IF celebrated its 30th birthday on September 21st by hosting eleven roundtable discussions about the future of public discourse at the Newseum in Washington DC. The roundtables were organized in partnership with the Newseum Institute and facilitated by eight IF Fellows and three IF-associated facilitators. Sixty invited guests identified a wide range of concerns about public discourse and a wide range of actions that might be taken to address them. We will share the results of their discussions on IF’s website, on the Newseum Institute’s website, and on IF’s social media.
The Newseum Institute is the education and outreach partner of the Newseum, including its First Amendment Center, Religious Freedom Center and Education department. As neutral forums for open and thoughtful discussions, the Newseum Institute and IF are exploring some of the central governance issues of our time, including free speech, religious freedom, the future of investigative journalism, and the tensions between national security and privacy. The Institute is also affiliated with the Al Neuharth Media Center at the University of South Dakota; the Overby Center for Southern Journalism and Politics at the University of Mississippi; and the John Seigenthaler Center at Vanderbilt University.
This is the second project in IF’s partnership with the Newseum Institute. The first, IF’s sanctuary project on The Future of Free Speech, will publish its discussion guide next year. IF and the Newseum Institute are currently planning discussions on the future of free speech at the Seigenthaler Center in Nashville, Tennessee.