AILSA CHANG, HOST:
If you spin your radio dial to 101.9 FM, you will hear something like this.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: (Speaking Spanish).
CHANG: Radio Campesina is a Spanish-language radio network founded by the labor and civil rights activist Cesar Chavez back in 1983. It reaches 7.5 million people a month in Arizona, California, Nevada and Georgia.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED PEOPLE: (Speaking Spanish).
CHANG: La Campesina has gotten so big among Latinos, even President Biden appeared for an interview last November with host Tony Arias.
(SOUNDBITE OF RADIO SHOW, "LOS CHAVORRUCOS")
TONY ARIAS: (Speaking Spanish).
PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: Well, invite me back. I'm like a poor relative. I show up...
CHANG: Well, this year, Radio Campesina has a new focus. It's launched a campaign to fight false information about the 2024 election. After Biden narrowly won this state four years ago, Arizona became a true battleground state. And because a quarter of all eligible voters here are Latino, they have become a target for lies, half-truths, confusion, as everyone competes for their vote.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED MUSICAL GROUP: (Singing in Spanish).
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: (Speaking Spanish).
CHANG: On one of La Campesina's most popular shows, "Punto De Vista," longtime host Osvaldo Franco urges listeners not to share social media posts without first checking whether they're true. He brings in guests who talk about the voting process to share accurate information. And he takes questions from the audience, like from this man, who wants to know - whatever happened to immigration reform?
(SOUNDBITE OF RADIO SHOW, "PUNTO DE VISTA")
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #3: (Speaking Spanish).
CHANG: Right after a recent show, we catch Franco in his office next to the studio, and we ask him what nonsense out there is nagging in the minds of his listeners. And he recalls a moment after former President Trump made a provocative statement that illegal immigrants are, quote, "poisoning the blood of the country."
OSVALDO FRANCO: (Through interpreter) So some people were asking us, what does that mean? Is he saying we have a blood infection? Like, some people thought, am I going to get injected with something? Is that what that means? And then there were other people who just thought what Trump said is racist. So that's where we come in. We say, look, it's just a campaign slogan, but obviously it's meant to divide people.
CHANG: The headquarters of Radio Campesina are right here in Phoenix, where Maria Barquin is the program director.
(SOUNDBITE OF DOOR SHUTTING)
MARIA BARQUIN: Maria Barquin - welcome.
CHANG: Hi - Ailsa Chang. It's so nice to meet you.
Across from her desk is this enormous portrait of Cesar Chavez scratching his chin while deep in thought.
BARQUIN: If he's thinking, I better be thinking. Every day that I'm like, OK, what do I do on this decision? I just look up.
CHANG: Yeah.
BARQUIN: And I'm like, OK.
CHANG: Do you scratch your chin like that when...
BARQUIN: Oh, my goodness...
CHANG: ...You're thinking?
BARQUIN: ...Every day.
CHANG: (Laughter).
BARQUIN: Every day. But I look at him and...
CHANG: For Barquin, this is more than just some job. Radio Campesina is a community started by Latinos, managed by Latinos to serve Latinos. She says building and maintaining trust with listeners is crucial. And the key to that trust is making sure their listeners are getting the truth.
BARQUIN: There is a new pandemic that is called disinformation and misinformation, and it's spreading out, especially on social media. And there's not a lot of resources in Spanish to fact-check what's going on.
CHANG: Barquin says she notices patterns in the kinds of false information that listeners have questions about. Like, does bad credit make you ineligible to vote? Or can mail-in voting ever be trusted?
BARQUIN: And I said, why can you not trust a regular mail with your ballot when you trust that institution when you request your medication?
CHANG: So tell us about how you teach listeners to spot false information.
BARQUIN: There's a Latino feeling you got. When you see this is too good to be true, come on, question it. Don't share it because you become part of the problem by reposting it. Keep digging. Keep digging. Keep digging. Call the people that you feel you can trust. But again, if you feel like it's too good to be true...
(SOUNDBITE OF FINGER SNAPPING)
BARQUIN: ...That's your first sign.
CHANG: Is there any way for you to know whether your efforts are working to combat false information?
BARQUIN: Well, I think people are questioning things more, and you can feel it. Because when they call in on our shows, they're like, hold on, but I checked this and this and that. So they explain the process. They're questioning things.
CHANG: Barquin first arrived in Arizona from Mexicali, Mexico, 33 years ago without documents. She wanted a job in radio. And to her surprise, Radio Campesina gave her one as a weekend DJ. And she says that memory forever connects her to their audience.
BARQUIN: It means a lot to me because I'm one of them. I'm a listener. I'm an immigrant. So I relate to their story a lot because I came from there. And every time that I have someone that comes into the office to ask for an opportunity to be part of the organization, I go back to that moment when I was first hired. I go back to that time when I got here. And I'm like, I need to make sure I give that to the audience. (Crying) Oh, God.
CHANG: Thank you for being so heartfelt and candid, Maria.
BARQUIN: (Crying) I have never cried like this.
CHANG: At the end of the day, Barquin says she wants Radio Campesina to be a destination on the dial that uplifts its listeners after their long days as construction workers, restaurant workers, landscapers - people with real voting power in this state now.
But, you know, Radio Campesina is just one group noticing the increase of election misinformation and disinformation out there. For the last few years, it's been a wider concern for Arizonans all around the state, and that is something that NPR's Ximena Bustillo has been looking into as she's been on the ground with us. Hey, Ximena.
XIMENA BUSTILLO, BYLINE: Hey, Ailsa.
CHANG: So how are other organizations reaching people in Arizona to talk about these issues?
BUSTILLO: There's a nonpartisan group called the Arizona Town Hall. They've been around since 1962, with the goal of promoting community-led discussions. They pick a big topic two years in advance and then spend the year hosting town halls across the state. This year, the topic was elections and voting. The group has hosted over 23 discussions, some attracting as many as a thousand people.
CHANG: Wow. Well, what have they heard in these sessions?
BUSTILLO: Tara Jackson, president of the Arizona Town Hall, said that, in sessions, people confess that they might not know all their voting rights, and they argue over whether or not mail-in voting is safe or if democracy is good at all.
TARA JACKSON: There was much more of a polarized response to these questions than we would normally have in discussions with our organization.
BUSTILLO: Jackson pinpoints the 2020 election as the start of a lot of this distrust. Arizona, and specifically Maricopa County, where Phoenix is, really became the center of election conspiracy theories after the state was called for Biden in 2020. The false claims about voter fraud, machine voting problems, manipulated results - these all have been largely promoted by former President Donald Trump and other GOP leaders.
CHANG: OK, well, it seems like a lot of these allegations are coming from the right - like, from Republicans, right? So I'm curious - what have you heard from people who identify as conservative?
BUSTILLO: I spoke with a new nonprofit called the Conservative Agenda for Arizona. It includes over a dozen current and former GOP elected officials, party leaders and everyday Arizonans. Here's Matt Kenney, one of the founders.
MATT KENNEY: We've used this as an opportunity to bring together your Big Ten conservatives who want to see confidence restored in the election system and back in democracy.
BUSTILLO: He says distrust in elections hurts his party in the long term, and having a conservative-led group was important to garner support. The group estimates that it has over a thousand members and hopes to bring in more with events.
CHANG: And what kinds of false information are they looking to push back against?
BUSTILLO: Well, we went to visit a big billboard that they have running along the freeway that says, thank you, election workers. This is in response to false conspiracies from the right that election workers are manipulating ballots or the vote-counting process. Here's Jane Andersen, another co-founder.
JANE ANDERSEN: Let's give people an opportunity to say yes, I absolutely support my poll worker. I am a conservative, and I support our election officials. We want to make sure that that narrative is amplified.
BUSTILLO: Kenney and Andersen hope to remind Arizonans that election workers are the veterans, neighbors and family in their community. And they say that this is a way to push back against the stereotypes about Republicans in Arizona, as they say not all Republicans believe the election was stolen.
CHANG: That is NPR's Ximena Bustillo, who's been on the ground with us in Arizona for our series, We, The Voters. Thank you so much, Ximena.
BUSTILLO: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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