The Hot Story: Censoring Jessica Sierra
December 4, 2007 at 10:43 am by Wayne Garcia
Former American Idol-ator Jessica Sierra is the talk of the nation today, and not because of her singing talent.
She’s been popped again, and this time she added to her newsworthy rating by throwing in a spate of obscenities, racial slurs and an offer to have sex with her arresting officer in exchange for being let go.
Both the St. Pete Times and Tampa Tribune offered copies of her arrest report online. But both censored the reports, removing the specific sex act and her obscenities.
Here is what their deletions looked like:
For the record, Jessica said, “Please don’t take me to jail, I’ll suck your dick if you don’t take me to jail.” Upon hearing her romantic offer rebuffed, Jessica told the (white) TPD officer, “Fuck you nigger.” Repeatedly.
The tbo.com and tampabay.com .pdf’s also censored the following obscenities (grammar and spelling as printed on the incident report): “suck a dick,” “your a dick sucking faggot,” “fuck you,” and the immortal “you fucking bitch, I’ll kick your ass. I’ll fuck you up you whore.”
Click here for the unexpurgated version (kiddies, avert your eyes): jessica-sierra-report-full.pdf
Now, I guess you could make a case for not printing such words in a “family newspaper.” But online, where freedom of information should be king, why take the time to go through and remove the details of what got Jessica thrown in the Hotel Graybar for the second time this year? Especially when the uncensored report is widely available elsewhere on the web?
Send to a friend:
December 4th, 2007 at 4:06 pm
Censoring Sierra? Dude, seriously? Because we didn’t put three highly offensive phrases on our Web site, we’re censoring her?
Maybe i’m old fashioned. But I think the word censored should be reserved for omissions of higher importance than this one.
Sigh. Given that we already said in news stories that she offered oral sex to the office and hurled racial slurs at him after the arrest, I’m not all that worked up over the blackouts. I do wish we had given readers the choice to click through to an uncensored report, with knowledge that they would see some baldfaced language…
Eric Deggans
Times media critic
December 4th, 2007 at 4:59 pm
I agree with my friend Eric. No one was censored! They had indicated in the articles what she said so they didn’t censor it!
December 4th, 2007 at 7:32 pm
I suppose one could consider deleting this woman’s vulgarities a form of censorship. In a town that equates nude lap dancing with freedom of speech and regards a pimp like Joe Redner as a First Amendment hero, that’s not so great a stretch.
December 4th, 2007 at 8:02 pm
Hard as it might be for some of y’all to believe, people still like reading their local paper and NOT being offended by things like the exact phrases uttered by Idol Girl. So what if it’s out there on the Net for all the world to see? So are skanks displaying their twats and they won’t run that crap in the local paper either! It ain’t censorship, it’s the “guest in the home” theory, still at work after all these years.
December 4th, 2007 at 9:31 pm
I donot believe any of this is true I remember when Fox Newschannel13 had Jessica on all the time and was proud of her and Fox is a family value station they wood not of boosted Jessica on American Idol so much is she was the slut all these lies are making her out to be.
Fox Newschannel13 has the highest antenna on a TVtruck in all Tampa I have video to prove it this means Fox Newschannel13 tells ths truth more than other news stations so Jessica is innocent she was framed by racict cops becuz she is a Mexkin or maybe Porto Rikan (it is hard to tell with names like Garcia or Sierra)
I see the Leningrad Timies dacted some of her allegd slut words not once they dacted them twice that is why they were redacted, hah, hah, even tho the cops I bet made those words up into her mouth.
This girl is no skank I no this I went once to Joe Redners place his titty bar and got lap dances from Cindy ther, now Cindy is a reel skank & if she said she wood give a police a blow job she wood mean it and it wood be a good one too not lick & promise like Chris Rock said married people get.
I am also not really Robin I am borrowing his account my name is Larry Craig and I am using free wireless at Tampa airport right now you got a lot of cute guys in this town if I was gay, you know I am not, I wood be all over them.
It is good we have Fox news channel13 so not all news is from left wing MSM writers with beards I am innocent I got to go now they are calling my plane, see you in the senate, we can talk about family value and why Jessica is a sweetheart not a slut.
Your frend,
Larry ‘Don’t call me Jenny’ Craig
December 4th, 2007 at 11:14 pm
Other than proving you’re an idiot, I don’t see the point of that lame attempt at satire, Robin Miller. Try again after when you achieve literacy and a sense of humor.
December 5th, 2007 at 4:50 pm
Well, Eric D. and everyone else who defends the MSM’s decision to omit from print and redact from the police reports the truly nasty parts of Jessica Sierra’s rant, Eric could not have said it better: “I do wish we had given readers the choice to click through to an uncensored report, with knowledge that they would see some baldfaced language… ”
MSM could have, but didn’t do that and that, my friends, justifies PoHo’s characterization.