This World Press Freedom Day, JHR will be hosting a special webinar that unpacks the implications of the ongoing mis/disinformation crisis for today’s COVID-19 stricken world. JHR Executive Director Rachel Pulfer will speak to online disinformation expert Craig SilvermanJHR project manager Siyabulela Mandela and World Press Freedom Canada president Shawn McCarthy on the subject. They will discuss the heightened need to protect the rights of independent media to freely provide information and report on events of the pandemic without external pressure and/or intervention, how mis/disinformation hampers journalists’ efforts, and what we can collectively do about this.

Monday, May 3rd, 2021, 11:00 AM EST

About the Panelists

Rachel Pulfer (moderator) is JHR’s Executive Director. Prior to running JHR, Pulfer was the 2009-2010 Webster-McConnell William Southam Journalism Fellow at Massey College, University of Toronto. She was a columnist and US correspondent for Canadian Business, as well as a member of the editorial staff.

Craig Silverman is leaving a role as Media Editor of BuzzFeed News to take up a new post with ProPublica covering voting, platforms, disinformation and online manipulation. He is one of the world’s leading experts in disinformation, misinformation and media manipulation.

Siyabulela Mandela is JHR’s Regional Coordinator of the East-Southern Africa region of the ongoing Mobilizing Media to Fight Covid-19 project supported by Global Affairs Canada, and a lecturer and Ph.D. candidate (International Relations and Conflict Resolution) in the Department of Politics and Conflict Studies at Nelson Mandela University, South Africa.

Shawn McCarthy is the President of World Press Freedom Canada, an advocacy committee based in Ottawa, dedicated to highlighting issues of press freedom in Canada and abroad.