Back to School with Mom's For Liberty
Back to School with Mom's For Liberty
Top Story: Back to School with Moms for Liberty
The book-banning chaos-makers (aka Moms for Liberty) are back to school this week.
But before they hit school board meetings and classrooms on your beat to seek restrictions on teachers, librarians, and young readers, they are gathering at their annual pep rally in DC this weekend to strategize. Workshops will include “helping teachers leave the union,” and crafting state legislation with “teeth.”
Reporting Right thought this would be a good time to re-share some of our tips (and add a few new ones) on what to do and what not to do when covering these anti-democratic chaos agents.
Note: We’re pretty sure your editors won’t let you call them that. So, do what reporters do best: Show. Don’t tell!
For background and insight
This 60 Minutes piece on Moms 4 Liberty
This editorial by Moms for Liberty source Maurice Cunningham
Tips on covering Moms for Liberty
Don’t Spread Misinformation
Don’t convince yourself that using quotation marks (or qualifiers like “supposedly”) around misleading terms — “liberty-minded,” “freedom,” “critical race theory,” etc. — means you don’t have to do the hard work of clarifying to your readers how and why Moms for Liberty uses misinformation as a political tool.
Do Be Informative
Don’t mention “critical race theory,” without defining what “critical race theory” really is.
Don't report what Moms for Liberty members claim is being taught in schools without clarifying what is actually being taught in schools.
Don’t quote a lie that a Moms for Liberty member says without correcting the lie.
When reporting on book banning efforts, make sure to mention that the vast majority of books on book banning lists include people of color and the LGBTQ community. (Book banning focused on “smut” should be understood as a tactical way to purge books that support greater equity and inclusion, which is a larger goal of Moms for Liberty and its close allies.)
Report Facts
Do report that Moms for Liberty has very tight ties to heavily funded right-wing operatives, gets trained by powerful radical right political groups, has its events sponsored by radical right-wing groups, and considers radical right-wing figures allies.
Do report who Moms for Liberty is/has been affiliated with. Here are just a few names:
Do report that Moms for Liberty members have used violence and threats of violence. Give examples.
Do note the connection Moms for Liberty has with Project 2025 authors and the Heritage Foundation, which will have a ubiquitous presence at their convention, by leading sessions like “What does it mean to abolish the Department of Education?”
Sources (Moms for Liberty experts)
Maurice Cunningham, author of “Dark Money and The Politics of School Privatization”
Email: maurice.cunningham153@gmail.com
Laura Pappano, author of “School Moms: Parent Activism, Partisan Politics, and the Battle for Public Education”
Jennifer Berkshire and Jack Schneider, authors of “A Wolf at the Schoolhouse Door”
We’re Reading
Will Bunch’s alarming piece on how the media is bombing its 2024 election cycle coverage
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See You Next Week!
Our Staff
Executive Editor Kyle Spencer
Managing Editor Christen Gall
Our Board of Advisors
Alex Aronson, executive director of Court Accountability
David Armiak, research director for the Center for Media and Democracy
Connor Gibson, founder of Grassrootbeer Investigations
Maurice Cunningham, retired associate professor of political science at the University of Massachusetts at Boston and author of Dark Money and The Politics of School Privatization.
Reed Gallen, co-founder of The Lincoln Project
Isaac Kamola, associate professor of political science at Trinity College, founder of Faculty First Responders and co-author of Free Speech and Koch Money, Manufacturing a Campus Culture War
Nancy MacLean, William H. Chafe distinguished professor of history and public policy at Duke University and author of Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America
Ralph Wilson, founder of the Corporate Genome Project and co-author of Free Speech and Koch Money, Manufacturing a Campus Culture War
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