Media Accountability in a Fractured Information Landscape
Featuring Meenakshi Ravi of Al Jazeera English-UK

Schedule

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About the Keynote Speaker:

Meenakshi Ravi is a journalist at Al Jazeera English who has been with the channel since it first went on air in 2006. Her work centers on the power and role of media, South Asian affairs and global politics, with a consistent focus on questioning who holds influence and whose voices go unheard. She currently works as an Executive Producer in the Programmes department at Al Jazeera English, overseeing content that challenges dominant narratives and brings underreported perspectives to the fore. Beyond the newsroom, Meenakshi regularly serves on the juries of major media awards, including the Royal Television Society Awards and The Orwell Prize, helping to recognise and shape high-quality journalism. She is also committed to mentoring and nurturing emerging journalistic talent. 

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About the Panelists:

Wilfredo Miranda Aburto (Nicaragua, 1991) is an independent journalist and co-founder of the digital outlet Divergentes. He is a regular contributor to the Spanish newspaper El País and has written for The Guardian as well as for various media outlets across Ibero-America. He has lived in exile in Costa Rica since 2018. In 2023, the Nicaraguan government stripped him of his nationality and confiscated all his assets. Previously, he worked for the investigative outlet Confidencial and the television program Esta Semana. His reporting focuses on politics and human rights, with particular emphasis on forced displacement, exile, Indigenous land trafficking, environmental degradation, mining conflicts, and extrajudicial executions. He has conducted regional and international reporting across Central America, Mexico, and the United States, covering migration flows, border enforcement, transnational repression, and the humanitarian consequences of displacement. His investigative work has earned numerous international awards, including the King of Spain International Journalism Award (2018), the Ortega y Gasset Journalism Award (2022), the Inter American Press Association Award (2022, 2024), and the Pedro Joaquín Chamorro National Journalism Award (six times). He has also received recognition from the International Center for Journalists (ICFJ) and the Diego Portales Journalism Award from the University of Chile, among other honors. 

 

Dr. Stephanie Craft is a Professor of Journalism and Associate Dean for Academic Affairs in the College of Media at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Her research, which focuses on press practices and performance, journalism ethics and news media literacy, has appeared in a number of journals including Journal of Mass Media Ethics and Journalism: Theory, Practice and Criticism, and in the Handbook of Media Ethics and Journalism Ethics: A Philosophical Approach, published by Routledge and Oxford, respectively. Before earning a doctorate at Stanford University, Craft worked as a newspaper journalist.  

 

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About the Moderators

Dr. A.Jay Wagner is an associate professor of journalism and media studies at Marquette University. His primary academic interests are government transparency, access to government information and the democratic role of journalism.

His research is focused on freedom of information (FOI): the legal and social locus of government accountability. Dr. Wagner has won scholarly awards from AEJMC, NCA, NFOIC and from the Diederich College of Communication.

For the past seven years, Dr. Wagner has taught a wide range of journalism, critical media and government information courses to undergraduate and graduate students. He taught similar courses at Indiana University, Butler University and Bradley University. Prior and during grad school, Dr. Wagner worked professionally as a journalist, primarily writing for the Southtown Star and Sun-Times Media in the Chicagoland and the Herald Times in Bloomington, Indiana. 

 

Juan Carlos Ampié is a news producer with over 20 years of experience working in Esta Semana, Nicaragua's top television newsmagazine. Ampie is the co-founder of the printed alternative weekly newspaper La Brújula Semanal. He was a university instructor in television production at Universidad Centroamericana de Nicaragua and Esta Semana's production workshops. He has also worked as a producer at Telemundo NBC. Ampie has over 20 years of experience writing film criticism in Spanish and English. Currently publishes at Popflick.com's The Indie Blog.

 

Dr. Sudeshna Roy is the Lucius W. Nieman Chair of Journalism and a leading scholar in media representation, journalism research, intercultural communication and peace and conflict studies. Her research centers on amplifying marginalized voices, particularly immigrants, migrants, refugees and diaspora populations, while challenging systemic biases in journalism and media. Through critical discourse analysis, she examines the cultural politics of ethnic and racial identities, with a focus on the Global South.

 

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About the Nieman Symposium

The Lucius W. Nieman Symposium, named after the founder of The Milwaukee Journal, Lucius W. Nieman, is an annual event sponsored by the J. William and Mary Diederich College of Communication. 

The Nieman Symposium and Speaker Series is currently chaired by Dr. Sudeshna Roy, Associate Professor of Journalism and Media Studies. Past Nieman Chairs include Dr. Ana Garner, Professor of Journalism; Dr. Bonnie Brennen, former Professor of Journalism at Marquette University; Philip Seib, Professor of Journalism at USC Annenberg; Richard H. Leonard of The Milwaukee Journal; Albion Ross of The New York Times; and Scott Klug, former U. S. congressman and CEO of Trails Media Group.