Who We Are

We are a community of journalists, truth-tellers, organizers, and justice seekers committed to delivering in-depth and thought-provoking news and analysis.

Prism is an independent and nonprofit news outlet led by journalists of color. We report from the ground up and at the intersections of injustice. Together, our journalists go where justice requires.

Activists, thought leaders, decision-makers, and all those who believe in justice for all come to Prism for deep reporting and honest insights on the most pressing injustices of our time—delivered through the lens of those who are most impacted.

Our Team

Lara Witt | Editor-in-Chief

Lara is an award-winning writer, journalist, editor, and the co-founder of the Movement Media Alliance and Media Against Apartheid & Displacement. Their goal is to provide platforms for marginalized voices and to reshape the media landscape altogether as a tool for liberation. | @femmfeministe.bsky.social

Caitlin Gaffin | Publisher

Caitlin is a nonprofit strategy and operations leader working to reimagine how organizations build power and practice care. She is the founding co-director of Holler Health Justice, a community-based abortion fund and reproductive health organization rooted in Appalachia.

Alexandra Martinez | Senior News Reporter

Alexandra is an award-winning, Cuban-American writer whose reporting spans such topics as immigration, the affordable housing crisis, and art-washing, and appears in VICE, Observer, Catapult magazine, CNN, and others. She has a B.A in Film Studies from Columbia University and has worked on documentary post-production teams and prison reentry programs in New York and Miami. | @alex__mar

Carolyn Copeland | Managing Editor

Carolyn is a Bay Area-based editor experienced in print and broadcast media. Her writing has been published by The Washington Post, SF Chronicle, HuffPost, Popsugar, SF Examiner, and others. She also has appeared as a guest commentator on CNN, PBS, KRON4, and various radio shows and podcasts. | @carolyncopes.bsky.social

Kyubin Kim | Social Media Editor

Kyubin is a writer, researcher, and social media editor who believes in using new media forms to serve radical public pedagogy. She has previously worked at Guernica, The Los Angeles Review of Books, and The New Republic.

Rashmee Kumar | Senior Copy Editor

Rashmee previously led editorial operations, oversaw the copy desk, and edited features and news at The Intercept. She has also worked at Guardian US, NJ Advance Media, and The Star-Ledger. Rashmee reports on the political mobilization of South Asian American communities. She attended Rutgers University and is based in Brooklyn.

ray levy uyeda | Senior Features Reporter

ray is a writer and poet based in the Bay Area, living on unceded Ohlone land. Outside of Prism, ray’s work can be found in The Washington Post, The Guardian, Teen Vogue, and Yes! Magazine, among others.

Rikki Li | Program Director

Rikki is a writer and editor whose works revolve around themes of cultural identity, queerness, and racial justice. She has an M.S. in Journalism from Northwestern University, and her goal is to help build the next generation of BIPOC movement journalists. | @writtenbyrikki

Saba Keramati | Operations Director

Saba Keramati is a nonprofit professional and poet. She is the author of Self-Mythology (University of Arkansas Press, 2024) and the poetry editor for Sundog Lit. She believes in the power of storytelling to shift dominant narratives and create change. | @sabzi_k

Sahar Fatima | News Editor

Sahar is a purpose-driven journalist experienced in news, features, and digital best practices. She was previously the criminal justice editor and metro digital editor at The Boston Globe, helping cover a diverse range of stories in creative and impactful ways. She has worked as a reporter and a digital producer at Toronto Star and written for The Globe and Mail and The Canadian Press. | @sfatima.bsky.social

Shabnam Banerjee-McFarland | Audience Director

Throughout her career, Shabnam has worked in independent media committed to liberation. She believes in the power of connecting readers and writers in the service of movement building, leveraging multimedia tools to build coalitions that are core to audience development.

Shirley Vilca | Development Director

Shirley is a seasoned nonprofit professional focused on building thriving communities in pursuit of collective liberation. Her diverse background includes education equity, mental health advocacy, civic engagement and LGBTQIA+ rights. | @theshirleyvilca

Tina Vásquez | Features Editor

Tina is an award-winning journalist and current Alicia Patterson Foundation fellow investigating the H-2A program. Tina covers immigration, reproductive injustice, and labor. | @tinavasquez.bsky.social

Yashwina Canter | Community Engagement Editor

Yashwina is a Tennessee-born, Oregon-based publicist and digital strategist committed to growing engaged audiences for marginalized creators and nurturing an equitable digital future for indie media. | @yashwinacanter.bsky.social

Contributing Writers

Tamar Sarai

Contributing Writer, At-Large

Tamar Sarai is a writer, journalist, and historian in training. Her work focuses on race, culture, and the criminal legal system. She is currently pursing her PhD in History at Temple University where her research focuses on 18th and 19th century African American history, gender and slavery, and public memory. She is an alumna of Wellesley College and Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism. More by Tamar Sarai

Columnists

Derek R. Trumbo, Sr.

Columnist, Never Eat the Candy on Your Pillow

Derek R. Trumbo, Sr., a multiple-time PEN Prison Writing Award winner, is an essayist, playwright, and author whose writing has been featured in “The Sentences That Create Us: Crafting A Writer’s Life in Prison” (Haymarket Books, January 2022), Vera Institute of Justice’s the “Human Toll of Jail” project, and Tacenda Literary Magazine. His plays have won or placed Top 3 at the Kentucky Theatre Association Roots of the Bluegrass New Plays Festival three years running. A Madeline L’Engle/Rahman Mentorship Award prize winning essayist, Derek mentors, instructs, and facilitates writing circles with his fellow inmates to create tales which highlight the human struggle and adversity of this gift we call life. More by Derek R. Trumbo, Sr.

William C. Anderson

Columnist, Another Way Out

William C. Anderson is a writer and activist from Birmingham, Alabama. His work has appeared in The Guardian, MTV, Truthout, British Journal of Photography, and Pitchfork, among others. He is the author of The Nation on No Map (AK Press 2021) and co-author of As Black as Resistance (AK Press 2018). He’s also the co-founder of Offshoot Journal and provides creative direction as a producer of the Black Autonomy Podcast. His writings have been included in the anthologies, Who Do You Serve, Who Do You Protect? (Haymarket 2016) and No Selves to Defend (Mariame Kaba 2014). More by William C. Anderson