Ten years ago, Knight Foundation launched the Media Learning Seminar to respond to the rapid disruption occurring in journalism and media. We saw an opportunity to bring together community foundations with news and technology leaders to explore new ways to ensure people have the information they need and are engaged in efforts to make important decisions.

Now ten years later, it’s time to pause and think strategically about the future, especially as we are facing another wave of change. We have designed an exciting agenda for the seminar taking place Feb. 13 – 14 in Miami, one that addresses many of the issues in today’s headlines – from trust in journalism to climate change – and presents creative solutions for doing so at the local level.

The seminar’s opening session, which kicks off at 9:30 a.m. Feb. 13 and will be live-streamed, will examine the changing media landscape. With a surge in fake news and a steady decline in institutional trust, we have invited Brian Stelter, host of CNN’s Reliable Sources, to moderate our first discussion on the future of news. We will be asking, what can we learn from this past election cycle to to better meet people’s information needs in the future? Later, over lunch, Marty Baron, executive editor of The Washington Post, and Knight Foundation President Alberto Ibargüen will discuss the role of journalism in civil society.

We also will dive into how communities can and are responding to change on the local level. Led by Knight Program Director Lilly Weinberg, we will engage community foundation leaders to share ways their foundations responded to emerging needs and crises. We have invited two community foundations: Chicago Community Trust, which is working in partnership with the Chicago Police Department to restore trust between police and residents, and California Community Foundation, which has developed a holistic approach to helping immigrants adapt to life in Greater Los Angeles.

Our agenda provides a hybrid approach to responding to real-time issues while discussing future needs. For Tuesday, we have crafted a cross-sector panel of media and foundation partners to discuss climate change and actions taking place at the local level. We are in Miami after all, where the effects of sea level rise are readily visible. Panelists will explore what sea level rise means to the average person living on the U.S. coasts, and how journalists and scientists can work with the community to illustrate local, environmental changes as they happen. 

Additionally, futurist Amy Webb will take us through the latest tech trends exploring how emerging platforms are reshaping the way people react and respond to news and information.    

The full agenda for the panels that will be streamed is available here.

Our panelists and attendees are leading journalists, technologists and local grant makers from cities big and small, and if any of the seminars are a past indication, we expect the conversation to be robust. You can follow along with the livestream at  knightfoundation.org/live, or by following #infoneeds on Twitter.  I hope you will be a part of the online conversations as we think about what news and media, and even our democracy, looks like in the years ahead.

Michelle Huttenhoff is a program associate at Knight Foundation. You can find her on Twitter @mhuttenhoff and can continue the conversation with #infoneeds.