Tony Pierce, a graduate of UCSB, a former editor at the Daily Nexus, and Los Angeles journalist shares his views on the fires, media coverage and offers a behind-the-scenes glimpse into his popular Substack column “Hot Box: My Tales of Uber & Lyft” in the latest episode of Santa Barbara Talks with Josh Molina.
Pierce is the publisher of the podcast and instagram account @hearinla, where his goal is to report on every neighborhood in Los Angeles. He has been reporting on the fires in Los Angeles.
“I think it is OK to point some fingers now at things that could have been slightly different,” Pierce said. “But if we agree that the underlying reason why wildfires and the drought of California is happening because of global warming, then that’s not (Los Angeles Mayor) Karen Bass’ fault. She couldn’t have fixed that.”
He did, however, note that Bass made cuts to the Los Angeles Fire Department budget, which may have had an impact on fighting the fires.
Pierce is a graduate of the College of Creative Students at UCSB and worked on the Daily Nexus student newspaper, which he credits for teaching him journalism and crafting his writing skills.
Watch the full conversation by clicking on the YouTube podcast below.
He puts those skills on display in his regular Substack colum where he writes about his conversations with passengers in his role as an Uber & Lyft driver.
He has a unique style to his columns, no capital letters and no quotes, and minimal punctuation. The stories are true, he said, but he changes names and minor details to avoid identification of the passengers.
“It’s a style that will completely turn people off and they are not going to read it all, which is fine, or people are going to read it a little bit closer,” Pierce said. “In a weird way I am trying to make them pay more attention if they are in because I love these people so much. I love these characters so much, which is why I am spending time on them.”
Joshua Molina is journalist who currently writes for Noozhawk and teaches journalism at Santa Barbara City College. He formerly covered politics and land use for the San Jose Mercury News. Santa Barbara Talks is an independently owned podcast where Molina looks to bring together voices from all perspectives to discuss and provide solutions to the challenges related to housing, education, transportation and other community issues. Subscribe to his podcast here and consider a contribution here.