About Me
Focusing on journalism, I understand that media literacy is vital to becoming a professional in this field. With the knowledge Arizona State University has provided me, I have begun pursuing opportunities to establish myself as a journalist. I aspire to become a public relations agent, helping clients navigate the media landscape through a journalistic lens. By combining strategic communication skills with journalistic principles, I aim to craft compelling narratives that resonate with diverse audiences.
Throughout my studies, I have developed proficiency across multiple Adobe Creative Suite platforms. I am skilled in Premiere Pro for video editing, Lightroom for photo enhancement, Audition for audio production, and Photoshop for graphic design. These principles enable me to deliver comprehensive multimedia projects for clients, meeting the dynamic demands of modern social media platforms. I am well-equipped to create engaging content that aligns with current digital marketing strategies and best practices.
My work
During my time at the Cronkite Agency, I had the opportunity to work with Follett/Sun Devil Campus Stores as my client. In this role, I’ve been responsible for highlighting and showcasing their key products through press releases, three of which I have successfully submitted to date.
Black History Month
Sustainability
Women’s History Month
Articles
Articles
- I’m a journalist covering state and national public affairs for news outlets. Here are some examples of my recent work:
- Cactus Politics
- Texas Politics
- The Floridan Press
- Big Energy News
Media Day in the Life
7:30 AM: My mom had already sent me a TikTok of a mom at church making Palm Sunday crosses out of palm leaves. It was genuinely sweet and wholesome, exactly the kind of content moms send on Sunday mornings.
12:00 p.m.: Scrolled across the Druski video on TikTok, the one where he’s doing a mock impression of a conservative white woman in America. The video is clearly satire but what caught my attention was the conversation surrounding it. There have been growing theories that TikTok’s algorithm is actively suppressing the video and limiting its reach on people’s For You pages, while the same clip is gaining significantly more traction on X.
This was the most interesting piece of potentially questionable content I came across today. The claim circulating is that TikTok is deliberately suppressing Druski’s satirical video, specifically because it mocks conservative viewpoints, while the video spreads freely on X. On the surface this fits into a larger ongoing narrative about TikTok censoring politically adjacent content, which has been a talking point for a while now.
1:30 p.m.: Read a New York Times article about the “No Kings” protests happening across the country. This was straightforward news reporting from a well established outlet, covering the wave of demonstrations pushing back against what organizers are calling an overreach of executive power.
Now, The New York Times is a well established, Pulitzer Prize winning news organization with editorial standards and a clear corrections policy. The article itself cited named sources, included photos from multiple protest locations, and linked to verifiable event information. No credibility concerns here. This is straightforward news reporting.
3:00 p.m.: Came across a report on KVOA.com, a local Tucson news station, about a teacher and coach being charged with 10 counts of sexual exploitation of a minor. Disturbing story but reported by a legitimate local news source.
Furthermore, KVOA is a legitimate NBC affiliate local news station serving the Tucson, Arizona area. The story about the teacher and coach charged with sexual exploitation of a minor cited court records and law enforcement statements, which are public record. Credible report from a credible local source.
5:00 p.m.: Watched the trailer for the upcoming “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie” on the Nintendo website. It was fun, completely low stakes media consumption.
Reflection:
Honestly I was surprised by how relatively low-questionable my media day was compared to what I expected going in. Most of what I consumed was either entertainment, lighthearted lifestyle content, or news from legitimate outlets. The one piece that genuinely gave me pause was the Druski suppression theory, and what’s interesting about that is it didn’t come from a sketchy website or a random meme, it came through casual conversation in TikTok comment sections and on X, which in some ways makes it harder to fact-check because there’s no single claim to trace back to a source.
That’s actually the pattern I noticed most today which was the questionable content wasn’t coming from fake news sites or obvious misinformation accounts. It was showing up in the spaces between content, in comment sections, in captions, in theories shared person to person. That kind of information is way harder to verify and way easier to absorb without thinking critically about it, because it doesn’t feel like “news.” It just feels like people talking.
I also noticed I’m more likely to fact-check things that already feel suspicious to me going in, which is its own kind of bias. If a claim fits something I already believe, I’m less likely to question it. That’s something I want to actively work against. Being media literate isn’t just about spotting obvious misinformation, it’s about applying the same level of scrutiny to everything, including the stuff that already agrees with you.
Ericka Pinon 