Transcript
Joseph (0:00)
Foreign.
Jason Kebler (0:03)
Hello and welcome to the 404 Media podcast where we bring you unparalleled access in worlds both online and IRL. 404 Media is a journalist founded company and needs your support. To subscribe, go to 404Media co. As well as bonus content every single week. Subscribers also get access to additional episodes where we respond to the best comments. Gain access to that content at 404 Media co. I'm your host, Joseph, and with me are 404 Media co founders Sam Cole and Jason Kebler.
Joseph (0:35)
Hey, what's up?
Jason Kebler (0:37)
So, first of all, we are launching a new project. Jason, do you briefly just want to explain what that is about? Book bans, that sort of thing?
Joseph (0:48)
Yeah. So it's very early days, but we've partnered with our friends at Muckrock, who is this nonprofit that helps US file FOIAs and helps other people file FOIAs, so public records requests. And we're going to do a project where we are going to file a lot of FOIAs about book bans and educational censorship and curriculum changes and things of that nature, which has been something that we and many, many other people who you will be hearing from as we do this project have been funding, fighting against since really like 2017, 2018, during Trump's first term. But we're gonna hopefully be documenting a bit about how this movement started from like trying to get teachers fired, trying to get libraries defunded, to taking over school boards, to then sort of like creating political power on the right through things like crt, you know, railing against drag, story time, things like this. This political movement has gotten very, very powerful. And again, lots of people have been reporting on this for quite some time. But we've wanted to do a project about this for a while. And so we were talking to Muck Rock and we're, we're getting going on it. We bring it up because this is going to be a long term project. So if you are a school board member, if you are a librarian, if you are a concerned parent, if you know something going on in your community, please tell us. Already I think maybe a hundred people have reached out to say like, this is happening in my town, this is happening at my school, this is happening at my library. We also, you know, have done a lot of our own research about where to file FOIAs and that sort of thing. But if you have any ideas, let us know. And if you have already reached out to me, we've gotten about a hundred people who've reached out and we're going through that. I'll get back to you soon. But it's a very exciting time because we're going to be working with Claire Woodcock, who has written for us before, used to write for us at Motherboard, and has been following this topic for a really long time. So you'll start to see stories about that probably in the next month or so. The other quick bit of housekeeping is we have restocked our merch store. We have new designs, we have this sweatshirt is back in stock, Beanies are back in stock, new T shirt, things like this. So go check it out. They're going to be arriving in probably the next week, and it is far easier for me if you order now because I ship them all at once. So if you want that, go check out our Shopify page. You can find it at 404 Media Co and then click on Merch or Store. I forget which one it is, but you'll find merch. I think it's merch. Yeah.
