Spark Media

Sharon Liese, Emmy Award-winning director and longtime Spark Media friend and collaborator, brings her thrilling Sundance Film Festival-premiered documentary, SEIZED, to Washington, DC on June 13 as part of DC DOX Festival.

SEIZED details the troubling police raid on the local Kansas newsroom, Marion County Record, and raises urgent questions about abuse of power, journalistic ethics, and the U.S. Constitution. The film unfolds in real time through police body-cam and surveillance footage, revealing the chaos of the raid, the bombshells that followed, and the devastating personal toll on the newsroom - including the tragic death of its 98-year-old co-owner.

Don’t miss this powerful story about what happens when freedom of the press - one of democracy’s most fundamental tenets - is threatened.

Watch SEIZED on June 13 at 1:30 p.m. ET at the Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company in Washington, DC. The film will screen alongside FINAL PRESS as part of a special DC/DOX shorts program exploring the vital role of a free press. One of the city’s premier film festivals, DC/DOX brings powerful documentary storytelling from around the world right to our nation’s capital. Spark was proud to screen its 2024 film, PUBLIC DEFENDER, at the festival.

Get your tickets and use the code FREEPRESS to receive 10% off: https://dcdoxfest.com/films/seized/

The host of The People’s Recorder, the amazing Chris Haley, will be joining the “ABC’s Podcast” today at 7:00pm ET via TikTok. Find it here: !

Chris, who is also the Director of the Study of the Legacy of Slavery at the Maryland State Archives, will be discussing the continuing legacy of Roots. This is an important and timely discussion, and we hope you tune in!

May is Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month.

It’s a good time to highlight the important story of Japanese American artist Miné Okubo. Okubo was a gifted artist who was working with Diego Rivera on murals for the WPA when she was forced into an incarceration camp for Japanese American citizens during World War 2. Okubo used her skills as an artist to depict the injustice in her landmark book Citizen 13660.

Her work helped give us a profound new lens on the American identity. It was an honor to speak with her nieces and share her story in The People’s Recorder.

Listen to Episode 9: “Is This Land Your Land?” wherever you get your podcasts or on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUX0-EKrOi8

That episode was produced with support from California Humanities and National Endowment for the Humanities