Word Up welcomes prizewinning civil rights lawyer Alec Karakatsanis to discuss his new book Copaganda: How Police and the Media Manipulate Our News, a powerful warning about how the media manipulates public perception, fueling fear and inequality, while distracting us from what truly matters.

“Alec Karakatsanis exposes our criminal injustice system for what it is: a bureaucracy of punishment, propped up by a biased media machine that feeds mass incarceration. After Copaganda, you’ll never read the news the same way again.” –Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow

This event is a $5 suggested donation ticket with 30 max attendees. Please register in advance.

In compliance with Word Up Community Safety guidelines, all attendees for this event must wear a mask inside.

Word Up Community Bookshop is located at 2113 Amsterdam Ave. (& 165th St.) in Washington Heights, NYC. You can take the 1 train to 168th St and the A/C train to 163rd or 168th  St.

ABOUT THE BOOK

In this groundbreaking expose, essential for understanding the rising authoritarian mindset, award-winning civil rights lawyer Alec Karakatsanis introduces the concept of “Copaganda.” He defines Copaganda as a special kind of propaganda employed by police, prosecutors, and news media that stokes fear of police-recorded crime and distorts society’s responses to it. Every day, mass media manipulates our perception of what keeps us safe and contributes to a culture fearful of poor people, strangers, immigrants, unhoused people, and people of color. The result is more and more authoritarian state repression, more inequality, and huge profits for the massive public and private punishment bureaucracy.

For readers of Naomi Klein and Noam Chomsky, Copaganda documents how modern news coverage fuels insecurity against these groups and shifts our focus away from the policies that would help us improve people’s lives–things like affordable housing, adequate healthcare, early childhood education, and climate-friendly city planning.

Recognized by Teen Vogue as “one of the most prominent voices” on the criminal legal system, Karakatsanis brings his sharp legal expertise, trenchant political analysis, and humorous storytelling to drastically alter the way we consume information, while offering a hopeful path forward. One towards a healed humanity–and media system–with a vested interest in public safety and equality.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

A former public defender, Alec Karakatsanis is the founder of the Civil Rights Corps, an organization designed to advocate for racial justice and bring systemic civil rights cases on behalf of impoverished people. He was named the 2016 Trial Lawyer of the Year by Public Justice and was awarded the Stephen B. Bright Award for contributions to indigent defense in the South by Gideon’s Promise. The author of Usual Cruelty: The Complicity of Lawyers in the Criminal Injustice System (The New Press), he lives in Washington, DC.