The First Latin American Conference on Diversity in Journalism will have 19 speakers from Latin America and the United States in four thematic sessions and two special tables (one at the opening and one at the close) on March 26 and 27, 2021, as announced by the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas.
Sponsored by Google News Initiative, the Knight Center event will be completely online and free, but prior registration is required. Those who attend at least the four main thematic sessions will be able to receive a free certificate of participation.
The pioneering conference will open with two special presentations. Jamile Santana, journalism manager at Énois Conteúdo, of Brazil, will speak about a program to promote diversity in journalism in her country and about creating a methodology to determine the level of diversity in a newsroom. Ruthy Muñoz, a contributing journalist for Skift and palabraNAHJ in the United States, will talk about the long history of the struggle of U.S. journalists for diversity in media.
Next, there will be four main thematic panels. On Friday, March 26, the panels will be on Gender and Sexual Orientation. The two main panels on Saturday will be on Racial and Ethnic Issues and on Disability.
In the special closing session, on Saturday, March 27, Argentine journalist Liza Gross, vice president of practice changes for Solution Journalism Network, in the United States, will meet with the director and founder of the Knight Center, Professor Rosental Alves, and journalist Mariana Alvarado, for a discussion with the participants on the main issues addressed during the two days of the conference.
View the complete program and the list of speakers. Register here!
“The issues of diversity, equity and inclusion are on the agenda in many parts of the world and may be arriving a bit late in certain areas of Latin American journalism, but now is the time. And we are happy to be able to contribute with this pioneering conference,” Rosental Alves said.
The aim of the conference, Alves added, is to promote diversity and inclusion in the news that is published and in the newsrooms that produce that news. Also, the idea is to hear the personal experiences of some fellow Latin American journalists who have promoted the coverage of these issues.
Following the special presentation that opens the conference on Friday, March 26, two thematic panels will be held. The first is at 10:00 am, Texas time, and will be on the subject of Gender. Belén Arce, editorial director of Chicas Poderosas, will participate as moderator; Ale Higareda, director of Malvestida.com; Lucía Solis, gender editor of Grupo La República and Luz Mely Reyes, co-founder of Efecto Cocuyo, are panelists.
That same day, at 2:00 p.m., the panel on Sexual Orientation will be held, with Cristian Alarcón, writer, journalist and founder of Anfibia magazine and the site Cosecha Roja, as moderator. Panelists will be Eladio González, general editor of Expansión in Mexico; Lina Cuellar, director and co-founder of Sentiido, from Colombia; and Caê Vasconcelos, reporter at Ponte, of Brazil.
On Saturday, March 27, the conference begins at 10:00 am with the panel on Ethnic and Racial Issues. It will be moderated by Marco Avilés, writer, journalist and contributor to the Washington Post and Ojo-Público. Panelists will be María Teresa Juárez, scriptwriter, creator and head of the area of training and innovation of Periodistas de a Pie in Mexico; Paula Cesarino, former diversity editor at Folha de S. Paulo, Brazil; and Pedro Cayuqueo, Mapuche writer and journalist from Chile.
The fourth and final panel, on Saturday, March 27, will be on Disability and will be moderated by Priscila Hernández, academic, journalist and contributor to the magazine Nexos in Mexico. As panelists will be Verónica Gonzalez, communication coordinator of the National Disability Agency in Argentina; Andrea Medina, from www.integradoschile.cl; and Andrea Burga, creator of the blog ConCapacidad in Peru.
The conference is directed at Spanish-speaking journalists, journalism students, academics and editors interested in Diversity issues.
The Knight Center hosts this event after bringing together nearly 2,000 students from 50 countries for the online course "Diversity in the News and Newsrooms." The conference is sponsored by the Google News Initiative, which also supported the MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) that took place from Jan.11 to Feb. 7, 2021.
Don't forget to register here for the First Latin American Conference on Diversity in Journalism.
