Platform Accountability
A View from the Field: Pioneering New Approaches to Journalism
A View from the Field is an ongoing feature that highlights the efforts of Free Press’ team of organizers and advocates.
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.
- News Voices Director Vanessa Maria Graber and Simon Galperin of the Bloomfield Information Project won the award for “session we can’t stop talking about” at Chicago’s Collaborative Journalism Summit. In their workshop “Consensus Decision-Making in Journalism Collaborations,” the two shared the approach of the New Jersey Community Media Collaborative, which Free Press helps coordinate.
- Vanessa Maria also traveled to Cuba as part of the Witness for Peace Solidarity delegation, which included journalists, media-makers and organizers. The group met with unions, educators, historians, artists, journalists and economists, among others.
- Co-CEO Jessica J. González moderated a panel discussion at the Global Summit to Address Online Harms and Misinformation, presented by the Center for Countering Digital Hate. The panelists explored how social-media companies and other tech giants profit from the spread of extreme content and have no economic incentives to protect their users.
- Senior Counsel and Director of Digital Justice and Civil Rights Nora Benavidez spoke at the Responsible Tech Summit, hosted by All Tech Is Human and the Consulate General of Canada. Panelists discussed new challenges to free expression in digital spaces.
- Nora also took part in a Human Rights Watch panel about disinformation and immigration reform.
- Vice President of Cultural Strategy Collette Watson helped facilitate the first public screening of the Media 2070 documentary Black in the Newsroom. The film, which Collette directed, centers on a young journalist who contends with systemic racism and low pay while working at The Arizona Republic. The screening was held at Arizona State University and included a panel discussion featuring Black community organizers, entrepreneurs, artists and media-makers. Learn more here.
