Vicky Dávila and the transformation of 'Semana'
Vicky Dávila and the transformation of 'Semana'
Part 1 of a series on Semana director Vicky Dávila, the Colombian right's early undeclared favourite for the 2026 election. Today: the journalist and the transformation of Semana magazine.
Right-wing journalist and director of Semana magazine Vicky Dávila is the Colombian right’s early favourite for the 2026 presidential election. With a disoriented right and no clear opposition leader, Vicky Dávila has emerged as one of the most strident and popular opponents of Petro and an early favourite for the 2026 election. She hasn’t made her intentions official, and angrily responds to those who proclaim her as a candidate, but she increasingly behaves like a candidate and hasn’t denied any presidential ambitions.
This is part one of a two or three part series about Vicky Dávila.
A familiar face and voice
Vicky Dávila, popularly known as Vicky, is one of the most influential and prominent journalists in Colombia (though not necessarily the most respected). Born in Buga (Valle) in 1973, she moved to Bogotá in 1994 to pursue her journalistic career. For over 25 years, she’s been a familiar face and voice in the Colombian media.
From 1998 until 2015, Dávila was the nightly news anchor for Noticias RCN on RCN TV. From 2007 until 2016, she was also director of La FM radio, which is owned by RCN Radio and part of the Organización Ardila Lülle conglomerate.
In February 2016, she was forced to resign from La FM after publishing the video of a sexually explicit conversation between Carlos Ferro, a senator and later vice minister of the interior, and a police officer. The publication of the video, which proved the existence of a male prostitution ring within the police, led to the resignation of Ferro as well as police commander General Rodolfo Palomino. However, Dávila was criticized for violating a public figure’s privacy and causing serious pain to his family. The video, which was not itself proof of prostitution or any crime and was recorded without Ferro’s knowledge, sparked an intense debate about the extent to which the private lives and intimacy of public figures, hitherto a taboo topic in Colombia, should be scrutinized by the media. President Juan Manuel Santos himself opined, as a former journalist, saying that it wasn’t “good journalism,” and a few hours later she was forced out by RCN’s owners. Dávila and many others believed that Santos asked for her head, and she still holds a deep grudge against him to this day.
After a few months of media ostracism, during which she launched a YouTube channel with over 2 million subscribers, Dávila returned to the air in January 2017 on W Radio. Incidentally, she owed her return to W Radio’s director Julio Sánchez Cristo, one of the journalists closest to Santos. On the air, she interviewed leading political figures including Gustavo Petro, Álvaro Uribe and former FARC commander Jesús Santrich (in 2017). She also investigated the Odebrecht scandal, revealing evidence implicating Santos’ presidential campaign in the scandal.
Changes at Semana
(Re)founded in 1982, Semana magazine was for years considered Colombia’s version of The Economist or Time—an influential, respected magazine known for its investigative journalism and editorial independence. The magazine reported on major events over the decades and uncovered several major scandals including the DAS chuzadas during the Uribe administration, parapolítica and human rights abuses and corruption in the military. With a centrist-liberal editorial stance, it was often critical of then-president Álvaro Uribe even at the zenith of his popularity. It won several national and international journalism awards, it was sometimes praised as the best magazine in Latin America and its pages featured an impressive roster of journalists and columnists.
Since 1982 Semana was owned by Felipe López Cabellero, the son of former president Alfonso López Michelsen (1974-1978) and a member of one of the most important elite families in 20th century Colombia. Since 2000, the magazine’s director was Alejandro Santos Rubino, Juan Manuel Santos’ nephew and member of another leading family of the Colombian political and journalistic elite.
In January 2019, the Gilinski family acquired half of Semana. The Gilinski family, founded by Isaac Gilinski, the son of Lithuanian Jewish immigrants, and currently led by Jaime Gilinski and his son Gabriel Gilinski, owns GNB Sudameris Bank, one of the biggest banks in Latin America (among other assets). Jaime Gilinski is one of the richest men in Colombia, with a net worth of over $8 billion according to Forbes. At the time, the new co-owners said that Semana’s editorial direction would remain in the hands of López and Santos, ensuring continuity and editorial independence. However, the Gilinski were part of a broader restructuring of the magazine in response to the crisis faced by print media around the world. This included a paywall and subscription model, but most importantly a much stronger online presence, with the goal of tripling website traffic and online advertising.
In May 2019, Vicky Dávila was brought on as a columnist at Semana. In November 2019, she left W Radio to lead Semana’s new online TV channel, a key part of the Gilinskis’ new digital strategy. She came on as part of a gradual change at Semana in 2019-2020 that saw ‘big name’ right-leaning journalists hired (Salud Hernández and Luis Carlos Vélez), staff layoffs and unprofitable special interest magazines shut down (initially with the excuse of the pandemic). While the crisis of the print edition continued, Dávila drew audiences to the new digital channel and the website (which churned out news articles at rapid speed).
In April 2020, Daniel Coronell, Semana’s most-read columnist for years and uribista nemesis, was fired after writing an article criticizing how Semana ‘disguised as relevant information’ a ‘revenge’ against W Radio’s Julio Sánchez Cristo (who’d published information that had annoyed Semana’s owners). Coronell had already been fired, but rehired within two weeks, a year prior after criticizing an editorial decision by Semana. Daniel Samper Ospina resigned in solidarity with Coronell.
In November 2020, the Gilinski group, led by Gabriel Gilinski, bought the rest of the shares and gained total control of Semana. Vicky Dávila was appointed editorial director, replacing award-winning investigative journalist Ricardo Calderón who abruptly resigned after just a month in the job. These changes led to a mass exodus of journalists and columnists from Semana including Alejandro Santos, María Jimena Duzán, cartoonist Vladdo, Jaime Flórez, Johanna Álvarez, Juan Pablo Vásquez, Antonio Caballero and Rodrigo Pardo García-Peña, among others.
The drastic changes brought upon by Gilinski and Vicky marked the end of an era for Semana. An editorial proclaimed the beginning of a ‘new era’, described as the result of a necessary ‘digital transformation’ to adapt to the challenges of a world that demands innovation, and said that the ‘democratization of information’ was an opportunity, not a threat. It claimed that it would remain loyal to the founding philosophy of Semana and would never be at the service of any political group or special interest (Gabriel Gilinski himself gave similar assurances).
The ‘digital transformation’ meant a heavy focus on the website and digital channel, prioritizing clicks, traffic and quantity of articles rather than quality and long-form investigative journalism of the kind that had defined the old Semana. The digital and print newsrooms were merged, and journalists needed to meet a daily quota of articles for the website.
Many ‘old guard’ journalists and columnists, notably Santos and Duzán, disliked Dávila’s confrontational and sensationalist style and her focus on viral news, trending topics, ‘scoops’ and news aimed at generating controversy. However, her style of journalism is more aligned with the social media ecosystems and, most importantly for businessmen like Gilinski, gets more likes and clicks—ultimately good for the business’ bottom line. Gilinski didn’t buy Semana to subsidize journalism but rather to make the company profitable, with online advertising, advertorials and events.
The new Semana was also perceived by analysts and critics has having shifted in a right-wing direction. Gilinski reportedly said that he wanted to create a ‘Colombian Fox News’, referring to a mix of news and political opinion by big-name commentators. Daniel Coronell claimed that Gabriel Gilinski told him that he was uribista and Trumpist, which he’s denied.
The acquisition of Semama by the Gilinskis also raised concerns about the concentration of Colombian media ownership in the hands of business magnates and big conglomerates. Semana, like El Tiempo (Sarmiento Angulo), El Espectador and Caracol TV (Valorem-Santodomingo) and RCN (Ardila Lülle), is now in the hands of a big business conglomerate. The Gilinskis had been the only big business family that didn’t own their own media outlet.
Vicky at Semana
Under Vicky Dávila’s editorial direction, the changes at Semana became obvious.
With the digital transformation, the emphasis was placed on mass production of breaking news, scoops, viral news and videos—and, in a lot of cases, on clickbait, sensationalism and yellow journalism. Clickbait journalism is a widespread problem in Colombian mass media today, but Semana’s clicks-and-likes business model relies a lot on it. Semana has been mocked for often using attention-grabbing words in its headlines: atención, impactante, explosivo, cuidado, peligroso, revelador, urgente and so forth.
To increase online traffic, Semana mass produces articles at breakneck speed. On Twitter/X, Semana posts about 9,000 or more tweets each month, and about 200-400 on a daily basis. On Facebook, according to an article from La Silla Vacía in October 2022, Semana’s posts increased from just 1,500 a month in January 2020 to over 21,000 in September 2022, five times more than El Tiempo. More than any other big media outlets, they’ve been particularly successful at optimizing content to appear at the top of Google searches and stand out on social media, jumping on or setting trends. Unlike other media outlets, Semana often tends to publish different articles, with different titles, about the same topic.
Knowing what kind of news is popular and what goes viral on social media, Semana has mixed political journalism with viral news: judicial news, sports, entertainment, social media feuds, human interest stories and various faits divers (crimes, murders, suicides, comments by showbiz and sports stars). Some of the articles featured on the very crowded main page at a given time: ‘myths and realities of gluten’, hearing aids, diabetes during pregnancy, the costs of having a horse, eliminating internet cookies, apps to help pack suitcases, a ‘powerful homemade liquid’ to disinfect toilets or the amount of cloves to put in your wallet to become a millionaire…
María Jimena Duzán wrote that Gabriel Gilisnki didn’t intend to turn Semana into a Colombian Fox News but rather a Colombian Daily Mail tabloid, aimed at entertaining the new conservative middle-classes.
The political tone became avowedly conservative. When Iván Duque was president, Semana was largely adulatory towards the government. During the 2021 protests, Semana built a narrative of ‘urban terrorism’, violence, infiltration by illegal groups, criminal plans by the ELN and FARC dissidents to besiege cities, organized vandalism or plans to overthrow Duque. Most famously, a frontpage in May 2021, titled Petro ¡Basta ya! (Petro, enough!) blamed Petro for inciting chaos and violence, sowing “division, hatred and class warfare.” Vicky Dávila’s interviews with Duque were rather soft—an interview in July 2022 as he was leaving office was presented as a defence of his legacy, with the subheading indicating that he handed over a “vaccinated country in full economic reactivation.” She asked him at length about assassination attempts against him, supposed plots to overthrow him, attacks against his family and, of course, Gustavo Petro and his ‘scathing’ opposition. In October 2021, an article written by Duque himself (taking personal credit for, and narrating, the operation that led to alias Otoniel’s capture) made the frontpage. Scandals and controversies were minimized or ignored.
Semana has covered the witness tampering case against Álvaro Uribe in an angle very favourable to Uribe, discrediting one of the key witnesses against him or more recently implying that he may be a victim of political persecution.
Throughout the 2022 campaign, Semana’s aversion to Petro was clear and the publication surreptitiously sought to favour who they viewed as his strongest opponents. In December 2021, reporting on a poll which had Rodolfo Hernández in second place for the first time, the frontpage featured Rodolfo on a rocket with the catchy title ¡Despegó Rodolfo! (Rodolfo takes off!). Rodolfo’s campaign later admitted that this cover had provided an important boost to the campaign. As Rodolfo’s momentum stalled in early 2022, however, Semana shifted to Fico Gutiérrez. In late January 2022, Vicky Dávila’s interview with Fico got the frontpage headline Fico, un candidato del pueblo (Fico, a candidate of the people). After the primaries in March, Semana, like the rest of the media, painted the election as a horserace between Petro and Fico, gleefully reported on a poll which had Fico just three points behind Petro in a runoff matchup and bemoaned how he was the target of attacks, insults and fake news. In the meantime, it gave attention to Andrés Pastrana’s outlandish and baseless conspiracy theories of fraud. Vicky Dávila did have an interview with Petro before the first round.
In the second round between Petro and Rodolfo, Semana all but endorsed Rodolfo. He got a softball interview with Vicky. Nine days before the runoff, Semana and others published the ‘Petrovideos’—a series of leaked (edited and cut) video recordings of campaign strategy meetings, exposing the ruthless, cruel, dirty and nasty nature of Petro’s 2022 campaign. Petro himself barely speaks in the videos, and because they were obtained illegally, they cannot be used as evidence in any criminal case. Semana spun it as the biggest scandal since the Proceso 8000 in the 1990s, even though it clearly wasn’t, and gave disproportionate attention to what ultimately was the unpleasant confirmation of what everyone knows: that electoral campaigns are dirty, brutal and often unethical.
Just in case anyone was unsure, Semana’s last cover before the election had the headline ¿Exguerrillero o ingeniero? (Ex-guerrillero or engineer?), complete with a very biased article.
Semana has also been commandeered to serve the business interests of the Gilinski family, particularly in their public fight with the Grupo Empresarial Antioqueño (GEA), the Antioquian business elite keiretsu. Starting from 2021, the Gilinski Group, with Emirati partners, launched repeated hostile takeover bids against Nutresa, Sura and Argos, which ended up in the courts. A deal in May 2023 ended the war, with the GEA ceding control of Nutresa to the Gilinski in exchange for them exiting from Sura and Argos. La Silla Vacía and Daniel Coronell showed how Semana was used as part of a negative campaign against the GEA and in support of the Gilinskis’ takeover bids. Semana also built a temporary alliance of convenience with the then-mayor of Medellín, Daniel Quintero (despite him being pro-Petro), who had his own fight with the GEA, giving him unusually favourable attention and coverage—Quintero was featured (positively) on the cover of three print editions in 2020, 2021 and 2022, with interviews in which Quintero attacked the antioqueño business elite and ‘establishment’, saying they were leeches and behaved like a sort of mafia.
Quite ironically given Semana’s right-wing shift, Petro long had unusually cordial ties to the Gilinski family. In 2001, in the midst of the decade-long first war between the GEA and the Gilinski (fought after the 1997 acquisition of a majority stake in the Gilinski-owned Banco de Colombia by the GEA’s Banco Industrial Colombiano, which later became Bancolombia), a young Petro organized a congressional debate at the behest of Gilinski lawyer Alex Vernot, during which he accused authorities of favouring the GEA in the conflit. For years, when Petro had trouble getting the banks to lend him money for his campaigns, he got the biggest loans from the Gilinski Group’s banks—in 2010, 2011, 2018 and again in 2022.
Despite all the criticisms about the decline of quality journalism and the rise of sensationalist clickbait media, the Gilinski-Vicky business model worked and has been a success. Semana’s website traffic has increased significantly since 2020, and it ranks second among Colombian media outlets by online audience, with over 7.2 million unique users, fighting for first place with El Tiempo (it led the rankings for 16 consecutive months in 2022-2023). They more than made up for the prestige and audience it lost with the liberal-minded urban elites, by reaching to a much broader public drawn by Semana’s new mix of right-wing political ‘breaking news’ reporting and commentary, mass entertainment/celebrities, sports, crime, human interest news, salacious stories (and clickbait). Semana’s massive reach still ensures that it remains an influential and powerful media outlet, maintaining their ability to get scoops and exclusive interviews that start the conversation.
Stay tuned for part two in the coming days, which’ll discuss Semana and Vicky Dávila as the leaders of the media opposition to Gustavo Petro.