Instagram story viewer> @prismreports> Posts

Prism

@prismreports

15.4K

followers

549

following

Award-winning nonprofit indie newsroom led by journalists of color. Accurate, fearless, ground-up reporting—because justice requires the full story.

POSTS STORIES REELS TAGGED

Download All

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! by @prismreports

159

6

a year ago

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. by @prismreports

3k

24

3 years ago

Indigenous journalist’s podcast explores the history America leaves out. In this Q&A, @rebeccanagle explains why the history of Indigenous dispossession is essential to understanding the U.S. government & its relationship to democracy today.

Indigenous writer & journalist Rebecca Nagle’s latest podcast, “First America,” examines the history of the U.S. through the experiences of Indigenous nations—& asks what that history reveals about the country today. The project, released this summer, was conceived in 2022 by Nagle & a group of Indigenous scholars who set out to tell a different version of the American story: one that places Indigenous people at the center.

“Most people know that what our government did to Native people was wrong,” said Nagle. “Where I think the gap is, is that people dramatically underestimate the extent & level of the violence. But I think the biggest disconnect is that people see it as something that happened in isolation, a terrible thing that happened a long time ago that doesn’t affect them.

The government that rounded up Native families & put them in concentration camps, organized death marches & carried out campaigns of state-sanctioned slaughter—that’s the United States government. That’s our government.”

In a conversation with Prism’s senior news reporter @Alex___mar, Nagle discussed how “First America” took shape, what she learned while reporting for it & why she believes the history of Indigenous dispossession is essential to understanding the U.S. government & its relationship to democracy.

Read the full Q&A using the link in bio. by @prismreports

41

1

a day ago

Pregnant women in ICE detention face laws & policies shaped by eugenics, Edith Romero reports.

While detained at Michigan’s North Lake Processing Center, Lucia* (pseudonym) learned she was pregnant—a nightmare for women who are held in ICE custody. She had been in the U.S. for 3 years, having fled political turmoil in her home country of Venezuela when DHS rescinded its Temporary Protected Status in Feb. 2025. An ICE traffic stop landed Lucia in the South Louisiana Processing Center in Basile, LA. She described it as “horrible.”

Louisiana is often at the center of allegations of reproductive injustice in detention. Over the last year alone, detained women have made allegations of medical neglect & sexual abuse. This includes Jane Doe, who alleged that she was sexually abused & threatened by Basile’s former assistant warden Manuel Reyes. Trans immigrants have also alleged that Reyes coerced them into “physically & psychologically painful labor.” Women detained at Basile while pregnant said that they were berated by guards; forced to wear shackles on their wrists, hands, belly & feet; & fed inedible food.

Experts & advocates say the racist cruelty & abusive immigration policies women in ICE detention face are built on a legacy of eugenics, an ideology that aimed to “improve” the human population based on white supremacy. Over centuries, women of color & their reproductive freedom have been targeted. This includes enslavers’ reproductive violence against African women during the early colonial period & the mass sterilization of Puerto Ricans, Mexican women in CA & Indigenous women nationwide.

Louisiana’s newly approved family detention center, posed to detain mothers with their young children, brings eugenics to the forefront once again. One organizer named Miriam* (pseudonym) said that after centuries of eugenics, any hope for justice requires dismantling the idea that immigrant families are problems “that need to be managed.”

Lucia was released from custody & gave birth to her son outside. She can think only of the pregnant women who remain behind bars. ”They have to have faith that they will get out, that all women everywhere get to be free.”

Link in bio. by @prismreports

234

3

5 days ago

Three years into Gaza’s genocide, U.S. political rhetoric hasn’t translated into action, writes Mohammed Abo Matar.

Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, who has accused Israel of committing genocide in Gaza & campaigned on cutting off U.S. military aid to the country, drew criticism in late Sept. for appearing at a campaign event with former Vice President Kamala Harris, given the Biden admin's support for Israel during the war on Gaza. Others viewed the appearance as a prudent unity-building move for the Democratic Party.

But while political debates around Palestine continue as the U.S. midterm elections approach, Israel never stopped its genocide. Last week, Israeli airstrikes killed at least 8 people, including a journalist. The reported death toll since Oct. 7, 2023 stands at 74,000+ Palestinians, including at least 1,431 since the ceasefire went into effect last October (Al Jazeera).

Three years into the genocide, some Palestinians in Gaza say that pro-Palestine rhetoric from elected officials & candidates only goes so far if realities don’t shift on the ground. “They all show fine morals when they’re out of office, but the moment they have a real chance to make change, they start manufacturing professional excuses,” said Iktimal Abu Mattar, who lives in Gaza.

As Israeli war crimes continue to be live-streamed, U.S. public opinion has shifted dramatically to oppose Israel's actions in Gaza. Several U.S. politicians & candidates have risen in popularity with their stance for Palestinian rights. Meanwhile, life in Gaza has become unrecognizable & promises from American politicians don’t hold much value or interest.

“Gaza has already been destroyed," said Lina Fahjan, a mother from Gaza. “Neither people nor homes can be replaced,” Gaza resident Heba Abu Zuneid told Prism. “It’s like losing a soul that can never come back.”

Link in bio.

[Title slide features illustration by @situationniste via @justseeds.] by @prismreports

119

1

6 days ago

After ICE shooting, Austin community organizes protests, neighborhood resources,
@nehamadhira reports.

Federal prosecutors in Texas charged a Venezuelan man living in Austin last Tuesday with assaulting, resisting & impeding a federal officer, after ICE sideswiped his car & shot him in the back on Sept. 20 without warning as he was turning around to park.

Wilber Rafael Garcés Pérez, 28, entered the U.S. in 2024 with a valid work permit to seek asylum & provide for his son in Venezuela, who has mobility disabilities, through a Biden-era program. However, President Donald Trump ended the program on his first day in office.

According to Garcés Pérez’s lawyer, a judge issued a deportation order after he missed an immigration court hearing because the notice was sent to a former address. He had been delivering for DoorDash in North Austin when ICE agents ran his license plate & began to follow him.

“That was when I saw them pulling [Garcés Pérez] out of the car as soon as I got over here & when I crossed the street to help, that’s when an [ICE] agent pointed the gun at me,” said Toast Lopez, who was walking home on the same route. “Next thing I knew, the whole community had pulled up & we were all yelling & screaming, protesting almost immediately because, you know, this is our place. These are our people.”

Demonstrations continue in Austin since the initial protest at the site of the shooting against ICE, the Austin Police Department & the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) on Sept. 20, where at least six were arrested. Organizers say they want Garcés Pérez to be released & receive medical care after he was shuttled through multiple detention facilities with a bullet in his spine.

“I don’t want to see him disappear into the system like I’ve seen many others,” Lopez said. After the Trump admin began cracking down on immigration & increased ICE raids, average daily arrests in Texas have more than doubled from 85 under Biden to 176 under Trump.

“More people should be thinking about what we’re seeing now as the beginning & not some climax,” said Vladimir Herrera of @daretostruggleatx.

Link in bio. by @prismreports

41

1

8 days ago

A farmworker died. Another became disabled by a heat stroke. There hasn’t been much accountability, reports @tinamvasquez in an investigation co-published with @guardian_us & @enlacelatinonc. This is the second & final part of this story.

Leticia Zavala of El Futuro Es Nuestro is often one of the first people to learn of the tragedies that befall farm workers. Zavala organizes H-2A workers in North Carolina & launched the Ni Una Muerte Más (Not One More Death) campaign to improve labor conditions. She first learned of Carlos Vargas Moreno not long after he was hospitalized. As tragic as his story is, she said the exact same thing happened to another H-2A worker in 2025.

The records associated with Vargas Moreno’s heat stroke case give insight into how lawmakers, landowners, state & federal agencies have allowed farm labor contractors to operate with impunity. Farmworkers are 35x more likely to die from heat‑related illnesses than workers in other industries & as each passing year becomes the hottest on record, what’s really needed is a heat standard now.

Yet in legal proceedings, attorneys argue over who owes a duty of safety to H-2A workers & whether strenuous agricultural labor in extreme heat is actually dangerous. An injured worker’s ability to access medical care hinges on the difference between a safety “recommendation” & a “requirement,” never mind that the minor action could save a worker’s life.

Almost nowhere inside this system is an expressed desire to do better, to improve working conditions, to create a heat standard so that workers don’t experience catastrophic injuries, or return to their families in body bags.

Daysi Romero Arellano said she went public with the hope that their family’s story will change these conditions. “The people with the power need to do something so that what happened to Carlos doesn’t happen to anyone else,” she said. As for her husband, Romero Arellano said, “Justice is impossible.”

Read the full story using the link in bio. A Spanish version will be published by Enlace Latino NC.

Photos by Kaoly Gutierrez. by @prismreports

91

1

11 days ago

Here are the stories Movement Media Alliance outlets are reporting on that corporate media have failed to cover:

Ruwaida Amer, Belal Awad, and Leo Erhardt for @therealnewsnetwork document the experiences of two disabled Palestinian athletes surviving Israel’s genocide in Gaza, where damaged infrastructure and restrictions on medical aid have made evacuation and basic mobility increasingly difficult for disabled Palestinians.

Madelyn Rowley for @theprogressivemag reports that chemical industry lobbying is shaping PFAS regulation in North Carolina, where contaminated water at one rural elementary school tested at levels 233 times higher than federal safety standards.

Mo Viviane for @prismreports examines how federal healthcare cuts and state restrictions on gender-affirming care are converging in rural Kentucky, leaving some trans residents with fewer options for accessing healthcare.

Daniel Hunter for @wagingnv reports on the coalition that organized to defend Washington, DC’s, primary election amid the threat of federal troops at polling places, offering a model for communities preparing for potential federal intervention during the midterms.

This special edition of Censored Stories highlights reporting from members of the Movement Media Alliance, a coalition of independent, social justice-driven journalism organizations working together to strengthen and expand the reach of movement journalism.
.
.
.
Image credits:
Trump: The White House, Flickr by @prismreports

1k

9

12 days ago

How deep do the connections between U.S. policing and Israeli intelligence go?

I sit down with investigative reporter Glen Stellmacher to discuss The ASTI Files, his investigation for Prism into the organizations connecting U.S. police with Israeli security and intelligence veterans. Drawing on two years of public-records reporting, we talk about police training, surveillance of activists, public funding, and what it means to teach police that they’re fighting a “propaganda war.”

In this clip, Glen explains a proposal to help police in Washington state build an informant network using Israeli intelligence methods. Officials say it was never implemented. Its implications matter for interconnected movements—from Palestinian liberation to Black Lives Matter and Standing Rock.
Who trains our police? What are they being taught? And whose interests are they serving?

The full conversation is available NOW on Unruly Subjects’ Patreon. Watch and support our independent journalism: https://www.patreon.com/UnrulySubjects by @prismreports

22

0

12 days ago

A farmworker died. Another became disabled by a heat stroke. Their employer keeps sending people out to the fields, reports @tinamvasquez in an investigation co-published with @guardian_us & @enlacelatinonc. This is the first of a two-part explainer on this story.

A skilled farmworker, Carlos Vargas Moreno first worked for the labor contractor, Florida Orange Gold, in 2021 as part of the federal H-2A visa program for temporary agricultural workers. The company is one of hundreds of middlemen contracted by U.S. growers & crop farmers to hire & oversee migrant farmworkers. Florida Orange Gold obtained ~500 H-2A workers in 2022 & Vargas Moreno was one of 314 sent to North Carolina that year, a decision that now haunts his family.

On July 19, 2022, Carlos Vargas Moreno & other laborers set out to weed a watermelon field in Goldsboro, NC. The workday had begun at 7 a.m. & the heat index—what the temperature feels like to the human body—was 98.3 degrees. It was the kind of day that OSHA defined as “hazardous” for outdoor workers.

According to documents & workers’ testimony, Vargas Moreno paused to get a drink of water just before 6 p.m. & then collapsed. Not knowing what to do, a worker called Florida Orange Gold’s founder, Jose Gutierrez. Instead of calling 911, Gutierrez told the workers to wait for him. The farmworkers transported Vargas Moreno onto a bus & placed him on the ground until Gutierrez arrived about 15 minutes later. Then, workers loaded Vargas Moreno onto the contractor’s truck bed to drive to the ER. He was later diagnosed with heat stroke. Since then, the 38-year-old father is unable to walk or care for himself due to the brain injury. Vargas Moreno’s family is telling their story for the first time, as they continue adjusting to their changed lives.

In the absence of federal & state standards to protect farmworkers from dangerous heat, there has been little accountability for the employer who failed to implement even the most basic safety measures even after the death of farmworker Carmen Sebastian Hernandez Mosqueda in 2020.

Read the story via the link in bio. A Spanish version will be published by Enlace Latino NC.

Photos by Kaoly Gutierrez by @prismreports

323

4

13 days ago

🚨 Today is the LAST DAY to register for our upcoming movement journalism training, From Pitch to Publication!

Join us tomorrow from 12–1:30 PT/ 3–4:30 ET for a virtual crash course on the fundamentals of writing, editing & publishing powerful narratives that challenge mainstream media's status quo.

Featuring Prism’s Editor-in-Chief @femmefeministe & Managing Editor @carolyncopes, you will not only receive insights from front-runners in movement journalism, but also take-home resources like a progressive indie media directory to help jump-start your journalism career.

✨ Don’t miss out! Register today at the link in bio. by @prismreports

36

1

14 days ago

As Florida residents challenge Israel bond investments, public meetings grow contentious, @Alex___mar follows up.

At a Palm Beach County budget hearing on Sept. 15, a dispute over Israel bond investments escalated into a confrontation between protesters & law enforcement, culminating in the arrest of human rights attorney Noura Erakat. The incident was the latest in a series of contentious public meetings in South Florida, where residents have attempted to challenge county investments in Israel bonds.

Protesters sought to raise concerns about Palm Beach County’s more than $1 billion investment in Israel bonds, the largest of any single investor in the world & to stop a reinvestment of $67.5 million that is set to happen on Nov. 1. Several speakers attempted to address the county’s Israel bond holdings during public comment, including a veteran wearing a U.S. Air Force uniform who was removed from the chamber. The meeting eventually descended into disorder, with sheriff’s deputies removing people out onto the sidewalk.

“What we witnessed tonight in Palm Beach County was alarming & terrifying. The whole scenario was absurd & a glimpse into how protecting Israel requires the sabotage of democratic norms,” wrote @nouraerakat in a statement.

For Eddie Arroyo, a Miami-based artist & activist, the Palm Beach hearing felt familiar. On Sept. 1, he attended a Miami-Dade County commissioners meeting where he also attempted to speak about Israel bond investments. There, he witnessed heavy law enforcement presence & people being removed from the meeting for attempting to speak. At Palm Beach, the police presence was even heavier, according to Arroyo & made far more intimidating. “It’s not a matter of if I’ll speak again,” Arroyo said. “It’s if I’m going to be allowed to speak again.”

On Sept. 24, the @internationalistlawcenter said its campaign will continue additional public comment mobilizations ahead of the Nov. 1 decision. The group is encouraging residents to attend upcoming meetings & give public comment on Oct. 6 & Oct. 20.

“The will of the people is unmistakably clear: stop funding genocide.”

Link in bio. by @prismreports

42

1

19 days ago