Event Details
Wednesday November 5, 2025 6:00 pmZoom
A discussion about the current onslaught on freedom of the press.
Join President Tom Fontana and your fellow WGAE members for a discussion about the current onslaught on freedom of the press. Slate’s Mary Harris will engage a panel of experts about how to respond to the curtailing of press freedom and attacks on journalists by the current administration. Members are encouraged to attend and share their own experiences.
Panelists
Katherine Jacobsen has been CPJ’s U.S. and Canada program coordinator since 2021. She joined CPJ in 2017 as the news editor. Previously, Jacobsen wrote for The Associated Press in Moscow where she reported on nuclear waste dumping, climbing HIV rates among drug users, and Russia’s air campaign in Syria. She has also worked in Ukraine where she covered the Maidan protests, Crimea’s annexation, the separatist takeover of Donetsk, and reform efforts in Kiev for outlets including Businessweek, U.S. News and World Report, Foreign Policy, and Al Jazeera English. Jacobsen has a bachelor’s degree in Slavic languages and literature from Northwestern University and a master’s of science in journalism from Columbia University. She speaks Russian and is proficient in French.
Jenna Leventoff is a Senior Policy Counsel at the ACLU, where she develops and advocates for policies related to protecting free speech and promoting robust access to communications tools. Prior to joining the ACLU, Jenna served as a Senior Policy Counsel at Public Knowledge where she advocated for universal access to affordable, reliable, broadband. Jenna also served as a Senior Policy Analyst for the Workforce Data Quality Campaign (WDQC) at the National Skills Coalition, where she led WDQC’s state policy advocacy and technical assistance efforts on state data system development and use. Jenna received her J.D, cum laude, and B.A from Case Western Reserve University.
Ryanne Mena is an LA-based journalist who reports on crime, public safety, and immigration issues for the Southern California News Group’s 11 publications. Some of her recent work looks into how unaccompanied minors navigate the complex system of immigration court, the June anti-ICE protests in LA, and how Southern Californian communities have worked to protect their neighbors during the intensified immigration raids. She previously interned on ProPublica’s data team through the Ida B. Wells Society for Investigative Reporting and at LAist, an NPR affiliate in Los Angeles. She earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism from California State University, Northridge, in 2022. During her time as the Managing Editor of The Daily Sundial, CSUN’s student-run news publication, she spearheaded a story focusing on the experiences of people formerly detained at an ICE detention center in Adelanto, Calif. That story was honored with an award from the Hearst Journalism Awards Program.
Viktorya Vilk (she/her/hers) is the director for digital safety and free expression at PEN America. She created and runs the organization’s Online Abuse Defense Program, which equips writers and journalists with self-defense resources and training, partners with media organizations and publishers to strengthen protections for writers and journalists, and conducts research and advocacy to hold technology companies accountable for online harms. Her work has been featured on PBS Newshour, The New York Times, Slate, and Harvard Business Review and she regularly speaks about digital safety and press freedom, including for the Online News Association, RightsCon, International Journalism Festival, and Journalism and Women’s Symposium, among others. She completed graduate degrees, as a Marshall Scholar, at the University of London, and has over a decade of experience working in nonprofits to expand access to the arts and defend creative and press freedom.
Mary Harris is the host of Slate’s daily news podcast “What Next,” where she talks to politicians, reporters, and everyday people about the ways the world around them is changing. She’s been hosting, editing, and reporting for more than two decades, first in broadcast news (ABC), then in public radio (WNYC), but Slate was the first shop where she was able to join a union. In 2022, she was a proud member of Slate’s bargaining committee, helping to usher in a fair contract with her colleagues. She’s won two Writers Guild Awards for her work.