Life after virality and elite interventions: do we still need small news publishers?
Sat 18 April 2026
15:00
Free
Calculating distance...
Over the past two decades, the need for small news publishers has been justified for at least three reasons:
> The need for investigative journalism at a time when legacy media was shedding investigative capacity (the so-called ProPublica model)
> Algorithmic distribution on social media meant a small newsroom could reach massive audiences without investing too much in media infrastructure (the BuzzFeed News model)
> The "Impact over Audience" model that held that journalism can have outsized impact by simply reaching very specific audiences who could work the legal system to seek redress (what we call the Elite Intervention model).
Today, as legacy newsrooms in many parts of the world invest in investigative capacity as a means to drive subscriptions, social media audiences evaporate with little to replace them, and the independence of legal systems erode as part of democratic backsliding, what purpose can/should small, independent, news publishers serve?
This question is particularly urgent and important at a time when, in much of the world, the US government's retreat from foreign aid across multiple sectors (from media to health to essential services) has forced the philanthropy sector to re-evaluate how media fits within their broader portfolios.
Moderated by Anup Kaphle.
Organised in association with Rest of World.
Modified more than a month ago
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Anup Kaphle
Anup Kaphle is the editor-in-chief at Rest of World, an international publication that challenges expectations about whose experience with technology matters. Since its launch in 2020, Rest of World has published over 1,000 stories, primarily written by local correspondents, from more than 100 countries. Prior to joining Rest of World, Anup was the editor-in-chief of the Kathmandu Post in Nepal, where he managed the country's largest English-language newsroom. Before that, Kaphle spent a decade in U.S. newsrooms, including six years at The Washington Post, where he worked on the foreign desk as the digital editor. He ran international news coverage at BuzzFeed News as the deputy foreign editor and led the editorial team at Roads & Kingdoms, an award-winning digital media producing stories at the intersection of food and international reporting.
Julie Posetti
Julie Posetti is VP of Global Research at the International Center for Journalists (ICFJ) and Professor of Journalism at City, University of London. She is a multi award-winning internationally published Australian journalist and academic with over three decades of experience. Posetti leads the Online Violence Project and research for the Disarming Disinformation Project at ICFJ. She has also led several major UN-commissioned studies in the fields of disinformation, freedom of expression and the safety of journalists. She is the author of Protecting Journalism Sources in the Digital Age (UNESCO, 2017), lead author of The Chilling: A Global Study of Online Violence Against Women Journalists (UNESCO/ICFJ: 2022) and Guidelines for Monitoring Online Violence Against Female Journalists (OSCE, 2023), and co-author of Journalism, 'Fake News' and Disinformation (UNESCO, 2018) and Balancing Act: Countering Digital Disinformation While Respecting Freedom of Expression (UNESCO, 2020). She is ...
Aman Sethi
Aman Sethi is editor-in-chief of openDemocracy. Before joining openDemocracy he was deputy executive editor at HuffPost. Before that he was the executive editor for strategy at BuzzFeed, editorial director with Coda Media, editor-in-chief of HuffPost India, associate editor with the Hindustan Times, and foreign correspondent (Africa) and Chhattisgarh correspondent with The Hindu. His award-winning reportage both in India and around the world has touched on some of the most pressing issues of our time, such as migration, land grabs, labour rights, public health, nationalism, democracy and insurgency. He is the author of the critically acclaimed non-fiction book A Free Man: A True Story of Life and Death in Delhi.
Natalia Viana
Natalia Viana is the co-founder and executive director of Agência Pública, Latin America’s largest nonprofit newsroom. She leads long-term investigations and multimedia projects about human rights violations and her team has won 80 awards for its excellence in journalism. A 2022 Nieman Fellow at Harvard, she is the author and co-author of five books about political violence and social issues in Latin America. Her latest, O Vazamento (""The Leak"") brings a personal perspective of the WikiLeaks release of US Diplomatic Cables in 2010. Natalia is a board member of the Gabo Foundation, an organization founded by the Colombian writer Gabriel García Márquez dedicated to promoting better journalism and the stimulation of creativity, of the Center of Media Integrity of the OAS, of CLIP, the Latin American Investigative Journalism Center, and of Conectas Direitos Humanos, Brazil's largest Human Rights NGO.
Festival Internazionale del Giornalismo
Il Festival Internazionale del Giornalismo di Perugia è un evento annuale che riunisce professionisti dei media, esperti di comunicazione e appassionati di informazione da tutto il mondo. Si svolge nel centro storico di Perugia e offre conferenze, dibattiti, workshop e opportunità di networking sui temi più rilevanti del giornalismo contemporaneo.