2025

Welcome Session

• Summer Harlow, associate director, Knight Center

• Rosental Alves, ISOJ founder and chair, School of Journalism and Media, University of Texas at Austin

• David Ryfe, director and professor, School of Journalism and Media, UT Austin

Keynote panel: Creating Funds to Finance Journalism

Chair: Jim Brady, vice president of Journalism, John S. and James L. Knight Foundation

• Dale R. Anglin, director, Press Forward

• Vanina Berghella, regional director for Latin America & the Caribbean, International Fund for Public Interest Media (Argentina)

• Sarabeth Berman, CEO, American Journalism Project

• Carolina Oms, director of Partnerships and Fundraising, Brazilian Journalism Support Fund (Brazil)

Panel: How to rebuild trust in journalism after years of attacks and declines in credibility

Chair and presenter: Michael D. Bolden, CEO, American Press Institute (API)

• Sally Lehrman, founder and CEO, The Trust Project

• Joy Mayer, founder and executive director, Trusting News

• Stephen Buckley, public editor, The Dallas Morning News

Panel: Beyond the hype: The real impact of AI on newsrooms

Chair and presenter: Nikita Roy, founder, Newsroom Robots Lab

• Juliana Castro Varón, senior design editor of A.I. Initiatives, The New York Times

• Uli Köppen, chief AI officer, public broadcaster Bayerischer Rundfunk (Germany)

• Tim O’Rourke, vice president, Editorial Innovation and AI Strategy, Hearst Newspapers (HNP)

• Brooke Siegel, vice president of Content, Yahoo News

Workshop: Get Started with AI Tools for News

Iain Christie, trainer, Google News Initiative (Canada)

Taller: Comienza a utilizar herramientas de inteligencia artificial para noticias

Mariana Alvarado, trainer, Google News Initiative (Mexico)

Keynote session: The Gen Z scoop: How Teen Vogue leverages trust and authenticity to attract young audiences

Chair: McKenzie Henningsen, editor in chief, The Daily Texan, UT Austin

• Keynote speaker: Versha Sharma, editor in chief, Teen Vogue

Panel: Fact-checking in journalism during times of platform-enabled mis/disinformation

Chair and presenter: Lucas Graves, professor, University of Wisconsin-Madison

• Clara Jiménez Cruz, chair, European Fact-Checking Standards Network

• Glenn Kessler, editor and chief writer, The Fact Checker, The Washington Post

• Laura Zommer, co-founder and CEO, Factchequeado (Argentina/U.S.)

Global roundup: Challenges to journalism around the world

Chair: Dawn Garcia, director, John S. Knight Journalism Fellowships, Stanford University

• Lina Chawaf, CEO, Radio Rozana (Syria)

• Dieu-Nalio Chery, freelance journalist (Haiti)

• Gregory Gondwe, managing and editorial director, Platform for Investigative Journalism (Malawi)

• Luz Mely Reyes, co-founder and director, Efecto Cocuyo (Venezuela)

• Mikhail Rubin, deputy editor in chief, Proekt (Russian site in exile)

Panel: Political satire for the digital era: From animated cartoons to memes

Chair and presenter: Ramon Ramirez, managing editor, The Daily Dot

• Paul Alonso, associate professor, Georgia Tech

• Mark Fiore, visual journalist, cartoonist

• Sarah Pappalardo, co-founder, Reductress

Research breakfast: Agenda-setting and online journalism: A Tribute to Max McCombs

Chair and presenter: Sebastián Valenzuela, associate professor, Pontifical Catholic University (Chile)

• Vanessa de Macedo Higgins Joyce, professor, Texas State University

• Tom Johnson, professor, School of Journalism and Media, UT Austin

• Natalie Jomini Stroud, director, Center for Media Engagement, UT Austin

• Zhi Lin, graduate student, University of Texas at Austin

• Paula M. Poindexter, professor, PSchool of Journalism and Media, UT Austin

• Stephen D. Reese, professor, School of Journalism and Media, UT Austin

Keynote session: More informed: The stakes and future for public media

Chair: Sonal Shah, CEO, The Texas Tribune

• Keynote speaker: Katherine Maher, president and CEO, National Public Radio (NPR)

Panel: Doing journalism in countries with democracies on the decline

Chair: Ann Marie Lipinski, curator, Nieman Foundation for Journalism, Harvard University

• Carlos Dada, director and co-founder, El Faro (El Salvador)

• Gülsin Harman, journalist (Turkey)

• Arfa Khanum, senior editor, The Wire (India)

• András Pethő, co-founder, editor and executive director, Direkt36 (Hungary)

Panel: Covering Trump 2.0: Challenges facing journalists in Washington, DC

Chair: Evan Smith, senior advisor, Emerson Collective

• Eugene Daniels, co-host, MSNBC’s “The Weekend”

• Elizabeth Kennedy, White House editor, The New York Times

• Ashley Parker, staff writer, The Atlantic

Special session: A Conversation with Julie Pace

Chair: Evan Smith, senior advisor, Emerson Collective

• Special guest: Julie Pace, senior vice president and executive editor, The Associated Press

Workshop: NotebookLM for Journalists and Pinpoint for Journalists

Iain Christie, trainer, Google News Initiative

Keynote session: A conversation with Terry Tang

Chair: Evan Smith, senior advisor, Emerson Collective

• Keynote speaker: Terry Tang, executive editor, Los Angeles Times

Panel: New understandings of “journalist” and “journalism” in the age of influencers

Chair and presenter: Amy Mitchell, executive director, Center for News, Technology & Innovation (CNTI)

• Oliver Darcy, founder, Status

• Carlos Eduardo Espina, content creator and nonprofit director

• Liz Kelly Nelson, founder, Project C

• Ben Reininga, former head of Editorial, Snapchat

Panel: How to avoid news avoidance and burnout of journalists and audiences

Chair: Kate West, assistant professor of instruction, School of Journalism and Media, UT Austin

• Benjamin Toff, associate professor, University of Minnesota

• Sandra Vera Zambrano, associate professor, Universidad Iberoamericana (Mexico)

• Stephanie Edgerly, professor and associate dean of Research, Northwestern University

Panel: Synthetic media and journalism: Avatars, image creation and manipulation

Chair: Robert J. Quigley, professor of practice and director of Innovation and Entrepreneurship, School of Journalism and Media, UT Austin

• Carlos Eduardo Huertas, director, Connectas (Latin America)

• Claire Leibowicz, head of AI and Media Integrity Program, The Partnership on AI (PAI)

• Santiago Lyon, head of Advocacy and Education, Content Authenticity Initiative (CAI)

• Craig Silverman, national reporter, ProPublica