Journalists continue to be a target from this president. Newsrooms have been threatened by violence and shifting economics. Employment has dropped by a quarter since 2008, with newspapers seeing the greatest decline. Yet Americans still say they still want a strong community connection through the media. In our shifting and shrinking industry, we all have questions about the future of our newsrooms, and we find ourselves looking to our leaders for answers. But what’s it like to be the leader of a news organization navigating the changes at hand? What innovations do they think will work to help save us and what threats are coming? Hear from some of the news industry’s top leaders about the state of our profession and the future of our craft and come ready to ask your most pressing questions.
Moderator: Laura Sydell
Panelists: Jason Anders, Sally Buzbee, Arlyn Gajilan, Sonari Glinton, Karen Hawkins, Chad Matthews, Sean McLaughlin, Rand Morrison, Whembley Sewell
JASON ANDERS is chief news editor at the Wall Street Journal, where he oversees their daily news report. Anders has been at WSJ for nearly 20 years. He was one of the WSJ’s first online reporters and wrote about the early days of online investing. He went on to cover technology and politics from New York and Washington, and eventually served as technology editor and then business editor. He previously worked at the Chicago Tribune. Anders lives with his partner in Brooklyn.
SALLY BUZBEE is the executive editor and senior vice president of The Associated Press. She led the AP’s Washington bureau for six years and was AP’s Middle East regional editor based in Cairo from 2004 to 2009, leading coverage of the Iraq war, Iran and other Mideast issues. She previously was a reporter and editor in Washington D.C., Los Angeles, San Diego, Kansas City and Topeka, covering issues including business, education, politics and national security. She is a journalism graduate of the University of Kansas and holds an MBA from Georgetown University.
ARLYN GAJILAN is deputy managing editor for operations, Americas at Reuters. Gajilan helps manage the news agency’s bureaus from Toronto to Santiago and San Francisco to New York. She works across a range of newsroom priorities including recruiting new talent, diversity initiatives and special projects, as well as editorial security and safety. Prior to joining Reuters, she has worked as a senior editor at Newsweek, Forbes.com, Condé Nast, Time and Fortune. She is a graduate of Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and Hampshire College.
A reporter and producer, SONARI GLINTON, the founder of DeLite! Media, served as a correspondent on NPR’s Business Desk and the ground-breaking NPR podcast “Planet Money.” Glinton began in journalism as producer at WBEZ followed by NPR’s “All Things Considered.” He also began a more than decade-long relationship with Youth Radio, mentoring, teaching and reporting NPR stories with teens. Glinton has been recognized by the Society of Professional Journalists for investigative reporting for his role in uncovering abuse and corruption in Cook County juvenile system, which led to widespread reform in the system. Most recently he received the Edward R. Murrow Award for investigative reporting into President Trump’s business practices. He serves as an adviser to The Elie Wiesel Center for Jewish Studies at Boston University.
CHAD MATTHEWS is the vice president and news director at WABC Eyewitness News New York. A 12-year veteran of WABC, Matthews previously worked as assistant news director. He has also worked at NBC Miami, where he was assistant news director. Matthews oversees all news gathering and presentation of local news across all of the WABC’s platforms.
SEAN MCLAUGHLIN is vice president of news for The E.W. Scripps Company. His focus is journalistic excellence, audience relevance and digital platforms. Prior to this position, he served as executive news director and creative services director at KMOV in St. Louis. He has additional news management experiences in Minneapolis, Tulsa, Oklahoma and Springfield, Illinois. McLaughlin has a bachelor’s degree in political science and mass communications from Minnesota State University.
RAND MORRISON is the executive producer of “CBS Sunday Morning.” He is the winner of 11 Emmy Awards, two George Foster Peabody Awards and two Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Awards. Under Morrison’s leadership, “CBS Sunday Morning” has earned four Daytime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Morning Program. Before joining “CBS Sunday Morning” in 1999, he served as executive producer of CBS News Productions. Prior to that, Morrison served in senior management positions on several CBS News magazines, including senior broadcast producer for “Public Eye with Bryant Gumbel” and “48 Hours,” and senior producer for “Eye to Eye with Connie Chung.” Before joining “48 Hours,” Morrison was a producer for the Weekend Editions of the “CBS Evening News” and served as a broadcast producer for the “CBS Morning News.” He joined CBS News in 1982 as a writer for “Nightwatch,” the overnight news broadcast, after having held a variety of positions at the Associated Press and United Press International.
WHEMBLEY SEWELL is the Executive Editor of Them, Condé Nast’s LGBTQ+ publication. She is an award-winning multimedia content producer, having formerly overseen social growth and digital innovation at publications including Teen Vogue, Refinery29 and Seventeen Magazine.
LAURA SYDELL has spent nearly thirty years in journalism and most of the last 20 covering the tech that’s changing our lives for NPR. Her stories and investigations take the esoteric and mundane of Silicon Valley and bring it down to Earth. Laura’s groundbreaking and award-winning reporting has ranged from watching the launch of the iPhone, to breaking the story on patent trolls for the Planet Money podcast, and listening to more startup pitches than a VC funder. Laura began her illustrious career at NPR’s largest member station, WNYC, and as the senior technology reporter for American Public Media’s popular radio program, “Marketplace.”