The left scrambles to hold a restive cohort in line via the buttressing of failed institutions and the creation of new ones. Thus “Politifact En Español” seeks to join Univision, Telemundo, and every other Tom, Dick, and José in an already-crowded “Spanish-language disinformation” market. 

If calling out Spanish-language disinformation is a “grift,” then defending that disinformation as Bonilla does has to be one too. But grifters won’t tell you about the grift — they simply accuse others of what they’re doing.