Univision’s most recent investigative report, titled “Magnates de Dios" (God’s Moguls), is the latest in a long standing history of the network's bias against faith-based institutions. Additionally, the series serves to smear a perceived institutional enemy of the network.
Watch as Univision's Ilia Calderón aims to link the investigative report to scandals within the Catholic Church, so as to further inflame Univision’s audience against Evangelical churches:
ILIA CALDERON, NEWS ANCHOR, UNIVISION: Many of the faithful Hispanic evangelicals abandoned the Catholic Church rejecting the sexual abuse scandals, and have gone to new spiritual refuges which, for some, have also turned out to be disappointing.
Calderón’s scandalous framing is just icing on the cake. The report was originally portrayed as a denunciation of alleged excesses within several Evangelical churches throughout the United States and Latin America which purport to teach the “Prosperity Gospel.” But the network gave the game away just before airing its report, with a tweet that revealed the intent to portray the entire Hispanic evangelical community in this negative light:
Esto es #MagnatesdeDios, una investigación especial de @UInvestiga sobre Iglesias evangélicas hispanas.
— Univision Investiga (@UInvestiga) December 3, 2018
Sus escándalos, sus líderes y los testimonios de sus fieles. Consulte aquí historias, videos y documentos. Por @GerardoReyesC y @penileyramirez
https://t.co/jAibgLgEuh
The first question to emerge is, “Why now?”
The simple answer is that the Evangelical church is ascendant throughout Latin America and in Hispanic communities throughout the United States, and its membership is unwilling to either blindly follow Univision's narratives or vote for candidates that support the network’s liberal agenda (beyond immigration). Witness the election of Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil or of Donald Trump in the United States, in both cases with significant Evangelical support.
This isn’t new behavior for Univision’s investigative arm, which kicked off its reign of terror in 2011 by suggesting that U.S. Senator Marco Rubio profited from drug trafficking activity as a teenager. Isaac Lee may be gone from Univision, but his pernicious influence remains so long as his hires and his institutions and methods remain at the network- and Univision Investiga was very much Isaac Lee’s baby.
It is also not surprising that the network which had a very large stake in electing Hillary Clinton to the presidency of the United States would now seek to undermine or depress a source of Republican support for the 2020 election. In fact, the network appears to be singing from the same exact hymnal as Tom Perez, Chairman of the Democratic National Committee, who recently lamented that the party’s message doesn’t penetrate against “the pulpit” when it comes to pro-life voters. This is especially rich coming from a man who, as Obama’s Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights, sought to eliminate churches’ ministerial exemption from employment laws- a move that received a 9-0 rebuke from the United States Supreme Court.
With a report like this, Univision isn’t looking to perform a public service or out wrongdoing. The report is political propaganda, intent on smearing political opposition and undermining support for the network’s political opposition ahead of the 2020 election in the United States, and in other electoral exercises throughout Latin America.
