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Nearly 1,000 people from 74 countries attended ISOJ’s 25th anniversary to discuss future of journalism

Journalists, media executives and scholars from around the world gathered online and in Austin, Texas, April 12-13, for the 25th International Symposium on Online Journalism (ISOJ).

People join around a cake

ISOJ attendees celebrate the 25th anniversary of the conference at the Moody Party. (Patricia Lim/Knight Center)

Nearly 1,000 people from 74 countries – from Afghanistan to Venezuela – attended the 25th ISOJ, hosted and organized by the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas at the University of Texas at Austin’s Moody College of Communication. There were 412 attendees in Austin and 567 online.

The conference, which was held in English with simultaneous interpretation to Spanish, featured 79 speakers from 20 countries. The program included three keynote sessions, 11 panels, five breakfast- and lunchtime workshops and a research session.

This year’s ISOJ also included a series of innovative features to enhance engagement of both in person attendees and online participants, who had access to more than just the usual live video streaming. ISOJ debuted a Slack workspace with nine channels –including one in Spanish– for in-person and virtual participants to communicate and network with each other and with speakers.

Additionally, virtual participants could log in for six meet-and-greet sessions – two in Spanish and four in English. Those sessions allowed remote attendees to have a direct conversation with ISOJ speakers on Zoom and the chance to ask questions about their panel presentations.

Recordings from the 25th ISOJ in English and Spanish were quickly posted after the sessions, allowing attendees to access panels or keynotes they missed due to time differences or other reasons. Those recordings are now available to registrants and will later be shared publicly. They will be part of the amazing section “All Symposia” page on the ISOJ website, a unique repository of 25 years of contemporary testimonials from journalists, media executives and scholars on the evolution of digital journalism.

Our ISOJ editorial team is still hard at work publishing and translating articles about each session, which can be found at isoj.org/news in English and Spanish. Thanks to the team at LatAm Journalism Review, the Knight Center’s digital magazine on journalism in the Americas, you can find coverage of ISOJ in Portuguese here.

Be sure to also check out the innovative coverage of keynotes, panels and meet-and-greets from our social media team on Instagram​, X/Twitter, Facebook​ and LinkedIn​.

Each year, ISOJ also plays host for another exciting hybrid event for Spanish-speaking conference participants: the Ibero American Colloquium on Digital Journalism. The Knight Center marked the 17th year of this exciting conference on journalism innovation and press freedom in Latin America, Spain and Portugal on April 14. The 17th Colloquium featured 31 speakers from 13 countries throughout the Americas.

Participants of the 17th Ibero American Colloquium on Digital Journalism.

Participants of the 17th Ibero American Colloquium on Digital Journalism celebrate after a fun day. (Patricia Lim/Knight Center)

A recording of the Colloquium is posted on our YouTube channel. Coverage of the Colloquium will be posted at isoj.org/news in the coming days.

The Knight Center wants to thank the sponsors of the 25th Anniversary of ISOJ: Knight FoundationGoogle News InitiativeInternational Fund for Public Interest Media (IFPIM); Type NetworkCenter for News, Technology and Innovation (CNTI); John S. Knight (JSK) Journalism Fellowships at Stanford University; Moody College of Communication at UT Austin; Newspack; and the News Product Alliance (NPA).

We also want to express our gratitude to our media and organization partners: The Dallas Morning NewsKUTInter-American Press AssociationThe Texas TribuneAustin American-StatesmanTexas Press Association (TPA); The Daily TexanOnline News Association (ONA); and CONNECTAS.

ISOJ is also made possible thanks to the help of more than 40 volunteers, most of whom are students from the Moody College of Communication.

The Knight Center is already planning for the 26th ISOJ, so keep an eye on isoj.org and social media for next year’s dates!

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