Fierce Mustang Media, KWDC.fm, The Collegian and the Digital Media program at Delta College hosted Dinner and Democracy, on Thursday, Oct. 17.
The event featured a media literacy panel and a meal there. A mayoral forum was planned to feature candidates Tom Patti and Christina Fugazi, however, both candidates canceled.
The media literacy panel featured Collegian Editor-in-Chief Andrea Rivera, freelance journalist Victoria Franco, Stocktonia Executive Editor Scott Linesburgh and Central Valley Journalism Collaborative Health Equity reporter Vivienne Aguilar.
The event was held thanks to grant funding from the James B. McClatchy Foundation’s All In For Democracy fund.
The panel was moderated by Hannah Workman, a reporter for The Record.
“Misinformation targets you,” Rivera said in response to a question.
When prompted about who misinformation commonly targets the panelists agreed that it targets anyone who will believe it, and once people are believing the misinformation then it becomes harder for news stories to spread truthful information.
“Democracy has always been work,” said Linesburgh.
A common theme throughout the panel was that social media has made it much harder to determine truthful information from falsehoods.
“It’s such misinformation that your vote doesn’t matter,” said Franco.
With how addicting social media has become it has also made it so that our younger generations need to be taught better. It has also become more work than it used to be to make sure that the information you are receiving is legitimate. Misinformation can spread like wildfire and is equally hard to put out.
“If you are in charge of the news you are a gatekeeper,” said Aguilar.
Ultimately the event succeeded in its goal of informing the public about media literacy and ways to be more media literate.
“This sort of event really brings to focus conversations that we need to have about media literacy,” said Tara Cuslidge-Staiano, a co-adviser for Fierce Mustang Media and adviser to The Collegian. “Not just in the Stockton community but you know nationwide specifically because there is a lot of misinformation out there.”
The event also served as a kickoff for a community media and information literacy campaign called Media Decoded.
