[VIRTUAL] Free Speech Live!: Emerging Threats to Press Freedom and Transparency Journalism

An online forum hosted by PEN America’s Free Expression and Education program as part of our biweekly student-centered evening workshop series, Free Speech Live!

Transparency journalism does not just happen without the dogged work of journalists and the courage of whistleblowers and others who work to ensure that the public learns what it has the right to know. This is why organizations like the Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) work to protect, defend, and empower public interest journalism in the 21st century by developing encryption tools, documenting attacks on the press, training newsrooms on digital security practices, and engaging in public advocacy. Looking ahead though, how will organizations like the FPF continue to do this work as concerns now mount over the so-called “metaverse”? What are other new threats young journalists and free expression advocates need to know of to safeguard their privacy and security?

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Join PEN America for this interactive online forum featuring a brief presentation, discussion, and Q&A session with Trevor Timm, co-founder and executive director of the Freedom of the Press Foundation, to discuss answers to questions about encrypted messaging and more. High school and college alumni of PEN America’s Institutes and other students are welcome to join.

Special Guest

Trevor Timm is a co-founder and the executive director of the Freedom of the Press Foundation, a nonprofit organization that protects and defends public interest journalism in the digital age. He is a journalist, advocate, and legal analyst whose writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Guardian, USA Today, The Atlantic, and The Intercept. Timm formerly worked as an activist at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Before that, he helped the longtime general counsel of The New York Times, James Goodale, write a book on the Pentagon Papers and the First Amendment. He received his J.D. from New York Law School.

Facilitators

Nicholas “Niko” Perez is the manager of free expression and education at PEN America. In this role, he advances PEN America’s efforts to catalyze a more informed, civic culture through free expression education for the rising generation and the general public, and supports advocacy, analysis, and outreach in the national debate around free speech and inclusion in higher education. Perez co-directs the Free Speech Advocacy Institute and hosts Free Speech Live!, a biweekly series of youth-oriented discussions focusing on contemporary issues related to free speech, open exchange, human rights, and democracy. Perez previously worked for the Columbia University Human Rights Advocates Program and consulted for the Human Rights Education and Training section at the United Nations.

Leila Markosian is the free expression and education program assistant at PEN America, supporting the Free Speech Advocacy Institute and its advocacy for free expression in educational institutions. She earned her BA in comparative literature with a focus on French and English texts from Middlebury College. Her honors thesis addressed colonization within the publishing industry, and she continues to be interested in how identity and platform constitute power. Before joining PEN America, Markosian served as program coordinator for the Page One Literacy Project, and interned at the New England Review.