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Trusted Messenger: Darren Nichols
02:12
WHAT'S NEW?
LIFTxVoices Program
Danielle Brown, LIFT Project Director and panelists at LIFTxShine Symposium in 2023.
Kyndell Harkeness LIFTxShine Lecture at MSU 2023

Watch the video above to learn more about Darren Nichols, a Detroit Free Press Columnist and the first Black Midwest Trusted Messenger featured from our LIFTxVoices Program. Then, sneak behind the scenes with PopUp Docs to see more what it's like to with local high school students on this data visualization project. 

Danielle Brown working with student at East Lansing Library's during the LIFTxVoices Workshop w/Jarrad Henderson's PopUp Docs
ABOUT THE PROJECT

The LIFT Project is an engaged research effort centered on finding solutions to the news disengagement challenges that create disinformation and misinformation crises in our society. We seek to create a more engaging, informative, and complete journalism industry and news information ecosystem, especially for Black and immigrant communities that have been inadequately served by journalism industries. 

LIFT achieves this mission by prioritizing research and engagement efforts that center on identifying networks of trusted messengers in Midwestern communities to: 1) understand their effects on civic and democratic life; 2) create, network and allocate resources needed to better inform communities;  and 3) build new opportunities for sustainable reparative narrative change. The project began in 2022 in Minneapolis/St Paul, Minnesota, and has expanded to Michigan and Indiana. 

We are currently launching data collection efforts in Michigan, while continuing to seek partners and collaborators to expand the work. We're interested in working with and supporting researchers, students, journalists, faith leaders, and activists in the Midwest and around the United States to create a comprehensive and community-directed effort. Check out our current team members and, please consider sharing our work with others. 

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