On Tuesday, February 2, the World Press Institute (WPI) presented its first webinar of 2021: The Impact of the COVID Pandemic on Press Freedom.
The moderator was Kaius Niemi (Senior Editor-in-Chief, Helsingin Sanomat in Helsinki and WPI board member) and the panelists were Barbara Trionfi (Executive Director, International Press Institute, Vienna) and Pauline Adès-Mével (Editor-in-Chief & Spokesperson, Reporters Without Borders, Paris).
This webinar came on the heels of a successful two-part series of webinars at the end of last year about the historic 2020 U.S. presidential election, featuring The Atlantic‘s James Fallows and the Center for Investigative Reporting’s Michael Montgomery.
WPI will be hosting subsequent webinars throughout the year to complement its in-person programming, including resuming its U.S. journalism fellowship program and holding the postponed New Horizons in Journalism Conference in Sofia, Bulgaria.
These webinars are made possible in part through the support of our partner, the America for Bulgaria Foundation.
Panelist Biographies
Kaius Niemi is the Senior Editor-in-Chief of the leading Finnish newspaper, Helsingin Sanomat. He began his journalistic career as a foreign reporter, a job that took him into various conflict zones all around the world. Niemi has worked also as the Editor-in-Chief of the evening newspaper Ilta-Sanomat and online financial daily Taloussanomat. He is a member of the Executive Board of the International Press Institute, a WPI board member, and was a WPI fellow in the U.S. in 2003.
Barbara Trionfi is Executive Director at the Vienna-based International Press Institute (IPI), a global network of editors, media executives and leading journalists dedicated to safeguarding and fostering media freedom and promoting quality, independent journalism. Barbara has been researching and working on issues related to press freedom and quality journalism for over 25 years.
Pauline Adès-Mével joined Reporters Without Borders (RSF) in 2016 where she was monitoring the freedom to information and reporting violations of the rights of journalists and the media in the European Union’s 28 member states and the six Balkan countries, candidates for admission to the EU. She is now acting as spokesperson for the organization and Editor-in-Chief.