AccessFest 2024 schedule

Today, a growing tide of anti-DEI sentiment is sweeping American universities. How can college journalism educators and administrators best prepare students to embrace inclusivity in the profession, and talk about what's going on at home on campus? What are best practices for college educators serving tomorrow's young journalists?

Speakers

Tracy Everbach, University of North Texas

Tracy Everbach is a journalism professor in the Mayborn School of Journalism at the University of North Texas. She teaches undergraduate and graduate classes on race, gender, media, news reporting, mass communication theories, and qualitative research methods. Her research focuses on women’s work and leadership in journalism, sports, and gender and on representations of race and gender in media. She is a former newspaper reporter.

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Melita Garza, University of Illinois at Urbana - Champaign

Melita M. Garza is a media historian focusing on journalism as an agent of democracy, including its role in defining what it means to be an American. She is the Tom and June Netzel Sleeman Scholar in Business Journalism and an associate professor at the University of Illinois, Urbana – Champaign. Prior to getting her PhD at UNC Chapel Hill, Garza was an award-winning journalist, at the Milwaukee Journal, Chicago Tribune, Bloomberg news, and the Los Angeles Times.

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Jeannette H. Porter, Missouri School of Journalism

Jeannette was a reporter for a rural Virginia weekly for seven years before earning her Ph.D. in Mass Communication at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She is now an assistant professor of strategic communication and the Director of Engagement and Student Development at the Missouri School of Journalism. Among her course offerings is Cross-Cultural Journalism, the School's core course in communicating across differences.

Erin Siegal McIntyre, UNC Chapel Hill

For 15 years, Erin Siegal McIntyre has worked as a cross-platform investigative journalist. Before joining the University of North Carolina faculty in 2020, Siegal McIntyre was based in Tijuana, Mexico, for a decade. Her work has appeared in a wide variety of outlets and publications, including The New Yorker, the Atlantic, the New York Times, Mother Jones, Reveal, and more.

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Democracy and human rights are on the ballot this election cycle. How can reporters ensure their political reporting focuses on people and avoids the pitfalls of traditional horse race coverage?

Speaker information coming soon.

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A discussion between disabled journalists on how to cover topics like climate change, mass incarceration, and poverty through a disability lens.

Speakers

Jen Deerinwater, Crushing Colonialism & Disabled Journalists Association

Jen Deerinwater (Cherokee Nation) is the founding executive director of Crushing Colonialism and has been awarded several fellowships, including the 2019 New Economies Reporting Project, 2020 Disability Futures, and the 2024 Disability Visibility fellowship at the Unexpected Shape Writing Academy. Jen is a contributor at Truthout and is currently editing the anthology "Sacred and Subversive: Queer Voices on Faith and Spirituality" (Jessica Kingsley Publishers).

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Lygia Navarro, Institute for Independent Journalists

Lygia Navarro is an award-winning disabled journalist working in narrative print and audio. Lygia has reported freelance from across Latin America, North America and Europe, for Afar, Al Jazeera magazine, The Associated Press, Business Insider, the CBC, The American Prospect, Marketplace, The World, Latino USA, The Pulse, the Christian Science Monitor and many other outlets. She is an editor at NAHJ’s palabra and an Uproot Project Environmental Justice Fellows mentor.

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Cara Reedy, Disabled Journalists Association

Cara Reedy is the Founder and Director of the Disabled Journalists Association. She spent ten years of her career at CNN producing documentaries and has spent the last four years studying disability and its coverage in the media. Her latest short documentary about the life of Brad Lomax, a Black Panther and Disability Rights activist, is set to air on PBS later this year.

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Ever wondered what it takes to make a podcast infused with strong investigative reporting? We'll give you a high-level view of how to turn great reporting into a great audio narrative. For example, hear from one of our panelists who got the Pima County (Arizona) District Attorney's Office to digitize nearly 40 audio files from a historic 1990 murder investigation/conviction for free. Building investigative podcasts is so expensive because of the licensing fees for copyrighted material; so finding ways to access public domain audio saves money and makes ambitious projects more practical. We'll discuss tips and tricks using FOIA toward building a podcast that unfurls an investigation over episodes, such as school shooting in Uvalde, TX that gripped the nation, while introducing unforgettable characters and delving into the big questions.

Speakers

Cindy Galli, ABC News

Cindy Galli is Executive Producer of ABC News’ Investigative Unit, overseeing a team of reporters covering government and corporate fraud, racial injustice, consumer and environmental issues. Her team was recently awarded a Columbia-duPont baton for an investigation into plastic recycling and a national Emmy for leading the network’s Uvalde:365 commitment to remain in and cover the community. Cindy also oversees collaborations between ABC News and its local stations.

Pate McMichael, North Carolina Open Government Coalition

Pate McMichael is the director of the North Carolina Open Government Coalition and an instructor of journalism at Elon University. He is a longtime investigative journalist and FOI expert. He is the author of "Klandestine: How a Klan Lawyer and a Checkbook Journalist Helped James Earl Ray Cover Up His Crime" and "Operation Chrysler: The Greatest Murder Mystery of World War II." You can find his work at: www.patemcmichael.com

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Roxanne Scott, CUNY

Roxanne Scott is a reporter and audio producer in Queens, NY. She covers health, climate and the environment and has been published in the New York Amsterdam News, City Limits and Scientific American. She teaches journalism at the City University of New York (CUNY).

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Parker Yesko, In the Dark; The New Yorker

Parker Yesko is an investigative reporter for In the Dark podcast and The New Yorker. Her work has long focused on criminal justice. For Season 3 of In the Dark, Parker helped examine why no U.S. Marines were punished for the 2005 killings of 24 civilians in Haditha, Iraq. She compiled the largest known database of possible war crimes committed by American service members in Iraq and Afghanistan since 9/11. Parker previously worked at American Public Media.

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This session is on how news organizations can think creatively about getting their reporting back to the communities the reporting is about - especially when those communities aren't typical readers of your publication, don't speak English and have low literacy rates even in their home language.

Speakers

Lyndsey Gilpin, Grist

Lyndsey Gilpin is senior manager of community engagement at Grist. She previously founded and led Southerly. Lyndsey was a John S. Knight Community Impact Fellow at Stanford University from 2020-22, focusing on information access in rural Southern communities of color. She lives in Kentucky.

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Maryam Jameel, ProPublica

Maryam Jameel is an engagement reporter at ProPublica based in Washington, D.C. She mostly writes about labor issues affecting low wage workers. Most recently, she has been reporting on immigrant workers on Wisconsin dairy farms with her colleague, Melissa Sanchez. Their work there has led to a DOJ civil rights inquiry into the failures of a sheriff's department to ensure language access, and the creation of an $8 million fund to build farm worker housing.

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Melissa Sanchez, ProPublica

Melissa Sanchez is a reporter at ProPublica based in Chicago. She writes about immigrants and low-wage work. Most recently, she has been reporting on immigrant workers on Wisconsin dairy farms with her colleague, Maryam Jameel. Their work there has led to a DOJ civil rights inquiry into the failures of a sheriff's department to ensure language access, and the creation of an $8 million fund to build farm worker housing.

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Lam Thuy Vo, Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism; Documented

Lam Thuy Vo is an investigative reporter working with Documented, an independent, non-profit newsroom dedicated to reporting with and for immigrant communities, and an associate professor of data journalism at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism. Previously, she was a journalist at The Markup, BuzzFeed News, The Wall Street Journal, Al Jazeera America and NPR’s Planet Money.

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When covering education, it's easy to focus on topics such as standardized testing, school funding, curriculum debates and politicized topics entering the classroom. However, there are myriad overlooked issues that significantly impact students, educators, and communities that often go unreported. Join to hear from panelists about specific story ideas to take home to your newsroom, tips for covering them, and sourcing connections that make stories the strongest. Topics will include: The effect of national elections on incarcerated persons' educations; the impacts of school choice on resources students have access to; nuances of LGBTQ coverage; and reporting the solution, not the problem.

Speakers

Torsheta Jackson, Mississippi Free Press

Torsheta Jackson is the Education Equity Solutions reporter for the Mississippi Free Press headquartered in Jackson, Mississippi. Before joining the MFP full-time, she spent 19 years as an educator and 12 years as a freelance journalist. She also has bylines in YES! Magazine, Mississippi Scoreboard and Bash Brothers Media. Her work as part of MFP’s Black Women and COVID project covered education history, equity and access in Noxubee County garnering national recognition.

Divya Kumar, Tampa Bay Times

Divya Kumar covers higher education for the Tampa Bay Times in partnership with Open Campus.

Graph Massara, HuffPost

Sydney Sims, Capital B

Sydney Sims is Capital B Atlanta's youth and education reporter. She is an award-winning journalist and a proud Atlanta native who covers everything from school board elections to Black Atlanta culture. Sydney is an Auburn University alumna and has been published by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, WABE News, Atlanta Civic Circle, The Columbus Ledger-Enquirer and the Auburn Villager. She believes in not only covering the news but influencing it.

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With mass layoffs and an unstable job market, more journalists are freelancing, out of need or by choice. This session will cover how to make it work! You'll learn how to set your rate, network to find great assignments, build relationships with clients, juggle multiple gigs, and stay motivated. Speakers will discuss funding your work through grants and fellowships, and tracking projects and invoices to get paid. Participants will leave the session with a slew of new tools and strategies for becoming an emotionally and financially sustainable freelancer.

Speakers

Liv Monahan, Independent journalist

Olivia Monahan, aka Liv Styler, is a Chicana journalist with a focus on telling stories at the intersection of art, culture and social sciences. She fights for radical joy, BAMN. She is an Ida B. Wells Investigative Journalism Fellow Finalist, sits on the board of the IIJ and is a member of the Association of Raza Educators. She has bylines in Business Insider, Stacker, The Courier, Alta Journal, Comstock’s Magazine, The Sacramento Bee and others.

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Lygia Navarro, Institute for Independent Journalists

Lygia Navarro is an award-winning disabled journalist working in narrative print and audio. Lygia has reported freelance from across Latin America, North America and Europe, for Afar, Al Jazeera magazine, The Associated Press, Business Insider, the CBC, The American Prospect, Marketplace, The World, Latino USA, The Pulse, the Christian Science Monitor and many other outlets. She is an editor at NAHJ’s palabra and an Uproot Project Environmental Justice Fellows mentor.

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Katherine Reynolds Lewis, Institute for Independent Journalists

Katherine Reynolds Lewis is founder of the Institute for Independent Journalists and columnist for Nieman Reports. She’s an award-winning science journalist, educator and author (Good News About Bad Behavior) covering children, behavioral and mental health, education, race, gender, disability, and equity for the Atlantic, Mother Jones, NY Times, Undark, and Washington Post. A Harvard physics graduate, Katherine was national correspondent for Newhouse and Bloomberg News.

Shernay Williams, Independent journalist

Shernay is an independent journalist with 15 years of experience. After launching her career as a local newspaper and TV reporter/anchor, she fell in love with entrepreneurship. She’s run a content firm, served as an entrepreneurship consultant, and launched a national directory and resources platform for Black mompreneurs. Her written and video work has appeared in MarketWatch, Barron’s, Fast Company, Comcast Newsmakers, Kiplinger, TheGrio and Ivanhoe Broadcast News.

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Immigration is more than one beat and it's more than just border reporting. Here we discuss how to amplify the many diverse voices present among our immigrant communities. And we also talk about how to get the news to them! Plus we walk through how some stories came to be and how you can replicate them.

Speakers

Jasmine Aguilera, El Tímpano

Jasmine Aguilera is a senior health equity reporter and editor at El Tímpano, a Bay Area nonprofit newsroom covering the region’s Latino and Mayan immigrant communities. Prior, she covered Congress and immigration for TIME magazine, working from New York City, Los Angeles, and Washington, D.C. Her work has also appeared in The New York Times, the Dallas Morning News, Yes! Magazine, Latino Rebels, and others. She is originally from El Paso, Texas.

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Carlos Ballesteros, Injustice Watch

Carlos Ballesteros reports on incarceration, policing, and issues affecting immigrants and older adults in the court system. Before joining Injustice Watch in 2020, Carlos was a Report for America corps member at the Chicago Sun-Times and a breaking news reporter at Newsweek in New York. Carlos was born and raised in Chicago and also lived in Mexico.

Terrence Fraser, Independent journalist

Terrence Fraser is a Caribbean American investigative data journalist and documentary producer, who focuses on Black communities in the U.S. and people of the global majority more broadly. Terrence holds an M.A. in Engagement Journalism from the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY and a B.A. in Politics & African American Studies from Princeton University.

Alfonzo Galvan, Sahan Journal

Alfonzo Galvan is a reporter for Sahan Journal, covering work, labor, small business, and entrepreneurship. Before joining Sahan Journal, he covered breaking news and immigrant communities in South Dakota, specifically highlighting the challenges experienced by people in the criminal justice system. Alfonzo is fluent in Spanish and has experience working in radio, television, magazines, and newspapers.

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As more states draft laws that outlaw DEI, curb the rights of trans and LGBTQ students, block student protests and curb lectures and curriculum in college classrooms, what are the best ways for reporters to dig past the usual "he said, she said, they said" breaking news? Journalists offer advice on digging deeper into these stories.

Speakers

Brianna Atkinson, North Carolina Public Radio, WUNC

Brianna Atkinson is a higher education reporter at North Carolina Public Radio, WUNC. She covers various universities, including private schools, community colleges, HBCUs and the UNC system. Her reporting has recently been focused on how the UNC Board of Governors’ DEI repeal is impacting public universities across the state. Brianna is passionate about local news and reporting that's inclusive of various voices within the community.

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Megan Henry, Ohio Capital Journal

Megan covers state politics at the Ohio Capital Journal with a focus on higher education legislation and policy, among other topics. Megan previously worked at The Columbus Dispatch and graduated from Ohio University. Megan is from the Toledo area and is a karate black belt.

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Marcela Rodrigues, The Dallas Morning News

Marcela Rodrigues is an education reporter at The Dallas Morning News. Her coverage of the Texas DEI ban won a 2023 Education Writers Association National Award in education reporting. She previously reported for The Chronicle of Higher Education, Chalkbeat and The New York Times.

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Mikhail Zinshteyn, CalMatters

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Veteran investigative reporters reprise a classic panel and list obscure but powerful documents that anyone can use to turbocharge a project or bulk-up daily beat coverage. They also provide practical guidelines for unearthing, scrutinizing, managing and cross-referencing routine documents to unleash their full investigative power.

Speakers

James Grimaldi, National Catholic Reporter

James won the 2023 Pulitzer for investigative reporting after he and a WSJ team exposed senior federal officials investing in companies they regulated. That probe followed an award-winning series he initiated a year earlier, exposing ethical lapses by more than 150 federal judges. James has won dozens of other journalism prizes, including sharing the investigative-reporting Pulitzer with two co-writers in 2006. He serves on the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.

Cheryl W. Thompson, NPR

Cheryl W. Thompson is an investigative correspondent and senior editor of investigations at NPR. Before joining NPR in 2019, she spent 22 years as an investigative and beat reporter for The Washington Post, writing about guns, police and corrupt politicians. She has won myriad awards, including three shared Pulitzers; an Emmy; and five National Headliner, five NABJ and two IRE awards. In 2018, Cheryl was elected IRE’s first Black president and served three terms.

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“The Landlord & the Tenant,” by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and ProPublica, took a bold approach to telling an investigative story: 14,000 words; no nut graph; 36 short chapters, all based on scenes. The braided narrative won the National Magazine Award for feature writing, the first time ever for a double-bylined story. Co-authors Raquel Rutledge and Ken Armstrong will talk inspiration and structure; what makes a successful partnership; and how to keep a narrative rolling without sacrificing your investigative findings.

Speaker information coming soon.

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Since 2020, we’ve all seen the effect of newsrooms taking their foot off the gas pedal for DEIB. Sure, some shops set up committees or employee resource groups but are you still investing in your inclusion and belonging culture?

This interactive session will highlight some best practices while also diving into what’s working in YOUR newsrooms to drive inclusive culture building.

Speakers

Emma Carew Grovum, The Marshall Project

Emma Carew Grovum is the director of careers and culture at The Marshall Project and also the founder of Kimbap Media, a consultancy solving problems at the intersection of journalism, technology, and the audience. She is a co-founder of and regular contributor to the News Product Alliance; Emma is also a founding partner of Media Bridge Partners, a collective of journalism trainers working to build equity in newsrooms.

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Janeen Williamson, JLW Consulting

Hannah Wise, Media Bridge Partners/Local News Lab

Hannah Wise is a certified solution-focused coach and news product leader with Media Bridge Partners and the Local News Lab at the Brown Institute. Her work is centered on making journalism a fulfilling and healthy career option, especially for people from historically marginalized backgrounds. Hannah is an organizing member of the Open News DEI Coalition for Anti-Racist, Equitable, and Just Newsrooms, part of the Vision 25 initiative.

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This session will center on strategies journalists used to obtain data, report, write, and fact-check two unrelated projects—one uncovering rampant enrollment discrimination against older immigrant students and another focusing on the under-reporting of AAPI hate crimes and discrimination in schools. Speakers will discuss challenges and provide tools and techniques used to complete these investigations.

Speakers

Kathy Moore, The 74

Kathy Moore is an executive editor at The 74 overseeing investigative and enterprise reporting with a team of reporters who specialize in school security, student privacy and civil rights, immigration and learning recovery. Kathy is involved in developing and improving newsroom practices, including recruitment, professional development, diversity and inclusion, and editorial partnerships.

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Jo Napolitano, The 74

Jo Napolitano, senior reporter for The 74, has written extensively for The New York Times and was a staff writer at the Chicago Tribune and Newsday. A two-time Education Writers Association Fellow and grant recipient from the Fund for Investigative Journalism, she is a former Spencer Education Fellow at Columbia University and the author of The School I Deserve (Beacon Press, 2021).

Amritpal Sandhu-Longoria, Independent journalist

Amritpal Kaur Sandhu-Longoria is an award-winning investigative reporter whose work focuses on keeping people at the center of the story. She has worked at numerous Gannett newspapers, including USA TODAY, and has held fellowships with the American Political Science Association in Washington, D.C., and Global Health Corps in Uganda. She is a licensed nurse and is fluent in Hindi and Punjabi.

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Mc Nelly Torres, Independent journalist

Mc Nelly Torres is an award-winning investigative journalist and former editor at the Center for Public Integrity, where she led a team investigating inequality. She worked as an investigative producer for NBC6 in Miami and co-founded FCIR.org. Torres is a product of newspapers including the Sun-Sentinel and the San Antonio Express-News. Torres was the first Latina to be elected to the IRE board of directors. She was a recipient of the Gwen Ifill Award in 2022.

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Housing can be an overwhelming beat, especially for reporters who cover breaking news or are in charge of general assignments. In this fast-paced session, we will give you more than a dozen story ideas that any reporter can do and we will talk about how data, sourcing, and research can lead to solutions-oriented journalism.

Speakers

Juan Pablo Garnham, Eviction Lab

Juan Pablo Garnham is the communications and policy engagement manager for Eviction Lab. He has previously covered urban affairs and city issues for The Texas Tribune, CityLab Latino and El Diario in New York. He is originally from Santiago, Chile.

Brandi Kellam, Independent journalist

Brandi Kellam is an investigative journalist and filmmaker whose work has been honored with an Emmy, Gracie, and Tobenkin Prize. Her local reporting has sparked nationwide debates on racial injustice including her ProPublica series “Uprooted,” which exposed the displacement of Black communities by American universities. Kellam's work has appeared in CBS, NBC, The Chronicle of Higher Education, among others. She holds degrees from Syracuse University and UNC Chapel Hill.

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Camila Vallejo, Eviction Lab

Camila is a communications specialist with the Eviction Lab at Princeton University. She’s interested in the impacts of substandard housing, who gets harmed by evictions and tenant organizing. Previously, Camila was a housing reporter for Connecticut Public Radio (WNPR) through Report for America. She focused on covering housing policy with a social justice lens. Her work has been featured on NPR’s Morning Edition, PRX’s The World, NPR’s Here and Now and more.

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While "post-pandemic" and "during the pandemic" are often used to describe the current time period, levels of Covid are higher now than at many points over the past 3 years, with record surges happening this summer. Journalists' unwillingness to question the Biden administration's narrative around Covid, from emphasizing "only the elderly and immunocompromised are at severe risk" to saying that "we have the tools to fight Covid" when public testing apparatuses have all but been dismantled and Long Covid clinics are few and far between, has put the public of greater risk for misunderstanding how the disease continues to impact them and others. Anyone is at risk for Long Covid, which has disabled millions, and the only way to avoid Long Covid is to avoid Covid. While there has been a rise in community journalism among disabled journalists, we have seen disabled people who have been sounding the alarm about Covid be dismissed by major publications and public health officials as fringe. If journalists want to understand and be trusted by disabled communities — especially as many have particularly been left behind at this moment — better Covid reporting matters. We'll talk about how reporters can better improve their reporting on the virus (such as looking at and interpreting wastewater data), and discuss some frameworks — especially disability justice, solidarity journalism and solutions journalism — that can improve stories and help folks advocate for Covid stories, especially at a time when many editors similarly see the pandemic as over.

Speakers

Betsy Ladyzhets, The Sick Times

Betsy Ladyzhets is the co-founder and managing editor of The Sick Times, a nonprofit news site chronicling the Long COVID crisis. Previously, she freelanced for popular science outlets and ran the COVID-19 Data Dispatch, a newsletter and blog that provided news, resources, and original reporting on COVID-19 data. She was recently a journalism fellow at MuckRock, where she contributed to award-winning and impactful COVID-19 investigations.

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Phoebe Petrovic, Wisconsin Watch

Phoebe Petrovic is an investigative reporter at Wisconsin Watch and a current Local Reporting Network fellow with ProPublica. They cover extremism and threats to civic equality for women, LGBTQ+ people and those with disabilities. In their personal time, Petrovic is a union organizer and caretaker for their partner, who is disabled by Long Covid.

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James Salanga, The Objective/The Sick Times

Reina Sultan, The Newsette

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When journalists cover issues on which Americans disagree strongly, these stories can further polarize. This session will show journalists how to avoid common (but misleading and toxic) journalistic practices such as covering the loudest voices on both sides, "tidying" narratives by cutting nuance, or focusing on stereotypes. We'll discuss ways to cover politics and issues such as guns, abortion or immigration in fresh and de-polarizing ways.

Speakers

Dana Amihere, AfroLA

Dana Amihere is a longtime data journalist, designer and developer. She’s the founder/executive director of AfroLA, a nonprofit newsroom covering greater Los Angeles through the lens of the Black community. Previously, Amihere worked in data, interactive design and news apps for LAist, The Dallas Morning News, Pew Research Center and The Baltimore Sun. She owns Code Black Media, a digital media and data consultancy.

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Hélène Biandudi Hofer, Good Conflict, LLC

Hélène Biandudi Hofer is a broadcast journalist and conflict navigator. She co-founded Good Conflict, LLC, to help leaders, communities, and companies get smarter about how they fight. Through her work in conflict, Hélène has trained over 1,500 journalists across 150 newsrooms worldwide on how to transform their coverage of controversial and divisive issues. She has worked with CBS, NPR, PBS and the Solutions Journalism Network.

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Tina Rosenberg, Solutions Journalism Network

Tina Rosenberg is co-founder of the Solutions Journalism Network. She is a longtime New York Times journalist, for the editorial page, Sunday magazine and as co-writer of the Fixes column. She has written hundreds of magazine articles and three books. Her work has won the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award.

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In this panel, attendees will hear the methods journalists use to expose rightwing attacks on elections, school boards, the LGBTQ+ community, and more as part of a larger coordinated rightwing extremist movement to upend democracy and strip away Americans' fundamental rights.

Speakers

David Armiak, Center for Media and Democracy

David Armiak is research director and an investigative journalist with the Center for Media and Democracy.

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Jessica Garrison, Los Angeles Times

Jessica Garrison covers Northern California for the Los Angeles Times and previously worked at BuzzFeed News. She has contributed to work that has won awards, including the Pulitzer Prize, the George Polk Award, the National Magazine Award, and others. She is the author of The Devil's Harvest and the co-host of the podcast The Michigan Plot.

Sergio Olmos, CalMatters

Emily Russell, North Country Public Radio

Emily Russell is a reporter at North Country Public Radio. She is also the co-host of the NCPR podcast "If All Else Fails," a six-episode limited series on far-right extremism in Upstate New York. Prior to joining NCPR in 2019, Russell worked at NPR stations in rural and urban Alaska, which is where she began her journalism career. Her work regularly appears on NPR.

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A.C. Thompson, FRONTLINE/ProPublica

A.C. Thompson is a correspondent for FRONTLINE and a reporter for ProPublica. He has led the reporting on three major projects on white supremacists and right-wing extremists.

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AI is buzzy — it could change the way that people access information online. But how might we consider its use as journalists? We’ll walk you through the ethical and practical factors to consider when using automation tools for journalism.

Speakers

Darla Cameron, The Texas Tribune

Darla Cameron is the interim chief product officer at The Texas Tribune. She guides product development and management, engineering and design, working closely across the organization to deliver the Tribune’s journalism in fresh and innovative ways that build trust with more Texans. Previously, Darla was the managing editor for visual journalism, overseeing the work of the photo, multimedia and data visuals teams.

Elizabeth Lucas, University of Missouri

Liz Lucas is the Houston Harte Chair in Journalism at the University of Missouri. She teaches data journalism and works with the Missouri News Network's newsrooms. Previously, she was the senior training director at IRE and the data editor at KFF Health News.

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Ana Paula Valacco, JournalismAI

Ana Paula Valacco is the community manager of JournalismAI Connect. She holds a MA in Journalism, Media, and Communication from Cardiff University. With a background in political science and journalism, she has worked in Marketing at Google Argentina and as the Institutional Development Coordinator at Chequeado. Additionally, she serves as the ambassador in Argentina and was the director of Global Project Oasis at SembraMedia.

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Factchequeado’s reporting team will present a session on election-related mis and disinformation narratives, especially linked to how they impact Latino and Spanish-speaking communities. With the 2024 presidential election weeks away, this session would equip attendees with a toolkit of essential election topics to monitor and report on in their own communities.

Speakers

Ana María Carrano, Factchequeado

Ana Maria is a journalist who's passionate about innovation and social impact. She is a former editor at elDetector, Univision's fact-check team. She created content for Second Chances, a multi-platform bilingual project that presents stories of Latinosre-entering society after prison. Carrano founded Archivo de Voces, a public archive of interviews. In 2014, she was selected as a John S. Knight Journalism Fellow at Stanford University.

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Rafael Olavarría, Factchequeado

Rafael began his career at CNN en Español as a writer, associate producer, and breaking news anchor. He then worked as a multimedia journalist at Univision Atlanta, where he led the fight against misinformation during the COVID-19 pandemic and the 2020 presidential election. Between 2021 and 2023, Rafael won 12 Southwest Emmy Awards, including Daily News Best Reporter. Rafael graduated with a degree in International Studies from the Central University of Venezuela.

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Laura Zommer, Factchequeado

Laura Zommer is the Co-founder and CEO of Factchequeado, an organization working to combat mis and disinformation in Spanish in the United States. Factchequeado develops civic technology and provides fact-checking and media literacy training to partner media and community organizations nationwide. Zommer was previously the executive director of Chequeado, the first fact-checking organization in the Global South.

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Learn how to build respectful, reciprocal relationships with Indigenous communities when researching and sharing their stories, and avoiding extractive journalism.

Speakers

Graham Lee Brewer, Associated Press

Graham Lee Brewer is a national reporter at the Associated Press who focuses on Indigenous communities and tribal nations. He has covered Indian Country for NPR, the New York Times, NBC News, ProPublica, BuzzFeed, and Rolling Stone. Brewer is a citizen of the Cherokee Nation and a past president of the Indigenous Journalists Association.

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Pauly Denetclaw, Indian Country Today

Anita Hofschneider, Grist Magazine

Anita Hofschneider is a senior staff writer on the Indigenous Affairs desk at Grist Magazine. Her work has also appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The Guardian and Honolulu Civil Beat. She was a 2024 Livingston finalist for her reporting on the aftermath of the Lahaina wildfire. She is Chamorro from the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands.

Adreanna Rodriguez, Independent journalist

Adreanna Rodriguez is a Lakota Sioux/Chicana storyteller and artist based in Oakland, CA. Her work highlights Indigenous and femme narratives, focusing on social and climate justice. With an M.A. in Visual Anthropology, she has produced impactful investigative audio, including the award-winning piece “Roe Was Never Enough,” a 2023 Third Coast Audio Awards finalist. Adreanna is also a 2023 Fourth World Media Fellowship recipient.

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Taylor Stagner, Grist

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This session will cover the basics of gender inclusivity at the various stages of data reporting from choosing/gathering data to publication. We'll focus on practical tips and welcome lots of discussion and questions.

Speakers

Jasmine Mithani, The 19th

Jasmine Mithani is the data visuals reporter at The 19th, an independent nonprofit newsroom covering the intersection of gender, politics and policy. She also writes data + feelings, an occasional newsletter about being human.

Connect: LinkedIn, Newsletter

Emilia Ruzicka, Independent journalist

Emilia Ruzicka is a freelance data journalist and technology and society researcher. They are pursuing an MA in media, culture, and technology with a certificate in digital humanities at University of Virginia. Emilia received their BS in data journalism from Brown University and worked full-time as a data journalist prior to graduate school. Currently, Emilia spearheads research concerning the role of data and artificial intelligence tools in journalism.

K. Sophie Will, Bloomberg Law

K. Sophie Will is an investigative data reporter at Bloomberg Law, Government and Tax. Previously, she was a congressional action reporter at CQ Roll Call and Utah Investigative Journalism Project's Alicia Patterson fellow. The award-winning Utah native graduated from Boston University with bylines found in the Deseret News, USA Today, AP, Thomson Reuters, HuffPost, WGBH and more.

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More than 1 in 4 adults in the U.S. reported having a disability in 2022, yet people with disabilities have long been underrepresented in news coverage and in newsrooms. This session will be packed with tips and insights to help journalists across beats bolster their coverage of disability-related issues and elevate the voices and needs of this key segment of our communities. We’ll also discuss ways reporters and editors can support their colleagues with disabilities, including those who don’t yet feel safe enough to disclose their condition at work.

Speakers

Pauline Arrillaga, National Center on Disability and Journalism

Samantha Hernandez, Des Moines Register

Samantha Hernandez is the Des Moines Register’s state education reporter. Hernandez is the lead coordinator for the Register’s award-winning Iowa’s Book Ban Battle project, which tracks the impact of Senate File 496. Her work covering rural schools was recognized with a 2019 Spencer Education Journalism Fellowship at Columbia University. Outside of work, Hernandez co-leads Making New Connections, an online traumatic brain injury support group.

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Wendy Lu, The New York Times

Wendy Lu is a senior staff editor at The New York Times and a global speaker on disability representation in the media. She is also a board member for the National Center on Disability and Journalism. Previously, she was an editor and reporter at HuffPost, covering the intersection of disability, politics and culture. In 2022, she was named on Forbes 30 Under 30 in the Media category for her efforts to improve disability coverage. She lives in New York.

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Denise-Marie Ordway, The Journalist's Resource at Harvard Kennedy School

Denise has been a reporter and editor for 20+ years at print, online and broadcast news outlets in the U.S. and Central America. She's also a Pulitzer Prize finalist, fellow of Harvard’s Nieman Foundation for Journalism and member of the Education Writers Association board of directors.

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A standout at the IRE conference, now revamped for a virtual crowd! Racial/ethnic minorities, LGBTQ+ persons, women... journalists who are members of these groups and others can enrich stories with their experiences, but they can often also face criticism for their closeness to subjects. When the story is investigative, the need for transparency in reporting grows. Find out how a group of journalists covers its own community and works to ensure trust among its audience – tactics that may work for you or your newsroom, too.

Speakers

Silvia Foster-Frau, The Washington Post

Silvia Foster-Frau is a national investigative reporter for The Washington Post who writes about how local, state and federal governments are serving this country’s diversifying population. She is also Vice President of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists – DC Chapter. This year, she and her colleagues won a Pulitzer Prize for their reporting on AR-15 style rifles. Before joining the Post, she was the immigration reporter for the San Antonio Express-News.

Josh Hinkle, KXAN

Josh Hinkle is KXAN’s director of investigations and innovation, leading the station’s duPont and IRE Award-winning investigative team on multiple platforms. He also leads KXAN’s political coverage as executive producer and host of “State of Texas,” a weekly statewide program focused on the Texas Legislature and elections. In 2021, he was elected to the IRE Board of Directors and currently serves as its vice president.

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Barbara Rodriguez, The 19th

Barbara Rodriguez is the state politics and voting reporter at The 19th, an independent nonprofit newsroom that writes about gender, politics and policy. She previously covered politics and health care at the Des Moines Register. Before that, she was the Iowa statehouse reporter for The Associated Press. Barbara has served on the IRE Board of Directors and now chairs IRE's Affordability Task Force.

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Kat Stafford, Reuters

Kat Stafford is the Global Race and Justice Editor for Reuters. She has received several awards for her work, including Wayne State University's 2024 Spirit of Diversity award and the National Press Club Journalism Institute's 2023 Neil and Susan Sheehan Award for Investigative Journalism.

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This workshop will show you how to increase your chances of receiving records that reveal significant new information to help advance your story.

What can help identify the records you should ask for in the first place? And how can you make it more likely that you’ll receive a useful response? We will look at strategies for formulating public records requests — treating them as a distinct reporting task, often requiring interviews and other digging to help pinpoint what records could be most helpful to ask for. We will also examine how to make the most of records that you receive to help identify potential sources and future story ideas.

Speakers

Josh Eidelson, Bloomberg

Josh Eidelson covers the workplace for Bloomberg News and Businessweek. His work has exposed government choices that narrowed workers' rights, corporate practices that exacerbated the COVID-19 pandemic, and labor leaders' sexual misconduct. The Loeb Foundation, SABEW, the Sidney Hillman Foundation, the Labor and Employment Relations Association (LERA), the SF Press Club, and SPJ have honored his work.

Suzy Khimm, NBC News

Suzy Khimm is a national reporter for NBC News based in Washington, D.C. Her in-depth stories on consumer product safety, temporary farmworkers and the child welfare system have been recognized by the New York Press Club, the Deadline Club, the Online News Association and SABEW, and she was a finalist for the Goldsmith Prize. Her work has also spurred the creation of new federal rules protecting residents of public housing.

Kate Martin, APM Reports

Kate Martin is the senior data reporter at APM Reports. Her work over two decades has sparked reforms, resignations, firings, criminal indictments, and convictions. At least five state laws or legal precedents have changed because of her work. Her work filing hundreds of records requests led to the Consumer Product Safety Commission proposing new safety requirements for nursing pillows, which have killed 160+ infants since 2007.

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Hiring isn’t easy and it rarely follows the “best case scenario” plans. But we know for every frustrating setback you have as a hiring manager, there are dozens of candidates desperate to learn more.

Let’s talk about techniques like writing inclusive job postings, hosting open office hours, and being more transparent with your candidates throughout.

Speakers

Talia Buford, ProPublica

Talia Buford is an Assistant Managing Editor at ProPublica, where she focuses on recruiting, hiring and career development. Previously, Buford was a journalist at ProPublica, The Center for Public Integrity, POLITICO Pro and The Providence Journal. She was part of the ProPublica team whose coverage of the coronavirus pandemic was a finalist for the 2021 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service.

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Emma Carew Grovum, The Marshall Project

Emma Carew Grovum is the director of careers and culture at The Marshall Project and also the founder of Kimbap Media, a consultancy solving problems at the intersection of journalism, technology, and the audience. She is a co-founder of and regular contributor to the News Product Alliance; Emma is also a founding partner of Media Bridge Partners, a collective of journalism trainers working to build equity in newsrooms.

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Kyndell Harkness, Minnesota Star Tribune

Kyndell Harkness is the first Head of Culture and Community at the Minnesota Star Tribune. Her cultural transformation work started in the newsroom after the murder of George Floyd and is now company-wide effort. Harkness helped to coordinate visual coverage of the George Floyd protests ensuring that picture selection kept community impact in mind.

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Sonali Kohli, URL Media

Sonali is a Senior Recruiter at URL Media, where she works with newsrooms and media-adjacent organizations who want to find fantastic candidates and treat them well. She is also author of the young adult nonfiction book, “Don’t Wait: Three Girls Who Fought for Change and Won,” published from Beacon Press in June 2024.

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Finding yourself coming up empty handed on FOIA Friday thinking up what to request? This session will offer dozens of concrete request ideas you can file today (even during the session!) while also giving you strategies for how to tailor your public records strategy to match whatever story or topic you're diving into, from backgrounding an agency and source development to setting up even your rejections to be newsworthy.

Speaker

Dillon Bergin, MuckRock

Dillon Bergin is MuckRock's data reporter. He uses data and public records to power investigative reporting with partner newsrooms. He's currently a National Science Health and Environment Reporting Fellow. He was a member of the Documenting COVID-19 team, a project funded by MuckRock and the Brown Institute for Media Innovation. Before that, he was a Report for America corps member with Searchlight New Mexico and a Fulbright Germany Journalism Fellow.

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Even great reporters can get tricked by fake names or sketchy backgrounds. We’ll walk through some strategies you can use to create a routine and spot potential red flags before you get burned.

Speaker

Adam Rhodes, IRE & NICAR

Adam M. Rhodes is a first-generation Cuban American journalist whose work primarily focuses on queer people and the criminal justice system. Their recent work has examined HIV treatment access in Puerto Rico, HIV criminalization in Illinois, and a homophobic capital murder trial in the state. Rhodes was most recently a staff writer and social justice reporter at the Chicago Reader, and they have been published in outlets including BuzzFeed News and The Washington Post.

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As a student journalist, you're looking to make inroads as you enter the industry. What should be front of mind and what should you not sweat as much? This dynamic group of journalists will share tips and insights into preparing to join the workforce, what they wish they had known, what to look for, and more. Come join in the conversation and bring all your questions!

Speakers

Alejandra Cancino, Injustice Watch

Alejandra Cancino is a senior reporter at Injustice Watch, a Chicago-based nonprofit newsroom investigating the Cook County court system. Her award-winning work focuses on the intersection of government and business and combines data with personal stories to expose how people are affected by systemic failures. In 2022, she spent a year as an editor training emerging journalists. Earlier in her career, she covered labor as a business reporter at the Chicago Tribune.

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Ana Ley, The New York Times

Ana Ley, a journalist with 16 years of experience, is a reporter at The New York Times. Previously, she worked at five newspapers, including the San Antonio Express-News in San Antonio, Texas; the Las Vegas Sun and Las Vegas Review-Journal; and at the Virginian-Pilot in Norfolk, Virginia, where she was a reporter and then editor.

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Brian Rosenthal, The New York Times

Brandi Kellam is an investigative journalist and filmmaker whose work has been honored with an Emmy, Gracie, and Tobenkin Prize. Her local reporting has sparked nationwide debates on racial injustice including her ProPublica series “Uprooted,” which exposed the displacement of Black communities by American universities. Kellam's work has appeared in CBS, NBC, The Chronicle of Higher Education, among others. She holds degrees from Syracuse University and UNC Chapel Hill.

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Paroma Soni, POLITICO

Paroma Soni is a data and graphics reporter covering trade and agriculture for POLITICO Pro. She was previously an Associate Visual Journalist at FiveThirtyEight, covering electoral politics and abortion policy. She was also a fellow at Columbia Journalism Review and a video producer at BuzzFeed India, and has contributed to many other publications including The Markup, Slate and The Wire. A graduate of Columbia Journalism School, she is based in New York.

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The panel will discuss entering a new environment as a manager, managing staff with strong opinions, helping staff avoid residual trauma from the stories they cover, and what to do if you inherit a team that has been under poor leadership in the past.

Speakers

Kate Howard, Reveal/Mother Jones

Karyn Pugliese, Aboriginal People Television Network

Karyn, aka Pabàmàdiz, is an award-winning journalist with 15 years of management experience, including editor-in-chief of Canadaland, Canada's National Observer, Managing Editor of CBC's Investigative Unit, and Executive Director of News and Current Affairs at APTN (Aboriginal Peoples Television Network) In the Spring of 2020 she completed a Nieman Fellowship at Harvard University. She is the former President of the Canadian Journalism Association.

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Zahira Torres, ProPublica/Texas Tribune

Zahira Torres is the editor for the ProPublica-Texas Tribune investigative unit, a first-of-its-kind collaboration to publish investigative reporting for and about Texas. Before joining the unit, Torres was a senior editor with ProPublica’s Local Reporting Network. A native of El Paso, Texas, Torres was the first Latina and second woman to serve as the newspaper’s editor in its more than 100-year history.

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While repro/gender issues obviously play a huge role in national politics, so many battles are happening at local level. But the beat can be extremely tricky for local reporters to navigate. This panel will offer story ideas, sources and reporting advice for people who are covering repro/gender issues in the communities they live in.

Speakers

Ziva Branstetter, ProPublica

Ziva Branstetter has been a senior editor at ProPublica since March 2022, supervising a team of national reporters. Before that, she was an investigative editor at The Washington Post, worked for Reveal and co-founded an investigative newsroom in Oklahoma. Her investigation into Oklahoma’s death penalty process was named a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2015. Work she has led at ProPublica has received two Polk awards and been named a Goldsmith finalist.

Bracey Harris, NBC News

Bracey Harris is a national reporter based in Mississippi covering the South for NBC News.

Kate Howard, Reveal/Mother Jones

Nina Martin, Reveal/Mother Jones

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The Marshall Project, The Trace, and the Associated Press have all built curated datasets for journalists to dig into local stories with big impact. Join this session to learn about data products that have been designed for local newsrooms. Specifically, learn how to tell stories about shootings happening near schools, learn how to use a one-of-a-kind political survey of incarcerated people, and learn how to investigate and document police use of force.

Speakers

Michelle Billman, The Marshall Project

Michelle Billman helps design reporting toolkits to support local newsrooms with their own criminal justice journalism. For more than a decade, Michelle managed regional public radio newsrooms where she trained dozens of emerging journalists and co-founded several partnerships to increase reporting in Spanish and elevate youth voices. These partnerships earned national Edward R. Murrow Awards for excellence in innovation and diversity, equity and inclusion.

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David Eads, The Marshall Project

David Eads is a data editor at The Marshall Project. He is a co-founder of the Invisible Institute and helped create FreeGeek Chicago, a community-based computer recycling organization. He has been as a reporter and editor at the Chicago Tribune, NPR Visuals, ProPublica Illinois, and The Chicago Reporter. Eads was a member of the team of independent journalists who won the 2019 Premio Gabo for their reporting on mass graves in Mexico.

Angeliki Kastanis, The Associated Press

Angeliki Kastanis is data editor at The Associated Press, leading a team of data reporters who acquire, vet, analyze and interpret data for impactful journalism. Previously, Kastanis was a data analyst at the Williams Institute-UCLA School of Law, researching sexual orientation and gender identity law and policy. They hold a Master of Public Policy from The University of Chicago and a B.A. in Audio, Arts and Acoustics from Columbia College Chicago.

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Nicole Lewis, The Marshall Project

Samantha Storey, The Trace

Samantha is the managing editor for The Trace. She helps run the day-to day of the newsroom, the soon-to-launch Gun Violence Data Hub, as well as assigns and edits stories across desks. Storey spent more than half of her career at The New York Times, where she worked as an assignment editor and audio reporter. Prior to The Trace, she worked as an executive producer and podcast host at Bloomberg, where she won a Gerald Loeb Award in audio.

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Journalists frequently find themselves reporting on communities outside their own experience. This panel will explore effective strategies and tools for approaching unfamiliar communities, uncovering untold stories, and building trust with sources. We will discuss how to engage with diverse stakeholders to ensure that our coverage accurately and comprehensively reflects the full spectrum of experiences within these communities.

Speakers

Sarah Conway, City Bureau

Sarah Conway is City Bureau’s Senior Reporter & Special Projects Manager. Sarah writes investigative stories rooted in records and data and connects people with resources to improve their lives.

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Ariel Hart, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Ariel Hart is a reporter at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. She has reported on subjects including health care, voting rights and transportation, and she currently focuses on the impact of health policy on people. Her awards include first place for beat reporting in Georgia from The Associated Press and she was part of a team named a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in national reporting for a year-long project on doctors and sex abuse.

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Katie Licari, AfroLA

Katie Licari is an investigative reporter with AfroLA. When she isn't reporting, she can be found in her community garden.

Yanqi Xu, Flatwater Free Press

Yanqi Xu (pronounced yen-chee shu) is an investigative reporter at the Flatwater Free Press, Nebraska's first nonprofit statewide newsroom. Her reporting unpacks how policies affect people's lives with a focus on accountability. She recently wrote about the groundwater pollution tied to crop and animal production in Nebraska. Originally from China, Yanqi is a graduate of the University of Missouri-Columbia.

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Cici Yu, WBUR

Cici Yu is an associate producer for WBUR’s Morning Edition in Boston. Previously, she wrote investigative narratives on public health policy and litigation for Bloomberg Law, Brookline.News, Milford Daily News, and various other outlets.

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Join us for an exciting, information-packed session that’s half forum for educators and students to advise on best practices for college journalism, and half intimate networking session to learn more about how j-schools should prepare students for future jobs, and how to land a quality internship in today’s competitive job market. We’ll learn from each other, share our best advice, as students and professors, and answer your questions so you can succeed as you navigate through j-school.

Speakers

Mark Greenblatt, Arizona State University/Howard Center for Investigative Reporting

Mark Greenblatt is the executive editor of the Howard Center for Investigative Journalism at Arizona State University's Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication.

Mark Horvit, University of Missouri

Mark Horvit is a professor at the University of Missouri School of Journalism, where he teaches investigative reporting, and is director of the school’s State Government Reporting Program. He is also chair of the Journalism Professions faculty. Horvit previously served as executive director of IRE and NICAR, where he conducted training in investigative reporting and data journalism throughout the world. Horvit worked as a reporter and editor for 20 years.

Maggie Mulvihill, Boston University

Maggie Mulvihill is a veteran reporter, data journalism trainer, news entrepreneur, First Amendment advocate and attorney. Since 2009, Mulvihill’s students earned over a dozen regional or national journalism awards for stories ranging from juvenile killers to COVID-19 workplace safety. Mulvihill serves on the Reporter's Committee for Freedom of the Press Leadership Council, The New England First Amendment Coalition board and former fellow at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University.

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Marquita Smith, The University of Mississippi

Before joining the faculty at the University of Mississippi, Dr. Marquita Smith served as Division Chair for Communication and Fine Arts at John Brown University. Prior to the academy, Smith worked in various newsrooms for 16 years. In her last newsroom position, she served as Virginia Beach bureau chief at The Virginian-Pilot.

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Join this brainstorming session to share and get resources, tools and guidelines for applying DEI principles to data reporting

Speaker

Samantha Sunne, Independent Journalist

Samantha Sunne a freelance journalist based in New Orleans. When not on a reporting project, she teaches at conferences, universities and newsrooms around the world, including Investigative Reporters & Editors (IRE) and the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ). She recently co-authored the textbook "Data + Journalism: A Story-Driven Approach to Learning Data Reporting."

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Many journalists are eager to reach more diverse audiences and serve communities newsrooms haven’t historically covered. But that can be a challenge when there's longstanding distrust and growing levels of news avoidance, specifically in communities that are already politically and socially disadvantaged.

We've seen that journalists can counter this and build trust by 1) creating content that’s reflective of and relevant to people in those communities and 2) making sure their content is accessible to those communities.

This session will cover strategies for how journalists could approach both of the above steps through intentional curiosity-driven listening and connecting with their communities through face-to-face outreach.

Speakers

Mollie Muchna, Trusting News

Mollie Muchna is a project manager at Trusting News. Most of her journalism career has been spent working in audience and engagement journalism in legacy newsrooms across the Southwest. She lives in Tucson, Arizona, where she is also an adjunct professor at the University of Arizona’s School of Journalism.

María Méndez, The Texas Tribune

María Méndez is a service and engagement reporter embedded on The Texas Tribune's audience team. She writes guides, manages callouts and works on strategies to better inform and reach everyday Texans.

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James Rinker, The Keene Sentinel

James Rinker (he/they) is the education and business reporter for The Keene Sentinel, based in Keene, New Hampshire. He was a 2023-2024 Complicating the Narrative Fellow through the Solutions Journalism Network, reporting on rural LGBTQ+ health care access and the politicization of gender-affirming care in the state of New Hampshire. They have received awards for their work from the New Hampshire Press Association and the New England Newspaper & Press Association.

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This session will explore the profound impact of incarceration on communities, including the damage caused by the erosion of family and community ties. The discussion will emphasize the importance of comprehensive reporting that enables the public to critically evaluate what it means to invest in a policing economy.

Speakers

Keri Blakinger, Los Angeles Times

Keri Blakinger is a reporter at the Los Angeles Times. Before that, she covered criminal justice for the Houston Chronicle and then prisons for the Marshall Project. She was a 2024 Pulitzer Prize finalist in feature writing. Her work has appeared everywhere from Vice to the Washington Post Magazine, where her 2019 reporting on women in jail helped earn a National Magazine Award. She is the author of “Corrections in Ink,” a 2022 memoir about her time in prison.

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Priscilla Grim, Independent journalist

Priscilla Grim (she/her) is a Nuyorican activist, journalist, and mom. She has written for Hammer & Hope, Scalawag, The Atlanta Community Press Collective, and the forthcoming anthologies No Cop City, No Cop World, and World War 3 Now? Dedicated to public education of radical possibilities, she has worked with the Occupy Wall Street social media teams on Facebook and Twitter, The Occupied Wall Street Journal, and the We Are The 99 Percent Tumblr blog.

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Ebony Reed, The Marshall Project

Ebony Reed is a journalist, editorial leader, and strategist with expertise in journalism, business operations, and communications. As The Marshall Project’s first Chief Strategy Officer, she oversees strategy, communications, and local growth. Ebony has worked with major outlets like the Associated Press and The Wall Street Journal. She has also taught at institutions including Yale and the University of Missouri-Columbia.

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Bianca Tylek, Worth Rises

Bianca Tylek is Worth Rises's founder and executive director, working to end financial incentives for incarceration. A leading expert on the prison industry, she advocates for free prison communication, saving families over $400 million. Bianca leads the #EndTheException campaign to end prison slavery, blocking mergers, inspiring divestment, and costing the prison industry billions.

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This panel will provide actionable information to help journalists follow the money and uncover political influence, from who is seeking to influence policy to U.S. elections. Panelists will share a wide range of investigative techniques and tools, walking participants through a simple recipe of creating compelling investigative stories exposing political influence. Learn the ins and outs of where to find what information, as well as potential pitfalls. Resources covered will include campaign finance data, lobbying disclosures and other public records.

Speakers

Anna Massoglia, OpenSecrets

Anna Massoglia is the editorial and investigations manager overseeing all communications and editorial processses at OpenSecrets, which tracks the influence of money in U.S. politics. Her research areas foreign influence, political advertising and investigations into opaque spending networks. Anna holds degrees in political science and psychology from North Carolina State University and a J.D. from the University of the District of Columbia School of Law.

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Ben Wieder, McClatchy/Miami Herald

Ben Wieder is an investigative reporter for McClatchy and the Miami Herald and oversees McClatchy's data fellowship program. He reports on financial crimes, real estate and political influence. He previously worked at the Center for Public Integrity and Stateline.

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