Look what came in my door step today! My colleague and fellow @fspnwu.bsky.social comrade @amylittlefield.bsky.social BOOK!!! For years, Amy has been talking to me about this book. SO I AM SO HAPPY that it’s here!!!! Can’t wait to dive into this book! bookshop.org/p/books/kill...

Khawla somehow manages to _understate_ the amount of time and effort she put into this piece. Please give it a read!

In February 2021, seven men sat down to pray in a Missouri prison. Within minutes, guards put them in shackles and covered them in pepper spray. The incident highlights the dangers Muslims face practicing their religion in prison, @khawlanakua.bsky.social reports. theappeal.org/pepper-spray...

NEW FROM ME: for @theappeal.org. After a year of: ✅ Sifting through more than 200 pages of records. ✅ Sifting through more than 3,000 court document searches. ✅ Interviewing many sources. ✅ And filing many public records requests. My story is finally published today. theappeal.org/pepper-spray...

I get it, but I do sometimes wish people spent as much time linking to articles they’ve enjoyed reading, than articles they want to expose as trash.

Holy shit. Reuters reporting that new admin instructions on visas are if you worked at a platform in trust & safety or content moderation or on fact checking or online safety at an platform you *and your loved ones* are ineligible for H-1B visa. www.reuters.com/world/us/tru...

I haven’t stopped thinking about this article from @thelocal.to ever since I read it. Half way through I had to stop reading it because it was too intense and scary. thelocal.to/investigatin...

Columbia and Northwestern are the academic homes to the most prestigious journalism schools in the country and they are the two universities that caved to the Trump administration’s extortion demands that are directly connected to the First Amendment. Just gonna sit with that for a while.

absolutely harrowing description of adx supermax in colorado boltsmag.org/death-row-cl...

I’ve just finished my last class of the first semester of teaching journalism and I have loved every minute of it. Teaching journalism students really reminds me why I became a journalist in first place. I can never be cynical about the state of journalism when teaching amazing journalists.

A Reporter’s Glossary of Prison Jargon

Editors have a really hard job, and the good ones can make something unreadable readable, and the great ones can make something unreadable into something good. But they're basically invisible, until someone tries to write without one.

It’s been a long time dream to have an article that I wrote be in a physical magazine. I have finally achieved that dream! @thewalrus.ca

Sci-fi with something to say: Writer @khawlanakua.bsky.social revisits Battlestar Galactica and finds a haunting reflection of our world today. thewalrus.ca/i-have-watched-b...

My very first essay has been published for @thewalrus.ca. When I was 11 years old I watched the watched the excellent Battlestar Galactica series. This show played a massive influence in my life. For the past two years I have been reflecting a lot about this series. And I wrote an essay about it.

I am so excited to share that I am going to teach a journalism course at Toronto Metropolitan University this fall semester. I’ll be teaching the Justice and the Courts course. I can’t wait to teach students about journalism!!!

So thrilled to announce that @theflytrapmedia.com has collaborated with @nwu.org on freelancer policies. As a current freelancer, it's really important to me to value and protect our freelance contributors. Proud to join other indie pubs in this! You can read all about it here:

on the one hand we should want people to change their mind so we can stop what's happening now. On the other hand there need to be costs for the ghoulish behavior that got us here, as these people absolutely will do this again given half a chance

I think some people have trouble seeing fascism as anything other than 1940s Germany. But I think 'people going to a comic convention needing to have a plan in case the government's goons show up to disappear people' is a pretty good demonstration of what it can look like in 2025.

Predictable, but no less shocking or reprehensible: Trump just signed an executive order urging states to forcibly institutionalize homeless people, defund Housing First, criminalize encampments, and cut aid to cities that don't comply.

i wish i had the power or the money to like hire thousands of out of work journalists and put them (us?) to work doing what we do best ie chipping and scraping at the lies people in power tell. horse race commenters not welcome

They ripped him apart from his pregnant wife in her last trimester. They stole from him the birth of his baby boy Dean, his graduation ceremony, his first Father's Day. They detained him illegally for 104 days. But today, Mahmoud Khalil is FINALLY FREE. 🤍✊🏼

“After more than three months we can finally breathe a sigh of relief and know that Mahmoud is on his way home to me and Deen, who never should have been separated from his father,” says Dr. Noor Abdalla, Mahmoud Khalil’s wife, in reaction to a judge granting his request for bail

I am not a cryer. I rarly cry. But the Ghorman massacre episode in Andor brought me to tears, it was to close to home. And I was waiting for a critic to write a comparison piece to our moment. So glad that @roxana-hadadi.bsky.social wrote this excellent piece www.vulture.com/article/ando...

The carceral system is inundated with crises – that's why investigative journalism is more important than ever On #WorldPressFreedomDay, here are 10 stories from 2024 that newsrooms can emulate to shine a light inside the black box of mass incarceration🧵 www.prisonpolicy.org/blog/2024/12...

The Miami Herald is doing remarkable public service journalism on deported Venezuelans and the crimes being committed against them. Almost like news institutions that are located in and around the communities they serve end up being accountable for serving those communities

Listen. Media is in the toilet. As freelance media workers, sharing our rates is a simple act of solidarity — as well as a step toward a better media industry. Enter your rates at bit.ly/share-rates #FreelanceSolidarityChallenge

Is now a good time to say that people convicted of crimes deserve rights, due process, and not to be deported, let alone to a third country slave prison

The Trump admin continues to send immigrant students to remote detention centers in Louisiana. So I spent a day in court inside the ICE center holding Mahmoud Khalil. It has faced consistent allegations of medical neglect & due process issues. Here’s what I saw: www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

I turned 30, last September and I was looking forward to turning 30 all year. And none of my friends who older or younger than me, understood it. They all have insecurities on getting older and I am in the best place in my life at 30. PS, I hated my 20s.

Think it’s important to highlight how everyday violence of the U.S. criminal legal system is making what ICE is doing possible: this man was convicted of a crime at *16*; he was *pardoned*; when ICE came decades later they claimed the conviction made him a felon w/ no recourse against deportation

This is going to be remembered for all time as Columbia’s response to having a student protestor kidnapped and held prisoner by a budding authoritarian regime. It is unspeakable cowardice.

Lots of new details in Mahmoud Khalil's amended complaint against the Trump admin. His lawyers are asking for more than just his release; they want the judge to order the Trump admin to stop its plan to arrest/deport protesters. Read the whole thing here: www.courtlistener.com/docket/69719...

this interview is incredible www.npr.org/2025/03/13/n...

New from @elizabethweill.bsky.social and me: The Louisiana ICE detention facility where immigration officials sent Mahmoud Khalil has a decades-long history of deaths and abuse, records show: theappeal.org/mahmoud-khal...

A new Colorado law mandates ballot access in jails but only for even-year general elections, and for just six hours on one day. Advocates say it’s a step forward—but they’re already pushing to expand it to more elections. boltsmag.org/jail-vo...

As we near the end of the Freelance Solidarity Challenge, we want to hear from you about how we should use the data we've collected along the way. We know there's no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow – unless we organize! RSVP: bit.ly/fspmarchrates

As correction officers continue their strike and Gov. Hochul brings in the National Guard, I spoke to incarcerated New Yorkers to get their take on what's happening in NY prisons for @hellgatenyc.com hellgatenyc.com/prison-guard...

I think most people are intuitively aware of this but something like the official White House account posting an “ASMR” video of shackled immigrants is not just cruel for its own sake, it’s intentional envelope-pushing to ramp up to desensitization over inhumane detention, camps, and deaths

I don't think I've ever had that happen with a FOIA request! www.cnn.com/2025/02/18/p...

This is alarming: The FCC is investigating an SF radio station for reporting on immigration sweeps. Specifically, they're taking issue w/descriptions of immigration enforcement vehicles & locations - simply conveying observable fact in real time. You know, NEWS. www.kqed.org/news/1202597...

“A lot of journalists argue that their role isn’t to advocate—that that’s not their job. But if your job isn’t to inform people in a way that will help them, then I don’t really understand what your job is.” Read my chat with @columjournreview.bsky.social:

Trump was certain to do everything he’s doing now. Instead of taking the threat of his reelection seriously or putting any effort to carve meaningful differences btwn them & him on this, they backed genocide to the hilt. Those trying to frame it differently see Palestinian lives as talking points

You cannot dissolve federal agencies through executive order. REPORTERS PLEASE DO YOUR FUCKING JOBS.

“Our ancestral lands were taken, disrupting our traditional ways of life and governance. Displacement led to economic hardship and social challenges that have made our communities more vulnerable to the criminal justice system.” Great piece by @gristnews.bsky.social grist.org/indigenous/p...

Our writer Vaughn Wright tells the story of what it was like when Luigi Mangione showed up at his Pennsylvania prison. It took a few weeks to get this out because we had to rely on postal mail to ask for the story and get it back without creating problems.

We are ecstatic to report that the charges against our member and independent journalist @alissaazar.bsky.social were DROPPED. This is a strong reminder of the power of public pressure as protecting press freedom becomes even more critical. Read Alissa's story: buff.ly/40u8Qub