2024 Program:
Media Justice
Thursday November 21
From Atlanta to Palestine, organizers are facing unprecedented attacks on the right to protest, including repressive laws designed to silence dissent across issue areas. In this session, you’ll hear from:
- Kamau Franklin, the Founder and Executive Director of Community Movement Builders, which has been leading the fight to StopCopCity since its construction was announced.
-Julia Bacha, the director of the documentary "Boycott" and the Creative Director at Just Vision, an organization that fills s a media gap on Israel-Palestine through independent storytelling.
Presenters will share media clips and other compelling visual materials to illustrate this issue and efforts to push back. For years, lawfare tactics have been used to silence organizers for racial justice and Palestinian advocacy across the U.S. and beyond.
For Palestinian advocacy, the trend is especially sharp in local legislatures, where 36 states have laws on the books that aim to silence those boycotting Israel based on its human rights record. Similarly, StopCopCity organizers are facing legislation that penalizes essential organizing methods, criminalizing everything from the use of burner phones to charitable bail funds, impacting the ecosystem of who can protest, dissent, and organize for their communities.
With these laws spreading quickly across the US, the speakers will share about techniques used to push back and the importance of cross-movement / intersectional organizing in these efforts.
A powerful strategic communication tool is the opinion editorial. Opinion editorials run opposite the editorial page in printed publications, and in the opinion section on online platforms. These pieces inform local, state, and federal officials on a host of topics and can influence how policymakers and the public view a given issue.
Opinion pieces are also a phenomenal way to advance one's message and change the narrative on a host of topics. To build capacity, organizers and advocates should know how to write and publish their thought leadership, and this workshop will show you how.
Learn from experts who write, edit, and pitch opinion essays regularly. In 2023, Spotlight PR LLC edited, wrote, and pitched for publication more than 55 opinion essays. We know what works and can show you how to write in your own voice and share that voice with the world.