Our global journalism seminar series will be held online from January to March 2021

Speakers for the events, chaired by Meera Selva, include Sophia Smith Galer, Borja Echevarría, Julia Angwin, Adela Bello and James Harding
Our global journalism seminar series from January to March 2021.

Our global journalism seminar series from January to March 2021. 

12th January 2021

The Reuters Institute’s series of weekly seminars on global journalism will be held online from January to March 2021. Among the speakers will be Elite Truong from the Washington Post, Sophia Smith Galer from the BBC, Julia Angwin from The Markup, Borja Echevarría from El País and Tortoise’s co-founder James Harding. 

The seminar series is a centrepiece of the Journalist Fellowship Programme, which welcomes high-profile journalists from around the world to share their experiences, thoughts and findings on the big issues facing the profession right now. The seminars give our Journalist Fellows the chance to engage with reporters, editors and innovators who are driving the industry forward and addressing the many challenges it faces.

For years, the seminars have been held at Green Templeton College, part of the University of Oxford, every Wednesday afternoon during the university term. In light of the current restrictions, this term’s seminars will take place on video platform Zoom. As usual, the seminars are open to the public, and you are very much welcome to join us by signing up through our events pages. Every seminar will be held at 13:00 UK time. The one on 24 February will be pre-recorded and shown at that time. 

Director of the Journalist Fellowship Programme Meera Selva, who hosts the series, said: “Our global journalism seminar series this term showcases innovation and press freedom around the world, and this is a fantastic opportunity for anyone interested in the media to hear from some of the bravest, most original thinking journalists and editors in the industry.”

Registration is required. For full details of each seminar, see our events calendar. Here's the list: 

?‍? On news innovation. Elite Truong, Director of Strategic Initiative at the Washington Post, will share some of the results of her storytelling experiments at the newspaper. | 13 January  

?? On the rise of TikTok. Sophia Smith Galer, BBC journalist and TikTok content creator, will share insights on how to use this platform to build relationships and trust, and find news stories. She used her knowledge of TikTok to show how Donald Trump was using it to campaign for the presidency, even while trying to get the app banned. | 20 January 

? On slow journalism. James Harding, co-founder and editor-in-chief of Tortoise, will talk about her experience creating a news company from scratch and about the community he and his colleagues have built around physical and online events. | 27 January  

?? On press freedom in Africa. Hopewell Chin’ono, a journalist arrested for exposing PPE fraud in Zimbabwe, will speak about the role of independent journalists in exposing corruption in Africa. Here you can read an interview with him. | 3 February   

? On reporting on tech. Julia Angwin, co-founder and editor-in-chief of The Markup, will share insights into some of their more creative projects to bring accountability to the tech industry. Here you can find recent example that's worth your time. | 10 February

? On the shift to subscriptions. Borja Echevarría, managing editor of El País, will speak about how his newspaper launched its digital subscriptions in the midst of the pandemic and how their data journalism team adds value by telling complex stories in beautiful new ways. Here you can check out a brilliant example. | 17 February 

? On journalism and social media. Journalist and owner of New Zealand’s media company Stuff Ltd Sinead Boucher joins us for a pre-recorded seminar from New Zealand to speak about her 2020 decision to remove all Stuff content from Facebook, and how the business has fared since. | 24 February  

?? On reporting in Mexico. Award-winning Mexican journalist Adela Bello will speak about her work as managing editor of Zeta, a weekly publication that is renowned for its coverage of organised crime in Mexico. Her work is so dangerous that in 2010 the government at one point assigned her seven soldiers as bodyguards after she received death threats from the Tijuana Cartel. | 3 March 

?? On journalism in the Far East. Daisuke Furuta was the founding editor of Buzzfeed Japan, and is currently working at Google News Lab as a Teaching Fellow. He was also web editor at the Asahi Shimbun, one of Japan's biggest newspaper companies. He will speak to us about trends in digital publishing in Asia. | 10 March

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