Conversations of Kings 2021: Media, narrative, and social change

For the second consecutive year, WHYY partnered with NewCORE to present The Conversations of Kings, an annual exploration of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s lesser-known efforts and speeches.

This year, the Community Conversation focused on Dr. King’s strategic use of news media to advance the cause of civil rights, and how communities can leverage media to reframe the narratives told about them.

The panelists included Mike Rispoli, the news voices director at Free Press who recently called for the crime beat to be defunded; Sara Lomax-Reese, the CEO and president of WURD Radio; Mike Days, a former editor at The Philadelphia Inquirer and co-founder of Editors on Call; and Kendra Van de Water, the co-founder of Y.E.A.H Philly. The moderator was the Rev. David W. Brown, the diversity advisor to the Office of the Dean at Klein College of Media.