We are in a time of escalating criminalization, targeting Black and Brown people, migrants, trans people, poor people, and those involved in resistance movements, as well as media makers and journalists. We cannot be neutral on the question of our own safety and humanity, and more and more journalists are joining the effort to resist criminalization.
Our power in this resistance comes from the connections we have to one another. Interrupting Criminalization invites journalists and media makers concerned about criminalization–whether it affects your coverage, your workplace, or your community–to come together to better establish networks of mutual support, and share strategies for combating criminalization through media.
This will be a casual, quarterly meetup lasting 90 minutes on Zoom. It requires a small application, after which you will receive a link good for any of the three meetups. We welcome movement journalists and those working in mainstream organizations, as well as activist media makers and communications workers, who face some of the same vulnerabilities and ethical issues as journalists whether or not their work is recognized as journalism.
Subsequent Meetups will be held Monday, May 19 and Monday, September 15.
Presented by Lewis Raven Wallace (they/he/ze), journalist and the author of The View from Somewhere: Undoing the Myth of Journalistic Objectivity and Radical Unlearning: The Art and Science of Creating Change from Within (forthcoming in 2025). He co-founded Press On and now works as Interrupting Criminalization’s Abolition Journalism Fellow. Lewis is white and transgender. Learn more about Lewis and their work as part of our Abolition Journalism Fellowship.