CALÓ News and LATV inaugurate ‘Stop the DIS(information)’ with Adam Schiff town hall

CALÓ News, along with LATV (Latino Alternative Television) and comedian/actor Al Madrigal, have inaugurated their year long campaign known as “Stop the Dis(Information)," which aims to combat the widespread dissemination of disinformation, hoaxes and “fake news” that in recent years have cycled through the Latino community. The campaign looks to generate high-quality content that will enhance digital media  literacy, focused in time for the 2024 general election.

Last Friday, February 2, the campaign was officially kicked off at a town hall special featuring U.S. Congressman Adam Schiff, where the 2024 Senator-candidate talked about the importance of standing against disinformation and other Latino-related issues. The pre-recorded town hall will air on February 14 on LATV at 3 p.m. PT. and will stream on CALONews.com

“There is tremendous disinformation out there, and even beyond disinformation, there's often such biased information,” Schiff said at last week's town hall. “I also think we're going to have to teach young people to be better consumers of information and to be able to discern what's true and not true.” 

The “Stop the DIS(information)” campaign is looking to promote civic engagement with the media, which Schiff said is needed to be able to discern fake news. It will be the first campaign between Latino-owned media companies, where both LATV and CALÓ News will partner to generate multimedia segments, events, and specials to inform Latinos on recognizing and countering disinformation in different media..

A poll published by the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies in November 2023 found that in the state of California, there are "extremely high levels of concern" among voters across political parties and different racial, gender and age groups that disinformation on social media is threatening democracy. 

According to the poll, more than four in five state voters are "concerned about the dangers that disinformation, deep fakes and artificial intelligence" pose in this year’s elections.

In addition, the poll also concluded that 78% of voters agree that the platforms "are contributing to a worsening of our political discourse by not properly identifying obvious mistruths and disinformation in user posts and political advertisements." Nearly three out of every four voters believe that the state government must take action.

Friday’s town hall, which was recorded at LATV studios in Culver City and moderated by Madrigal and Tsi-Tsi-Ki Félix, an Emmy-Award-winning television journalist, radio host, and news anchor, will serve as an example of the type of events and journalism that will come out of the campaign moving forward. 

Martin Albornoz, GM of CALÓ News said, “CALÓ News reporters along with a team of journalists from USC/Annenberg are researching and documenting cases of disinformation targeting our communities. We will report on ways to identify and combat the kind of content that negatively influenced the Latinx community during the pandemic, as well as the last election cycles. We want to give our audience the tools to combat this new form of propaganda.”

In addition to the topic of disinformation, Congressman Schiff, who represents California's 30th Congressional District, was also able to speak about issues that are important for Latinos, such as immigration reform and the U.S. and California’s economies, among other things. 

Schiff, who is in the U.S. Senate race with high-profile candidates like Reps. Barbara Lee, Katie Porter and former Los Angeles Dodger Steve Garvey, said if elected, he would be excited to work with Alex Padilla towards  "comprehensive immigration reform.”

“Expanding detention centers and shutting down the border is not something that I think a lot of Latino voters would get behind at all. We had that during the Trump administration, and it didn't work. We want to have an immigration policy that is consistent with our values,” he said.

Bruno Seros-Ulloa, president of LATV, said LATV is proud to partner with CALÓ News on the “Stop the Dis” campaign. “Our audience is the change-maker generation,” said Seros-Ulloa. “This is part of our commitment to being an alternative voice for Latinos, and “Stop the Dis’ allows us to present the issues in our language and style.”

To stay informed and see the content created through the “Stop the Dis” campaign follow the CALÓ News site and the LATV streaming app.