International Journalism Festival 2025: ‘The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born’
- Jonathan Heawood and Beckie Shuker
- Apr 24
- 3 min read
Updated: May 2
Jonathan Heawood and Beckie Shuker reflect on their visit to the International Journalism Festival 2025
Jonathan Heawood, Executive Director
The International Journalism Festival in Perugia is one of the highlights of my year. Every April, hundreds of journalism thinkers and doers come together for five days of talks and workshops, fuelled by litres of cappuccino and kilos of pasta.
This year’s festival had a strange atmosphere, as participants grappled with the new threats facing independent journalism. In the past, there’s been a clear dividing line between journalists in conflict zones like Ukraine and Palestine and journalists in places like the United States.
This year, the dynamic was different. I spoke to one Ukrainian journalist who is holding Zelensky’s government to account without fear or favour, whilst American reporters now face reprisals from the Trump administration simply for doing their jobs. One US participant told me that they were travelling with a burner phone, so as not to risk giving up their contacts to immigration officials when they re-enter the country.
On a more positive note, I was excited to hear about emerging funds for local news in Brazil, Canada and South Africa, as well as the growth of the Press Forward initiative in the US and the Media Forward initiative in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. It was also great to catch up with friends and contacts from the Netherlands, which has become a hotbed of journalism innovation. We have a lot to learn from our near neighbours.
Our own Beckie Shuker chaired a lively discussion about the role of journalism support organisations in strengthening local news (see below), and I was lucky enough to join a panel about how local news can meet community needs with Jim Brady of the Knight Foundation and Dale Anglin of Press Forward, chaired by Sarah Bishop Woods of the News Revenue Hub.
I also chaired a panel with Eliz Mizon of the Bristol Cable, Natalia Viana of Agencia Publica in Brazil and Simon Galperin of the Jersey Bee in the US, as part of our ongoing work on co-creational news media with Fabienne Peter at Warwick University, Rowan Cruft at Stirling University and Jay Howard at Oxford University.
Back at home, we’re working to turn the ideas and inspiration we found at Perugia into a stronger local news ecosystem for the UK.
Beckie Shuker, Campaign and Communications Manager
Unlike Jonathan, the veteran IJF attendee, this was my first year in Perugia. The huge diversity of panels and participants is frankly overwhelming!
Alongside networking events, magazine launches, dinners with panellists, coffee catch-ups and hurried hellos on cobbled streets, I went to as many panels as I could.
‘The future of local news: decline, resilience and the path forward’ highlighted incredible journalism being done in the US and Ukraine, by WhatsApp-based Conecta Arizona and Kyiv Independent. ‘Democracy defenders: a conversation with funders investing in independent journalism’ provided our blog title this week – with panellists recognising the importance of imagination and ideation for the future especially during times of crisis.
During ‘Rebuilding trust in the news ecosystem’ speakers talked about the importance of making editorial decisions based on the impact they can have on the area and remembering that trust from audiences needs to be earned.
‘Telling big tales on big tech with big data’ nearly made me delete Instagram on the spot – the scary takeaways being that we need to get more protective of our data and find more collaboration between campaigners, academics and journalists to match up to the threat of the broligarchy. However, it was incredibly affirming to take part in a ‘f*ck the patriarchy’ chant at the end of ‘Lessons from feminist investigative journalists around the world’!
It was spooky to hear that ‘All journalists are content creators’, where I was caught by photographers dashing out early to make it in time for the screening of No Other Land with a Q&A by journalist and co-director Yuval Abraham. The bright sunshine pouring in behind the screen only added to the highly uncomfortable viewing experience of the West Bank documentary.
Finally, on the last day I got to chair my own panel: Journalism intermediaries: in the way or here to stay? Joined by Dick Tofel, founder of ProPublica, along with Sarah Alvarez, Founder of the Outlier and Vera Penêda, Director of Programmes and Impact at the European Journalism Centre, we had a lively discussion questioning the value of journalism intermediaries.
My main takeaway from this extensive debate and deliberation is that now more than ever, we need to be collaborating as much as we possibly can to address the big existential questions facing journalism all over the world: trust, news avoidance and willingness to pay for news.
We need to build a strong and clear case for donors and governments that demonstrates the importance of local journalism and I'd love to work with campaigners and advocates who are already doing this across the world.
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