Police Violence, Union Drives, and Climate Emergency
April 13, 2021 The Park Center for Independent Media circulates the Indy Brief. Subscribe for a weekly selection of news stories from journalists operating outside traditional corporate systems. Subscribe The Headlines PCIM Events Izzy Award Ceremony on April 27 (PCIM) A Conversation with Boots Riley: “Democracy at Work!” (PCIM) Book Launch for Flash Flaherty: Tales […]
Driven by Industry, More States Are Passing Tough Laws Aimed at Pipeline Protesters
When Nancy Beaulieu’s Ojibwe ancestors signed a series of treaties with the federal government in the 19th century, one of the goals was to protect the land, she said. So she sees it as not just her right but her duty to protest the building of a major oil pipeline underway in northern Minnesota. As […]
Living Through the Climate Emergency
IMAGINE A WILDFIRE was bearing down on your community. Smoke was darkening the sun; flames were hopping from one canyon to the next. The local fire expert, who had been warning of this moment for years, said the time had come to evacuate. Right now. But the local newsroom wasn’t so sure. Wouldn’t businesses suffer if […]
A New Union of Musicians Is Taking on Spotify
There was a time when Los Angeles’ Arts District was actually an arts district. The 1960s and ’70s saw plenty of broke artists in search of affordable space move into the area’s abandoned warehouses. In a few short years the misused industrial area was completely transformed. Cheap bars and coffee houses hosted DIY art exhibitions […]
The Union Campaign at Amazon Was Just the Beginning
Workers at an Amazon fulfillment center in Bessemer, Alabama, have lost their bid to seek union representation in a National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) election, in what would have been the first of the company’s U.S. facilities to unionize. Unfortunately, despite a strong campaign led by the Retail Wholesale and Department Store Union (of which the Amazon workers […]
Protests Erupt After Police Kill Black Man During Traffic Stop Near Minneapolis
Police fatally shot Daunte Wright—an unarmed, 20-year-old Black man—during a traffic stop in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota on Sunday afternoon, sparking protests in the northern Minneapolis suburb located just miles away from where George Floyd was killed by police last May. “Yet another Black life was taken by those sworn to protect,” the state’s ACLU chapter said in […]
Howard Dean Pushes Biden to Oppose Generic COVID-19 Vaccines for Developing Countries
HOWARD DEAN, the former progressive champion, is calling on President Joe Biden to reject a special intellectual property waiver that would allow low-cost, generic coronavirus vaccines to be produced to meet the needs of low-income countries. Currently, a small number of companies hold the formulas for the Covid-19 vaccines, limiting distribution to many parts of the […]
A Conversation with Boots Riley: “Democracy at Work!” 04/15
The Park Center for Independent Media (PCIM) in collaboration with Cornell University’s Industry Labor Relations School presents: A Conversation with Boots Riley: “Democracy at Work!” Boots Riley is a musician, labor activist and director of the critically acclaimed film Sorry to Bother You. At this virtual event, he will discuss organizing, social change, and the connections […]
Izzy Award Ceremony Will Honor Truthout, Liliana Segura, and Tim Schwab on 4/27
The Park Center for Independent Media (PCIM) at Ithaca College has announced that this year’s Izzy Award “for outstanding achievement in independent media” will be shared by a publication and two journalists who undertook trailblazing and intrepid reporting during 2020. The nonprofit news outlet Truthout extensively covered the injustices enmeshed in the impacts of the COVID-19 […]