International and U.S. journalists, university faculty and students, and foundation and media leaders came together recently in Washington, D.C., to address a critical gap in educating young Americans on the role of a free press in democratic societies.

The International Center for Journalists (ICFJ), Freedom Forum and Vanderbilt University organized the immersive two-day event, which was hosted at Freedom Forum’s headquarters, with support from Lumina Foundation. It featured opening remarks from Jason Rezaian, director of press freedom initiatives for The Washington Post, followed by roundtable and small group discussions. The event, which included about 50 people, culminated in recommendations for future collaborations.

To encourage open discussion, the event was held under the Chatham House Rule, which allows participants to share out what was said but without attribution. Here are five takeaways from the conversation.

1. International journalists have perspectives and experiences that are important for U.S. journalists – and all Americans – to hear.

In a conversation moderated by Rezaian, journalists from outside the U.S. described the increasingly repressive tactics they have faced amid democratic backsliding in their countries. Roundtable attendees said hearing from journalists who have navigated closing societies was eye-opening, especially amid growing concerns about press freedom in the United States.

In the most oppressive countries, independent journalism is essentially a crime punishable by jail. In others, the State has taken control of major media and universities. Elsewhere, reporters face growing threats of physical violence and “lawfare,” or legal attacks designed to silence their reporting.

“[Government actors] don’t want you to exist, so your sole existence as an independent journalist is an act of defiance against them,” one exiled journalist said of his home country.

Participants shared how they have adapted to these immense challenges. For example, in countries without independent universities, news outlets are now the training ground for the next generation of journalists. Journalists also talked about educating their audiences on how to access news sites online, amid government efforts to block them, and equipping citizens to gather information on the ground when reporters have had to flee. One emphasized the importance of journalists networking and resource-sharing: “If one media outlet is destroyed, there has to be another who will replace you.”

2. It’s harder than ever to ‘practice disagreement’ on campuses. And that’s just one of the challenges facing student journalists.

University students in attendance described the reluctance students feel today to share their opinions and even report on hot-button topics, for fear of reprisal from their peers and future harm to their careers. It can even discourage students from working in journalism and other public service jobs, participants said. “Educational institutions have the responsibility to show people that they can take the courageous path, which is the path of public service, that they can say things that are unpopular – unpopular to other students, unpopular to the administration, unpopular to the board,” one student said.

Harassment from fellow students was just one challenge student journalists cited at the roundtable. Animosity from administrators and ongoing struggles with funding were others, even as student publications play an increasingly important role for communities with no other local news coverage. 

“Our student publication has been operating in debt for years,” one student said. 

Participants suggested integrating media education into K-12 curricula and establishing support networks and communication channels for student journalists to connect with one another. Students also said they would benefit from more support pushing back on censorship and accessing public records, two issues that are integral to promoting press freedom at colleges and universities. 
 

3. Reaching audiences is hard, but not impossible – and news creators are leading the way. 

Journalists are searching for ways to build audiences, at a time of declining trust in media and a fractured information landscape. Media consumers tend to trust and return to sources that offer confirmation bias, participants noted, and the stakes are high: “People don’t use news to develop their worldview so much as they consume news to affirm their worldview,” one participant said.

To build trust, news outlets need to commit to deeply understanding their audiences. “If we don’t know who we are serving, then it is really hard to serve them well,” said one media founder from outside the U.S., adding that journalists can learn from news content creators. “They have a monopoly on reaching the people we need to reach,” she said. The successful ones create feedback loops with their followers and employ metric-driven strategies that optimize social media algorithms.

Journalists also face well-orchestrated campaigns casting them as enemies of the people – propaganda that is challenging to combat. International journalists suggested that news outlets adopt “radical transparency” and take the time to cover the stories of people’s lives, so that audience members see themselves represented accurately and fairly. “Then they will question the propaganda.”

4. AI will transform the information economy in ways we cannot yet describe.

Journalists, students, employers, job seekers – everyone is using artificial intelligence more. One professor, for example, explained how she asks students to use AI tools and then provide a critique of the responses they receive. Students described using ChatGPT like Wikipedia – an information source that should be corroborated. And one professor shared that one of her students was interviewed for a job by an AI bot.

The group discussed how AI use will evolve. Citing a mapping exercise her organization conducted, one attendee said society is currently in “the efficiency phase,” with people using these tools to make existing tasks more efficient. Eventually we will have a fundamentally different information economy – one we don’t even have the language for today. The transformation will be bigger than with social media, she said.

Along the way, there will be “signals” that we are moving from the efficiency phase to a transition phase to a new ecosystem phase: For example, when we start using AI to address entirely new problems created by the evolving technology.

In this context, it is vital to bring technologists who are building AI tools into rooms “like this one,” one participant said. Others raised how important it is for college journalism programs to take an interdisciplinary approach, exposing students to data science and more.
 

5. Preparing the next generation of journalists requires some radical rethinking.

Young journalists today encounter limited job prospects and pay, as news outlets face continued financial hardship. Unlike earlier generations of reporters, they also enter the profession at a time of heightened distrust in media, online violence against journalists and advancements in artificial intelligence that are transforming how news outlets operate.

Attendees touched on all these issues, but also noted just how much young people have to offer the profession and the broader public. Young reporters are adept at storytelling in today’s digital environment. As student reporters, they also fill gaps in coverage, by providing accountability reporting on their universities to national audiences and local news for the extended communities off campus.

Roundtable attendees emphasized the need to update curricula to, for example, equip young journalists to protect themselves from threats, collaborate with data scientists and other technologists, and understand the business side of the profession. Participants discussed the importance of immersive, hands-on experience for student journalists and of connecting U.S. students to international journalists to learn from their experiences and insights.

A smaller working group on the second day explored what that could look like, including, for example, reporting collaborations between student journalists in the U.S. and exiled media that operate near universities. Like student media, exiled media often serve local communities in the U.S. – the diaspora.

These efforts and others – such as bringing international journalists to university communities for a speaker series, for example – would not only better prepare student journalists, but deepen understanding of press freedom and the role of the First Amendment to the larger university communities and beyond.