Panelists and Participants

SEWELL CHAN is a senior fellow at the University of Southern California Annenberg Center on Communication Leadership and Policy, focusing on press freedom issues. Previously, Sewell served in 2024-25 as editor of the Columbia Journalism Review.

During Sewell’s tenure as editor in chief of The Texas Tribune, from 2021 to 2024, the Tribune won a National Magazine Award and a Collier Prize for State Government Accountability and was a Pulitzer finalist — all for the first time. It also won five national Edward R. Murrow Awards, two for overall excellence.

Before joining the Tribune, Sewell was previously a deputy managing editor and then the editorial page editor at the Los Angeles Times, where he oversaw coverage that was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing in 2021. Sewell worked at the New York Times from 2004 to 2018, as a metro reporter, Washington correspondent, deputy Op-Ed editor and international news editor. He began his career as a local reporter at the Washington Post in 2000, where he wrote about city government, juvenile justice, mental health and social services and also helped cover 9/11 and the Iraq War. Sewell has also written for The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Wall Street Journal and Nieman Reports.

DAVID FAHRENTHOLD is an investigative reporter for The New York Times, based in Washington and focused on the world of nonprofits. He joined The Times in 2022, after 21 years as a reporter for The Washington Post. In 2017, he won the Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting for his coverage of Donald Trump’s relationships with charities — including his own Donald J. Trump Foundation.

TAMIA FOWLKES is a public investigator and multimedia journalist at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Her reporting explores disability, labor, politics and culture with a focus on addressing wrongdoing and seeking accountability. Before joining JS, she completed internships at the Washington Post, the Rachel Maddow Show, USA TODAY NETWORK and the Wisconsin State Journal. Tamia previously served as an intern for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s Investigative Watchdog Team as a part of the Pulitzer Prize Finalist Wires and Fires Investigation.

TIMOTHY KARR is the senior director of strategy and communications at Free Press, where he’s helped create and lead campaigns on Net Neutrality, universal internet access and press freedom. Karr’s criticism, analysis and reporting on the media and media policy have been published in dozens of publications worldwide, including TIME, MSNBC, CNN, USA Today, The Guardian, The Chicago Tribune, The Jakarta Post, Al Ahram, The Japan Times, HuffPost and Bill Moyers & Co. Before joining Free Press, he served as executive director of MediaChannel.org and as vice president of Globalvision New Media. He’s worked throughout Southeast Asia as an editor, reporter and photojournalist for the Associated Press, Time, Inc., The New York Times and Australian Consolidated Press.

PHOEBE PETROVIC is a senior democracy researcher at Documented, an investigative watchdog and journalism project. She previously was a long-time investigative reporter at Wisconsin Watch and a Local Reporting Network fellow at ProPublica. She has covered extremism, disinformation, threats to democracy, focused on women and LGBTQ+ people, and everything in between. Her work has earned national recognition as a finalist for the Livingston Awards and Toner Prizes, among others. She also reported, produced, wrote and hosted an award-winning podcast called “Open and Shut,” about the power of the American prosecutor.

KARA SWISHER (@karaswisher) is host of “On with Kara Swisher” and co-host of the “Pivot” podcast. She’s editor-at-large at New York Magazine and a CNN contributor. Kara is the co-founder of the technology website, Recode, and tech conference, Code, which is the country’s premier conference on tech and media. Considered the top reporter in the tech game, Kara has been reporting on the industry since the early 1990s. Once called “Silicon Valley’s most feared but revered journalist,” Kara has established herself as the oracle of the tech world with unrivaled access to the industry’s most significant leaders. She’s the author of the New York Times bestselling memoir, “Burn Book: A Tech Love Story” (Simon & Schuster, February 2024).

CHRISTA WESTERBERG is an attorney and partner at Pines Bach LLP in Madison, Wisconsin.  She is a member of the firm’s litigation practice group and focuses on environmental, land use, open government, and democracy-related law and litigation. Christa’s work on open government issues on behalf of media, individuals and others has resulted in published court decisions protecting the public’s right to know. She has also represented clients experiencing violations of their civil rights in public accommodation and free speech contexts.  Christa is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin Law School and University of Missouri-Columbia, and Vice President of the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council.

KEITH WOODS is chairman of the board of Suncoast Searchlight, a non-profit investigative journalism startup based in Sarasota, Florida. He most recently retired as chief diversity officer of NPR, where, for the last 15 years, he led efforts to enhance diversity in the organization’s audience, content, and staffing while serving as a resource for NPR leadership, staff, and public radio leaders from more than 260 member stations nationwide.

Before joining NPR, Keith was dean of faculty at The Poynter Institute in St. Petersburg, Florida, where he taught for 15 years on topics including reporting, ethics, covering race relations and personal essay writing. He has trained journalists, educators and students at nearly every major new organization and journalism school in the country. He is a co-author of “The Authentic Voice: The Best Reporting on Race and Ethnicity” and has chaired two Pulitzer Prize juries.

 A New Orleans native, Keith graduated from Dillard University and Tulane University’s School of Social Work. Before joining Poynter, he spent nearly 16 years at the New Orleans Times-Picayune as a sportswriter, news reporter, city editor, columnist and editorial writer.

JESSICA YELLIN is the founder of News Not Noise, a Webby award-winning independent news brand. Over 1.3 M subscribers and followers across digital media rely on Jessica and News Not Noise for trusted information and to manage their “information overload.” She is the former chief White House correspondent for CNN and an Emmy, Peabody and Gracie Award-winning political correspondent for ABC, MSNBC and CNN. Her novel, Savage News, is available from HarperCollins. Subscribe to News Not Noise on Substack. Follow on Instagram @JessicaYellin

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