Around the world, journalists face increasing pressure — from censorship, disinformation and violence to the erosion of public trust and democratic norms. Please join us for a special panel event that will explore attacks on the free press (and journalists) and why a resilient media is essential to democracy.
Hosted by Charles Whitaker, Dean of Medill, the panel will feature Ginger Thompson (managing editor at ProPublica), Medill alumni Margaret Sullivan (executive director of the Craig Newmark Center for Journalism Ethics and Security at Columbia Journalism School – MSJ80), and Sabrina Siddiqui (National Correspondent, The Wall Street Journal – BSJ08) and will be moderated by PEN America’s director for digital safety and free expression Viktorya Vilk.
The program will be followed by a networking reception with food and beverages in the theater event space.
As the media industry experiences unprecedented change, Northwestern Medill leads the way in preparing for it. We’re training a new generation of multimedia journalists, communicators and marketers who aren’t only thriving in this evolving media landscape but also helping shape it. Our innovative teaching and research focus on enduring skills and values as well as new techniques and technologies that are changing the way stories are told and consumed in today’s digital world. As we enter our second century, our experience in leading these disciplines is unparalleled. Medill’s expertise extends beyond teaching to the field of academic research, where our faculty are thought leaders who continually develop new theories, applications and scholarly work in journalism and IMC.
Margaret Sullivan is a columnist for the Guardian US and the executive director of the Craig Newmark Center for Journalism Ethics and Security at Columbia Journalism School. She also writes the ‘American Crisis’ newsletter on Substack. She was the longest serving public editor at the New York Times and the first woman in that role. She also was the Washington Post media columnist and the chief editor of her hometown daily, The Buffalo News, where she began her career as a summer intern after graduating from Medill. The author of two acclaimed books, she lives in Manhattan.
Sabrina Siddiqui is a national politics reporter at The Wall Street Journal, where she covers the Trump administration. She has reported on U.S. politics for more than a decade, covering the Biden, Trump, and Obama administrations, as well as every national election since 2010. She is also a regular political commentator on television networks including CNN, MSNBC, CBS News, NewsNation, and the BBC and has hosted podcasts at WSJ and The Guardian.
Ginger Thompson is a managing editor at ProPublica. A Pulitzer Prize winner, she previously spent 15 years at The New York Times, including time as a Washington correspondent and as an investigative reporter whose stories revealed Washington’s secret role in Mexico’s fight against drug traffickers. Thompson served as the Mexico City Bureau Chief for both The Times and The Baltimore Sun. While at The Times, she covered Mexico’s transformation from a one-party state to a fledgling multi-party democracy and parachuted into breaking news events across the region, including Cuba, Haiti and Venezuela. For her work in the region, she was a finalist for The Pulitzer’s Gold Medal for Public Service. She won the Maria Moors Cabot Prize, the Selden Ring Award for investigative reporting, an InterAmerican Press Association Award, and an Overseas Press Club Award. Thompson was also part of a team of national reporters at The Times that was awarded a 2000 Pulitzer Prize for the series “How Race is Lived in America.”
Viktorya Vilk (she/her/hers) is the director for digital safety and free expression at PEN America. She created and runs the organization’s Online Abuse Defense Program, which equips writers and journalists with self-defense training and resources, partners with media organizations and publishers to strengthen protections for writers and journalists, and conducts research and advocacy on platform accountability. Her work has been featured on PBS Newshour, The New York Times, Slate, and Harvard Business Review, and she regularly speaks at conferences on digital safety and press freedom, including for the Online News Association, RightsCon, International Journalism Festival, Investigative Reporters and Editors, and MozFest, among others. Prior to joining PEN America, she worked on organizational strategy and development at the Art & Global Health Center Africa, a Malawian NGO that advocates for health and human rights through the arts. She has organized exhibitions, developed public programs, managed a collection re-installation project, and created innovative digital platforms showcasing art and architecture at the Jewish Museum, the Clark Art Institute, The Frick Collection, and the Courtauld Gallery. She completed graduate degrees, as a Marshall Scholar, at the University of London, and has over a decade of experience working in nonprofits to expand access to the arts and defend creative and press freedom.
Charles Whitaker is Dean and professor at Medill, where he previously served as the Helen Gurley Brown Professor, Associate Dean of Journalism, and a member of the faculty since 1992. Whitaker, who holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Medill, is the first alumnus to serve as dean of the school. Before joining the Medill faculty, Whitaker was a senior editor at Ebony magazine, where he covered a wide range of cultural, social, and political issues and events on four continents, including two U.S. presidential campaigns and the installation of the first black members of the British Parliament. Whitaker has led a prolific journalism career, working with institutions such as the Miami Herald and the Louisville (Ky.) Times, and contributing articles to the Chicago Tribune, The Chicago Sun-Times, Chicago Magazine, Jet Magazine, Essence Magazine, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Saturday Evening Post, Chicago Parent magazine, and Folio, the magazine of the magazine industry. Among Whitaker’s many notable roles and endeavors, he has authored four statistical analyses of the hiring of women and minorities in the magazine industry, co-directed Project Masthead (a program designed to encourage students of color to consider careers in the magazine industry), advised on diversity issues for the Magazine Publishers of America. He serves on the board of directors for numerous professional organizations, including the American Society of Magazine Editors, the Center for Public Integrity, the Prison Journalism Project, The Evanston RoundTable, and Block Club Chicago.