Prism

Prism aims to uphold our mission & values across all our social media platforms—but we need your help to do so. As we strive to bring you in-depth, trusted reporting that sparks meaningful conversations in our shared online communities, we know that not everyone will always agree with one another. That’s why we’re asking you to help keep discussions on Prism’s social media accounts respectful, inclusive, & safe. We’ve set these community guidelines to clarify the conduct expectations we have for users in our online community. These standards apply across platforms & topics, & we expect our readers to adhere to them. We trust our readers, & we want to ensure you can trust & feel safe in our shared spaces, too. We welcome feedback & disagreement on social media platforms, but we reserve the right to: 🙈 Hide comments that are hostile toward the writer or subject of the piece in an effort to distract from the substance ❌ Delete comments that contain discriminatory language, hate speech, or personal attacks on the author 🙅‍♀️ Restrict or block users who repeatedly post comments that we have to delete While these guidelines are for readers responding to our content on social media, you can also see our code of ethics for reporters & contributors on our website at prismreports.org/about/code-of-ethics to learn more about the high standards to which we hold our editors, reporters, & contributors. It's an honor to share space with you!

US media is evading its responsibility to acknowledge the Gaza genocide, writes @prismreports 's Editorial Director @femmefeministe and Editor-at-large @tinamvasquez . Genocide has a clear and specific definition, and it is what we are witnessing in Palestine. In this earth-shattering, history-defining moment, the American media is failing. Despite the reports from the ground over the last 19 days of bombing, many American news outlets refuse to identify what’s happening in Gaza as genocide, citing a lack of evidence for the term. By uncritically repeating language from the Israeli Defense Forces and U.S. government briefs, and by framing the mass death of civilians as a side-effect of war between the State of Israel and Hamas, newsrooms continue to break the backbone of journalistic integrity and ignore Israel’s pattern of dehumanizing Palestinians. As @ccrjustice wrote in an emergency briefing, “no State or individual can ever be permitted to justify genocide in the name of self-defense.” Addressing our media colleagues, Witt and Vasquez conclude with this call to action: “For those reporters on the fence about how to do their jobs, to editors who have tremendous power in shaping stories and influencing public opinion, for newsrooms obscuring the obvious in favor of the easy: Genocide is an evidence-based term, and it is here.” Read the article using the link in bio or on prismreports.org.

Here are some of the latest stories we’ve published you don’t want to miss. 📌 “New York bill confronts caste discrimination residents face at work & in public institutions, advocates say” by @yashicadutt 📌 “Trump’s EPA moves toward deregulating a cancer-causing gas” by ray levy uyeda 📌 “As colleges defund campus newspapers, student journalists fight back” by Ananya Chetia 📌 “Beaten to death after crossing the apartheid wall: Israel intensifies targeting of Palestinian workers” by Fayha' Shalash 📌 “Torture survivors healed through this New York City hospital program. Where will they go when it closes?” by Jenny Sherman 📌 “Florida uses public universities to build conservative civics pipeline ahead of ‘America 250’” by @Alex___mar 📌 “Trump’s plan to reopen Alcatraz prison is inhumane & a waste of money, activists say” by Victoria Valenzuela 📌 “Gavin Newsom, a candidate fit for dystopia” by Avik Chatlani 📌 “One bite at a time: Love is patient, love is kind” by Derek R. Trumbo, Sr. Don’t miss out on news from the front lines of the movements you care about. Read the stories online at prismreports.org & subscribe to our newsletter using the link in bio.

A new crop of state laws are ‘leveraging criminalization as a tactic against trans people,’ @petrinkae reports. State legislators have passed hundreds of anti-trans laws since 2020 & proposed even more that could lead to jail or prison time. According to @lgbtmap , 14 laws in 10 states now make it a misdemeanor or felony to perform in drag, use a bathroom not aligned with state-defined “biological sex,” or provide gender-related health care to youth. More than 700,000 trans people live in one of these states. In 2023, the majority of criminal penalties were attached to health care providers or drag performance. But this year, Kansas & Idaho have made it possible to charge trans people with a crime for using the bathroom. The scope of bills is also becoming more extreme: They began limited to K-12 public schools but have expanded to cover government buildings & bathrooms in privately owned schools & prisons. The new laws present trans people with an “impossible choice” between safety & arrest. Today’s regressive policies echo laws dating back to the 1840s, which forbade people from appearing in public “in a dress not belonging to their sex,” said historian Jules Gill-Peterson. “[Anti-trans discrimination] was in the bedrock of the country.” These laws threatened low-level misdemeanors that could create a “revolving door” of arrests & short jail stays. What’s happening now—the targeting of birth certificates & bathrooms—looks different. Even if anti-LGBTQIA+ laws are not consistently enforced, or don’t create new criminal penalties, a stigmatizing political environment has wide-reaching consequences. Trans people are fleeing hostile states, but even hospitals in Democrat-led states have started to drop trans health care for youth. Adults are also struggling to find care & large numbers of LGBTQIA+ youth are seeking mental health services, pushing orgs to the brink. “[These laws] are bad for the economy, they are bad for LGBTQ people & their families & they’re bad for everybody who lives in that state. There are so many actual problems that Americans of all backgrounds are facing that these bills do absolutely nothing to solve.” said Logan Casey. Link in bio.

USDA cuts land-access grants, leaving young & underserved farmers in limbo, Kat Grimmett reports. In late March, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced its cancellation of a $300 million grant program designed to help underserved farmers access land, capital & training, putting roughly 50 projects across 40 states & territories at risk of collapse. The now terminated Increasing Land, Capital & Market Access Program (ILCMA) had enabled early-career farmers access down payment assistance, low-interest land loans, incubator farms & training programs. Its cut leaves no clear replacement. In termination letters, the Farm Service Agency said the program “involved discriminatory preferences.” The decision mirrors broader efforts by the Trump admin to eliminate federal programs tied to DEI initiatives. Meanwhile, the average American farmer is approaching 60 years old & American Farmland Trust has estimated that one-third of U.S. farmland will change hands over the next two decades. “Producers are suffering real consequences right now,” said Amanda Koehler, an urban farmer in Minnesota. “Young people like me cannot compete with developers or well-established farmland owners for the cost of land.” One affected project is The Commons Network, a Miami-based initiative housed under the @urban_oasis_project , which was awarded a five-year grant in fall 2023. The collective of farmers, agriculture educators & food system stakeholders had designed a paid apprenticeship program for new farmers. Without this program, students lose access to knowledge from producers experienced at navigating South Florida’s food systems. The brilliance of the ILCMA program was that it recognized the need for more resilient food systems that shift away from industry-dominated supply chains, monocrop culture & excess pesticide use. The grant directly empowered socially disadvantaged farmers in local communities who followed every single rule of the program—then it was all terminated. “It’s like we’re seedling plants & now they’ve plowed the field & said it’s not going to happen,” said Art Fraser of the Urban Oasis Project. Link in bio. [Title image: Courtesy of Dunn’s Overtown Farm]

‼️ There's ONE WEEK LEFT to apply to our June session of the Reflective Journalism Project: ICE Melts in Summer. Applications close May 17 at 11:59pm ET—there are a few spots left! The Reflective Journalism Project (RJP) by Prism is an award-winning program that trains aspiring writers, community leaders, and front-line social justice thinkers and organizers on the editorial processes and strategies needed to turn journalism into a tool for collective liberation. RJP’s foundation is built on the growing ranks of movement journalism — journalism committed to: 1) creating an accurate record of the organizing, resistance efforts, and marginalized communities fighting oppression, and 2) directly challenging long-held industry practices that uphold the status quo under the myths of journalistic “neutrality” and “objectivity.” This session, we’re focusing on how to bring journalism into alignment with immigration justice movements as the state continues to escalate violence against migrants. Seats are limited and reviewed on a first-come, first-serve basis, so don’t wait to apply! Apply or learn more at the link in bio.

In Texas state prisons, survivors are force-fed a steady diet of Fox News & content from white Christian nationalist orgs, shaping how they understand power & the violence they have experienced. Incarcerated journalist @kwanetaharris unpacks the controlled information ecosystem of American incarceration. “When news of the Epstein files first broke, I watched it unfold on a television I do not own, in a room I cannot leave, on a TV channel I did not choose. The framing I received about Jeffrey Epstein—the financier convicted of soliciting sex from a minor & who was later found dead in jail following his arrest on charges of prolific child sex trafficking—came from Fox News. I am a survivor incarcerated in Texas, where the television you have access to in state prisons is not determined by your curiosity, your education, or your hunger to understand the world; it is determined by your security classification. At the highest security levels, Fox News is mandatory during the one hour a day people can watch television. The state’s decision to subject women to Fox News is political architecture designed to control what we understand about the world, about power & about the violence that has been done to women like us. Texas holds nearly 150,000 people in state prisons & some studies show that up to 95% of incarcerated women have experienced domestic or sexual violence in their lives. We are talking about thousands of women, most of them Black & Latine people living inside the aftermath of American inequality, receiving their one daily hour of mandated news from a network built by & for the people who most benefit from your silence. There is a violence in being kept ignorant of the forces that shape your life. By controlling the media we have access to, the state can manage how the oppressed understand their oppression. The state has decided that survivors inside do not need to understand the world accurately. This brainwashing is delivered each day through a television bolted to a wall, in a room we cannot leave, tuned to a channel we did not choose. When the prison has the power to choose what we know, that is its own kind of sentence.” Link in bio.

The Atlantic, which in 2024 published pieces that said campus protest encampments were “unethical” and described the one at Columbia University as having “a fervor that borders on the oppressive” is also among the publications now asking “Where are all the campus protests?” But student organizers, professors, and experts told Prism that this is less of a “gotcha” moment about how students aren’t showing up to protest, and more the result of a combination of factors—not least the extreme lengths to which universities, police departments, and the Trump administration have gone to punish pro-Palestine protesters. In addition, they highlighted divisions in the Iranian diaspora, differences in the nature of conflict, and other reasons for the relative contrast on college campuses. @macy.hanzlik.barend and I report for Prism. The post contains some excerpts from the piece. Read the full story on @prismreports .

Access to abortion medication should not be thrown into chaos by ideological courts, writes OB-GYN physician assistant & reproductive health educator @nikkivinck in an op-ed. On May 4, the Supreme Court temporarily restored access to mifepristone by mail, telehealth & pharmacies after a federal appeals court attempted to make it harder to access one of the most commonly used medications for abortion & miscarriage care for 25+ years. The temporary stay expires on Monday, May 11, at 5 p.m. ET. The latest court ruling compounds the ongoing attacks on abortion care from all levels of government. Republican lawmakers stand against their constituents’ access to care & even after Roe v. Wade was overturned, anti-abortion extremists have continued their relentless crusade to further ban abortion nationwide. The lower court’s efforts are another example of how abortion restrictions are not just with a sweeping ban, but a series of decisions slowly eroding access, writes Sapiro Vinckier. “Requirements are added that don’t outright eliminate care, but in practice, make abortion nearly impossible by narrowing the pathway & making access more complicated for the people who need it most.” The lower court’s efforts to upend abortion access wasn’t about safety. It was about control, says Sapiro Vinckier. Mifepristone has been reliably used as one of the safest medications used in repro health care. In 2021, the Food & Drug Administration removed the in-person requirement after reviewing extensive data showing that mailing it after a telehealth visit was just as secure. When you take this option away, you have made abortion care even harder to access in a country already overrun with bans & purposefully confusing & restrictive state laws. “Abortion access is essential health care. It should not depend on emergency orders, court deadlines, or whether patients happen to seek care during the one-week window when the rules are temporarily restored. For now, mifepristone access remains in place. But the fight over who gets to control abortion care is far from over.” Link in bio.

"While industry awards aren’t everything, becoming a Writing Freedom Fellowship recipient has made me feel like I’m a real writer with something to offer the world," writes formerly incarcerated columnist Derek R. Trumbo, Sr. The program, developed & administered by @haymarketbooks & the @mellonfoundation , awards critical, life-changing support to poets & writers impacted by the carceral system. When Derek learned that he was chosen as a 2026 fellow, he thought it was a mistake. But it wasn’t. A reader nominated Derek & other writers read his work, critiqued his craft & encouraged his nomination. “I reread the message again, took a few deep breaths & allowed myself to smile. Then I cried, hard & for a long time. I allowed myself to feel hopeful.” Derek received news of this major victory after he had transitioned his commonsense guide to prison, “Never eat the candy” to “One bite at a time,” a column focused on life after reentry. While Derek's life is no longer physically contained in razor wire & concrete buildings, other writers in his fellowship cohort are still deep in the midst of a horrible reality. Lyle May, another new Writing Freedom fellow, told Derek he was cleaning up the day room at his North Carolina prison in the sweltering heat when he got the news. During a call with the program director, Lyle said he took notes about the details, but was distracted by the heat & the broken HVAC unit. He told Derek that he has always wanted as many people as possible to read his work & that the fellowship is “a game changer” for incarcerated writers. Derek echoed Lyle's excitement: “My writing is opening doors for me that I always believed would remain closed & I am thriving instead of merely surviving.” It is difficult to make your voice heard from prison & Derek expresses his gratitude to you, his readers. He may have been the one to receive this fellowship, but he insists, “It is all of us being rewarded for seeking humanity in the face of suffering. I bare my soul to you, dear reader & you have accepted me. ... I lived many years in the dark, & you became the light at the end of the tunnel that led me into the world.” Link in bio.

Don’t wait to apply to our June 2026 Reflective Journalism Project: ICE Melts in Summer training! We’re taking a deep dive into how to bring your writing into alignment with immigration justice movements. ⏰ Applications are due 11:59pm, May 17, 2026. Here's what we'll be covering in each session: 💡 Session 1 (6/3): Unpacking the journalism industry’s “myth of objectivity,” how it impacts our reporting and infiltrates our editorial processes, and the strategies mainstream media employs to destabilize marginalized communities, shape public opinion, and manufacture consent. Featuring Prism’s Editor-in-Chief, @femmefeministe . 🖋️ Session 2 (6/10): A skill-share of the concrete reporting, editing, and publishing methods and principles Prism uses to uplift and protect communities most impacted by injustice and harm, and how you can apply those strategies to immigration reporting. Featuring @alex___mar and @tinamvasquez . 💫 Session 3 (6/17): A strategy deep dive into rejecting capitalist “audience growth” and approaching audience development as coalition-building, reframing journalistic community engagement as political education informed by and accountable to movements. Featuring Prism’s Audience Team. 💻 Session 4 (6/24): A skill-share covering creative content design and production to distribute reporting and attract aligned readers, and how to translate complex reporting on immigration and community resistance across platforms. Featuring Prism’s Audience Team. Seats are limited and reviewed on a first-come, first-serve basis, so don’t wait to apply! Apply at the link in bio.

We need a mosaic movement, not fragmented ‘leftism,’ writes @williamcson in his latest “Another way out.” On May Day, we heed the call to solidarity & self-determination using what former Black Panther, Black Liberation Army member & political prisoner Russell Maroon Shoatz called “the mosaic.” “The ‘mosaic’ will be built on the principles of seeking to recruit from both the most oppressed segments & from among the most selfless. … The mosaic must immediately begin a dialogue toward building a consensus—as soon as possible—about how to best further coordinate our collective efforts,” wrote Shoatz in his essay “The Dragon & the Hydra.” Perhaps nowhere throughout the Western world is the pitifulness of empty division more apparent than in the U.S. An ongoing circus of sectarian leftists continue to define themselves by pointing fingers at one another, even going as far as blaming each other for genocides, imperialism & geopolitics that are far beyond their respective spheres of influence. This is a gross overestimation of their own relevance, size & impact, indicating a ridiculous disconnect. “Revolutionaries are everywhere, but nowhere is there any real revolution,” wrote Tunisian radical theorist Mustapha Khayati. We will not beat back repressive power with a bunch of fragmented groups & individuals beefing over all of the nothingness they have control over. We are regularly falling apart & repeating past mistakes. If we do not want the failure of all this to keep falling on us, then we should move out of its way. We must move toward the mosaic. The mosaic will not be an effort to impose any type of multiracial, multiethnic, gender-neutral, or conformist utopian universalism, Shoatz emphasizes. “The mosaic will allow individuals, organizations & entire communities to exercise self-determination in deciding what types of social orders they choose to struggle to bring into being, while at the same time learning how to better come together with others to form societies that will be superior to the ones in which we now live.” Link in bio.