Media Activist Jay Baker

About me:

Jay Baker is a British media activist hailing from the People’s Republic of South Yorkshire. He has almost ten years of experience as a professional documentarian, writer, youth worker, social justice campaigner, and social entrepreneur in Britain and North America. Director/producer of the feature-length film Escape from Doncatraz and author of Pissing in the Mainstream, he has utilised his skills and experience in devoting himself to information, dialogue, debate, and democracy at grassroots level, giving a voice to the voiceless – organising and hosting social justice events such as film festivals and concerts, speaking on vlogs, podcasts, and radio shows, using social media to promote local businesses in his area, and delivering workshops, all with his trademark acerbic wit, warmth, and values. As a child surrounded by the upheaval of the miners’ strikes in tumultuous times for South Yorkshire, and abused by pupils and teachers alike, Jay was pulled from the school system and taught at home by his mother while his father worked 12-hour shifts at the local factory. His creativity nurtured, and with heightened sensitivity towards social justice, his path was set. After quitting his Media degree to travel and gain first-hand experience in the industry, he quickly became its first student actually working in the field, initially for the local government’s youth media project then – when its budget was canceled – promptly raising his own funds through a community group he set-up to continue the activities with young people. When he went to work in North America for the second time in his career, the committee closed the organisation and transferred assets to their companions by the time he’d returned. But Baker then founded the groundbreaking “green” media company, SilenceBreakers, a social enterprise that works with partners to re-utilise social media materials for community projects. He is a Fellow of the School for Social Entrepreneurs, founded by Michael Young – the man who crafted the Labour Party’s 1945 election-winning manifesto for Clement Attlee, the greatest British prime minister in history. It was on a three-day residential with the School for Social Entrepreneurs at Dartington Hall (which Michael Young himself had attended) that Jay had the epiphany for which he credits the vision of SilenceBreakers as it is today. Aside from developing that social enterprise, he remains active as a self-employed freelance media activist. Other more dubious honours include Baker being featured as a “public enemy” on fascist website Redwatch, having numerous songs written about him, guesting on BBC breakfast radio shows four times, having a “trading card” made of him at one university, and being the subject of a poem as part of The Artist D’s book, Like a Goat in a Hail Storm. Jay is currently working on his next film, Return to Doncatraz, set for release in late 2012. A vegan and a feminist, he is a hopeless romantic with big dreams.