Level Up

Level Up Workshops and Trainings

Past Trainings

Press On’s popular education program, Level Up, strives to meet the needs of Southern movement journalists, media makers, and organizers by increasing their understanding of emergent grassroots justice issues within movement and media landscapes, as well as advancing their technical media skills. This program cultivates community and capacity among journalists and storytellers from communities of color and LGBTQIA+, rural, disabled, immigrant, youth, elder, and working-class communities.
 
Join Press On’s email list to receive program announcements. To reduce the spread of COVID-19, we’re currently only convening virtual spaces.
  
Our offerings since we relaunched Level Up in fall 2022:

  • Movement Journalism 101 for Journalists
  • Movement Journalism 101 for Organizers
  • Making Media for Weelaunee Summer: A Stop Cop City Teach-In
  • Lede writing workshops
  • Snack & Learn political education sessions on the following topics:
    • Building Worker-Led Newsrooms
    • Media for Trans Liberation
    • Harm Reduction for Abortion Justice Reporters
    • Building Solidarity Between Organizers & Journalists
    • Media & Messaging strategies to Defeat Anti-Trans Legislation
    • Black Feminist Media Past, Present & Future
    • Covering Federal Marijuana Decrim for Media Makers
  • Movement Broadcasting Intensive with Migrant Roots Media & Interrupting Criminalization
  • Freedom of Information Act 101 for Movement Journalists
  • Media Law 101 for Movement Journalists
  • Amplifying Community Voices: An Op-Ed Training for Movement Organizers

Why

Journalism has been in a holding pattern for over 50 years now: People of color, women, and trans and gender-nonconforming people are still few and far between in leadership and editorial roles. Meanwhile, local news in poor and rural areas has been chipped away by corporate consolidation and a changing business model, resulting in little to no access to good information for many local communities, both urban and rural. The model for journalism remains hierarchical and extractive, to the detriment of the communities most in need of strong information infrastructure.

And yet, we know that journalism remains a key part of social change and liberation: It can provide organizers and communities with actionable information that helps catalyze change. Journalism is more important than ever, especially in the South.

At Press On, we believe that how we do this reporting work matters. It is not enough to report about oppressed communities, we must enable reporting by and for oppressed people, shifting from a “diversity and inclusion” model to an approach that centers justice and liberation at every level.

We refer to this practice as movement journalism.

Our Approach

Press On’s education program helps journalists and media makers build the political and historical analysis, skills, and tools they need to transform the field toward liberation. All of our workshops and trainings are responsive to needs we have heard from movement journalists and journalists from marginalized communities and identities in the South. Our curriculum is grounded in principles of popular education and Black liberation, and is tailored to specific groups and audiences based on need. Our workshops are also intersectional, focusing on racial and gender justice but not excluding discussions of disability justice, LGBTQ+ issues, and economic oppression in the field of journalism. We focus on examining systems of power, historically and today, in order to take action toward change.

Our curriculum centers Southern media makers of color, queer and trans, immigrants, Black and Indigenous, and people from low-income and rural communities, but our programming is frequently open to national audiences and collaborators across a variety of identities and sectors. Currently, all Press On educational programming is offered online due to the social distancing requirements of the COVID-19 pandemic.