Best of Status Coup 2022: ON-THE-GROUND Exposing the Economic Hunger Games, Lifting Up Amazon Workers Historic Union Win
"A statement of defiance needs to be had...STAND UP because if you don't you lose, WE LOSE as a people if you do nothing"-from Status Coup's "Economic Hunger Games" reporting trip
In Status Coup’s fourth year, we continued as the only independent progressive media outlet reporting ON-THE-GROUND across America on the stories the corporate media collectively covers up. As always, I’m incredibly proud of the ground we’ve covered—on a shoestring budget with zero corporate donors or funding, but rather, funding from working-class people.
Below are some of my favorite moments from on-the-ground reporting, featuring myself, Louis DeAngelis, and Tina-Desiree Berg.
We started the year breaking another major investigative story on the Flint Water cover-up, this time published in The Guardian. After six months of behind-the-scenes investigative work on this story, “Revealed: the Flint water poisoning charges that never came to light” was published in January.
The story revealed that prosecutors and investigators with the original Flint water investigation (2016-2018) were on the verge of filing an unprecedented racketeering case against the top state of Michigan and city of Flint officials—but they never got the chance once Democratic Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel entered office in 2019 and fired the Flint special prosecutor and his entire team.
“Nessel let it go,” said Eric Mays, chairman of the Flint city council, who closely followed the criminal prosecution both before and after Nessel. “Was it a lack of political or legal will? I cannot say. But it bothers me to this day that her team hasn’t addressed it.”
The impending RICO charges—most commonly used against organized crime and the mafia—were going to be leveled against officials who took part in an elaborate financial scheme that allowed Flint, nearly bankrupt in 2014 and not legally allowed to borrow more money, to borrow $85 million dollars to join a completely unnecessary new water pipeline. While the Karegnondi Water Authority was being constructed, Flint opted to use its own Flint River—with tragic results.
But when MI AG Nessel fired the original Flint prosecution team, the prosecutors she appointed to restart the Flint probe did not follow through on the racketeering case. From the story:
Multiple sources familiar with the investigation noted that if the financial fraud or Rico charges had been filed, the state of Michigan might have faced hundreds of millions in liability over the KWA bond deal - since the attorney general’s office under Schuette ultimately signed off on the allegedly fraudulent administrative order that greenlit Flint to borrow tens of millions to join the KWA. (The order was signed by an assistant attorney general in Schuette’s office.)
JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo, who along with a third financial firm underwrote the KWA bond deal, could have also faced similar financial penalties for failing to do their due diligence, as outlined in the administrative order that preceded the bond deal, to ensure that necessary upgrades to Flint’s water plant were completed, such that the plant could safely treat Flint River water. In 2020, the banks were sued on behalf of 2,600 Flint children for their “conscience shocking behavior” in financing the deal that led to “dire health consequences to the children of Flint”.
JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo declined to comment.
Florida Don’t Say Gay Bill
In March, Status Coup and I went down to Florida to cover a story we felt was being mostly ignored by the mainstream, and even independent media: Ron DeSantis’ cruel, and dangerous, attack on LGTBQ+ students and teachers (and the community as a whole). DeSantis’ “parental rights” bill—which critics rightfully dubbed the “Don’t Say Gay” bill—basically put a gag order on LGBTQ+ teachers and students in Florida in terms of the type of discussion they can have about their sexual identity. This would include teachers not sharing that they have a same-sex partner or students discussing a weekend family trip with their two moms or two dads.
It was chilling interviewing LGBTQ+ students, many of whom are suicidal, who told me they felt Republicans like DeSantis were “trying to kill us.”
FULL Interview with LGBTQ+ high school students from Winter Park High School near Orlando.
Historic Amazon Labor Union Victory
In April, Status Coup and I were ON-THE-GROUND to cover the historic Amazon Labor Union [ALU] victory. Besides how incredible it was to be there to witness such a David vs. Goliath victory—an unprecedented victory for labor and the working class—I felt incredibly proud covering the celebration done by ALU president Christian Smalls and his colleagues. After all, Status Coup had been ON-THE-GROUND for nearly a year covering the union campaign spearheaded by Smalls and current workers at JFK8 in Staten Island. We had broken many stories on Amazon’s ferocious union-busting campaign against the workers—who continued to fight and persevere anyway.
As is often the case, I was the only reporter out at the warehouse interviewing workers and covering their union drive from the early days, when, frankly, the odds looked long that they would be successfully unionized. Here is the FULL PLAYLIST of our on-the-ground reporting from before the ALU won. Of course, corporate media came out after ALU won pretending they had been covering the fight all along! Regardless, victories for the working class—especially labor—have been few and far between over the last few years. It was incredible to cover this from start to finish. If we can grow our paid membership, we hope to cover even more union campaigns across the country in 2023.
Below is our full livestream report from the Amazon Labor Union’s historic victory where they became the first unionized Amazon workforce in America.
And below are parts of Christian Smalls' victory announcement right after the ALU officially won. This was my favorite line: "We want to thank Jeff Bezos for going to space because when he was up there, we were signing people up," Smalls said. "We were out here getting signatures."
Status Coup and I also covered the, unfortunately, losing union campaign for the Amazon workers at ALB1 in Albany, covering a rally days before the union election (we broke stories on Amazon’s intense, successful union-busting campaign against ALB1 union organizers).
Here is the FULL livestream report from Schodack NY (right outside of Albany)
Donziger and the $9.5B win for the Ecuadorian community against Chevron’s big-oil pollution.
It’s rare to have back-to-back victories these days on the left, but shortly after Amazon workers’ historic union victory on Staten Island, human rights attorney and political prisoner Steven Donziger was finally freed after 993 days under house arrest/in prison.
Status Coup covered a celebratory street party outside of the apartment Donziger had served his house arrest for years. If you don’t know the story, it’s almost too corrupt to believe: Donziger and his team won a historic $9.5 billion legal judgment against Chevron over the fossil fuel company’s poisoning of the Amazon in Ecuador. Chevron spilled billions of gallons of oil into the water across 1,700 square miles of the Amazon rainforest, contaminating soil, and water, and giving the indigenous Ecuadorians cancer. But in a twisted, Orwellian turn of events, Chevron chose to blow off paying the money, instead waging an unholy crusade against…Donziger.
The company spent millions, leveraging friendly judges with Chevron ties who issued extrajudicial rulings against Donziger. At first, a federal prosecutor declined to take up the case against Donziger over alleged bribery (Chevon had come up with bogus allegations that Donziger had bribed an Ecuadorian Judge to rule in his favor). Unsatisfied, Chevron-connected U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan referred Donziger’s case to a private law firm—on behalf of the United States.
This was an almost unheard-of legal tactic. Donziger was then held in contempt for refusing to hand over his electronic devices—which contained his attorney-client privileged communications with his clients. The contempt charge, a misdemeanor, had never led to a defendant being held in pre-trial home confinement. But this case was different; Chevron had the courts and Attorney General Merrick Garland on its side. Despite several members of Congress requesting that Garland take over the case and then drop it, the AG did nothing, allowing Donziger to serve 993 days combined under house arrest and in federal prison.
“I’m also being used by them as a weapon of mass distraction; they [Chevron] don’t want people to think about the crimes they committed in Ecuador, they want people to think about Steve Donziger,” Donziger said in front of supporters. “They’re attacking me to attack the people of Ecuador and undermine the money that Chevron owes to them for the mass industrial poisoning that occurred over a 25-year period from the mid-60s to the early 90s.”
Below is the FULL LIVESTREAM report from Donziger’s release party w/ speeches and interviews.
Below is a shorter clip from Donziger’s release party w/ speeches and interviews.
Economic Hunger Games 3-state Tour
I’d say the highlight of my year from a reporting perspective was what we coined the “Economic Hunger games” reporting tour. In July, my producer/cameraman Colin and I zigzagged across Pennsylvania, Ohio, and West Virginia. We drove 1,500 miles in just eight days—thanks to the funding and support of our Status Coup viewers (especially our paying monthly members).
The goal was to expose the STARK difference between the B.S. “historic economic recovery” narrative President Biden—and his allies in the corporate media—were selling compared to the actual reality of mass suffering, inequality, inflation, and despair among working-class people.
Besides knowing that this would be my last reporting trip for a while (my wife was 6 months pregnant at the time), I have always felt most useful, and alive, journalistically when getting out into the country and speaking directly with working-class people. Although we saw a lot of pain, injustice, and corruption
Below is a bad-ass montage Colin put together juxtaposing corporate hack “journalists”
The first story we covered on the trip was powerful. A protest encampment had popped up at the UC Townhomes in Philadelphia, a low-income government housing complex whose residents were primarily African Americans, senior citizens, and disabled people. Like most American cities, this west Philadelphia neighborhood had been vastly gentrified over the last several decades. Sandwiched in between Drexel University and the University of Pennsylvania’s west side campus, UC Townhomes was one of the last affordable housing buildings left standing. But now, poor residents were facing eviction after the landlord decided to sell the building to a real estate developer (who, my hunch, tells me had plans to sell the land to the colleges so they can further expand).
The residents here, and their allies in the community, did not simply take this lying down. Community members pitched tents on the property and set up a protest encampment to stop the eviction of these residents.
Below is the first hour-long livestream I did reporting from the encampment.
One of the most powerful moments from my interviews there came from Mel, who had lived at UC Townhomes for 29 years. “A statement of defiance needs to be had for those that are being displaced and put out in the streets,” he told me. “STAND UP because if you don’t you lose, WE LOSE as a people if you do nothing.”
We then drove west to Pittsburgh, where I came across a much-beloved Italian market going out of business.
“I always say to people I only work half days—a half day to me is 12 hours,” Russell Donatelli, a third-generation butcher, and owner of Donatelli’s Italian Food Center in Pittsburgh, told me. Sadly, my interview with him was fresh off his announcement that he was forced to shut down the market—after 90 years in the community—due to the cumulative effect of the COVID pandemic, inflation, and the supply crisis that deprived his market of products customers typically sought, and big-box corporate behemoths putting him out of business.
The pain in the eyes of this proud man was palpable; I could tell his entire identity was connected to the market, passed down from his grandfather to his father and down to him. Having to shut down was never even a thought to him. But the realities of the economic hellscape we’re all living in gave him no choice. “People don’t really want to work for the small businesses,” he told me. “Now I see robots, people order, the robot comes to the store, it goes into a box, and the robot goes its own way.”
My interview with Russell:
When we got to Akron Ohio, I went to several encampments filled with houseless people. It was brutally hot out, making it even more jarring when we saw several locations with people sleeping in tents in make-shift communities. As I’ve learned in other cities I spoke to houseless individuals, several of the houseless here chose to stay out on the streets rather than enter the local sheltering system—where violence and sexual assault had occurred to some.
In an incredibly sad, and infuriating interview, Pandora, a houseless woman described the Akron police as “hunting the homeless.”
“It seems like Akron is hunting its own homeless; it doesn’t matter where we go if we put up a tent they’re there tearing it down…they look at us as the scourge of society.”
The clip on Twitter got over 101,000 views, becoming one of our most viral tweets of the year. Below is the full interview. TRIGGER WARNING: it’s heartbreaking.
In another interview in Akron, a local housing organizer told me about the horrible living conditions for people living on the other side of gentrified Akron; where apartments were filled with maggots, termites, and collapsing ceilings.
As we got made it to Huntington West Virginia, close to the Kentucky border, we covered another case of slum-like housing conditions. In one apartment, a U.S. veteran and his wife and daughter were living in a building with black mold, floors caving in, and human feces dropping from the ceiling.
“It seems like we’re hated,” Mondella Brown told me. “We’re good people, we’re just poor. We’re not bad bad people just because we’re poor but we get treated that way. I don’t understand what happened to America.” This was another one of our most viral videos on Twitter—garnering 230,000 views.
“I’m speechless about all that, I really am, because there are people in other countries, you know we’re supposed to live in the wealthiest country in the world and there are people that live better than what we are and we pay more for it,” Robert Brown, a disabled veteran, told me. “I served my country, I served in the army…and I get done like this?”
On top of the horrible conditions they were living in, inflation was also clobbering them. “It’s a day-to-day thing, we help each other out,” Robert said. “I’m lucky enough to have a few, tight-knit group of friends…that help us out and there are times that we help them out. We gotta stick together because if we don’t stick together ain’t nothing gonna happen. We have to help each other.”
Many interviews on the road affect me emotionally, but this one nearly knocked me out. Between Mondella’s powerful words on the war on the poor, and Robert asking how a country he fought for could treat him like this, it was hard to leave them and then return to the substance-less/hot-air world of Twitter and YouTube. Giving folks like Mondella and Robert a voice is why Status Coup exists—it’s why I do what I do.
These stories, these videos, will likely never go viral or occupy a YouTube channel with millions of subscribers and views. Unfortunately, YouTube and other big tech platforms make algorithms that suppress real, raw, authentic reporting on poverty, the working class, injustice, corruption, and environmental genocide. If we wanted to get clicks and go viral constantly, these would certainly not be the stories we choose to cover. But in the end, these are the stories, these are the people, and these are the communities that have been left behind as our media system becomes more and more corporate, partisan, tribal, and driven by conflict and sensationalism.
There are many more stories I would love to highlight, alas, a six-week-old newborn daughter doesn’t allow much time for long-form writing. I sincerely thank Status Coup members, Patrons, and viewers for all of your support. Reporting on the ground—with limited resources and staff—is not easy. Mainstream outlets have an army of reporters, producers, camera crew, and logistics help. We have me and a cameraman doing the reporting, driving, booking guests, booking stories, researching stories, handling social media, and sending out emails/texts to viewers. And we have to worry about fundraising!
The best way you can support our continued ON-THE-GROUND reporting in 2023 is by SIGNING UP AS A STATUS COUP MEMBER. You can support our work for as low as $5-10 bucks a month. As a member, you get great perks including our monthly members to call through Zoom, our members-only Discord, and behind-the-scenes videos from our reporting trips.
You can also sign up for this Substack for FREE. Here we will be posting more promotions for upcoming videos and livestreams as well as reported articles and commentary. You can also support our reporting here as a paid Substack subscriber.
I also wanted to highlight ON-THE-GROUND reporting from great freelance journalists who have contributed to Status Coup this year.
Tina-Desiree Berg, based out of Los Angeles, is one of the top reporters in the country covering extremist groups, violent conspiracy movements, and the growing white supremacy and domestic terrorism threat in America. Tina has covered many events in LA for Status Coup over the years. Below are just a few from 2022.
Tina also debuted her own weekly show on Status Coup, “Right Wing Insanity Report,” airing Thursday’s at 6pm eastern.
Louis is a freelance independent journalist, based out of Austin Texas, who covered the Uvalde school massacre, protests responding to the overturning of Roe v. Wade, the Jackson Mississippi water crisis, the 2022 midterm elections (John Fetterman vs. Dr. Oz), and more for Status Coup in 2022.
Jon Farina
Jon Farina is a freelance video journalist based in Brooklyn New York. Farina was the first video journalist to go live from the Capitol attacks on January 6th, 2021, shooting the infamous footage of officer Daniel Hodges's face and body rammed into a door by a mob of Trump supporters. Farina has also reported on the war in Ukraine, U.S. police brutality protests, Trump rallies, and more.