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‘Massive Resistance’ Pledged on Anti-DEI Moves

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Journalist Groups Missing in Inaugural Session
Opinion Writers of Color Pan Inaugural Speech
A Plea to Avoid ‘Pithy Soundbites’ on Gender
Garvey Pardon Called Correction of ‘Historic Wrong’
Commutation Surprises Reporter on Peltier Trials
Biden Clears Slate for Subject of ‘Kemba’s Nightmare’
Relatives of Cuban Political Prisoners Losing Hope
‘A Unique Gathering Space for the Black Diaspora’

Homepage photo: Marc Morial addresses “Demand Diversity Roundtable.” (Credit: National Urban League)

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“Let us commit today that we are prepared to lead a massive resistance movement,” said Marc Morial of the National Urban League, who convened the group of diversity advocates. (Credit: YouTube)

Journalist Groups Missing in Inaugural Session

A powerful array of skilled civil rights advocates vowed Wednesday to undertake “massive resistance” in the courts and elsewhere to counter the Trump administration’s demonizing of the concept of diversity, equity and inclusion.

No representative of journalism associations was present. Collectively those groups have been slow to respond to attacks on a concept that helps produce future journalists of color. The National Association of Hispanic Journalists, whose slogan is “More Latinos in News,” released a preview of its plans for its annual conference Wednesday with the words “DEI” or “diversity” never mentioned.

However, Brenda Victoria Castillo (pictured), president and CEO of the National Hispanic Media Coalition, told the Washington gathering that she was there because “the way we are portrayed is the way we are treated in real life.”

Seated around a horseshoe-shaped table in a 90-minute National Press Club discussion that was streamed, the 16 activists, civil rights leaders and lawyers convened by Marc Morial, president and CEO of the National Urban League, spoke a day after President Trump’s administration “moved to end affirmative action in federal contracting and directed that all federal diversity, equity and inclusion staff be put on paid leave and eventually be laid off,” in the words of Alexandra Olson and Zeke Miller of the Associated Press.

“The moves Tuesday follow an executive order Trump signed on his first day ordering a sweeping dismantling of the federal government’s diversity and inclusion programs that could touch on everything from anti-bias training to funding for minority farmers and homeowners,” Olson and Miller reported. “Trump has called the programs ‘discrimination’ and insisted on restoring strictly ‘merit-based’ hiring.

“The executive order on affirmative action revokes an order issued by President Lyndon Johnson, and curtails DEI programs by federal contractors and grant recipients. It’s using one of the key tools utilized by the Biden administration to promote DEI programs across the private sector — pushing their use by federal contractors — to now eradicate them.”

The public is actually on the side of diversity proponents, said Samantha Tweedy (pictured), president of the Black Economic Alliance Foundation, citing a Harris Poll taken online for her organization in 2023.

“Overall, US adults support businesses taking active steps to make sure companies reflect the diversity of the American population (78% support vs. 22% oppose), the pollsters said.

One by one, the panelists sought to demolish arguments put forth by the anti-DEI forces and the Trump administration, on moral, legal and economic grounds.

Framing DEI “as divisive, unnecessary or worse, perpetuating mediocrity, seeks to place restrictions on programs that, at their core, seek to do one thing: Advance economic opportunity,” said Alphonso David (pictured), president and CEO of the Global Black Economic Forum.

Those contentions are “premised on the argument that they are creating a society that is color-blind and merit based. The only problem with that argument is that it ignores the facts: So the facts are that the majority of the people in executive positions are white men. Those are the facts.

“They’re not people of color, and they’re not women. They are not excluded from those roles based on merit; they are excluded from those roles based on who they are. Based on the color of their skin. Based on their gender. The wage and the wealth gap continue to widen, decade after decade. In fact, Black families hold 15 percent of the wealth of white families. And Black workers earn 76 cents to every white person’s dollar.”

David also said there was a misunderstanding that the Supreme Court’s 2023 decision against affirmative action in higher education also applies to corporations and to employment. It does not. (Image: Washington Post front page for Jan, 24)

Others mentioned that backlash has long been part of the United States’ racial history.  “This is the same battle against hate that we have been fighting for generations,” said Margaret Huang of the Southern Poverty Law Center.. The debate is “not political, it’s moral,” said Sheila Katz, CEO of the National Council of Jewish Women. It is “a counterweight to centuries of exclusion.”  

The anti-DEI assault was portrayed as part of a larger scheme. “They’re coming after entire civil rights infrastructure,” warned Kimberlé Crenshaw, co-founder and executive director of the African American Policy Forum.

Such plans “will only worsen America’s hierarchy; it would truly benefit an oligarch class,” said Derrick Johnson, president and CEO of the NAACP. “To roll back these programs now opens the door to redefine the role of government” in a way that privatizes public service, an outcome designed “to enrich a small class of individuals.”

Amy Spitalnick (pictured), CEO at the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, said, “It’s all part of a broader effort to normalize bigotry, hatred and extremism,” pitting communities against each other. . . . We’ve seen extremists in all directions . . . advance an extremist agenda that pits Jews against others, that suggests that the only way to address anti-Semitism is to somehow end diversity, equity and inclusion and other efforts aimed at a more inclusive democracy, or that Jews shouldn’t be part of the movement for civil rights and social justice.” Spitalnick said “our security as Jews” is linked with a just society.

Lawyers mentioned legal challenges, and activists mentioned the power of economic boycotts.

“The power of litigation should never be underestimated,” said Janai Nelson (pictured), president and CEO of the Legal Defense Fund. Trump’s executive orders, she said, are “constitutionally frail.”

According to a fact sheet produced by the National Urban League, diversity, equity and inclusion “drives innovation, increases productivity, and unlocks the full potential of our workforce.

“Studies show that companies with workforces that are diverse on multiple levels, including by race, are more innovative, productive, and profitable.

“A report by Accenture found that non-inclusive workplace cultures cost American companies $1.05 trillion annually, primarily due to high turnover, low productivity, and low employee engagement.

“A 2020 study by Citi estimates that the United States would have gained $16 trillion dollars in Gross Domestic Product (GDP), if we had closed racial gaps in wages, access to higher education, lending, and mortgage access between 2000 and 2020. Similarly, a 2021 Brookings study found that U.S. GDP would have been $22.9 trillion higher from 1990 to 2019 if opportunities and outcomes were more equally distributed by race and ethnicity.”

Morial summarized by outlining an action plan that included engaging with congressional leaders, further meetings with “the corporate sector,” “pursuing every avenue” that involves litigation at the state and federal levels, discussing how to best leverage $5 trillion in consumer power, and educating and informing the public.

“Let us commit today that we are prepared to lead a massive resistance movement,” Morial said, noting that the room included “brilliant litigators” and “brilliant policy minds,” and that the communities they collectively represent total more than 100 million Americans.

The Rev. Lorenzo Sewell delivered a passionate benediction at President Trump’s inauguration ceremony Monday. “His soulful cadence was not welcomed by some Black social media users,” wrote Kalyn Womack for The Root. “Most people just laughed at the video recording of the prayer or took it to be performative or ‘coonery.’ ” (Credit: Forbes/YouTube)

Opinion Writers of Color Pan Inaugural Speech

“Fox News was far and away the most-watched TV network during President Trump’s inauguration on Monday, a sign of both the channel’s dominance in cable news and the overall drop in Americans who rely on television to keep up on current events,” Michael M. Grynbaum reported Tuesday for The New York Times.

“A peak of 34.4 million people tuned in live to watch Mr. Trump’s lunchtime swearing-in on the major TV networks, according to statistics from Nielsen.

“The peak TV audience was down from the nearly 40 million viewers who watched former President Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s speech in 2021, and the 38.3 million who watched Mr. Trump’s first inaugural speech in 2017. . . .”

Black-oriented cable channels BET, TV One and GrioTV all skipped live coverage of the inauguration, with TV One showing a special on King, whose birthday was celebrated the same day, and BET and GrioTV airing sitcoms.

Neither BET nor GrioTV spokespeople responded to an inquiry about those choices, but GrioTV is owned by Byron Allen’s enterprises, which have been facing financial headwinds.

TV One debuted on King’s birthday in 2004.

The Spanish-language networks Univision and Telemundo each provided simultaneous translations of Trump’s speech, with a Telemundo spokesperson adding, “We had more than 13 hours of coverage across the Telemundo network and our streaming channel, Noticias Telemundo Ahora. The coverage included a primetime news special that aired on the network at 10 pm ET.”

Meanwhile, in print and in cable news commentary, Trump’s inauguration speech was panned by journalists and commentators of color, with some calling it racist and xenophobic. On CNN, Van Jones said Trump had decided to “fix problems that don’t exist.”

Joy Reid, on MSNBC, called the inaugural speech “one of the most racist” she’d heard, objecting to Trump’s endorsement of the concept of “manifest destiny,” which was used in the 19th century to take land from indigenous people, asserting that the United States was destined to exist from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific.

A team from NOLS, a nonprofit global wilderness school, poses on the bank of the McKinley River with the Alaska Range and Denali in the background. “Covered with white glaciers, Denali towers incredibly high above all the other Alaska Range peaks and the surrounding green tundra. With its summit at 6,190 m/20,310 feet, it’s the highest mountain of North America and one of the coldest mountains on Earth, notorious for its storms,” NOLS team member Stéphane Terrier wrote in 2017.

Trump used the phrase in connection with plans for space exploration. He also said the United States would take back the Panama Canal, and reverse the decision of the Obama administration to restore the name of North America’s tallest peak from Mount McKinley to its original name, Denali, so designated by indigenous Alaskans.

“President McKinley made our country very rich through tariffs and through talent — he was a natural businessman — and gave Teddy Roosevelt the money for many of the great things he did, including the Panama Canal, which has foolishly been given to the country of Panama,” Trump said.

Writing Wednesday in the Alaska Beacon, Corinne Smith noted that both of Alaska’s Republican senators opposed the restoration of McKinley’s name.

“McKinley never visited Alaska, nor had any significant historical ties to the mountain or the state, according to the resolution renaming it,” Smith wrote. “A local prospector named the mountain after the then-presidential nominee McKinley in 1896.”

In Panama, meanwhile, Vivian Jimenez wrote that President José Raúl Mulino categorically rejected Trump’s framing of the canal issue. Mulino “pointed out that the Canal was not a concession from the United States but the result of years of Panamanian struggle and that will continue to be so, as it will remain under the control of the Panamanians as it has been since the signing of the Torrijos-Carter Treaties,” she wrote.

Smith added, “For political analyst Juan Carlos Tapia, the first thing Panama must do is demonstrate to the entire world, and especially to President Trump and the American people, that everything said is false. . . .”

Meanwhile, Boston Globe columnist Renee Graham, one of four writers asked by the Globe to react to Trump’s speech, wrote, “For all his grandiose talk of the American ‘family,’ Trump’s speech was about excluding and punishing swaths of the population, the only path he has ever fathomed to achieve his fantasy of a nation made great again. It was an inaugural address for his base, and no one else.

“Regardless of party, presidencies usually begin with a cautious hope that the person who will sit in the Oval Office will move the country closer to becoming a more perfect union. With his grudges and overwhelming sense of victimhood — even though he largely avoided any consequences despite multiple indictments and dozens of felony charges — Trump’s idea of a perfect union remains steamrolling his enemies and enriching himself and his fancy friends.“

Writer and podcaster Tre’Vell Anderson served on the board of the National Association of Black Journalists and in 2023, received 236 votes, or 34 percent, in the balloting for president. (Credit: Instagram)

A Plea to Avoid ‘Pithy Soundbites’ on Gender

When Kae Petrin (pictured), interim executive director of the Trans Journalists Association, was asked for reaction to Donald Trump’s Inaugural Address declaration that ” It is the policy of the United States to recognize two sexes, male and female,” followed up by an executive order, Petrin pointed Journal-isms to a 2018 article in Scientific American, “Sex Redefined: The Idea of 2 Sexes Is Overly Simplistic.”

“Defining ‘male’ and ‘female’ as singular, immutable categories ignores modern biology, the existence of millions of people with variances in sex characteristics, and the lived realities of trans and nonbinary people,” Petrin continued.

“We urge journalists to delve into the details, beyond pithy soundbites that falsely ‘balance’ inaccuracies against fact, as if these two hold equal weight.

“What are the immediate and long-term consequences of this move to redefine legal understandings of sex? How feasible are the administrative changes to follow? How could they restrict or remove the civil rights of trans Americans? How might they be implemented, and what would they cost? Who could benefit and who will suffer? How might government agencies navigate the myriad administrative conflicts caused by sex definitions? What do these declarations signal: politically, ideologically, economically?

“There are real-world complexities beyond the political rhetoric. It’s our job to ask questions and better inform the public.

“On a practical note, we have some styleguide entries on covering government action. “And a recent piece in CJR.”

Julia Prodis Sulek and Molly Gibbs, writing Wednesday for the Bay Area News Group, added, “Trump’s order banning gender transition surgery in federal prisons, removing language promoting gender ideology from documents, requiring that single-sex spaces such as bathrooms be designated by sex as defined by a person’s reproductive cells, not gender identity, for instance, will directly affect federal programs operating in California, including VA hospitals and federal workplaces.

“Passports holders could be affected, too. In Cupertino, Robb Zimmerman is worried his nonbinary child could face trouble on the family’s pending spring break trip to the Bahamas carrying a Biden Administration-issued passport marked with an ‘X’ gender. It’s unclear whether those passports will be invalidated or new ones simply won’t offer that X option.

“ ‘It’s one thing to be upset about the political direction of the country,’ Zimmerman said Tuesday. ‘It’s another thing to face my child’s existence being erased.’ ”

Senghor Baye, a longtime leader of the current iteration of Marcus Garvey’s Universal Negro Improvement Association, said of this video, “I think you will find this Informative and clear of our position. We all have been busy responding to folks worldwide. We agree with Dr. Julius Garvey, this is just a step in clearing the name, legacy and works of The Right Excellent Marcus Mosiah Garvey.” Baye and surviving son Dr. Julius Garvey spoke about Garvey’s contributions to journalism via his newspaper, the Negro World, at a Journal-isms Roundtable on Feb. 6, 2023. (Credit: YouTube)

Garvey Pardon Called Correction of ‘Historic Wrong’

“President Joe Biden granted a posthumous pardon to civil rights and human rights leader Marcus Garvey and granted pardons or commuted the sentences of a half-dozen other people Sunday, his final day in office. It was an 11th-hour restatement of his determination to highlight what he considers pillars of his legacy: a sense of compassion and a connection to the Black community,” Cleve R. Wootson Jr. reported Sunday for the Washington Post.

“Garvey, who influenced such pivotal leaders as Malcolm X and South African President Nelson Mandela, was convicted of mail fraud in the early 1920s, a case his supporters said was aimed at discrediting the Black revolutionary during a tumultuous period of racial unrest.

“ ‘America is a country built on the promise of second chances,’ Biden said in a statement announcing the clemency actions. ‘As President, I have used my clemency power to make that promise a reality by issuing more individual pardons and commutations than any other President in U.S. history.’

“Garvey’s descendants have been asking authorities to grant him a pardon for nearly two decades, including a request to Biden shortly after he won the White House. Biden was elected just months after the police killing of George Floyd sparked a nationwide reckoning about historic inequities, and many activists said that reckoning should include righting historic wrongs such as Garvey’s conviction.

“Garvey, who was born in 1887 in Jamaica and died in 1940, was known across the globe as the leader of the ‘back to Africa’ movement, which sought to create a self-governing Black nation. He also founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association to press for advancements for people of color across the globe. His activities caught the attention of the FBI and its director J. Edgar Hoover, however, and the bureau began looking for reasons to deport Garvey as ‘an undesirable alien.’

“Garvey served two years of his five-year prison sentence, which was then commuted by President Calvin Coolidge. But Garvey was forced to leave the country and was deported to Jamaica. . . .”

The Negro World newspaper, which Garvey founded and his wife, Amy Jacques Garvey, helped run, came on the scene in 1918. “Journalism actually was the expression of Garveyism,” their surviving son, Dr. Julius Garvey, told the Journal-isms Roundtable in 2023.

The newspaper “introduced internationalism to America, especially to Black America.” Through a mix of news, commentary and literature, the Negro World represented “something novel in terms of Africans in America looking outside of America and understanding that the problems that they faced in America were global problems.”

A scene from “‘Free Leonard Peltier,” due to debut at the Sundance Film Festival on Jan. 27. Just one week before the world premiere, the filmmakers headed back into the editing room to change the film’s ending and incorporate the commutation of Peltier’s sentence in the finished film, IndieWire reported Tuesday. (Credit: Sundance Institute)

Commutation Surprises Reporter on Peltier Trials

Reid Raymond, a long-serving attorney in Hennepin County, Minn., and member of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe of South Dakota, worked as student reporter for the Minnesota Daily during the standoff that led to Leonard Peltier’s conviction in 1977 for the murder of two FBI agents.

Later, as a reporter and host for MIGIZI Communications weekly Native American radio program, Raymond covered Peltier’s trial in North Dakota and a separate trial in Wisconsin, Tom Crann and Lukas Levin reported Wednesday for Minnesota Public Radio.

Raymond (pictured) was a student reporter for the Minnesota Daily during the 1975 standoff that led to Peltier’s conviction.

President Joe Biden commuted Peltier’s sentence Monday after decades of community-led advocacy calling his imprisonment an example of the U.S. government’s mistreatment of Native Americans.

“I was surprised,” Raymond told MPR. “I didn’t think that President Biden would do it. I know that he has been considering a lot of other factors for people that he’s taken action to free from prison, including age. Leonard Peltier is old, so.“

Peltier is now 80.

” ‘But I was very surprised. I assumed incorrectly that the push by law enforcement, and in particular by FBI Director Christopher Wray would prevail again, and that Leonard Peltier would die in prison, which I think would have been an injustice.’ “

Raymond also said, “There’s always two sides, at least two sides, to all these stories and I think that the Native American side of the story has not been properly brought before the public.

“The key thing that everyone needs to remember is that Leonard Peltier’s prosecutor said that he should not have been convicted. In other words, the evidence wasn’t there to convict him, and that came out years later.

“But the jury in Fargo, N.D., was not a fair and impartial jury. In my opinion, everything was skewed against Native American people, and the Native American perspective was not given an opportunity to be understood. And I hate to say it, but I think that racism played a part in it. Even today, there’s a significant amount of racism against our Native people in South Dakota. . . .”

“Actually, it’s the media that helped uplift the stories and the power of storytelling,” Kemba Smith Pradia tells Ali Velshi on MSNBC Sunday. Jenai Nelson, who leads the Legal Defense Fund, agrees. (Credit: YouTube)

Biden Clears Slate for Subject of ‘Kemba’s Nightmare’

Kemba Smith Pradia, whose story gained prominence in a 17-page Emerge magazine story by Reginald Stuart in May 1996, and went on to become a film released last year, was pardoned Sunday by outgoing president Joe Biden.

“Actually, it’s the media that helped lift the stories and the power of storytelling,” she told Ali Velshi on MSNBC as Jenai Nelson, who leads the Legal Defense Fund, agreed.

Smith Pradia had previously been convicted and sentenced to 24 years in federal prison.

“Smith Pradia was a college student when she became involved in an abusive relationship with Peter Hall, a drug dealer,” Jasmine Browley reported Monday for Essence magazine.

“Throughout their relationship, she endured repeated abuse and feared for her safety. According to the Legal Defense Fund, despite never selling or using drugs, Smith Pradia was charged with conspiracy to distribute cocaine in 1994 after witnessing some of Hall’s illegal activities. She was later held accountable for his actions following his murder.

“At the time, stringent federal sentencing laws led to her receiving a 24 ½-year prison sentence without the possibility of parole. Smith Pradia, a first-time non-violent offender, was also seven months pregnant at the time of her sentencing. Her case drew national attention and garnered support from various organizations, including the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. This eventually led to President Bill Clinton granting her executive clemency in 2000 after she had served nearly seven years in federal prison. . . .”

“This pardon will now wipe her criminal slate clean. . . .

“Since her release in 2000, Smith Pradia has advocated for raising awareness of domestic violence, criminal justice and racial equity at the helm of her nonprofit foundation.  Smith Pradia has  also attempted to earn her law degree but has been unable to due to her criminal conviction. . . .”

(if you cannot see the image in the tweet, please try using another browser.) 

Relatives of Cuban Political Prisoners Losing Hope

“For more than a week, Cuban Yunislay Suárez has been anxiously waiting for someone to tell her whether her husband, Aronis Yanko García, will be released from prison. The young man, a nurse and father of three children, was sentenced to almost two years in prison for posting a meme of President Miguel Díaz-Canel on social media,” Maria Teresa Lopez Rodriguez and Mayle Gonzalez Mirabal reported Wednesday for Marti Noticias, the U.S.-sponsored news agency.

Ten or more journalists are reported to be imprisoned in the communist country, but none has been on lists of those released.

” ‘I’ve lost hope,’ Suarez told Martí Noticias. ‘Yesterday morning they gathered all the prisoners in the courtyard of the La Guanajera prison in Santa Clara, where my husband is, and they told them that in Villa Clara they were not going to release anyone else.’

“At least 158 political prisoners have been released in Cuba since last Wednesday, according to independent organizations, after the regime announced that it would gradually release 553 prisoners following an agreement with the Catholic Church. That day, the administration of former President Joe Biden had announced changes in policy toward the island, including its removal from the list of countries sponsoring terrorism.

“The latest releases occurred on Monday, January 20, when at least 16 people were released from prison, the Justice 11J group, an organization that keeps track of the situation of political prisoners, told Martí Noticias.

“That same day, Donald Trump assumed the presidency of the United States and returned Cuba to the list of countries that sponsor terrorism.

“The Havana regime said the releases of prisoners would take place within the framework and ‘spirit’ of the Ordinary Jubilee of 2025 declared by Pope Francis. On Sunday, at the end of the Sunday prayer of the Angelus, the supreme pontiff described Cuba’s announcement as ‘a gesture of great hope.’

” ‘I think that the releases will continue gradually as part of the process,’ he told Martí Noticias.

“Relatives of several political prisoners said they are desperate for information, and that there is talk in prisons that no more political prisoners will be released.

“Felix Navarro, a member of the Black Spring group of 75 who was released from prison last Saturday, said that ‘the military is telling the prison population that they are not going to release anyone else.’ . . .”

The Long Wave newsletter’s current edition features “How transatlantic slavery shaped Manchester”; “Los Angeles’s Black residents start over”; “Wall Street bank’s slavery links exposed”; “T&T extends state of emergency”; and “South Africa hunts ‘illegal mining kingpin’ with the lead pieces under the umbrella, “Fear, loathing and Black resistance as a new Trump era dawns.”

‘A Unique Gathering Space for the Black Diaspora’

In March 2023, Britain’s Guardian newspaper announced that “Research published today shows that much of the wealth of the Guardian’s founder,”John Edward Taylor, “and his backers was connected to transatlantic slavery,” specifically in the Sea Islands off the coast of Georgia and South Carolina.

Susan Smith Richardson, an African American journalist who was then the Guardian’s managing editor, worked on the project with two Black British editors, Joseph Harker and Maya Wolfe-Robinson, in addition to U.S. journalist DeNeen L. Brown.

As part of the millions the owners, the Scott Trust, said they expected to dedicate to “descendant communities” as atonement, or “restorative justice,” in October the company launched “The Long Wave,” a free weekly newsletter “delivering a weekly dose of Black life and culture around the world. It is written by Nesrine Malik (pictured) and edited and co-written by Jason Okundaye, “dedicated to exploring Black culture and conversations, both global and local, drawing on the journalism of the Guardian’s expanded network of correspondents in Africa, the US, the UK, South America, the Caribbean and elsewhere. . . .”

How is it doing?

“The Long Wave has quickly established itself as a dedicated space for exploring Black culture and conversations, both global and local, with readers sharing positive early feedback and recommending stories for the newsletter,” a spokesperson tells Journal-isms.

“Highlights to date include: a probing look at the real story of Black voters in the US election with Guardian US deputy editor, race and equity, Lauren N. Williams; a close look at Black pride and resistance in Brazil; a profile on the unsung heroine of African independence, Andrée Blouin; why a Black global cycling revolution is sweeping the globe; an interview with the British-Ghanaian DJ and producer, Juls; a Black culture guide for readers; and a commission from legendary hip-hop illustrator André LeRoy Davis who created an original look at the Drake vs. Kendrick [Lamar] legal battle.

In its Nov. 27 edition, the Long Wave told readers, “It was a big week in Brazil, where Black Consciousness Day on 20 November was a public holiday for the first time.”

“Since its first edition in October, The Long Wave continues to add thousands of new subscribers every month, reaching readers around the world. The newsletter currently lands in nearly 20,000 inboxes every send, with an open rate above the industry average (over 50%).

“The Guardian has built a strong community of readers through its popular newsletters offering; from new launches such as The Long Wave, First Edition, Trump on Trial and The Overwhelm to redesigns of existing ones. The Guardian now has over 60 newsletters, with several million subscriptions across the portfolio and over four million unique subscribers.

“In 2025, The Long Wave has big plans to experiment using guest writers, expand its themes to include sport and technology, and will explore broadening its coverage by reporting from an international festival or event.

“Nesrine Malik says: ‘The Long Wave is already shaping up to be a unique gathering space for the Black diaspora. The newsletter has tapped into a well of undercovered stories and topics in one dedicated weekly dispatch. For me personally, an enhanced knowledge and sense of the diaspora — its frustrations and its hopes — has been extremely fulfilling.’ ”

You can sign up for free here.

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Richard Prince’s Journal-isms originates from Washington. It began in print before most of us knew what the internet was, and it would like to be referred to as a “column.” Any views expressed in the column are those of the person or organization quoted and not those of any other entity. Send tips, comments and concerns to Richard Prince at journal-isms+owner@groups.io

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