Peter Andringa
graphics journalist visual investigations The Financial Times
Fadah Jassem
head of data visualisation The National News
Sarah Jeong
features editor The Verge
Emily Liu
head of special projects Bluesky
This year, changes to the platform formerly known as Twitter have led many journalists and news consumers to seek greener pastures. In an increasingly fragmented online environment, journalists must decide where – and how – to best engage with a changing social web.
One of the most promising upstarts is Bluesky, an open-source network quickly gaining momentum among journalists. Bluesky users are hungry for news: world events (like the attempted coup in South Korea) have created many of the most viral moments on the platform and some outlets are already seeing higher engagement than on X.
Yet even as Bluesky grows in some countries, X still has many more users across the globe. One holdout is the Middle East: in an echo of the 2011 Arab Spring, the platform was a key source of eyewitness testimony and video during the fall of the Assad regime. Bluesky is also experiencing growing pains as it scales, particularly in content moderation and identity verification.
This panel will host a conversation between journalists and social media experts about the changing environment for breaking news, with a focus on its new challenges and opportunities for newsgathering and promotion.