March 10, 2023

Americano Media, which launched last year, “is embarking on an aggressive expansion plan to shape center-right Hispanic opinion” for the 2024 presidential race, Politico reported in January. CEO and founder Ivan Garcia-Hidalgo, a 2020 Trump-campaign surrogate was quoted as saying the network “intends to be” a “Fox News in Spanish.”

Now, there’s a big deal with iHeart Radio. It has “agreed to carry Americano’s content on AM stations in Tampa, Orlando and Jacksonville, and stream it digitally on its app,” The Christian Science Monitor reported Wednesday. Americano also has a TV studio in Miami and plans for bureaus in Washington and Las Vegas.

Also like Fox, Americano pretends to be a legitimate news operation: “We are committed to empowering the U.S. Hispanic community through credible and accessible information, frank discussion and unwavering advocacy with focused and entertaining content that aligns with its traditional values,” its mission statement says.

But in real life, not so much. Media Matters did a deep dive into Americano’s content last month – and surprise! It sounds like a network full of Spanish-speaking Tucker Carlson clones:

Since Americano Media’s inception, the network has provided right-wing radio programming for Spanish-speaking audiences with notable hosts who reliably spread misinformation and extremism. This includes right-wing narratives disparaging immigrants, undermining the results of Democratic elections, attacking the LGBTQ community, and spreading conspiracy theories – including the deeply racist Great Replacement theory, which posits that white people and “legacy Americans” are being deliberately replaced through mass migration from non-white countries.

Three of Americano Media’s most notable right-wing pundits are hosts Dania Alexandrino, Freddy Silva, and Jesús Márquez, whose shows consist of grandstanding monologues decrying Democrats and the Biden administration while also sticking close to narratives spun by English language right-wing media. These hosts have consistently peddled anti-LGBTQ, anti-immigrant, anti-choice, and election denial rhetoric to Americano’s growing audience, and are poised to gain influence as the network’s multimillion-dollar expansion project takes effect.

Fortunately, there is also a liberal Spanish media network, Latino Media Network, which owns 18 stations in Florida, New York, Illinois, Arizona, California, Texas, and Nevada.

I hope LMN is up to the challenge.

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