Media 2070: An Invitation to Dream Up Media Reparations

Anshantia “Tia” Oso is a specialist in using narrative, messaging, arts and culture to catalyze change. As the senior director for Media 2070, she leads the work to build Black narrative power and advance media reparations as a necessary project for collective liberation. Tia has organized for over 12 years leading successful campaigns to mobilize thousands of advocates on issues ranging from migrant rights to racial justice to public arts policy. Her work is rooted in the legacies of Black organizing and ancestral resistance and inspired by Afrofuturist visions.

Diamond Hardiman — Diamond works with the Media 2070 and News Voices teams to build the dreams, power and local journalism needed to forge a reparative media future. She aims to participate in the creation of a world where freedom is noncontingent — but rather, an inevitable necessity. In service of this vision she has worked as a tenants’ rights advocate and bail abolitionist in St. Louis and as an advocate for people sentenced to execution by the state in Jackson, Mississippi. Diamond earned a B.A. in African American studies and political science from Saint Louis University. In her free time, she enjoys pondering womanist and liberation theology, listening to Megan Thee Stallion and admiring beauty wherever it appears.

Joseph Torres — Joseph advises key Free Press staff in setting and evaluating Free Press and Media 2070 policy positions and priorities. Joseph writes frequently on media and internet issues and is the co-author of the New York Times bestseller News for All the People: The Epic Story of Race and the American Media. He is the 2015 recipient of the Everett C. Parker Award, which recognizes an individual whose work embodies the principles and values of the public interest. Before joining Free Press, Joseph worked as deputy director of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists. Born and raised in New York City, Joseph is Puerto Rican. Joseph is a founder of Media 2070.

Venneikia Williams (she/her) — is a person whose pursuit of justice is informed by the radical Black tradition. Venneikia supports the Free Press team in the development, design and successful implementation of the Media 2070 campaign for media reparations.

From designing curriculum, graphics, and events to facilitating in-person and virtual trainings on racial, political, and spiritual matters, Venneikia is a lifelong learner and instructor.

She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a Master of Divinity degree from Covenant Theological Seminary in St. Louis, Missouri.