Kai Wright is the editorial director of Colorlines, a publication focused on race and class in the United States.  He spoke to winners of the Knight Community Information Challenge at KDMC's bootcamp event this week in Chicago on the intersections between advocacy and journalism...

“For a long time I’ve been running Colorlines, but I have a long history of hustle, and I think that’s what journalism is — it’s hustle.”

Kai tells a story of an investigative journalist who’s work was no longer supported by the market, and now she works in “mitigation.”  Everyone who is executed in the United States has a right to what’s called “mitigation” — that is, information about the circumstances of their life to be delivered to the people making the decision to execute him.  So now she has a career going around Mexico and interviewing people about people who are going to be executed in Texas.  

“What is journalism?,” asks Wright.  ”It’s speech.  We all agree that we have the right to speech unencumbered by the state. It’s more than speech: it earns trust, makes the relevant compelling, and takes care.  If I accept that, I can’t mislead readers — even by accident.  Readers are my touchstone, not my funders, advertisers, or campaign.”

This shows up in conversations about the language the publication uses, says Wright. “You are not writing for the movement.  You are not writing for the sources.  You are not writing for the congressional staffer you’re trying to impress.  Example: a columnist wrote a piece that pissed off a lot of people in the more movement-y part of our audience.  Her attitude was, “Look, I’m trying to talk to people who have never heard these words before.”

“But we do care about lanugage,” Wright says. “For instance, we have a campaign called “Drop the I Word,” which is about getting journalists to stop using the word “illegal” for undocumented individuals in the United States, simply because it’s often inaccurate and puts a spin on the entire story that isn’t accurate.” 

Journalism does not mean, “Independent,” Wright says. “You can be an independent liar — Andrew Breitbart was an independent liar.  He was using his work to mislead and distort.  James O’Keefe is an independent liar.  It does not mean you can’t draw conclusions and state them.  It does not mean that you can’t have ideology.” 

“There is a long history of journalists choosing who they want respect from and having that decision informed by ideology,” says Wright.  ”One of my touchstones is Ida B. Wells, who got tired of what she saw going on in her town and had a career of documenting lynchings across the South.  Another is “The Crisis,” W.E.B DuBois’ publication.  It’s hard to think of a publication that exemplifies an ideological viewpoint than W.E.B DuBois, says Wright, but The Crisis also covered issues that others weren’t, and and actually made changes on issues affecting African-Americans.”

“When people are reading you, they’re on the subway, they’re on the laptop — and you’re their diversion.  The best way to do that is to divert them through a conversation they’re already having.  I used to work for a tabloid in New York City — the Daily News.  Our point of view at Colorlines is really different, but we try to make the storytelling not so different.” 

Wright will be speaking at Facing Race, Colorlines’ upcoming conference on race, journalism, and social justice, in November.