Constructive Journalism @constructivejournalism@social.coop
Solution-focused journalism, curated by @eloquence. Want to help curate? Send a DM or just add to scratchpad here: https://pad.riseup.net/p/CJQueue
Hello fediverse! This account will toot a few stories a week that are examples of solutions-focused journalism: how people are working to address inequality, prejudice, and exploitative economic systems. Want to help curate stories? Send a private message, either to this account or to @eloquence.
This account is not a bot - all stories are selected and summarized with love. :)
Co-ops, democratically run and emphasizing long-term sustainability over short-term profits, are a key part of the #SolidarityEconomy.
Earlier this month, Wired UK published a brief but interesting profile of "CoTech, a growing network of tech co-operatives in the UK. There are currently 30 tech businesses united under the CoTech banner, which range from filmmakers to programmers; they collectively employ more than 250 staff and have revenues of over £10.2 million."
http://www.wired.co.uk/article/cotech-tech-cooperatives-blake-house-outlandish
In the US, banks are largely identified with private commercial gain; many other countries operate huge #PublicBanks that invest in needed infrastructure projects.
Wealthy states like #California have the ability to shake things up, but so far haven't shown the will.
Ellen Brown, who became an advocate for public banking after the 2008 financial crisis, makes the case for change in Yes Magazine:
In the 1970s, a group called NARMIC supported the movement against the #Vietnam war with research such as:
- the top 100 defense contractors making the war possible;
- a slideshow showing the automated weapons systems used, and their horrific impact.
LittleSis (which maintains a power research database of its own) is profiling this important work, so that it can inform and inspire #opendata activists today:
https://news.littlesis.org/2017/10/24/researchers-against-the-war-machine-the-story-of-narmic/
Ben Tarnoff from the socialist magazine Jacobin spoke with one of the #Google employees who organized the successful campaign against the use of Google's AI tech for #DroneWarfare.
The interview unpacks many facets of this campaign, and the (pseudonymous) employee also makes the case for tech worker unionization:
https://jacobinmag.com/2018/06/google-project-maven-military-tech-workers
Whether it's conflicts over land grabbing, water infrastructure or mining projects, the Environmental Justice Atlas (https://ejatlas.org/) tracks the struggles of social movements around the world for a sustainable and inclusive economy. An overview by Julie Snorek for The Conversation:
The Nation covers the growing movement for #PublicHousing solutions in the US:
"Movement leaders and thinkers are strategizing for a future in which the private market is diminished and noncommercial, community-controlled housing plays a central role in American life. In this alternative reality, public housing is massively expanded and #cooperatives, mutual-housing associations, and other nonmarket ownership models take root in cities large and small."
The May issue of New Internationalist features in-depth reporting on movements around the world to restore #PublicServices to #PublicOwnership:
https://newint.org/issues/2018/05/01/public-ownership
In particular, "The efficiency myth" by Nick Dowson provides an informative overview of the mounting body of empirical research showing that the idea of "market efficiency" does not withstand scrutiny for many public services:
https://newint.org/features/2018/05/01/the-private-sector-efficiency-myth
Lucy Purdy writes about South London's new #LibraryOfThings, a community lending library for various tools and appliances:
The Wikipedia article about the movement is pretty comprehensive, as well:
When kids are fined fined by their #library for returning books late, they often stop reading altogether. An alternative approach: letting patrons "read away" their fines. Nice description of such a program by the LA Times from December:
http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-edu-no-library-fines-20171225-story.html
Paula Serafini writes in The Conversation about the "cultural resistance" to #extractivism (massive open-pit #mining projects and the like) in #Argentina:
"In Andalgalá, I am often told that even though the fight against mining is far from over, the cultural battle has been won. The myths of progress associated with mining have been debunked – and the struggle has generated a creative space for thinking about alternative economic and governing models."
https://theconversation.com/the-argentinian-fight-against-mega-mining-95672
Shareable has a nice if brief overview of three cooperative food movements:
1) The League of Urban Canners, a growing network in Boston to preserve backyard fruit, with an interesting "fruit-sharing" model. More about LUrC here:
2) Restaurant Day, which encourages anyone to briefly experience what it's like to run a restaurant;
3) Kitchen Share, a Portland lending library for kitchen tools.
https://www.shareable.net/blog/3-grassroot-movements-bringing-people-together-through-food
Those fighting for change often draw inspiration from #music. A beautiful article about Stimela, a #SouthAfrican song by Hugh Masekela that describes the migrant labor system of the apartheid era.
"This train carries young and old, African men
Who are conscripted to come and work on contract
In the golden mineral mines of Johannesburg
And its surrounding metropolis, sixteen hours or more a day
For almost no pay."
The Atlantic takes a closer look at how Slack managed to create a more diverse tech team than most other US tech companies, e.g.:
- recruit via training programs focused on women, black and Latino engineers
- ditch whiteboard interviews
- wipe personal identifiers from code reviews
- standardize interview questions
- perform "mock interviews" with existing hires.
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/04/how-slack-got-ahead-in-diversity/558806/
What does it look like when co-ops work closely with architects to create shared living spaces? In November 2016, The Conversation looked at the #baugruppen model employed in some German #cities:
Some cities are proactive about incentivizing these kinds of developments:
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H/T to @muninn for suggesting this topic via our EtherPad: https://pad.riseup.net/p/CJQueue
Mongabay, a nonprofit environmental news outlet, just published a richly-illustrated report by Monica Pelliccia about an all-women cooperative of #coffee growers in #Honduras.
The coop uses #agroforestry, which means that the coffee is grown in the shade of timber-yielding trees such as Spanish cedar, plus fruit trees like guamo and #avocado. 🥑
This ecological land use technique reduces soil erosion and increases food security.
https://news.mongabay.com/2018/04/cooperative-agroforestry-empowers-indigenous-women-in-honduras/
The debate about #housing in the US is often framed as a battle between #NIMBY ("not in my back yard") and #YIMBY ("yes in my back yard"): against or for market-driven increases in housing stock in particular neighborhoods.
CityLab (part of The Atlantic) takes a look at the "#PHIMBY" campaign in California by several democratic #socialist chapters: Public Housing In My Back Yard.
https://www.citylab.com/equity/2018/04/nimbys-yimbys-and-phimbys-oh-my/557927/
(For DSA's full reasoning, see, e.g., DSA-LA's statement here: http://www.dsa-la.org/statement_in_opposition_to_sb_827)
A city, like a social network, can be hostile or welcoming, exploitative or cooperative; it can foster meaningful connections or impede them.
How can we become more intentional about the #cities we live in? We can look at examples of doing things differently, recognize patterns, adapt & apply them. This article by Amanda Abrams looks at a few examples of neighborhood organizing, from "senior villages" in the US to "sharing villages" in Korea:
https://blog.p2pfoundation.net/why-urban-villages-are-on-the-rise-around-the-world/2018/04/14 https://social.coop/media/WpuccAafrhPObJyHXrc
Similar collaborations between news orgs are becoming more common, thanks to better tools, better networking, and nonprofits specifically focused on building bridges. Here's a database of #CollaborativeJournalism projects that anyone can study to get inspiration, compiled by the Center for Cooperative Media (!) and Melody Kramer:
https://collaborativejournalism.org/database-search-sort-learn-collaborative-projects-around-world/
Daphne Galizia, who investigated corruption in #Malta, was murdered last year:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daphne_Caruana_Galizia
Journalists are fighting back against attempts to silence them. 18 news organizations from 15 countries are coordinating the #DaphneProject, to tell her stories over the coming weeks. See, e.g.:
https://www.occrp.org/en/thedaphneproject/
The project is being coordinated by #ForbiddenStories, an NPO specifically set up to amplify the stories of murdered journalists.
More about Daphne:
http://niemanreports.org/articles/she-set-the-standard-and-then-raised-it/
Citations are as important to #science as hyperlinks are to the web. What if the entire citation graph was available as open data? We're getting closer to this being a reality. Dario Taraborelli, who leads Wikimedia's research team, writes on Boing Boing about the Initiative for Open Citations (https://i4oc.org/):