International Journalism Festival 2026: the events you shouldn’t miss in Perugia

From 16 to 18 April, journalists worldwide will gather again for the International Journalism Festival (IJF) in Perugia. Several voices from the Reuters Institute will speak at the festival. Here are some of the highlights this year, including panels on AI, news creators, reporting from conflict zones, platform power, and the business of news. All the panels will be live-streamed on the IJF YouTube channel. See you in Perugia or online.

Skip to: Thursday 16 April | Friday 17 April | Saturday 18 April

Panels with Reuters Institute speakers

• Mitali Mukherjee: On news creators | On journalism for the poor | On our own research
• Lucy Kueng: On strategic shifts | On building a better news ecosystem
• Nic Newman: On news creators
• Felix Simon: On AI and journalism | On AI and misinformation 

Two meetups hosted by the Institute

• Talking AI with the Reuters Institute and Nordic AI Journalism. Join Agnes Stenbom Swedling, Felix Simon and Marina Adami for an informal coffee. Thursday 16 April at 10:30 at Turan Cafè, 35 Piazza IV Novembre.  
• Coffee with the Reuters Institute’s team in Perugia. Join our team for an informal coffee. Thursday 16 April at 16:00 at Caffè Mazzini, 13 Via Giuseppe Mazzini. 

Thursday 16 April

9:30. Sala delle Colonne, Palazzo Graziani
Bridging the impact gap: how to execute on strategic shifts
Felicitas Carrique from the News Product Alliance | Michael Jarjour from Trustfund | Anita Zielina from Better Leaders Lab | Lucy Kueng from RISJ

10:30. Sala dei Notari, Palazzo Priori
News creators: competitors, collaborators or disruptors?
Nicolas Copano from Turno | Emilio Domenech from WATIF | Salla-Rosa Grohn from Yle Kioski | Mitali Mukherjee from RISJ

• Read our report on the rise of news creators. | Read in English · Lee en español
• Read our 2025 interview with WATIF cofounder Mar Manrique. | Read

10:30. Sala Brugnoli, Palazzo Cesaroni
Human-made, mission-driven: reinventing membership media in the age of AI-slop
Rozina Breen from the Pulitzer Center | Anette Dowideit from CORRECTIV | Jillian Green from the Daily Maverick | Katharina Hemmer from Republik

• Read this piece by our own Gretel Kahn on five newspapers thriving without billionaire owners. | Read in English · Lee en español 
• Read this piece by our own Marina Adami on AI slop. | Read

10:30. Sala Brugnoli, Palazzo Cesaroni
How to edit a liquid: a survival guide for the AI age
Phoebe Connelly formerly at the Washington Post | Mukul Devichand from the New York Times | Erja Ylajarvi from Helsingin Sanomat | Olle Zachrison from BBC News

• Back in January we published forecasts from 17 experts on how AI will transform the news ecosystem in 2026. | Read

11:30. Sala dei Notari, Palazzo dei Priori
Testing the platforms: investigative journalism, accountability and policy impact
Clara Jimenez Cruz from Maldita | Alexios Mantzarlis from Indicator | Tai Nalon from Aos Fatos | Julie Posetti from the Information Integrity Initiative

• Clara and Tai spoke at our recent event on AI and the future of news. | Read our summary and watch

14:00. Teatro del Pavone
Campaign-led approach to reader revenue growth
Tomas Bella from Dennik N and EU Observer | Antti Pikkanen from Uusi Juttu | Zakhar Protsiuk from the Kyiv Independent | Liz Wynn from the Guardian

• In 2022 our contributor Laura Oliver wrote a piece about newsrooms with reader revenue models that take into account people who won’t pay full price (yet). | Read

14:00. Sala Brugnoli, Palazzo Cesaroni
How to build a better news ecosystem in the AI era
Pablo Delgado from PRISA Media | Ana Jakimovska from Mediahuis | Lucy Kueng from RISJ | Caspar Llewellyn Smith from Guardian News & Media

• We recently published this essay by Shuwei Fang on how AI will reshape the information ecosystem in the years to come. | Read

15:00. Sala delle Colonne, Palazzo Graziani
What is the future for journalism in the era of AI?
David Caswell from StoryFlow | Natali Helberger from the  University of Amsterdam | Giulia Lucchese from the Council of Europe | Felix Simon from RISJ

• David Caswell authored this provocative essay on the same topic, published last year. | Read

16:00. Teatro della Sapienza
Between survival and integrity: journalism in repressive regimes
Tom Grundy from the Hong Kong Free Press | Saad Mohseni from MOBY Group | Daniella Peled from War and Peace Reporting | Jemimah Steinfeld from Index on Censorship

• Back in 2024 our own Eduardo Suárez interviewed Selina Cheng, who was fired from the WSJ after being elected as Hong Kong’s press union chair. | Read

17:00. Sala dei Notari, Palazzo dei Priori
How to turn journalists into rock stars: a Live Magazine showcase
Doan Bui from Le Nouvel Obs | Phil Chetwynd from AFP | Florence Martin-Kessler from Live Magazine | Tomas van Houtryve, artist and photographer

• In 2020 Our alumnus Jaakko Lyytinen wrote this project on the rise of live journalism around the world. | Read

Friday 17 April 

9:30. Teatro della Sapienza
Journalism for the poor: how to tell stories for people without power and privilege and why it matters
Maritza Felix from Conecta Arizona | Shirish Kulkarni from Media Cymru | Mitali Mukherjee from RISJ | Andreea Vîlcu from Prea Sarac

• Our own Marina Adami wrote a piece about a few newsrooms catering to poor audiences in Indonesia, Venezuela and the US. | Read in English · Lee en español

9:30. Sala Brugnoli, Palazzo Cesaroni

Beyond the battlefield: investigating the business of war

Uri Blau from Shomrim | Timur Olevsky from The Insider | Vivian Schiller from Aspen Digital | Milàn Czerny 

• Our own Gretel Kahn published this piece on the Israeli outlets exposing surveillance, brutality and war crimes in Gaza. | Read

10:30. Teatro della Sapienza

If AI is the new intern, what’s the new on-ramp into journalism?

Jeremy Caplan from the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism | Astrid Maier from dpa | Djordje Padejski from Stanford University | Nikita Roy from Newsroom Robots

• Our own Gretel Kahn wrote a piece on how AI is transforming journalism education. | Read in English · Lee en español
• We also published a report on AI adoption by UK journalists. | Read

10:30. Teatro del Pavone

So you want to report on the tech industry but aren't a tech reporter?

Peter Geoghegan from Democracy for Sale | Daniel Howden from Lighthouse Reports | Natalia Viana from Agência Pública | Amy Westervelt from Critical Frequency

11:30. Auditorium San Francesco al Prato

How to save public service journalism
Branko Brkic from Project Kontinuum | Liz Corbin from EBU | Liz Gibbons from BBC World Service | Alan Rusbridger from Media Confidential | Jane Martinson

• Back in 2020 we published an excerpt of Alan’s latest book. | Read

12:30. Sala Raffaello, Hotel Brufani

What’s popular? The trends shaping global media consumption

Katerina Eva Matsa from Pew Research Center | Mitali Mukherjee from RISJ

• Mitali recently co-authored this report on young news audiences. | Read in English · Lee en español
• January’s Trends and Predictions 2026 report looks at what media managers expect from this year. | Read

14:00. Sala dei Notari, Palazzo dei Priori

Radical collaboration in a time of existential transformation

Jennifer Brandel from Hearken | Maggie Farley from ICFJ | Sharon Moshavi from ICFJ | Francisca Skoknic from CLIP

• Francisca’s project delved into journalism funding in Latin America. | Read 

15:00. Teatro della Sapienza

How are publishers responding to the ‘creator wave’?

Pierre Caulliez from Yoof | Bijan Hosseini from CNN International Productions | Nic Newman from RISJ | Liesbeth Nizet from Mediahuis

• Nic’s recent report on media trends covered this very topic. | Read in English · Lee en español

15:00. Auditorium San Francesco al Prato

An autopsy for AI: lessons for journalism from the platform era

Madhav Chinnappa | Colin Crowell from The Blue Owl Group | Courtney C. Radsch from the Center for Journalism and Liberty | Nick Wrenn

• Our own Gretel Kahn recently published a piece on how AI might reshape copyright. | Read 

16:00. Sala Brugnoli, Palazzo Cesaroni

The integrity playbook in the age of doubt: lessons from fact-checking organizations under pressure

Angie Drobnic Holan from IFCN | Clara Jiménez Cruz from Maldita | Franco Piccato from Chequeado | Laura Zommer from Factchequeado

• Our own Gretel Kahn published an article on how AI is already helping fact-checkers in Georgia, Norway and Ghana. | Read

17:00. Teatro del Pavone

Choose your own adventure: what comes after vertical video?

Dave Jorgenson from LNI | Tara Palmeri from The Tara Palmeri Show | Francesco Zaffarano from Chora & Will Media | Sophia Smith Galer

• Francesco Zaffarano authored several pieces on audience engagement which we republished on our website. | Read
• Marina Adami also interviewed Zaffarano in 2022 on his work at innovative Italian social media-first outlet Will Media. | Read

Saturday 18 April 

9:30. Sala Raffaello, Hotel Brufani
Steal this: AI projects newsrooms actually shipped and how they got it over the line
Emily Brown from Microsoft | Kati Erwert from The Seattle Times | Kevin Hoffman from The Philadelphia Inquirer | Tristan Loper from The Lenfest Institute

• Catch up with our podcast series on AI and the future of audio, hosted by Gretel Kahn. | Read and listen

11:30. Sala Brugnoli, Palazzo Cesaroni
How Russia, Iran and China reshape information ecosystems
Thibaut Bruttin from Reporters Without Borders | Marketa Hulpachova from Tehran Bureau | Alesya Marokhovskaya from IStories | Filip Noubel from Global Voices | Vivian Wu from Dasheng Media

• Our own Gretel Kahn authored a piece on how Russia and China are reshaping Africa’s news ecosystem. | Read

12:30. Teatro del Pavone 
​​Building your own brand: risks and opportunities
Sophia Smith Galer | Antonio Zappulla from the Thomson Reuters Foundation

14:00. Sala Raffaello, Hotel Brufani
Poisoned chalice or strategic opportunity? Navigating AI for independent newsrooms
Will Church from the Thomson Reuters Foundation | Irene Jay Liu from International Fund for Public Service Media | Paul McNally from Develop AI | Sannuta Raghu from Scroll

• Sannuta is an alumna of our Fellowship programme. Her project focused on the News Atom, a metadata blueprint for the AI age. | Read

15:00. Sala del Dottorato
How to test, evaluate, and roll out AI tools in newsrooms: lessons from Reuters
Rob Lang from Reuters

15:00. Auditorium San Francesco al Prato
Holding the powerful accountable: the role of investigative journalism during war
Yuval Abraham from +972 Magazine | Omer Benjakob from Haaretz | Francesca Caferri from Il Venerdì di Repubblica | Harry Davies from The Guardian

• Gretel Kahn interviewed journalists from +972 Magazine and Haaretz for this piece on the Israeli outlets covering the horrors of war.  | Read

15:00. Sala delle Colonne, Palazzo Graziani
Expanding public interest journalism through citizen-powered investigations
Caitlin Gilbert from the Washington Post | Paul Myles from On Our Radar | Paul Radu from OCCRP | Neus Vidal from Seek Initiative

• Our contributor Maurice Oniang’o recently wrote about the rise of citizen-led online investigations in Kenya.  | Read

16:00. Sala delle Colonne, Palazzo Graziani
When seeing is no longer believing: perils and possibilities in a world of synthetic media
Sam Gregory from WITNESS | Tai Nalon from Aos Fatos | Felix Simon from RISJ

• Georgia Edwards, Zuzanna Wojciak and shirin anlen from WITNESS recently authored this insightful piece on why AI is undermining OSINT’s core assumptions and how journalists should adapt. | Read
• Felix is the lead author of our report on attitudes towards Generative AI. | Read

17:00. Sala delle Colonne, Palazzo Graziani
Journalism funding's new realism: what is gone and what is not yet next
Lars Boering from the European Journalism Centre | Mira Milosevic from the Global Forum for Media Development | Sharon Moshavi from International Center for Journalists | Paul Radu from OCCRP

• In 2025 we published a long article on the perfect storm faced by news organisations in the Global South, shattered by cuts from USAID, global foundation and media development funds. | Read in English · Lee en español