Karen Read trial - Journalism and Revolution - A conversation with Dr. Turtleboy Aidan Kearney

The Karen Read trial wasn't about Aidan Kearney, but it's very likely none of us would have ever heard about the case if not for the investigative reporting of the Turtleboy Daily News. The case leaves no significant legal legacy - no rules were changed, no decisions overturned, no authority checked - but it generated a massive protest movement over a wrongful prosecution and a push for reform of the criminal justice system that enabled it. The Massachusetts press has a long and storied history of supporting and fomenting revolutionary public sentiment, and in the case of Karen Read, the revolution Turtleboy initiated targets what has conventionally been an untouchable third rail of government - the power of the courts. But since time immemorial, governments have happily used their power to suppress dissent and disclosure in the battle to control truth and the historical narrative.

I couldn't be more excited to sit down and talk with Dr. Turtleboy himself about the legacy that his reporting on the Karen Read case has created. It's provocative, controversial, unquestionably powerful, deeply threatening to complacent institutions, and incredibly effective - every wrongfully accused person would love nothing more than to have a Dr. Turtleboy to help them tell their story. In an era where mainstream legal journalism is largely meaningless fluff, Dr. Turtleboy is doing something very real and very revolutionary, and that's exactly why the government is going to greater lengths to shut him up than it ever did to find out who killed John O'Keefe.

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