Progressive Speaker Resources

Free resources and insights for progressive public commentators

Presentation Tips ⏳

  • Organize your speech in a logical sequence: opening, main points, and summary.
  • Practice and rehearse a speech frequently prior to delivering it. Ask friends to be your audience, or practice in front of a mirror. Be sure to use a timer to help you pace your speech.
  • Become familiar with the stage or the setting where the speech will take place. Get a sense of the size of the stage, where any steps or obstacles might be, and where to enter and exit. If the engagement is remote / via a web cam, make sure you are aware of the technical requirements.
  • Choose comfortable clothes to wear, maintain a professional appearance.
  • Visual aids should fit a speech, whether they are funny, serious or technical. The main goal of visual aids is to help the audience understand what is being said, and reinforce the points of a speech in unique and interesting ways.

(Source: Toastmasters International)

Communication 💬 & Privacy 🛡️

  • Telegram
    "Telegram is a freeware, cross-platform, cloud-based instant messaging (IM) service."
  • Keybase
    "Keybase is for keeping everyone's chats and files safe, from families to communities to companies. MacOS, Windows, Linux, iPhone, and Android."
  • Signal
    "Signal is a cross-platform encrypted messaging service developed by the Signal Foundation and Signal Messenger LLC."

Video Conferencing Tools 💻

  • Jit.si
    "More secure, more flexible, and completely free video conferencing."
  • Clickmeeting
    "Webinar software to bring your students, leads, customers and team members together."
  • Webex
    "Webex is here when the world needs to connect, communicate and collaborate."
  • Zoom
    "Simplified video conferencing and messaging across any device."

Written Resources 📝

How to Land Your First Paid Speaking Gig (HBR)

  • You can ask contacts who already know and like you to recommend you as a speaker
  • Make sure that you have a high-quality video of you speaking, as well as a list of your topics, as those are the first things any organizer will ask to see

How Much Should You Charge for a Speech? (HBR)

  • It’s always worth inquiring about their budget
  • For instance, you can email them: 'Thanks for getting in touch about your conference. It sounds really interesting. Can you provide some additional information about the topic you’d be interested in having me address, who the attendees will be, and your speaker budget?'"

A Quiet Person's Guide To Effective Public Speaking (Forbes)

  • It's one of the most valuable business/career skills you'll ever have
  • It's a skill that most definitely can be learned

 

Left News Aggregators 📁

Rad Indie Media
"Rad Indie Media (RIM) is a radical media aggregate featuring the work of independent journalists and outlets who produce content that challenge official narratives, dig deep to root issues, and report on the stories and people silenced by corporate outlets."

Opt Out
"We’re building a nonprofit news app where you can completely bypass the corporate media and read, listen to, and watch exclusively independent content."

Magazines / News / Analysis 📰

Common Dreams
"Common Dreams has been providing breaking news & views for the progressive community since 1997."

Consortium News
"From the Late Founder and Editor Robert Parry: When we founded Consortiumnews.com in 1995 – as the first investigative news magazine based on the Internet – there was already a crisis building in the U.S. news media."

Counterpunch
"The CounterPunch website is offered at no charge to the general public over the world wide web. CounterPunch Magazine is published six times per year and is only available for those who subscribe."

Current Affairs
"Current Affairs is a refreshing antidote to political media. It’s a beautiful publication full of satire, wit, and elegance."

Jacobin
"Jacobin is a leading voice of the American left, offering socialist perspectives on politics, economics, and culture."

Multipolarista
"Multipolarista is an independent news outlet documenting the transition to a multipolar world. It is edited by journalist Benjamin Norton."

ScheerPost.com
"Robert Scheer has built a reputation for strong social and political writing over his nearly 60 years as a journalist. His columns appear in newspapers across the country, and his in-depth interviews have made headlines."

Shadowproof
"Shadowproof is a press organization driven to expose systemic abuses of power in business and government while at the same time developing a model for independent journalism that supports a diverse range of young freelance writers and contributors."

The Analysis
"theAnalysis.news was founded by Paul Jay and Sharmini Peries. Along with close friends, they created this site to carry on the work of independent, in-depth, uncompromising journalism."

The American Prospect
"The American Prospect is devoted to promoting informed discussion on public policy from a progressive perspective."

The Baffler
"The Baffler, est. 1988, is a magazine of art, criticism, and political analysis, publishing bimonthly print issues as well as daily online dispatches."

The Black Agenda Report
"News, commentary and analysis from the black left."

The Daily Poster
"A grassroots-funded investigative journalism project that covers politics, business and corporate power."

The Nation
"The Nation is the oldest continuously published weekly magazine in the United States, covering progressive political and cultural news, opinion, and analysis."

The Progressive
"Since 1909, The Progressive has aimed to amplify voices of dissent and those under-represented in the mainstream, with a goal of championing grassroots progressive politics."

Protean Magazine
"Protean collects cutting-edge literature and art for the discerning leftist, sans-advertisements."

 

Media / Podcasts 📺

ACLU podcast
"At Liberty is a weekly podcast from the ACLU that explores the biggest civil rights and civil liberties issues of the day."

Black Power Media
"Black Power Media (BPM) is a Black-radical independent media project: We seek to challenge the narrative about Black politics and the Black condition."

BreakThrough News
"At Breakthrough News we believe in the power of independent media. We tell the untold stories of resistance from poor and working-class communities — because out of these stories we will construct a different narrative of the world, as it is and in real time."

Common Censored
"With Lee Camp and Eleanor Goldfield. Censored stories, sensible solutions and common ground movements to fight and build. And sometimes other stuff too."

CounterSpin Radio (FAIR)
"CounterSpin is FAIR’s weekly radio show, produced and hosted by Janine Jackson. It’s heard on more than 135 noncommercial stations across the United States and Canada."

Democracy Now!
"Democracy Now! produces a daily, global, independent news hour hosted by award-winning journalists Amy Goodman and Juan González."

Economic Update
"Prof. Wolff’s takes complex economic issues and makes them understandable, empowering listeners with information to analyze not only their own financial situation, but the economy at large."

Government Secrets
"Lee Camp (Redacted Tonight) and Graham Elwood (Jimmy Dore Show) give comedic takes on current stories involving the US government and their coverups."

Means TV
"Means TV is the world's first post-capitalist worker-owned streaming service."

Media Roots Radio
"Media Roots is a citizen journalism project that reports the news from outside of party lines while providing a collaborative forum for conscious citizens, artists and activists to unite."

Mintcast
"MintPress News is an independent watchdog journalism organization that provides issue-based original reporting, in-depth investigations, and thoughtful analysis of the most pressing topics facing our nation."

On Contact with Chris Hedges
"Author & social critic Chris Hedges interviews anti-establishment intellects & activists not to be heard anywhere else."

Primo Radical
"Media for Free Minds."

Revolution Now!
"The 3rd podcast Peter Joseph has commenced over the last 10 years, this weekly 30 min. program is about what has to happen if humanity is going to survive."

Status Coup
"Status Coup gives the microphone back to the people through aggressive in-the-field reporting and commentary that focus on stories of real struggle amongst everyday people—and the corruption causing it."

The Empire Files
"Files logged by Abby Martin recording a world shaped by war & inequality."

The Trillbillies
"Trillbilly Workers Party is a podcast about a town called Whitesburg, Kentucky."

The Michael Brooks Show
"This is the free weekly edition of Michael Brooks Show (TMBS), a weekly politics and culture analysis show. To support the TMBS on Patreon and receive hours of weekly members-only content, subscribe at Patreon.com/tmbs."

The Humanist Report
"The Humanist Report (THR) is a progressive and democratic socialist political podcast that discusses and analyzes current news events and pressing political issues."

The Left Lens
"Black Agenda Report's debut program, The Left Lens, began with Contributing Editor Danny Haiphong testing the platform for several months. This Summer, Margaret Kimberly will join Danny Haiphong to present Black Agenda Report's Left Lens to Youtube."

The Ring of Fire
"The Ring of Fire started as a weekly syndicated radio show in 2004 for the purpose of exposing Wall Street thugs, environmental criminality, corporate media failure, and political backstories rarely found in the mainstream media. Since its formation, The Ring of Fire has expanded into a multi-media network for the latest progressive news, commentary, and analysis."

The Intercept - Podcasts & Spoken Edition
"On our weekly podcast, co-founder Jeremy Scahill and his guests give a deep analysis of the crucial issues of our time, and we hear from artists, writers, and thinkers who challenge our preconceptions about the world we live in. New episodes every Wednesday."

Progressive organizations in the U.S. 🔊

American Civil Liberties Union
"Nonprofit organization founded in 1920 "to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States."

Black Lives Matter
"International activist movement, originating in the African-American community, that campaigns against violence and systemic racism towards black people."

Center for Economic and Policy Research
"Economic policy think-tank based in Washington, D.C. which was co-founded by economists Dean Baker and Mark Weisbrot."

Center for Popular Democracy
"American advocacy group that promotes progressive politics."

Demand Progress
"Internet activist-related entity which specializes in online-intensive and other grassroots activism to support Internet freedom, civil liberties, transparency, and human rights, and in opposition to censorship and corporate control of government."

Extinction Rebellion
"Extinction Rebellion is a global environmental movement with the stated aim of using nonviolent civil disobedience to compel government action to avoid tipping points in the climate system, biodiversity loss, and the risk of social and ecological collapse."

Institute for Policy Studies
"American progressive think tank that focuses on U.S. foreign policy, domestic policy, human rights, international economics, and national security."

Movement for a People's Party
"Our vision is a coalition party that will deliver what regular people take for granted in so many other countries: single payer health care, free public college, money out of politics, an infrastructure jobs program, a $15 minimum wage, financial regulations, and more."

Our Revolution
"American progressive political action organization spun out of Senator Bernie Sanders's 2016 presidential campaign to continue its work."

Partnership for Civil Justice Fund
"Nonprofit progressive legal organization based in Washington, D.C., which focuses on cases regarding free speech and dissent, domestic spying and surveillance, police misconduct, and government transparency."

People's Action 
"Established in 2016 as a merger of three national networks of community organizing groups, National People's Action, the Alliance for a Just Society and USAction, as well as of organizations like the Campaign for America's Future and the Center for Health, Environment and Justice."

Progressive International
"Progressive International takes up that call. We unite, organise, and mobilise progressive forces behind a shared vision of a world transformed."

Roosevelt Institute
"Liberal American think tank that exists to carry forward the legacy and values of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt by developing progressive ideas and bold leadership in the service of restoring America’s promise of opportunity for all."

Socialist Alternative
"Socialist Alternative is an active organization with members across the country. Joining means basic agreement with our ideas and a commitment to putting them into action. Apply to join and a member in your area will reach out to you shortly!"

Sunrise
"American youth-led political movement coordinated by Sunrise, a 501(c)(4) political action organization that advocates political action on climate change."

UltraViolet
"A community of one million people that drives feminist cultural and political change."