The People’s Media Record hosted its first ever People’s Media Camp in October

By Ireland Davies

Media professionals, community organizers and aspiring youth from across Philadelphia gathered to share skills, offer resources and build community. 

“This is not academic at all. It is a lot about capacity building, sharing skills and celebrating all the resources and know-how that exist in Philadelphia,” said Dr. Clemencia Rodriguez about the three-day event, which took place from October 3 to October 5.

Rodriguez, a Media Studies professor at Temple University and member of the People’s Media Record Community Advisory Board, explained that the camp was the first convening of its kind organized by PMR. “We want to create kind of a very Philly space of diversity of cultures, a welcoming environment, very grassroots and very action oriented.”

Established in 2017, the People’s Media Record is an offspring of the Media Mobilizing Project, which worked to train hundreds of community journalists throughout Greater Philadelphia. “[The] main thing that the People’s Media Record does is to preserve, archive, maintain all the archives that it inherited from the Media Mobilizing Project,” said Rodriguez.

The nonprofit also conducts its own independent projects, focusing on the preservation of community media, including everything from videos and publications to the products of social movements across Greater Philadelphia. PMR aims to ensure that journalists and organizers keep the importance of community media and community-centered initiatives at the heart of their professional pursuits.

“Archiving and preserving is something that is very common when it comes to institutions, or elites, or powerful organizations, or powerful people,” Rodriguez noted, “but there’s very little attention paid to archiving and preserving what grassroots organizations produce.”

This archival work was the centerpiece of the People’s Media Camp. The hands-on event, held at the Calvary Center for Culture and Community and FACTS Charter School, included film screenings, exhibitions, workshops, interactive sessions and roundtables with local journalists, archivists and organizers.

PMC’s program offered a clear mission. “[We seek to] name the challenges we face, affirm and learn from each other, reckon with the patterns of oppression and extraction that continue to shape our field of practice, and begin to develop collective strategies for sustaining our work.”

The panel “Memory as Liberation: Archival Work towards Prison Abolition,” a session with Philadelphia Prison Radio on Oct. 5, checked many of the boxes. Prison Radio showed their short film “Mumia in Motion,” a documentary about incarcerated activist and journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal.

Directed by intern Dayeon Olivia Seo, the film follows the work of interns archiving Abu-Jamal’s recorded conversations and written works.

“If you have an idea, just do it. Show up with a mic,” encouraged Philadelphia Prison Radio Director Noel Hanrahan to a room of students and young media professionals. She credited the dedication and communal efforts of the youth as fuel for Prison Radio’s endeavors. “We really couldn’t do it without community,” Hanrahan acknowledged.

During the full-day sessions held Oct. 4–5, photos and multimedia pieces lined the halls of FACTS Charter School, displaying the efforts organizations are taking to record and archive voices in their respective communities. Contributions from G-Town Radio’s Tom Casetta and photographer Tieshka K. Smith, as well as art from Jihan Thomas and Free Our Mothers represented just some of the work being done right here in Philadelphia.

The Conservation Center for Arts and Historic Artifacts offered tools and techniques for preserving delicate photos, documents and books. CCAHA’s table neighbor, DiasporaDNA Story Center, displayed the personal media collection of a lifelong Philadelphia resident, showcasing the importance of collective memory.

Camp closed with a Collective Map Walk dedicated to highlighting archival initiatives across the Greater Philadelphia area gathered from attendees. The map served as a physical representation of the solidarity built by participants over the course of the weekend.

Ground-up, grassroots efforts to report on and archive underrepresented communities can be a lonely endeavor, but events like the People’s Media Camp are an important step in that process.

“We have put a lot of effort into creating a welcoming environment and taking care of people,” Rodriguez said.