2026 Schedule

The rights journalists exercise — to film in public, to request government records, to refuse to identify sources — belong to every citizen. But unlike professional journalists, whose rights are defended by the Reporters Committee, the ACLU, and a network of press freedom organizations, ordinary citizens face the consequences of exercising those rights largely alone. As government conduct has grown more aggressive — masked immigration agents, surveillance of protesters, retaliation against publi…

What happens when a community stops waiting on institutions and does accountability's work itself? In Los Angeles, the gay community banded together to investigate a cold case murder and push it toward resolution — the subject of Rachel Mason's new film My Brother's Killer. It's happening nationwide as legacy news organizations scale back and new local news outlets emerge: Chicago-based City Bureau trains community members to cover public meetings; Outlier Media in Detroit involved citizens in c…

You've seen the footage. You've watched the clip. And at some point in the last few years, you've probably stopped and asked: is this even real? That question used to belong to archivists and forensic experts. Now it belongs to everyone. AI has made it easier to generate, alter, or strip context from images and video, while disinformation campaigns and propaganda operations — run by governments and non-state actors alike — work to shape what the public sees and believes. At the same time, the re…

Over the last two years, thousands of federal employees have been summarily dismissed. Some were forced out for political reasons, others as part of sweeping reductions that have gutted agencies responsible for public health, environmental protection, scientific research, foreign aid and national security. Private-sector workers who speak up about harm to the public face a parallel threat from Non-Disclosure Agreements, which the administration would like to impose as a new condition of federal …