(Screengrab: The Laura Flanders Show)
Also see: Cynthia Dewi Oka: A Conversation With My Six-Year-Old About Revolution
Alexis Pauline Gumbs, self-described Queer Black troublemaker and Black feminist love evangelist, is the author of Spill: Fugitive Scenes, coming later this year from Duke University press.
China Martens is the author of The Future Generation: The Zine-book for Subculture Parents, Kids, Friends and Others, and co-editor of Don’t Leave Your Friends Behind: Concrete Ways to Support Families in Social Justice Movements and Communities.
Mai’a Williams is a former journalist for teleSUR English and author of two books of poetry: No God but Ghosts & Monsters and Other Silent Creatures.
Victoria Law is a freelance writer and editor and the author of Resistance Behind Bars: The Struggles of Incarcerated Women.
Cynthia Dewi Oka works at Grassroots Global Justice Alliance and her book of poems, Nomad of Salt and Hard Water, was a 2015 Pushcart Prize Nominee.
We’re not backing down in the face of Trump’s threats.
As Donald Trump is inaugurated a second time, independent media organizations are faced with urgent mandates: Tell the truth more loudly than ever before. Do that work even as our standard modes of distribution (such as social media platforms) are being manipulated and curtailed by forces of fascist repression and ruthless capitalism. Do that work even as journalism and journalists face targeted attacks, including from the government itself. And do that work in community, never forgetting that we’re not shouting into a faceless void – we’re reaching out to real people amid a life-threatening political climate.
Our task is formidable, and it requires us to ground ourselves in our principles, remind ourselves of our utility, dig in and commit.
As a dizzying number of corporate news organizations – either through need or greed – rush to implement new ways to further monetize their content, and others acquiesce to Trump’s wishes, now is a time for movement media-makers to double down on community-first models.
At Truthout, we are reaffirming our commitments on this front: We won’t run ads or have a paywall because we believe that everyone should have access to information, and that access should exist without barriers and free of distractions from craven corporate interests. We recognize the implications for democracy when information-seekers click a link only to find the article trapped behind a paywall or buried on a page with dozens of invasive ads. The laws of capitalism dictate an unending increase in monetization, and much of the media simply follows those laws. Truthout and many of our peers are dedicating ourselves to following other paths – a commitment which feels vital in a moment when corporations are evermore overtly embedded in government.
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