Copaganda: How Police and the Media Manipulate Our News
by Alec Karakatsanis
The New Press, 2025
[Publication date: May 6, 2025]
by Alec Karakatsanis
The New Press, 2025
[Publication date: May 6, 2025]
From a prizewinning civil rights lawyer comes 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
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.
These false narratives in turn fuel surveillance, punishment, inequality, injustice, and mass incarceration. Copaganda is often hidden in plain sight, such as:
When your local TV station obsessively focuses on shoplifting by poor people while ignoring crimes of wage theft, tax evasion, and environmental pollution
When you hear on your daily podcast that there is a “shortage” of prison guards rather than too many people in prison
When your newspaper quotes an “expert” saying that more money for police and prisons is the answer to violence despite scientific evidence to the contrary
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.
REVIEWS:
Praise for Copaganda:
“An instructive, often enraging look at how elite publications mounted a sustained defense of the status quo after the police murder of George Floyd touched off the largest political mass movement in U.S. history.”
“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
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.
These false narratives in turn fuel surveillance, punishment, inequality, injustice, and mass incarceration. Copaganda is often hidden in plain sight, such as:
When your local TV station obsessively focuses on shoplifting by poor people while ignoring crimes of wage theft, tax evasion, and environmental pollution
When you hear on your daily podcast that there is a “shortage” of prison guards rather than too many people in prison
When your newspaper quotes an “expert” saying that more money for police and prisons is the answer to violence despite scientific evidence to the contrary
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.
REVIEWS:
Praise for Copaganda:
“An instructive, often enraging look at how elite publications mounted a sustained defense of the status quo after the police murder of George Floyd touched off the largest political mass movement in U.S. history.”
—The New Republic
“Karakatsanis’s close readings of news articles from major outlets show that journalists habitually regurgitate pro-police narratives—many of which revolve around how more funding for law enforcement is needed to bring down crime rates—and omit the perspectives of non-police experts and studies showing that law enforcement has no correlation with crime rates. . . . Readers will be aghast.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"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
"Alec Karakatsanis is a gifted civil rights lawyer and a fearless guide to the urgent project of calling out the many failures of modern coverage of crime and justice. Only by really understanding those failures—why, for instance, news outlets tend to ignore ubiquitous crimes like wage theft but spill endless ink on certain street crimes—can we hope to heal our communities."
—Sarah Stillman, Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist and staff writer, The New Yorker
"Karakatsanis cuts to the heart of the rancid politics of crime, and the ways in which journalists and academics reproduce inequality and immiseration by legitimating America’s massive punishment bureaucracy. Copaganda is a masterful analysis, a call to action, and a blueprint for change."
—Alex S. Vitale, author of The End of Policing
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 and Copaganda (The New Press), he lives in Washington, DC.
A Continuous Struggle: The Revolutionary Life of Martin Sostre
by Garrett Felber
AK Press, 2025
[Publication date: May 6, 2025]
The first biography of the revolutionary political prisoner who laid the foundation for contemporary abolitionist struggles and Black anarchism.
A Continuous Struggle is a political biography of one of the most important—if since forgotten—revolutionary figures of the twentieth century in the United States. Martin Sostre (1923–2015) was a Black Puerto Rican from East Harlem who became a politicized prisoner and jailhouse lawyer, winning cases in the early 1960s that helped secure the constitutional rights of incarcerated people. He opened one of the country’s first radical Black bookstores and was scapegoated and framed by police and the FBI following the Buffalo rebellion of 1967. He was sentenced by an all-white jury to thirty-one to forty-one years.
Throughout his nine-year imprisonment, Sostre transformed himself and the revolutionary movements he was a part of, eventually identifying as a revolutionary anarchist and laying the foundation for contemporary Black anarchism. During that time, he engaged in principled resistance to strip frisks for which he was beaten eleven times, raising awareness about the routinized sexual assault of imprisoned people. The decade-long Free Martin Sostre movement was one of the greatest and most improbable defense campaign victories of the Black Power era, alongside those to liberate Angela Davis and Huey Newton. Although Sostre receded from public view after his release in 1976, he lived another four decades of committed struggle as a tenant organizer and youth mentor in New York and New Jersey. Throughout his long life, Martin Sostre was a jailhouse lawyer, revolutionary bookseller, yogi, mentor and teacher, anti-rape organizer, housing justice activist, and original political thinker. The variety of strategies he used and terrains on which he struggled emphasize the necessity and possibility of multi-faceted and continuous struggle against all forms of oppression in pursuit of an egalitarian society founded on the principles of “maximum human freedom, spirituality, and love.”
Review
“Vibrant…This brings the revolutionary spirit of the ’60s and ’70s alive in fascinating detail.” —Publisher's Weekly
“I’ve been waiting for years for a biography of Martin Sostre worthy of its subject. This is it. Garrett Felber tells an engrossing story of a complex and committed man who dedicated his life to the struggle for liberation of the oppressed with depth and revolutionary love. A new generation will now get to know someone whose contributions have made all our lives more possible. A Continuous Struggle will be a mainstay on my shelf and my book recommendations.” —Mariame Kaba, coauthor of Let this Radicalize You
“Now that Garrett Felber has given us such a deeply researched and compelling biography of Martin Sostre, Sostre’s pivotal and far-reaching contributions to the movement against prisons and the broader abolitionist movement can no longer be ignored. This book is more than a biography of a single individual—it charts the collective work that guides us today.” —Angela Y. Davis, is a political activist and author of numerous books, including Freedom is a Constant Struggle
“A Continuous Struggle is urgent reading for organizers everywhere. Martin Sostre’s project-oriented revolutionary vision gifts us with insights. Garrett Felber vividly shows how Sostre understood the consciousness-expanding power of frequently modest ‘objective examples.’ As a result, the man’s life and this book encourage us to notice the many unsung people who work towards a new society in militantly practical ways.” —Ruth Wilson Gilmore, author of Abolition Geography
“A rigorous examination of Sostre's revolutionary life that offers vital lessons for those seeking to carry on the struggle.” —Orisanmi Burton, author of Tip of the Spear
“The radical, indeed revolutionary life of Martin Sostre, a Black Puerto Rican political prisoner, is a remarkable one. He entered prison thinking himself nonpolitical, but learned, through hard-fought struggles and experience, that every time we wrestle with the State (Leviathan) we are engaged with politics. . . . His bio tells the tale of a man who transformed when faced with new challenges, becoming more radical with each transformation. Those students of the '60s, the Black nationalist and the prisoners’ rights movement would do well by reading his work.” —Mumia Abu-Jamal, political prisoner and coeditor of Beneath the Mountain
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Garrett Felber is an educator, writer, and organizer. They are the author of Those Who Know Don’t Say: The Nation of Islam, the Black Freedom Movement, and the Carceral State, and coauthor of The Portable Malcolm X Reader, with Manning Marable. Felber is a cofounder of the abolitionist collective Study and Struggle and is currently building a radical mobile library, the Free Society People's Library, in Portland, Oregon.
ABOUT THE FORWARD AUTHOR:
Robin D. G. Kelley is author or coeditor of numerous award-winning books including Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination, Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original, and Race Rebels: Culture, Politics, and the Black Working Class, among others.
A Genocide Foretold: Reporting on Survival and Resistance in Occupied Palestine
by Chris Hedges
Seven Stories Press, 2025
[Publication Date: April 8, 2025]
With intimate and harrowing portraits of the human consequences of oppression, occupation, and violence experienced in Palestine today, Pulitzer-prize-winning journalist Chris Hedges issues a call to action urging us to bear witness and engage with the ongoing humanitarian crisis.
Hedges wrote the first section of the book when he was in Ramallah in July 2024, and he draws from his experience doing extensive reporting from the Middle East, including Gaza, for the New York Times.
A Genocide Foretold confronts the stark realities of life under siege in Gaza and the heroic effort ordinary Palestinians are waging to resist and survive. Weaving together personal stories, historical context, and unflinching journalism, Chris Hedges provides an intimate portrait of systemic oppression, occupation, and violence.
Hedges wrote the first section of the book when he was in Ramallah in July 2024, and he draws from his experience doing extensive reporting from the Middle East, including Gaza, for the New York Times.
A Genocide Foretold confronts the stark realities of life under siege in Gaza and the heroic effort ordinary Palestinians are waging to resist and survive. Weaving together personal stories, historical context, and unflinching journalism, Chris Hedges provides an intimate portrait of systemic oppression, occupation, and violence.
The book includes chapters on:
What life is like in Gaza City and Ramallah in the midst of approaching bombs and gunfire.
The history of the dispossession of Palestinians of their land in relation to the ideology of Zionism.
A portrait of Amr, a 17-year-old highschool student who is forced to evacuate his village with his family.
Psychoanalysis of the state of permanent war that has led to the destruction of hospitals, telecommunications centers, governmental buildings, roads, homes universities, schools, and libraries and archaeological and heritage sites in Gaza.
The ways in which the collective retribution against innocents is a familiar tactic employed by colonial rulers.
A heartbreaking final chapter called “Letter to the Children of Gaza.”
Hedges, the Pulitzer Prize–winning former Middle East Bureau Chief for The New York Times, is an Arabic speaker who spent seven years covering the conflict. He wrote the first section of the book when he was in Ramallah in July 2024. A Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist, he is also the author of two bestselling books, War is a Force that Gives us Meaning and The Greatest Evil is War. In A Genocide Foretold he writes with an emotional depth that can only be achieved from spending many years on the ground in Gaza and the West Bank. A Genocide Foretold is a call to action, urging us to bear witness and engage with the ongoing humanitarian crisis.
REVIEWS:
"An authoritative argument against the singularity of the conflict and an indictment of Western media narratives that present it as exceptional and beyond critique." —Publishers Weekly, starred review
"Chris Hedges writes with heart and extraordinary moral clarity about a genocide that has unfurled in front of our eyes. A Genocide Foretold indicts not only the racist bloodlust that has overtaken Israeli society, but the full complicity of the U.S. government and media, and the hypocrisies at the heart of the West’s most cherished illusions.” —Beh Ehrenreich, author of The Way to the Spring: Life and Death in Palestine
"With a searing urgency, Chris Hedges brings readers face to face with Israel’s devastation of Gaza. A Genocide Foretold is a scathing denunciation of the long violence of the Zionist project and its U.S. and European backers. The writing reflects his deep experience as a correspondent from Central America to Bosnia and his passionate moral outrage against both war and the hypocrisy that justifies it. Fast-paced and dazzling, the book gives first-hand accounts of the horrors of war and the courage of those resisting it."
—Aviva Chomsky, coeditor of Organizing for Power and author of Central America's Forgotten History
"Chris Hedges profoundly describes exactly what is happening in Palestine and talks on behalf of the victims. In his painful writings, he makes their voices heard. This is genocide as I lived it in Gaza for three months. The book is full of stories, information, and shocking realities. This is not just reporting from there or about them, it is a courageous challenge to all attempts to misinform us about what life looks like in Gaza. Profound, honest, painful, moving and real…the book takes us through history, geography, politics, and news and helps us better understand the Zionist occupation. We cannot escape after learning about it! Chris is telling us: now you know."—Atef Abu Saif, Minister of Culture of Palestine and author of Don't Look Left: A Diary of Genocide
What life is like in Gaza City and Ramallah in the midst of approaching bombs and gunfire.
The history of the dispossession of Palestinians of their land in relation to the ideology of Zionism.
A portrait of Amr, a 17-year-old highschool student who is forced to evacuate his village with his family.
Psychoanalysis of the state of permanent war that has led to the destruction of hospitals, telecommunications centers, governmental buildings, roads, homes universities, schools, and libraries and archaeological and heritage sites in Gaza.
The ways in which the collective retribution against innocents is a familiar tactic employed by colonial rulers.
A heartbreaking final chapter called “Letter to the Children of Gaza.”
Hedges, the Pulitzer Prize–winning former Middle East Bureau Chief for The New York Times, is an Arabic speaker who spent seven years covering the conflict. He wrote the first section of the book when he was in Ramallah in July 2024. A Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist, he is also the author of two bestselling books, War is a Force that Gives us Meaning and The Greatest Evil is War. In A Genocide Foretold he writes with an emotional depth that can only be achieved from spending many years on the ground in Gaza and the West Bank. A Genocide Foretold is a call to action, urging us to bear witness and engage with the ongoing humanitarian crisis.
REVIEWS:
"An authoritative argument against the singularity of the conflict and an indictment of Western media narratives that present it as exceptional and beyond critique." —Publishers Weekly, starred review
"Chris Hedges writes with heart and extraordinary moral clarity about a genocide that has unfurled in front of our eyes. A Genocide Foretold indicts not only the racist bloodlust that has overtaken Israeli society, but the full complicity of the U.S. government and media, and the hypocrisies at the heart of the West’s most cherished illusions.” —Beh Ehrenreich, author of The Way to the Spring: Life and Death in Palestine
"With a searing urgency, Chris Hedges brings readers face to face with Israel’s devastation of Gaza. A Genocide Foretold is a scathing denunciation of the long violence of the Zionist project and its U.S. and European backers. The writing reflects his deep experience as a correspondent from Central America to Bosnia and his passionate moral outrage against both war and the hypocrisy that justifies it. Fast-paced and dazzling, the book gives first-hand accounts of the horrors of war and the courage of those resisting it."
—Aviva Chomsky, coeditor of Organizing for Power and author of Central America's Forgotten History
"Chris Hedges profoundly describes exactly what is happening in Palestine and talks on behalf of the victims. In his painful writings, he makes their voices heard. This is genocide as I lived it in Gaza for three months. The book is full of stories, information, and shocking realities. This is not just reporting from there or about them, it is a courageous challenge to all attempts to misinform us about what life looks like in Gaza. Profound, honest, painful, moving and real…the book takes us through history, geography, politics, and news and helps us better understand the Zionist occupation. We cannot escape after learning about it! Chris is telling us: now you know."—Atef Abu Saif, Minister of Culture of Palestine and author of Don't Look Left: A Diary of Genocide
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Chris Hedges is the former Pulitzer Prize–winning Middle East Bureau Chief for The New York Times. An Arabic speaker, he spent seven years covering the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, much of that time in Gaza. Author of 14 books, his most recent are The Greatest Evil Is War and A Genocide Foretold. He has taught at Columbia University, New York University, Princeton University, and the University of Toronto. He has also taught for over a decade in the college degree program offered by Rutgers University in the New Jersey prison system. He holds a B.A. from Colgate University in English Literature and a Master of Divinity from Harvard University. He lives in Princeton, New Jersey.
