Janine Jackson interviewed Truthout‘s Maya Schenwar about grassroots journalism for the October 27, 2023, episode of CounterSpin. This is a lightly edited transcript.
Janine Jackson: The future of journalism—how to grow and sustain independent reporting—has been a front-burner concern for decades now as we recognize the structural constraints of corporate news reporting, its top-down bias that favors the powerful, and how it can never challenge the social-economic status quo in a serious or ongoing way.
Because, of course, the need for strong journalism is not for journalism’s sake, but for the health of communities that need information to make choices, to see political possibilities, to communicate and participate. The search for models that support people’s information needs and reporters’ livelihoods is a work in progress, shall we say, but one that could hardly be more key.
Maya Schenwar is editor-at-large for Truthout and director of the Truthout Center for Grassroots Journalism. She’s author of the book Locked Down, Locked Out: Why Prison Doesn’t Work and How We Can Do Better, and co-author, with Victoria Law, of Prison by Any Other Name: The Harmful Consequences of Popular Reforms. And she co-edited the book Who Do You Serve? Who Do You Protect?: Police, Violence and Resistance in the United States, from Haymarket. She joins us now by phone from Chicago. Welcome to CounterSpin, Maya Schenwar.
Maya Schenwar: Thank you so much, Janine.
JJ: There was a time that some of us can recall when news media really weren’t seen as an activist concern. Media were meta-phenomena; you wanted to get media attention for your action or for your work, but media themselves weren’t the object of critical concern, weren’t problematized, if you will. I think that’s changed for good, hasn’t it? You don’t have to sell activists or organizers anymore on the importance of having an analysis of media, or on the importance of independent media.
Truthout (8/13/10)
MS: I think both of those are really phenomena that have shifted in the last couple of years. I think, one, we’ve got this situation where journalism as a field is in crisis, just financially, just in terms of, how do we get our word out? We see social media algorithms crashing entire outlets within a few months when they change. We see organizations scrambling to completely change their financial models when their corporate sponsors pull out, or when the one foundation sustaining them pulls out. And then we’ve seen a rise in unionization, particularly at online media. And, actually, Truthout was the first digital media to unionize, in 2009.
So we’ve seen this tremendous rise, which I think corresponds to seeing media organizations in a certain activist light as well. People in this sector are workers, journalists are workers, editors are workers. So that, I think, has also highlighted an aspect of media as part of an activist phenomenon.
And then, beyond that, I think movement media as a field has really emerged in its own right. It’s always been there, but I think it’s being recognized, particularly among the left, but even beyond, as a valid component of journalism. And, actually, this is the journalism we need, right?
JJ: Right. And I think we as media consumers, as people, are recognizing that “you give us 18 minutes, we give you the world” is not really the proper relationship to information. You know, the idea that it just kind of washes over you, and if you watch 28 minutes at six o’clock, you’re going to learn everything and know everything that you need to know about what’s happening around the world, or even in your neighborhood.
Truthout (10/18/23)
MS: Yes, exactly. And I think the expansion of all of these different types of online media has both introduced this increasingly vicious phenomenon of disinformation, but also has exposed people to more of this reality that has always been true, that, depending on your source, you can be getting a completely different version of the news. You can be absorbing those 18 minutes as the truth. But not only is it too short, not only is it too brief, but depending on which channel you’re watching, those 18 minutes will look completely different.
I think this is the exact right moment to be discussing this, because right now we’re witnessing Israel perpetrating this rapid genocide in Gaza with US complicity. And meanwhile, much of the dominant media is still completely misrepresenting the situation, removing the context of 75 years of colonization and occupation, apartheid and ethnic cleansing, and representing the current situation as a “both sides” war. And so I think, increasingly, even people who haven’t realized this before, but are tuned into that issue, are recognizing, oh, media is such a political force.
JJ: Right. And I would point out, you have a piece up on Truthout right now, with Sarah Lazare, about the siege in Gaza, which I found hopeful, ultimately, in the awareness that safety can only come through collective liberation. I found it a useful exploration of ideas, and folks should check that out.
But listeners will know Truthout.org as a publication, as a news source on a range of movement issues. But you see yourselves as part of an ecosystem, and it’s that understanding that led to this new project, to the Truthout Center for Grassroots Journalism. Tell us about that. What is the need that you’re looking to address? What kinds of work are you hoping to lift up with that project?
Maya Schenwar: “We want to have this vibrant ecosystem of different publications that are helping enrich people’s understanding of the world.”
MS: So we’re in this moment that’s pretty tough for truly independent journalism, and particularly movement journalism. We have seen outlets shut down. We’ve seen some shrink. We’ve seen a lot hovering on the edge of precarity.
And part of it has been because of repressive changes in social media. Some of it has been economic disruptions, and so on.
But also, in some ways, we’ve been seeing less collaboration among those media organizations nationally. There’s certainly been some great collaborative regional projects, but on a national scale, we’re seeing a little bit less of the collaboration than we did years ago, when there used to be organizations, particularly the Media Consortium, which brought together movement media around the country. And that type of collaboration can help the field grow stronger, can help movements grow stronger.
And at Truthout, we’ve been thinking a lot about, OK, we want to exist as a publication, but we can’t do it alone. We don’t want to be anyone’s sole news source. We want to have this vibrant ecosystem of different publications that are helping enrich people’s understanding of the world, and propel them toward action on all these different fronts.
So the Truthout Center for Grassroots Journalism is a little corner of Truthout which is focused on supporting and assisting smaller movement media organizations, using the lessons that we’ve learned at Truthout over the last 22 years, of sustaining ourselves primarily based on small reader donations, of figuring out how to broaden our reach and bring in new audiences, and figuring out how to build a news organization that is able to approach even issues in which there’s a lot of controversy, and uplift particularly what social movements are doing.
So in addition to that support and assistance and mentoring, we’re also focused on bringing together movement media and social justice news organizations of all sizes around the country. This is aspirational, but we’re working on it now, since we recognize that’s what’s going to allow us to survive. And when I say “us,” it’s not just Truthout, it’s all publications that have social justice at their heart, who rejects this idea of “objectivity,” and are looking to make media that are going to ultimately help the human race survive, and support each other in ways that are going to uplift the movements that get us there.
CounterSpin (12/9/16)
JJ: Finally, one of my favorite interviews on CounterSpin was with Kelly Hayes, direct action trainer, writer—including for Truthout—and she was talking about the imperfection of social justice organizing, the anti-elitism. She said, “I want a movement, not a clubhouse of people who think they know how it works.” So much media, including social media, is about polish. It’s about easy answers and shiny surfaces and confidence. And the work of social change is the opposite of hot takes.
So just to underscore that the media that we need, that feed us, it’s really a different animal. It has different intentions. It’s not just a cleverer or even a more diverse version of what you’re getting from corporate media. It’s something different.
MS: Yeah, absolutely. And I think one of the things that’s most exciting to me about the Center, and the broader project, is that I think the media we need are embracing the idea of asking questions—not in that interrogating way that you think of the traditional mainstream investigative journalist asking questions. But asking questions that are at the heart of changing the world for the better. That’s both in terms of what our media is about, and also what stories we are writing.
So one thing that we do at Truthout, that I think a lot of the publications that we’re working with have in common, is we think about: What is this story going to do in the world? Are there ways that it could cause harm? What is it intended to uplift? What impact do we hope it will have? Why is this topic necessary in the world? Why is this focus necessary? Who do we hope to reach? All of those things that tie into questions of liberation, tie into questions of justice, but aren’t traditionally the type of questions you’re supposed to ask as a journalist.
JJ: We’ve been speaking with Maya Schenwar. You can find out more about Truthout and the Center for Grassroots Journalism on the site Truthout.org. Maya Schenwar, thank you so much for joining us this week on CounterSpin.
MS: Thanks for having me.
The post ‘Movement Media Has Really Emerged in Its Own Right’ appeared first on FAIR.
This content originally appeared on FAIR and was authored by Janine Jackson.
Janine Jackson | Radio Free (2023-11-06T17:03:06+00:00) ‘Movement Media Has Really Emerged in Its Own Right’ – CounterSpin interview with Maya Schenwar on grassroots journalism. Retrieved from https://www.radiofree.org/2023/11/06/movement-media-has-really-emerged-in-its-own-right-counterspin-interview-with-maya-schenwar-on-grassroots-journalism/
Please log in to upload a file.
There are no updates yet.
Click the Upload button above to add an update.