MediaJustice

Overview

MediaJustice is a national nonprofit organisation based in Oakland, California, that builds grassroots power to challenge how corporations and governments use media and technology to shape public life—with particular focus on the harms these systems inflict on communities of colour, low-income people, immigrants, and others historically excluded from the digital economy. Founded as a Black-led media accountability coalition in 2001, the organization has evolved through several names and strategic phases to become one of the most active voices in the US at the intersection of racial justice, digital rights, and technology policy. Its current executive director is Steven Renderos. MediaJustice receives funding from foundations including the Ford Foundation, Open Society Institute, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Astraea Foundation, Borealis Philanthropy, and others; donors do not direct editorial or campaign positions.

History and Founding

The organization traces its roots to 2001, when Oakland's Youth Media Council (YMC) was formed out of the nonprofit We Interrupt This Message as a Black-led media accountability coalition. Led by racial justice activist Malkia Devich Cyril — who had been raised by a Black Panther in Brooklyn and trained in Black liberation organizing at the Applied Research Center — YMC was built around a core insight: that racist and anti-youth media narratives were not just cultural problems but policy problems, shaping legislation and enforcement through stereotypes and misrepresentation. Working with youth organizers, the council developed action research methodologies to document and challenge biased news coverage of communities of color in the Bay Area.

As the project grew, it connected with social justice organizations across the country facing the same dynamics. With support from the Movement Strategy Center, YMC staff built these groups into the Media Action Grassroots Network (MAG-Net). In 2009, Cyril co-founded the Center for Media Justice (CMJ) with Amy Sonnie and Jen Soriano, formally incorporating MAG-Net as an advocacy network and expanding the mission beyond media bias accountability into the full landscape of communications rights—broadband access, net neutrality, platform accountability, and the intersection of surveillance technology with mass incarceration. In 2019, CMJ renamed itself MediaJustice to reflect this broader scope. In 2020, Malkia Devich Cyril transitioned to a senior fellowship role and Steven Renderos—who had been with the organization for nearly a decade, leading its most significant campaign victories—became executive director.

Programs and Work

MediaJustice Network. From 2009 to 2024, MediaJustice built and maintained the MediaJustice Network, a coalition of over 80 grassroots social justice, media, and arts organizations across the United States united around communications rights. Member organizations gained access to national platforms, policy advocacy resources, training, and coordinated campaigns in exchange for mobilizing their own communities on shared issues. The network was the vehicle for many of MediaJustice's major policy wins: helping secure emergency broadband subsidies for low-income households, pressuring social media platforms to combat hate speech and ban white nationalist accounts, and blocking sales of facial recognition and other surveillance technologies to police departments. In FY2024, MediaJustice disseminated resources, skills-building materials, and political analysis to more than 1,500 grassroots organizers and movement allies from every US region.

Prison phone justice. One of MediaJustice's longest-running and most concrete campaigns targeted the predatory pricing of phone calls from US prisons and jails—rates that could reach dollars per minute and fell hardest on the families of incarcerated people. MediaJustice led or participated in a sustained national campaign that ultimately produced Federal Communications Commission action capping interstate prison call rates, delivering significant relief to families who had faced impossible choices between communication and basic needs.

Net neutrality and broadband access. MediaJustice was an early and persistent voice arguing that net neutrality was not merely a technology policy issue but a racial justice issue—that without rules preventing internet service providers from throttling or blocking content, the online voices of civil rights organizations, racial justice advocates, and communities of color would be structurally disadvantaged. Executive Director Steven Renderos argued this case before the US Senate, and MediaJustice campaigned through multiple rounds of FCC rule-making over more than a decade. The organization also pushed successfully for affordable broadband programs serving low-income communities.

Surveillance and high-tech policing. MediaJustice and its network have been consistent opponents of the use of surveillance technology by law enforcement against Black, immigrant, and Muslim communities. Campaigns have targeted facial recognition procurement by police departments, predictive policing algorithms, and the use of social media monitoring tools against racial justice activists. MediaJustice also led or supported the lawsuit against the FBI's digital surveillance of Black activists — a line of work directly connected to its founder Malkia Devich Cyril's experience of state surveillance of the Black liberation movement.

Take Back Tech. Co-founded by MediaJustice and Mijente in 2019, Take Back Tech is a recurring national convening bringing together organizers, advocates, tech workers, academics, and community members to share analysis and strategy for challenging technology's harms. The first gathering was held in San Jose; the 2024 edition convened in Chicago at the Chicago Teachers' Union, drawing a diverse field of participants across disciplines and geographies. A third gathering was held in 2025. The conference is notable for combining rigorous political analysis with movement culture — closing sessions with music and celebration alongside dense strategic workshops.

Shifting Terrain strategy and data centre organizing. In 2024 MediaJustice launched a new organizational strategy called Shifting Terrain, acknowledging that despite significant wins, the structural power of tech corporations over media and public life had continued to grow. The strategy reorients the organization as a bridge builder—connecting local grassroots struggles with national policy fights, and bringing rigorous analysis to communities that have historically been left out of tech policy debates. A central focus of Shifting Terrain is the AI data centre boom: MediaJustice has identified the rapid buildout of data centre infrastructure—which consumes massive amounts of water and energy, often sited in or near communities of color already burdened by environmental pollution—as a concrete, tangible site where corporate power can be contested locally and nationally. The organization published The People Say No: Resisting Data Centers in the South in 2025 and released an accompanying community organizing toolkit. By early 2025, 142 activist groups in 24 states had carried out organizing efforts that delayed or stopped $64 billion in data centre projects. MediaJustice also published Media Capture: Who Controls the Story Controls the Future in 2026, mapping how tech oligarchs have captured news media through ownership, financial influence, and platform control.

Access and Usage

MediaJustice's reports, toolkits, research, and political analysis are freely available at mediajustice.org/tools. Key resources include the The People Say No data center organizing toolkit, the DHS Open for Business report, and the organization's annual reports. A secure tip channel and donation portal are available on the site. MediaJustice publishes news and analysis at mediajustice.org/news and maintains an interactive map tracking data centre organising and surveillance technology deployments by state. The organization is funded primarily by foundations and individual donors; grants have come from Ford Foundation, Open Society Institute, MacArthur Foundation, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Astraea Foundation, Borealis Philanthropy, Wellspring Philanthropy, New Venture Fund, and others.