Felix Palencia: Welcome everyone. On today’s podcast episode, we’ll be talking about censorship on social media—a topic that’s been making waves all across the internet. I’m your host, Felix Palencia, and in today’s episode I’ll be sharing a conversation I had with Eric Pierce, the editor of The Downey Patriot, a community newspaper and news site covering Southeast Los Angeles County, home to over two million people. In our discussion, we dive into how censorship is affecting social media and its impact on both the public and the media. Let’s get started.
For my first question I asked Eric Pierce if he believes censorship or lack of censorship affects media today? This was his response.
Eric Pierce: I think it does 100% it does, especially online. Traditionally, you know, I’ve been, I’ve been doing this since 2002. and I remember stating that the proliferation the assent of the internet, you know, and media adapting into it and then the in the early days I remember, you know, the early days of Twitter where journalists and newspapers, would share the stories and share their journalism online. but it seems lately now in the last few years and that theres been a shift You what, you can share on online and you can’t share. and when I say can or can’t it seems like there’s, you know, can maybe post journalism online but it’s gonna if it’s gonna get Shadow banned, you know by a platform, you know, that that’s censorship, So it definitely affects it. I think it’s dangerous when we have one person or one company in charge and overseeing a specific social media platform. I mean that’s a huge responsibility. That’s a huge. Level of trust that we’re placing in these people. And I ideally we would like to, I my opinion, you want different viewpoints, you know but more than that you want truth, you and we’re seeing misinformation just running rampant and I mean never mind the hate. You there’s so much hate going on. And it’s what we need is, we need facts. So we need just the truth, you know? And I think we have so many talented. Journalists in this country and in this, you more locally in this region of Southern California.
Felix Palencia: For this next audio clip this is Eric Pierce responding to my questions about censorship on social media and why it can be so harmful
Eric Pierce: So it’s to their advantage to Silence media and if they can’t silence them their gonna question. They’re gonna question your integrity, you know because that’s all they have, you and you have people and this isn’t this is all my opinion obviously. But you have people like Elon Musk, you know, who is getting more and more involved in the national government. And I don’t think because he has a good heart it’s because he his own Financial interests there. You know, he has his is own reasons. His own motives to be doing what he’s doing. I can only speculate what those Motives are, but I’m willing to bet that their financial hes a money person, you know that’s what politics is. It’s all, it’s all ruined by by money, you know, and I think, because journalists have in the media, they have such an important role In Shining Light, where people don’t normally look I think that’s scares politicians
Felix Palencia: For this next question I asked Eric Pierce if he believes the media landscape affects how Journalists cover news stories he said that it can giving examples like Trump kicking out the Associated Press from the white house. However the second half of his answer was way more personal and interesting so I thought I’d share it.
Eric Pierce: So I tell I tell my writers you’re not going be bullied, you’re doing your job, you know, don’t you can’t take things personal, don’t read the comments. I don’t care about the comments, I don’t care if somebody from the public is accusing us of being insensitive of being unfair, I don’t care. This is our job. This is what we know what what we’re doing. You know we’re not going to go to a mechanic and tell them how to fix our car, you know, we are the professionals we’ve doing this for a long time, you know we’re part the community people going to come and go that the city council is to come and go. These politicians are going to come and go the president’s going to come and go. we are here. We’re part community. We’re part of our newspaper is part of Downey Community. We’re part of the Norwalk Community, right? We’re doing our job. We have to go home at night knowing that we have the integrity and we do, we do it to the of our ability. We’re not going be perfect. but we’re gonna be as Fair as possible, because that’s what our job is, and that’s what people expect from us, that’s what we owe our readers.
Felix Palencia: For this next statement from Eric Pierce he talks about the need for more fair journalists and how we should keep speaking out.
Eric Pierce: So when that happens, it’s It’s discouraging because you know what they’re doing. They don’t want their trying to censor us because they don’t want the public to know what it is that they’re doing. And that’s not okay. And so needless to say we didn’t change anything. We we started right by our reporting because it was accurate and nothing ever came of it. But it happens. It happens on a routine basis and And I’ll say, you know, since we’re talking I think that’s another reason that student newspapers on campus are so are so important. Don’t, you know, some people might think, you know it’s it’s a college student newspaper, but you have an opportunity to report what people don’t want you to report, you know, don’t don’t discount what you do. You’re you guys are reporting on important things where you have the opportunity. To report on important things and don’t let people intimidate you don’t let your, your campus intimidate you and all you guys have a really strong journalism program. I think that’s fantastic and take advantage of it. You guys are doing such important work as journalists and we need more journalists. In this country not not less, we lost so many journalists because of the whole media industries the whole newspaper industry. But what you guys are doing is really important, not just for your campus but for the Norwalk Community, you know, at large but keep that in mind. There’s people if people are trying to silence you it’s because you’re doing your job, right? Remember that you’re doing your job if nobody cared. That means maybe something is wrong, you know? Keep at it. We need more newspapers, we need more news or organizations that are going to tell us the truth. We need them to be fair and accurate and we’re just reporting the news. And then the readers can come up with any conclusion that they want. We’re just reporting the new as accurately as fairly as honestly as we can and that’s our job and and that’s it. So, keep doing what you guys are doing.
Felix Palencia: I had an informative interview with Eric Pierce where I learned a lot from his many experiences and I hope you all did too censorship is not something we should take lightly it shapes the stories we tell and the truths we hear in a time where information is power protecting press freedom is more important than ever.
