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THE ROLE OF LOCAL JOURNALISM IN A HEALTHY DEMOCRACY: An Advocacy Panel Discussion
May 24, 2022 @ 7:00 pm - 8:30 pm
As local news sources decline nationwide, a growing proportion of Americans are getting their news via social media and online platforms. Our panel will discuss the importance of a robust network of local journalism to maintain an informed population that contributes to a healthy democracy. Expert panelists include a Pulitzer Prize-winning local journalist, a professor of journalism that specializes in media bias and disinformation, and a communications specialist representing the Institute for Nonprofit News. Join us as they share their knowledge and expertise about the crucial role of local media in breaking stories that resonate with their communities, build trust in journalism as a whole, and connect national news stories at a local level that helps bring humanity and relevance to the headlines.
Panelists: Sharene Azimi, Dr. Mallory Perryman, Michael Paul Williams
Moderator: Roben Farzad
When: Tuesday, May 24 | 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm Eastern | Online via Zoom
Cost: $5 registration fee will be donated to the The Institute for Nonprofit News
Location: Online, in the comfort of your own home. Via the Zoom Platform
Registration closes at midnight, on May 23. The link to join will be emailed to you the the morning of the program.
PANELISTS:
As communications director at Institute for Nonprofit News (INN), Sharene Azimi promotes the work of the INN network to funders, partners and other external audiences while bringing INN members’ news and resources from the field of public service journalism. She edits the weekly INNovation newsletter and oversees all of INN’s communications channels. Prior to joining INN in 2020, Sharene spent a decade as founder and principal of Mission Communications, providing organizational strategy, branding, communications planning, and marketing services to non-profits, universities, and foundations. She holds a master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University.
Mallory Perryman (Ph.D., Wisconsin-Madison) is an assistant professor of broadcast journalism in the Robertson School of Media and Culture at Virginia Commonwealth University. Her research focuses on public trust in news with an emphasis on perceptions of media bias. She is the author of Mediated Democracy: Politics, the News, and Citizenship in the 21st Century, in addition to dozens of academic studies examining why Americans (dis)trust the press. A former TV news producer at KOMU-8 and Newsy, Perryman teaches broadcast journalism courses at VCU.
Michael Paul Williams is a metro columnist whose opinion pieces appear on the Op-Ed page of the Richmond Times-Dispatch. Williams, a Richmond native, is a graduate of Virginia Union University and Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism. He has won Virginia Press Association awards for column writing in 1992, 1994, 2007 and 2014. During 1999-2000, he was one of two dozen U.S. and international journalists awarded a Nieman Fellowship at Harvard University. And in 2021, he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Commentary “for penetrating and historically insightful columns that guided Richmond, the former capital of the Confederacy, through the painful and complicated process of dismantling the city’s monuments to white supremacy.” He was the 2010 recipient of the George Mason Award for outstanding contributions to Virginia journalism, given by the Virginia Pro Chapter of the Society for Professional Journalists. This was the same year that readers of Richmond Magazine voted him as “best local columnist” — 16 years after he was their choice as the “Local Newspaper Columnist Who Makes You Want to Tear Up the Paper.” Williams is proud of both awards. He has also received a 2012 Humanitarian Award from the Virginia Center for Inclusive Communities and the 2014 Will Rogers Humanitarian Award from the National Society of Newspaper Columnists — the latter for work that has positively affected readers’ lives and produced tangible benefits for the community.
MODERATOR:
Roben Farzad hosts Full Disclosure on public radio. He regularly appears on MSNBC, NPR, and C-SPAN and is the author of Hotel Scarface: Where Cocaine Cowboys Partied and Plotted to Control Miami. He is a graduate of Princeton and the Harvard Business School.
About the Institute for Nonprofit News:
The Institute for Nonprofit News strengthens and supports more than 360 independent news organizations in a new kind of news network: nonprofit, nonpartisan and dedicated to public service. From local news to in-depth reporting on pressing global issues, INN’s members tell stories that otherwise would go untold – connecting communities, holding the powerful accountable and strengthening democracy. INN programs help these news organizations develop revenue and business models to support strong reporting, collaborate on editorial and business innovation, share services and advance the diverse leaders who are forging a new future for news.
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