The following article is adapted from the PBS News Student Reporting Labs podcast On Our Minds: Election 2024. It is published here with permission as part of a collaboration between Student Reporting Labs and Teen Vogue. Listen to the full segment of the new episode on fake news and the 2024 election here. The guest, Sam Larreal, was a Teen Vogue 2024 Election Correspondent before leaving for a reporting position at NOTUS.

Poojasai: Disinformation is so prevalent during this election season. I thought about how we are all targeted by misinformation – obviously it’s happened to me! – and wonder if some people are more targeted than others.

Nico Fischer: This is a great question and perfect for our next guest! We are now joined by journalist Samuel Larreal. Sam is a member of the Albritton Journalism Institute and also wrote a recent article Teen Vogue article about Latino men and misinformation about politics. Welcome, Sam.

Sam Larreal: Hi.

Poojasai Kona: So, Sam, first tell us about the origin of your article to Teen Vogue.

Sam Larreal: I have a lot of experience in the Latino community here in the United States. I’ve seen a lot of misinformation, targeting both me and those around me. It’s very common to see and hear a lot of conspiracy theories and a lot of misinformation and disinformation in these kinds of spaces, Spanish-speaking spaces that are often underestimated and under-supervised by other people. One of my sources sent me a study Harmony Labs did this in 2022, studying the Internet habits of young Latino men and young Latinos in general. Young Latino men in particular tend not to seek out, search for, or interact with political content, political content on the Internet. They generally spend a lot of time in gaming spaces, in sports spaces and are not affected by political content or conventional news media. They are usually very easily targeted by misinformation or disinformation because they may lack the context that can help them discern between what is true and what is fiction.

Nico Fischer: In your article, which we will also link to in the credits of the show. You write that political disengagement among young Latinos has increased rapidly in recent years. Tell us why.