This week includes a snippet from the first installment from author and activist-journalist Lewis Raven Wallace’s column, focused on the importance of movement journalism at a moment when civil rights and historically marginalized groups’ safety are under sustained attack.

Also: Our second workshop about how to more thoughtfully report on diaspora, is this coming Thursday, May 29, at 6 p.m. ET. You can register here.

In this issue:

And also: Journalists attest to experiences of sexual misconduct with Wesley Lowery, an event focused on better reporting on disabled communities, POLITICO’s newsroom starts a legal battle with management over artificial intelligence, SCOTUSblog now owned by a conservative news outlet, and the launch of a new outlet focused on combating digital deception. Plus, the resource of the week helps reporters incorporate science into every beat.

—James Salanga

What we have been witnessing in Palestine, where the Israeli military has killed at least 232 journalists since late 2023, increasingly haunts us here in the U.S. Journalists and academics who speak in solidarity with Palestinians and uplift their work are censored and targeted — most recently, even deportation is on the table as a consequence of speaking out. Journalists who may have considered themselves mainstream or “traditional” are being targeted. More will follow. 

Movement media matters now more than ever, as a persistent antidote and fearless response to the onslaught of disinformation and mealy-mouthed lies dominating our news discourse. Distinct from mainstream media, Press On defines movement journalism as journalism in the service of liberation: It creates evidence-based reporting that challenges racism, transphobia, and official disinformation while seeking to make change from the grassroots up.

This column series for The Objective will break down what I believe are the ten primary purposes of movement journalism — a kind of draft theory of change.

These ideas are based on my own observations in 20 years as an activist-journalist and my research into the history of activist journalism, and deeply influenced and inspired by the hundreds of people and organizations who have been doggedly building movement journalism infrastructure for years. They anticipated correctly that this infrastructure would become ever more important as our media ecosystems are polluted by corruption and disinformation. 

As creators of movement media, we need a clear understanding of its purposes and functions to make smart and ethical decisions about what and how to report. This first column in my series addresses what my colleague Andrea Ritchie suggested is movement journalism’s purpose zero — to challenge fascism and authoritarianism by fighting disinformation. 

Movement journalism is poised to do this because so much corporate media is baldly allied with those in power, and so much local media has been thoroughly stripped of resources. Not incidentally, fascist leaders thrive on an ill-informed public.

Read the full column on The Objective.

—Lewis Raven Wallace

Journalists attest to experiences of sexual misconduct with Wesley Lowery: “These [four] women wound up leaving [an initial location] with Lowery, who they said then sexually assaulted them,” Betsy Morais writes in her story for the Columbia Journalism Review. Lowery was not interviewed but sent an email quote in which he said he has “far more at stake and to lose than any source in this piece.” This piece features graphic depictions of rape and sexual assault; the National Sexual Assault Hotline is available for support at 800-656-4673 or via online chat at online.rainn.org.

🗞️ Read the story in the Columbia Journalism Review.

Learn more about better reporting on disabled communities: We published a Q&A about the Guide to Reporting on Disabled Communities last month, and the Trans Law Center, whose staff helped organize the guide, is holding a panel talking about eugenics and disability reporting on Tuesday, May 27, at 1 p.m. ET.

✍️ Register for the event via the Trans Law Center.

Politico’s newsroom starts a legal battle with management over artificial intelligence: Last year, the newsroom was one of the first to secure a union contract with rules on deploying artificial intelligence. “The union’s members allege that the AI provisions in their contract have been violated, and they’re preparing for a groundbreaking legal dispute with management,” reporter Kate Knibbs writes.

🖥️ Read the story in WIRED.

SCOTUSBlog now has a conservative owner — what’s next? The Dispatch, which has self-described itself as a conservative publication, acquired the Supreme Court-focused outlet in April. But “for now, SCOTUSblog and The Dispatch will remain independent products, occasionally cross-posting content to give the newer publication’s audience a broader view of how the U.S. government works.”

⚖️ Read the story in Poynter.

Indicator, a new outlet focused on fighting digital deception, launches: “We created Indicator because our digital information ecosystem is under attack,” founders Craig Silverman and Alexios Mantzarlis write. “Scammers, state actors, disinformation peddlers, unscrupulous marketers, and purveyors of AI slop are all clogging our online spaces with lousy, harmful content.” Their outlet’s purpose is to give more people the “knowledge, skills and tools to identify and fight digital deception.”

🖱️ Read more in Indicator.

Have a story you think we should include in this section of next week’s newsletter? Let us know here or by responding to this email.

This week’s resource is … an upcoming interactive toolkit to add science to any story, the Science Reporting Navigator.

Creator Rachel Zamzow, part of the team developing the toolkit as part of a partnership between The Open Notebook and the Reynolds Journalism Institute, says it comes from the core belief that “science isn’t just a specialty beat.”

The toolkit walks reporters through 10 common situations and points them to relevant advice, and also includes take-home resources including downloadable templates and checklists.

“As we move through the development process, we’ll be readying the Science Reporting Navigator for a beta testing phase,” Zamzow said.

The full course is slated to go live in July, but interested folks can sign up to be a beta tester for the toolkit now.

Thanks for reading. We’ll have more for you next week.

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