This week’s missive, our ninth, is the last you’ll be hearing from us before Election Day 2020. And because it’s pretty hard to think about anything other than the brain-melting insanity of American political discourse right now, we thought we’d bring on one of our favorite culture writers—someone who also happens to be an intrepid labor reporter and newsroom union organizer—to discuss just that.

Philly-based freelance writer Kim Kelly is a columnist at Teen Vogue, the former metal editor at Noisey, and the author of Fight Like Hell, a forthcoming book on the history of the American labor movement. She’s also one the few journalists we know who identifies openly as an anarchist and anti-fascist. This makes her the perfect person to help us wrap our mind around how those fringe utopian movements, or some misguided, fact-agnostic conception of them, ended up in the crosshairs of the American culture war this year—“terrorist” designations, “anarchist jurisdictions” and all.

We spoke to Kim about some of the basic facts that the Trump administration and the mainstream media alike are getting wrong about these movements and their activities, the challenges of being a journalist as well as an activist, and why objectivity in journalism is a false construct in the first place. She also opened up to us about the book she’s writing—and why she believes that every story is a labor story.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theculturejournalist.substack.com/subscribe

Every story is a labor story, with Kim Kelly

The Culture Journalist

Every story is a labor story, with Kim Kelly