Carolina Panthers Spanish-Language Broadcaster Resigns After Team Seeks to Censor His Support of Donald Trump
Richard Moorhead
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A longtime radio broadcast analyst of the Carolina Panthers confirmed that he had resigned from his position on Tuesday, citing an attempt from team officials to silence his public support for Donald Trump.
Luis Moreno Jr. has been a Spanish-language radio broadcast commentator for Panthers games since 2010, and some fans had raised questions as to why he was absent from broadcasts for the team’s first game. Moreno went on to confirm that he had resigned from his job to a reporter with the Charlotte Observer.
https://twitter.com/luisjr40/status/1305829183466221569
Moreno is citing what he describes as a censorship campaign from Panthers team officials such as Eric Fiddleman and Steven Drummond. He recounted Fiddleman contacting him at one point during this off-season, demanding that he remove any reference to the Carolina Panthers on his social media accounts, where he had tweeted and posted about his support for President Donald Trump and his reelection.
Drummond and Fiddleman have declined to comment on their purported attempts to muzzle Moreno’s personal social media expression. “If what they want me to do is stop supporting the president, I’m not gonna do that,” said Moreno of their demands.
In discussions with team officials, Moreno declined to shut up about his views. The immigrant from Mexico cited his independent contractor employment status with the team, questioning how they could seek to censor his personal social media accounts during a time frame in which he’s not even officially employed.
“Basically what I told Eric, I said, ‘Listen … I’m not even under contract right now. I am not willing to participate in this project anymore if I’m going to be censored. So unless they call me, I’m not going to do it anymore. Because I am not OK with them censoring my freedom of speech in support of the president.’”
“I’m hurt,” he continued, “because this has nothing to do with my performance on-air. This has nothing to do with how good I am at what I do. I’m one of the best, and I’ll put myself against anybody in the country when it comes to what I do in Spanish. None of my support for the president was done on any of their social-media pages, it was never done on any of the airtime — whether it was a podcast or a broadcast or anything related to the Panthers. This was solely on my personal time on my personal accounts.”
The Panthers permit and promote political expression celebrating the Black Lives Matter street riot movement, with seven players kneeling for the national anthem during the first 2020 game.
It’s a movement not a moment #BlackLivesMatter pic.twitter.com/uymNCVIVeh
— Carolina Panthers (@Panthers) June 9, 2020
The NFL is a joke at this point. Don’t give these overpaid babies your attention any longer.
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