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Welcome to our October edition of A View From the Field! Once a month, we provide updates from the field as staffers work alongside our amazing allies and activists to create a more just and equitable media system — except last month, when things got so busy we didn’t have a chance to send the September edition! (So consider this your September AND October edition.)
There’s so much to cover that would not have been possible without your commitment to Free Press. Let’s get started: Disinformation and the Vote
Campaign Manager Rose Lang-Maso participated in two panel discussions at Netroots Nation. “Disinformation and the Vote: Defending the Ballot Box in a Post-Truth World” explored disinformation campaigns that can suppress voter turnout and reduce support for progressive candidates. “Big Tech’s Threat to Democracy: The Double-Edged Sword of Social Media” examined ways to preserve election integrity in the face of rising hate and extremism online.
Senior Counsel and Director of Digital Justice and Civil Rights Nora Benavidez spoke during a congressional roundtable that Rep. Carolyn Maloney convened on the impact of mis- and disinformation on U.S. elections. “We must rein in abusive practices by social-media companies,” Benavidez said. “Their business models threaten to destabilize our democracy by amplifying lies and calls for violence, reaching audiences with a speed, precision and scale once unimaginable.”
Nora also recorded a plenary fireside chat for the LTX Connect Conference. The conversation explored disinformation targeting Latinx communities.
Fighting Anti-Blackness in the Media & Working to Secure Media Reparations
Program Manager Diamond Hardiman and Media 2070 team member Alicia Bell took part in the #Vision25 event series, hosted by the Maynard Journalism Institute in partnership with the Online News Association and OpenNews. Diamond and Alicia discussed the Media 2070 reparations project and pay discrimination in the news industry — an issue highlighted in the Media 2070 documentary Black in the Newsroom.
Diamond also facilitated the session “Media Reparations and Moving Forward” at the Colorado Media Project’s Advancing Equity in Local News convening. The gathering featured presentations from local journalists, national experts, community members and funders.
Vice President of Cultural Strategy Collette Watson took part in a Los Angeles gathering on race, voting, politics and the media hosted by BLD PWR. She shared information about Free Press’ Media 2070 project, which is celebrating its second anniversary this month.
Collette also presented Black in the Newsroom at the Phoenix Center for the Arts and at the Detroit Black Film Festival, where it won best documentary short. The powerful film, which Collette directed, explores anti-Blackness in the media through the story of a talented young journalist who experiences systemic racism at The Arizona Republic.
Finally, Diamond and Media 2070 Campaign Manager Venneikia Williams gave a presentation for Professor Allissa V. Richardson’s “Reporting Race & Justice” class at the University of Southern California. Diamond and Venneikia screened Black in the Newsroom and made Black “future headline” zine covers to help students imagine a world where anti-Blackness no longer defines newsrooms. Diamond and Venneikia also discussed some Free Press projects, like the Black Voices and Latinx Voices community groups in Colorado and the Media 2070 campaign calling on news outlets to care for Black journalists and communities.
Reimagining Journalism
Senior Director of Journalism Policy Mike Rispoli and Alicia Bell hosted a workshop on how journalists and news outlets can foster stronger relationships with communities. The event delved into some of the strategies discussed in Building Community Power: A Newsroom’s Guide to Equitable Engagement, which Free Press created in partnership with the American Journalism Project.
Mike also spoke at a University of Vermont event about ways to sustain local news. Mike discussed Free Press Action’s fight to pass the Civic Info Bill and establish the New Jersey Civic Information Consortium, which funds innovative projects focused on meeting community-information needs and boosting civic engagement. The campaign to pass the Civic Info Bill is documented in a new Free Press Action case study.
News Voices Director Vanessa Maria Graber took part in the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication Conference in Detroit, where she discussed Free Press’ work reimagining journalism, organizing for more equitable media, and centering Black and Brown communities in storytelling.
Vanessa Maria also took part in the session “Reimagining Journalism: Taking Action” at the Lenfest Institute’s Reimagining Philadelphia Journalism Summit. Vanessa Maria’s presentation focused on how news outlets can organize community meetings to find out what their audiences really want.
Support Free Press
As one of Free Press’ most committed activists, you are helping to make everything shared in this email — and all of our work — possible. Will you take the next step and donate to Free Press to sustain our important organizing work? We rely on donations from our most dedicated supporters to support the workshops, speaking engagements and panel discussions that bring people together to move the work forward and help us achieve justice for all.
With gratitude,
Amy Kroin
Editor
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