What would it look like if there was a civil war conflict, and how would journalists cover it in the United States? In a conversation recorded November 1, 2024 L and M invite their friend Dimo Ortiz to the podcast to reflect on the film ‘Civil War’ which portrays the experiences of journalists covering a domestic conflict in the mainland United States. In a wide-ranging conversation, they reflect their respective relationships with journalism and how journalism influences their perception of the political/social moment.
 
In particular, they sit with the tension between institutions that have captured the mainstream (the corporate media conglomerate, and the social media platforms that have captured collective attention), and  “movement journalism”, which was coined by Anna Simmonton in 2017, as a term to think about journalism in service of liberation. 
 
Dimo studied journalism while at Temple University and their formative experiences came as a student journalist covering Trump’s rise in 2016. They reflect on that experience in light of the past few years which has seen heightened surveillance and police violence, some targeted at journalists covering social movements. 
 
They think critically about who is a movement journalist, sitting with the legacy of Ida B. Wells, and the Chicago Defender, and think about the contemporary role of independent media and the potentiality//pitfalls of America’s celebrity-influencer culture. What is the consequence of news becoming ‘content’ or ‘entertainment’? 
 
Notes and Sources:
This conversation includes spoilers about the movie Civil War. 
Civil War: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt17279496/ 
https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/03/fivethirtyeight-is-shutting-down-as-part-of-broader-cuts-at-abc-and-disney/ 
https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/washington-post-opinion-head-leaves-paper-section-shifts-focus-2025-02-26/ 
https://culturalpower.org/media/pdfs/CCP_doc_01_Tina_r4b.pdf

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