WireTapMag.org

Wiretap was an independent news and culture web magazine that generated and amplified daily content by young people from diverse backgrounds. Unfortunately, we lost our funding and closed our doors in 2010.

WireTap Staff

Jamilah King is WireTap's video and blogs editor. Born and raised in San Francisco, her writing focuses on race, politics, music and issues affecting young communities of color. She's worked as an organizer with the Northwest Bronx Community and Clergy Coalition and the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). An avid sports fan, she believes that the Warriors will win a championship -- one day. She received degrees in English and Black Studies from Pitzer College in 2007 and is a graduate of the Movement Activist Apprenticeship Program (MAAP). In addition to Wiretap, her writing has also appeared in ColorLines, The Nation online and the San Francisco Bay Guardian, among others.

Tomas Palermo is the Managing Editor of WireTap magazine. As the former editor of XLR8R magazine from 1999 to 2005, Tomas was instrumental in developing it from a free zine into an international publication covering cutting-edge music and youth culture. Tomas earned a B.A. in English and Peace Studies at Loyola Marymount University and was active in the anti-Apartheid movement. He also hosted radio shows on LA's independent KXLU 88.9 FM where he served as Public Affairs director, and wrote columns for URB magazine. Recently, he worked with non-profit youth development agency The DJ Project to produce the Grind & Glory hip-hop talent contest. In addition to Wiretap, Tomas also coaches high school distance running in San Francisco.

Onnesha Roychoudhuri is a contributing editor of WireTap. Before coming to WireTap, she wrote for Mother Jones and AlterNet, doing author interviews and covering civil liberties and legal issues including Guantanamo, torture and wiretapping. When not writing about such uplifting topics, she enjoys dancing, reading strange fiction and drawing odd creatures. Her freelance work has appeared in many publications, including The Nation, The American Prospect, Salon, Truthdig, In These Times, The Huffington Post and Religion Dispatches. Having spent the past eight years in the reality-based community, she was eager to pitch her hat into the ring of fiction writing. She holds a B.A. in Political Science and Latin American Studies from Bard College and is currently a MFA fiction candidate at San Francisco State University.

Kristina Rizga is the executive editor and publisher of WireTap, project director of Future5000.com, and a member of the editorial board of The Nation magazine. Before WireTap, Kristina worked as an organizer and editor at the Media Alliance, a coalition of progressive reporters working for media reform, and at AlterNet.org as an associate editor. This year, Kristina is a grantee at the Pulitzer Center through which she is covering the economic collapse in her homeland Latvia. Kristina's writing has appeared in The Nation, World in Focus, Huffington Post, and the San Francisco Bay Guardian, among others. When she is not working, Kristina reads excessive amount of print magazines, goes out dancing as much as possible, and loves debating religion with her husband. She moved to the U.S. from Latvia in 1994, and holds a B.A. in History from U.C. Berkeley.

WireTap is deeply grateful to Mike Stern for volunteering hundreds of hours to design our website.

Governing Board of Advisors

Twilight Greenaway was the editor of WireTap from 2000-2005 and also worked at Current TV. These days she works as the Virtual and Visual Education Manager for the Center for Urban Education about Sustainable Agriculture, and writes freelance articles for sources, such as Edible San Francisco, Common Ground and Culinate.com. She also listens to way too many NPR podcasts.

Gavin Leonard is the State Director for Ohio's Center for Progressive Leadership, based in Cincinnati. He is a co-founder, current board member and former executive director of Elementz — a local hip hop-based youth center. Gavin is a frequent contributor to WireTap, and he serves on the boards of the League of Young Voters, Wiretap Magazine, and the All-Ages Movement Project.

Dani McClain has reported for The Miami Herald and as a staff writer covering education and youth issues for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Prior to working in daily news, she taught high school social studies in the Cincinnati Public School system and specialized in communications and event planning while on staff at Drug Policy Alliance in New York City. For more than a decade, Dani has contributed political news, cultural reporting and travel writing to alternative and black community weeklies, online publications and magazines. She joined the staff of ColorOfChange.org as a writer and researcher in December 2008. Dani graduated magna cum laude with a B.A. in History from Columbia University and received a master's degree from Columbia's Graduate School of Journalism. She has served on WireTap's board since 2006. She also serves on the board of Allied Media Projects.

Samhita Mukhopadhyay is a 30-year-old writer and activist who just moved from San Francisco to upstate NY to write a book. She is an editor of Feministing.com, and the web manager at the Center for Media Justice, an Oakland-based organization that provides media strategy and action for the movement. She has a Bachelors degree in Sociology and Women's Studies from SUNY Albany and a Masters in Women's Studies from San Francisco State (or would have it, if she finished her thesis which is focused on blogging, gender, social networking technology and activism). She has written for New American Media, Wiretap, Colorlines, The Nation and The American Prospect. Samhita's passions include writing, trans-national feminisms, veganism, theories of knowledge production, electronic music and media.