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Hear My Voice:
Empower Communities Through Stories and Mobile JournalismWed, Oct. 25, 12-1:30 p.m. EST
Join Law at the Margins in collaboration with Evrybit, veteran journalists and social justice innovators as we discuss how mobile journalism can strengthen marginalized communities by amplifying voices, stories and images that are often underrepresented, misrepresented or ignored.
Mobile journalism—where reporters use portable technologies to gather news—provides a unique opportunity to share stories from local communities in the United States and around the world.
Can these tools be used to help strengthen historically marginalized communities?
Law at the Margins in collaboration with the Evrybit mobile storytelling platform, veteran journalists, and social justice innovators will discuss existing tools that residents can use to document what’s happening in their neighborhoods and become their own trusted news source.
There’s never been a more important time than now to leverage collaborative reporting and build cooperative networks to expand reach and deepen access for journalists and activists. What will it take to create the kind of community-based newsrooms that can hold power accountable and humanize our world?
Learn how we can leverage mobile technology and journalism to amplify the voices of local communities.
Our Panelists
Sarika Mehta
After a decade of working in social service with linguistic minorities around the U.S., Sarika Mehta eventually found her place in radio journalism. She specializes in issues concerning race, disability, and intersectionality. Currently, Mehta is the founder, host and producer of Intersections Radio — a new independent podcast which also airs locally in Portland, Ore., on KBOO Community Radio and XRAY.FM. Previously, she spent five years with the APA Compass collective and used to anchor the Evening News on KBOO 90.7 FM. Last year, she was a New Voices Scholar (2016) with the Association of Independents in Radio (AIR). When Sarika is not working on a great interview, she is a Sign Language Interpreter — an awesome and challenging gig.
Eric Ortiz
Eric Ortiz is a journalist and innovator with two decades in digital media. He is the founder and CEO of Evrybit, an all-in-one app for mobile storytelling, and the managing editor of Truthdig, an award-winning website that focuses on politics, current events and culture. Previously, Ortiz was a digital editor at ESPN.com and launched NESN.com as the founding editor, helping grow the site into the most popular regional sports website in the United States. In 2013, he was awarded a John S. Knight Journalism Fellowship at Stanford University. He is a champion for diversity in media and lives in Santa Monica, Calif.
Amie Ferris-Rotman
Amie Ferris-Rotman is a British-American journalist currently in Moscow, where she reports for Foreign Policy. She was previously based in Kabul, Afghanistan, for two years as senior correspondent for Reuters. In 2013, she was awarded a John S. Knight Journalism Fellowship at Stanford University, where she developed Sahar Speaks, a new program providing training, mentoring and publishing opportunities for Afghan female journalists. Twenty-two Afghan women from across the country have since been trained in international journalism by the program, and their stories published by The Huffington Post. Ferris-Rotman won the 2015 Georgina Henry Women in Journalism Award for establishing Sahar Speaks.
Ernesto Arce
Ernesto Arce is an award-winning, independent journalist from Los Angeles, California. He currently serves as the news producer and Los Angeles Bureau Chief for KPFK, part of the national Pacifica Radio network. He has written for LA Weekly, Highlander Publications, Jazziz magazine, The Beat and others. Ernesto is currently working on a screenplay and novel about the underground economy that he has reported on so often in his daily work. He is also working on an edgy, satirical podcast with another public radio journalist from KPCC. He grew up in La Puente, a working-class, Latino community in Los Angeles’ East San Gabriel Valley. He strives to follow the mantra: “comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.”
Chaumtoli Huq
Chaumtoli Huq founded Law@theMargins in 2013 and serves as its Editor-In-Chief. Huq is a social justice innovator with extensive experience in movement lawyering, litigation, public policy, management and creation of programs from emerging trends in law, teaching, assisting non-profits and individuals with strategic direction and governance issues mainly in areas of labor, human rights both in the United States and South Asia.
Elbert Garcia
Elbert Garcia is a Dominican-American writer and communications strategist based in Miami, Florida, that is dedicated to helping individuals and organizations organize their community voices for change. Over the last two decades, he has worked in both traditional power-wielding institutions and alternative, community-based, power-building organizations. A National Urban Fellow alumnus born and raised in Washington Heights, N.Y., his most recent projects include work with D.C.-based immigration advocacy organization America’s Voice and the New Florida Majority, a civil and political rights organization dedicated to empowering Florida’s diverse communities.
