Victoria Baranetsky

General Counsel

Victoria Baranetsky is general counsel at The Center for Investigative Reporting, where she counsels reporters on newsgathering, libel, privacy, subpoenas, and other newsroom matters. Prior to CIR, Victoria served as a legal counsel at the Wikimedia Foundation, a First Amendment Fellow at The New York Times, and a fellow at the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. After graduating from Harvard Law School, Baranetsky received a master’s degree in philosophy from Oxford University and clerked on the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals. She holds a bachelor’s degree from Columbia University, a graduate degree from Columbia Journalism School, and currently, is a fellow at the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia University. She is barred in California, New York and New Jersey. She also teaches First Amendment and media law at Berkeley Law School as an adjunct professor.

Participating Sessions

AFGHANISTAN IN CRISIS

As the Taliban swept back into power this month, the world witnessed a clamoring for escape among Afghans desperately trying to flee the return of the strict Islamist regime. At special risk were the often invisible corps of locals who make the work of foreign journalists and filmmakers possible. They include local employees of news organizations, fixers, interpreters, drivers, and others, without whom the world would know little of Afghanistan....