MIAMI — Thousands of dead people and noncitizens voted in the 2020 presidential election. There were more votes cast than registered voters. Black Lives Matter and Antifa infiltrated the deadly storming of the U.S. Capitol. Doctors Without Borders, which closed its COVID-19 treatment center last year after three months because of low use, said it has not decided whether to reopen.
Those are just some of the conspiracy theories compiled in a new media monitoring report published Wednesday revealing the extent to which misinformation pervaded the airwaves of Miami Spanish-language talk radio in the immediate lead-up to, and aftermath of, the Jan. 6 insurrection.
Scrutinizing a week’s worth of early to mid-January prerecorded programming, the report shows how a group of radio hosts across two popular local AM stations, Radio Mambi and Actualidad Radio, mischaracterized the events of Jan. 6 and continued amplifying baseless claims of voter fraud, sometimes with the tacit endorsement of high-ranking guests, including U.S. Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar, R-Fla.
Leaders of the organizations that produced the report — including progressive-leaning advocacy groups Florida Rising and Miami Freedom Project as well as communication firms ProsperoLatino and Latina Comunica — told the Miami Herald that the aim of the media monitoring initiative is to better understand, and expose, how misinformation is disseminated on Spanish-language radio, a key component of an influential misinformation ecosystem targeting Hispanics in South Florida.
“For us, it’s not just monitoring for monitoring’s sake. It’s about capturing and documenting what’s being said to sound the alarm but also hold these outlets accountable,” said Andrea Mercado, co-executive director of Florida Rising, a nonprofit organization that works to increase the voting and political power of minority groups in Florida.
“It’s really important to capture the kind of disinformation that is being spread across media outlets in South Florida.”
The media monitoring study combed through Spanish-language programming that aired between Jan. 6 and Jan. 13. By that time, judges across the country had already unanimously rebuffed scores of claims of voter fraud from President Donald Trump and his allies, for lack of evidence. In November, the top federal agencies in charge of election security had issued a joint statement describing that month’s election as “the most secure in American history.” But the drumbeat of fraud allegations carried on in the radio programs analyzed by the study.
In the afternoon show he co-hosts on Actualidad Radio, Miami’s most popular AM radio station, Agustin Acosta unspooled a number of false statements when he said that “thousands of dead people voted, thousands of people in jail voted, thousands of people who were not U.S. citizens voted ... I believe that in one of those states, Nevada or Arizona, 42,000 people voted more than one time.”
Acosta also declared Joe Biden’s mounting lead as mail-in ballots were gradually counted “a suspicious case” and said that election observers were removed from counting rooms — a claim without basis in fact.
The media monitoring study, which contains links to the audio clips it makes reference to, chronicles how claims of voter fraud were also routinely entertained on Radio Mambi. The misinformation sometimes came from high-ranking officials.
On occasion, the misinformation came from high-ranking officials. On Jan. 11, while appearing as a guest on Ninoska Pérez’s daily show, Salazar amplified a false claim about the integrity of the vote in one of the election’s most closely contested states: Pennsylvania.
“How is it possible that in Pennsylvania there are 200,000 more votes on Election Day than there were (voters) in the electoral rolls? That’s not possible,” she said.
Salazar seemed to be citing a repeatedly debunked conspiracy theory based on incomplete data (which Trump himself also shared on Twitter).
Fellow Republican Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart also called into question the integrity of Pennsylvania’s election in his own conversation with Pérez. On Jan. 7, he told her that changes made to that state’s election policies were “absolutely unconstitutional” — a line of argument rejected by courts in the past and contested by constitutional law scholars.
Earlier that morning, Diaz-Balart had joined 137 other House Republicans in voting to decertify Pennsylvania’s Electoral College results.
“I have become convinced that the electors in some states were selected in an unconstitutional manner,” Diaz-Balart said in a statement at the time.
Salazar’s office did not respond to a Herald request for comment.
The bulk of the coverage dissected by the Spanish-language media monitoring initiative hinged on the historic events of Jan. 6, when a mob of Trump supporters laid siege to the Capitol. Audio clips show that some hosts’ first instinct was to minimize the scenes unfolding in D.C.
Hours after rioters first breached several layers of barricades on their way to the Capitol — and moments after their irruption inside the building caused lawmakers to evacuate — Acosta, for instance, told his audience that “based on what I’m seeing, there is absolutely no insurrection ... there is not even a disturbance.”
He went on: “There’s an evil attempt to try to link Trump to an insurrectionary movement so that they can, in the coming days, demand his arrest.”
Over the course of the week, hosts across stations raised the specter of Black Lives Matter and Antifa involvement in the Capitol siege — despite the pro-Trump flags and QAnon symbols in the crowd. At times, specific conspiracy theories were brought up: Actualidad Radio hosts Acosta and Carines Moncada and Radio Mambi’s Lourdes D’Kendall all discussed a debunked story from The Washington Times, which claimed that facial recognition software had identified Black Lives Matter activists in the mob.
“I don’t even need a very serious investigation to know that there were people infiltrated” in the riot, said D’Kendall.
Fellow Radio Mambi host Nelson Rubio also made misleading statements about the identity of the rioters.
“There is a lot of information on social media, there’s been videos and photographs coming out that point out that it could be elements from Black Lives Matter and Antifa that participated ... It seems like it was coldly calculated.”
Herald reporters attempted to reach D’Kendall and Pérez directly and left voicemails, but neither immediately responded to requests for comment on the report. A text message to Moncada at Actualidad Radio also went unanswered. Rubio could not be reached for comment Wednesday.
In a text message, Acosta rebuffed the accusation that statements made on his show about the involvement of Black Lives Matter activists on the Capitol attack were false. He pointed to a Washington Post story from Jan. 16 that mentioned the arrest of “Activist John,” a man who had been previously involved with Black Lives Matter Utah but has since been condemned by local activists, according to the report.
Acosta added that the report is proof that there is at least some evidence to back up his statements and saying otherwise could affect his reputation as a 43-year veteran on Miami radio, and the “harm could be big, irreparable and dangerous.”
Regarding the report on disinformation, Acosta added: “I’m not interested in wasting my time with you all.”
Spokespeople for Univision, which owns Radio Mambi, did not return requests for comment Wednesday afternoon. A spokesperson from Actualidad Radio did not respond to requests for comment either.
Even more common, the study shows, was rhetoric arguing that the violence in D.C. paled in comparison to the unrest around Black Lives Matter protests last summer (D’Kendall: “For months, Black Lives Matter and Antifa took to the streets and did whatever they wanted, destroyed all the private property they wanted. And they allowed it. They described them as peaceful protesters ... That’s a very tough pill to swallow.”)
Experts have called such comparisons “false equivalencies.”
On many occasions, the study shows, the misinformation shared on Spanish-language radio programs came from listeners, who were often able to call in with baseless claims that were not fact-checked by the hosts. Over the course of the week, for instance, many called into Radio Mambi’s morning show to assert that the insurrection was the work of Antifa, or part of a Democratic agenda.
The hosts failed to correct the record, and thanked listeners for their call.
Concluding the media monitoring report is a list of recommendations for outlets to follow to curb the spread of misinformation. It includes suggestions to diversify and explicitly cite sources on-air, among others.
But according to Jose Parra, founder of the consultancy ProsperoLatino and a past adviser to Democratic Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada, “basic fact-checking” would singlehandedly go a long way toward making the information disseminated on the radio more dependable.
“We are talking about a completely different, parallel universe where up is down and down is up ... If hosts were required to verify facts before saying something on air, that would be a huge win.”
In Parra’s view, showing a greater adherence to the truth would be a service to Spanish-language radio audiences.
“It’s all about truth-telling. Let me make this clear. Everybody’s entitled to their opinion. We are not looking to switch points of views on the airwaves. What we are looking for is a facts-grounded reality,” he said. “It’s not about subtracting information from the airwaves. It’s about adding more. When you verify facts and you provide context to comments or statements that are made, that’s where you are providing a service to the community.”
