In another self-inflicted blow to its credibility, Univision once again turned to the discredited Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) to hype the alleged growth of ‘hate groups’ in the United States during the first year of the Trump administration.
In a twisted presentation of the SPLC’s latest, dubious numbers, Univision anchor Patricia Janiot predictably highlighted the overall reported 4% increase in ‘hate’ groups throughout the nation, which according to what she called the “independent report” grew by 37 groups total nationwide, from 917 in 2016 to 954 in 2017.
PATRICIA JANIOT, ANCHOR, UNIVISION NEWS: The number of groups that promote hatred in the United States, increased in the first year of the presidency of Donald Trump. An independent report identified a total of 954 of those groups. A four percent increase over the previous year.
To buttress the anti-Trump narrative, Janiot went on to cite the report’s growing number of Neo-Nazi groups around the nation, which rose by 22 “groups” nationwide, from 99 in 2016 to 121 in 2017.
However, Univision’s story entirely ignored the fact that the alleged 37-group growth in hate organizations throughout the nation could also be even better explained by the SPLC report’s own indicated 40-group rise in black nationalist hate groups, which grew from 193 in 2016 to 233 in 2017.
Nonetheless, even taken at face value, Univision came out with mud on its face in its brief on the SPLC report, as Janiot noted that the KKK – Univision’s favorite go-to group for the network’s two consecutive documentaries on hate groups both in 2016 and 2017 – continued to collapse, with the disappearance of 58 KKK groups last year, falling from 130 in 2016 to 72 in 2017. There goes the network’s chances of winning any award for dedicating an entire hour to a handful of Klansmen in North Carolina last fall.
As numerous conservative leaders have warned the media for years, the SPLC’s annual hate group report is simply not credible. Many of the “hate” groups in the U.S. classified by the SPLC as “anti-Muslim”, such as ACT for America, the Center for Security Policy and Jihad Watch, would counter that they are the ones actually fighting the single greatest menace of hate in our day – that of radical Islamic terrorism – which regularly takes credit for perpetrating horrific acts of mass murder and mayhem throughout the world.
Equally galling to tens of millions of Americans is that the SPLC also classifies as ‘hate groups’ all kinds of other organizations that either simply affirm traditional Christian standards of sexual morality and marriage (such as the Ruth Institute, the American Family Association, the World Congress of Families and the Family Research Council), advocate on behalf of religious freedom (such as the Alliance Defending Freedom) or favor the enforcement of federal immigration laws, along with moving U.S. immigration policy to a more limited, merit-based system (Center for Immigration Studies, Federation for American Immigration Reform and the Immigration Reform Law Institute, among others).
Below is the complete transcript of the above referenced report, as aired on Noticiero Univision: Edición Nocturna on February 22, 2018.
PATRICIA JANIOT: The number of groups that promote hatred in the United States, increased in the first year of the presidency of Donald Trump. An independent report identified a total of 954 of those groups. A four percent increase over the previous year. Neo-Nazi groups had the highest growth, from 99 to 121. The number of anti-Muslim groups rose from 101 to 114. Meanwhile, the groups affiliated with the Ku Klux Klan fell from 130 to 72.
