Session 4: Panel Discussion - Covering Social Movements and Repression within Various Media Contexts
Host: Jared Ware is a co-host and producer of Millennials Are Killing Capitalism. He was a co-founder and former producer of the Beyond Prisons podcast. He was a member of the 2018 National Prison Strike and has written multiple articles on prisoner movements, repression and organizing.
Description: This panel will be a culminating discussion with journalists who form the bridge between social movements and media. Our panelists range on a spectrum from organizers who have created their own media platforms to uplift social movements and accessible revolutionary theory, to journalists who have navigated corporate, indy, and alt-weekly papers with an eye toward covering social movements or forces of repression. They have each encountered contradictions which necessitate liberatory approaches and done principled work to chart their own paths. We will draw on their experiences for insight on how to navigate typically inhospitable media spaces and still build towards revolutionary culture. At the top of our priorities are the questions of sustainability, reach, legitimacy and accountability.
Panelists:
Erica Caines is a coordinating committee of The Black Alliance For Peace and a member of the Black working-class centered Ujima People’s Progress Party in Maryland. Caines is the founder of Liberation Through Reading and is also co-editor of the Revolutionary African blog, Hood Communist.
Kelly Hayes is the host of Truthout’s podcast Movement Memos and a contributing writer at Truthout. Kelly’s written work can be found in numerous other publications and books, including the anthology Who Do You Serve, Who Do You Protect? and Mariame Kaba's bestseller We Do This 'til We Free Us: Abolitionist Organizing and Transforming Justice. Kelly was an organizer with We Charge Genocide and co-founded the Chicago Light Brigade and the Lifted Voices collective. Kelly’s movement photography is featured in the “Freedom and Resistance” exhibit of the DuSable Museum of African American History.
Brian Nam-Sonenstein is an independent journalist and editor living in Maine. He is one of the co-founders of the reader-supported news website Shadowproof.com and the Beyond Prisons podcast. Previously, Brian was the associate publisher of Firedoglake, an early and influential online forum for left journalism and organizing. There, he worked to connect journalists with movement organizers around the country working on a wide range of issues including fighting foreclosures, drug prohibition, anti war mobilizations, whistleblower defense, and environmental justice. Since around 2014, his primary focus has been to amplify abolitionist movements and thought through media, and to help cultivate and spread an abolitionist ethic among journalists.
Brandon Soderberg is a Baltimore-based reporter who covers dirty cops, harm reduction, direct action, and guns. He is the coauthor of I Got a Monster: The Rise and Fall of America's Most Corrupt Police Squad. He is the former editor-in-chief of Baltimore City Paper and is the co-founder of Baltimore Beat, a community-focused nonprofit media outlet. His work has appeared in The New York Times, The Intercept, Vice, The Appeal, Filter Magazine, and many other publications