A View from the Field: Fighting for a Liberated Future

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.

• In the latest installment of Free Press Live, Vice President of Cultural Strategy Collette Watson spoke with News Voices: Philadelphia Project Manager Tauhid Chappell and Tia Oso, the communications director for the Action Center on Race & the Economy (ACRE). During the conversation, which explored the media’s role in perpetuating anti-Black racism, Tauhid discussed how News Voices: Philadelphia is challenging harmful newsroom practices.
• Tauhid participated in a discussion of how journalists are engaging with diverse communities in Philadelphia. CUNY’s Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism hosted the event. Tauhid also joined the Engaged Journalism Exchange for a conversation that reimagined what coverage of crime and safety could look like.
• News Voices: Colorado Manager Diamond Hardiman participated in a number of activities:
  • She took part in the panel discussion “The News About Local News,” which explored research assessing Colorado journalists’ views of their own news outlets and lifted up insights gleaned from listening sessions in three Colorado communities.
  • She worked with partners at Colorado Media Project and the Colorado News Collaborative to host two virtual events with the Latinx Voices working group. The three organizations convened this working group to address how Colorado news outlets have historically harmed and misrepresented Latinx communities. The first event, documented in Diamond’s blog post, explored the history of struggle and resistance among Latinx leaders organizing for equitable local news in Colorado. During the second event, community members discussed what an ideal relationship with media would look like and identified ways to help realize that vision.
  • She attended the kick-off event for Colorado Media Project’s Informed Communities Vaccine Equity Grantees. Diamond will support the grantees with training and mentoring on their projects.
  • And she had a conversation with student staff of the Minnesota Daily about the Media 2070 media-reparations project, building trust with communities, centering the voices of Black people and organizing with journalists in other newsrooms.
• Co-CEO Jessica J. González took part in “A Blueprint for Ending White Supremacist Violence,” an event hosted by the Center for American Progress and the McCain Institute for Leadership Development that more than 600 people (virtually) attended. “I think companies need to take a much greater deal of social responsibility for the role that they’re playing in spurring violence and facilitating white-supremacist recruitment,” she said. “I also think it’s time for some government intervention.”
• Jessica also participated in the discussion “Disinformation and the Role of Big Tech in Democracy” at the Jewish Council on Public Affairs conference.
• Senior Director of Strategy and Communications Timothy Karr participated virtually in a panel discussion on Big Tech, journalism and the future of media policy at UNESCO’s World Press Freedom Day Conference in Namibia. His presentation was later published as an Op-Ed for Common Dreams and Medium. 
• News Voices: New Jersey Manager Vanessa Maria Graber moderated a community conversation designed to dispel vaccine-related disinformation. The panel discussion, which News Voices co-hosted with Newark public-radio station WBGO, featured a panel of esteemed local doctors and public-health experts.
• Media 2070 Director Alicia Bell moderated a conversation about how local-news outlets and artists can collaborate during the pandemic. The discussion was hosted by the Charlotte Journalism Collaborative, which News Voices: North Carolina is a member of.
• Alicia took part in the “Teaching Race and Journalism” panel discussion at the National Association of Black Journalists’ Media Institute on Education and Health.
• In an Instagram Live, Alicia, Collette and some distinguished guests explored the connections between state violence against Black people and racism in the media.