Scroll through to see past photos from the WIJ Workshop! Join us in 2025

The Women in Journalism Workshop is an annual workshop that focuses on challenges, accomplishments and issues specific to women in the journalism industry today. We want to help build safer, more diverse and innovative newsrooms to serve our communities worldwide. You will learn how to innovate the way you cover stories, the management of newsrooms and teams and be trained in emerging skills and tools from global leaders in the journalism industry. All session leaders are chosen for their cutting edge knowledge in the topic of the session they are leading.

The 2025 WIJ Workshop will be April 11-13, 2025 at the Reynolds Journalism Institute. Apply to join this year’s workshop and if you are accepted, we will send you a registration form.

Students $50 (or free if you volunteer!), Professionals $75.

Questions

Contact Director of Innovation & Founder of WIJ Workshop Kat Duncan at duncank@rjionline.org.

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Session Leader Bios

Davis Erin Anderson, Freedom of the Press Foundation

Davis (she/her) is a senior digital security trainer at Freedom of the Press Foundation. Davis has been training learners at all levels on concepts in digital security and data privacy since 2016. In addition to crafting fun and engaging hands-on workshops, she has produced training videos and online tutorials for those interested in keeping their data safe. Past projects include NYC Digital Safety, Data Privacy Project, and Web Literacy for Library Staff. In 2019, she helped secure funding to provide digital security and data privacy training to libraries and community-based organizations in advance of the 2020 U.S. Census.

Davis holds degrees in library science and music performance, and she performs regularly as a French horn player with orchestras and other ensembles in and around NYC.

Tara Francis Chan, The Appeal

Tara is Managing Editor & Operations Director at The Appeal, where she has led its relaunch as a worker-led nonprofit newsroom.

Tara was previously a senior editor at Newsweek and was the launch editor of Business Insider’s Asia desk, helping establish the editorial scope and operations of a news team across three continents. Prior to this, she was the editor of a leading Australian magazine published in 37 countries and managed special projects including a bestselling book and a national conference series. She was previously a finalist for Young Australian Journalist of the Year and was a cohort member of Poynter’s Leadership Academy for Women in Media in 2022.

Tara has a bachelor in communications and biochemistry, as well as a diploma in innovation management, from the University of New South Wales where she was a William McIlrath Rural Scholar. With a background in science communication, she has worked on projects in New York, London, Moscow, Sydney, Edinburgh, and Abu Dhabi.

Marian Chia-Ming Liu, Washington Post

Marian Chia-Ming Liu has dedicated her career to the communities she represents — Asian, immigrant and female — covering everything from K-pop to anti-Asian attacks, interviewing everyone from Britney to BTS.

Liu is focused on reaching new readers through targeted multiplatform coverage and innovative technology. As the Project Editor for Special Newsroom Initiatives and Partnerships, she’s directed several launches for The Washington Post to reach younger and diverse audiences, including the new Style and Well+Being sections, plus the Pulitzer-winning January 6 series. She managed projects utilizing technology to better monetize journalism, like a personalized extreme weather tracker. She also wrote one of The Post’s top stories about reclaiming her name, which is the basis of a book.

Before The Post, she was a writer, music critic and editor at CNN in Hong Kong and several newspapers, including the Seattle Times, San Jose Mercury News, Source Magazine and the South Florida Sun Sentinel, where she launched a hyperlocal entertainment site and app. Liu also directed the student multimedia convention projects for the Asian American Journalists Association and UNITY. As AAJA’s National Vice President of Civic Engagement, she spearheaded a guide to AAPI communities with over 50 journalists, community workers and academics.

Vanessa Charlot

Vanessa Charlot is an award-winning photographer, filmmaker, lecturer, curator and media safety trainer. She is an Assistant Professor of Creative Multimedia at the University of Mississippi School of Journalism and New Media. Her work focuses on the intersectionality of race, politics, culture and sexual/gender expression to explore the collective human experience. The purpose of her work is to produce visual representations free of an oppressive gaze. Vanessa seeks to humanize Black bodies through her photography, restoring the dignity and vitality of those often shot as subjects divorced from context, motives, and histories. Her work invites us all to question our relationship to what we think about when we see Black bodies as static images and in motion.

She has worked throughout the U.S., Caribbean and Southeast Asia.  Her photographs have been commissioned by the New York Times, Gucci, Vogue, Rolling Stone, The New Yorker, Oprah Magazine, The Atlantic, The Guardian, Apple, New York Magazine, Buzzfeed, Artnet News, The Washington Post and other national and international publications. Vanessa lectures at the International Center of Photography and is the recipient of the International Women’s Media Foundation Courage in Journalism Award for 2021. She is currently an Emerson Collective Fellow.

Stefanie Friedhoff, Brown University School of Public Health

Stefanie Friedhoff is a professor of the practice and director of the Information Futures Lab at the Brown University School of Public Health. A veteran journalist, she co-founded the Lab to investigate the ongoing information crisis as a civic and public health threat (feel free to ask her about her brief stint working on information integrity questions in the White House during the Covid pandemic!). She researches misinformation resilience, information inequities, and how people make sense of the world in rapidly changing information ecosystems. And she partners with creators of trusted information on new models for meeting the information needs of diverse communities. Previously, Friedhoff has worked as a correspondent, writer and editor on three continents, publishing in Time magazine; The Boston Globe; Süddeutsche Zeitung, a German newspaper; and many other outlets. She was a 2001 Nieman Fellow and created and led Nieman’s Trauma Journalism Program from 2006 to 2012, and continues to teach trauma journalism workshops.

Laura Garcia, BBC Mundo

Laura Garcia’s work as a multimedia journalist started in her hometown of Mexico as a newspaper photographer covering the “lucha libre.” She’s an incurable nerd and has always been fascinated with new ways of telling stories, new tech, coding, apps, and even VR/AR. Laura worked for newspapers and film production companies in the U.S. before moving to the UK in September 2011. She has worked in different national newsrooms across the UK as a TV and radio producer. She taught multimedia journalism and TV production at the University of Kent for five years until December 2019. Currently, Laura’s main job with First Draft is teaching journos to spot and verify disinformation. She is passionate about getting new diverse voices into the industry and is the co-founder of PressPad, a social enterprise dedicated to helping young people become journalists.

Imaeyen Ibanga, AJ+

Ibanga is a presenter with AJ+. She managed a team producing long-form videos for YouTube, which focused on contextualizing domestic and international news. Now, she concentrates on doing digital documentaries from the field, which she writes and produces. Prior to AJ+, Imaeyen produced text stories, social media, and breaking news video stories during her tenures at NBC News, CNN, and ABC News. Also, she’s team kitty cats, dance, comment sections, and memes are her love language.

Marissa J. Lang, Washington Post

Marissa J. Lang writes about gentrification, housing and the changing face of American cities as part of The Washington Post’s social issues team. She previously covered protests, social unrest, activist movements and the rise of domestic extremism, culminating in her coverage of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol and its aftermath. Lang came to The Post in 2018 from the San Francisco Chronicle, where she explored the inner workings of tech companies and the disparities they fueled. She won several awards for her coverage of the 2016 Wine Country wildfires and the plight of farmworkers amid the state’s worst-ever drought. Previously, Lang covered City Hall for the Sacramento Bee, criminal justice and courts for the Salt Lake Tribune and breaking news for the Tampa Bay Times. Lang has reported internationally, filing dispatches from Mexico and Rwanda. She is HEAT-certified, an active member of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists (NAHJ), adjunct professor at the University of Maryland and a dedicated mentor to student journalists to color. A native of New York City, Lang is an unapologetic pizza snob who now lives in Washington, DC.  

Kathy Lu, Audiencibility

Kathy Lu (she/her) is the founder of Audiencibility, a media consulting business dedicated to helping people, especially journalists, be successful. She is currently an adjunct at Poynter Institute, where she leads training that focuses on management, leadership and diversity, equity and inclusion issues. She also works with Brevity & Wit, a leading consulting group in organizational design centered around equity and inclusion. Kathy draws from more than two decades of experience a leader, manager and editor. She has worked in public media as a digital editor and in legacy media (The Kansas City Star and The Roanoke Times) as an enterprise and features editor. 

Leah Millis, Reuters

Leah Millis is a staff photographer at Thomson Reuters, where she has covered a wide range of issues, including politics, international protest movements, immigration, climate change, mass shootings and the rise of domestic extremism in the United States. 

A journalist for more than a dozen years, Millis has worked for local newspapers in nearly every region of the United States, produced several short documentary films and written the accompanying articles for several projects. In 2020 Millis was one of the 11 staff members of the Reuters team awarded the 2020 Pulitzer Prize in Breaking News Photography for their coverage of the Hong Kong protests for democracy in 2019.

Dana Piccoli, News is Out

Dana Piccoli has been writing about the LGBTQ+ community for over a decade and is now the editor of News is Out, a queer media collaborative. With a special dedication to queer women’s issues, Dana has written for numerous sites, including The Mary Sue, The Decider, Curve, and NBC. She’s the former Managing Editor of the Bella Media Channel and the founder of Queer Media Matters. 

Dana is the recipient of the 2023 Curve Award for Excellence in Lesbian Coverage and was named one of The Advocate Magazine’s 2019 Champions of Pride.

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Schedule

Friday, April 11, 2025

9:30 am

Check in, grab your swag and breakfast!

10:00 am

Welcome and introductions

Kat Duncan, RJI Director of Innovation

Welcome to the WIJ Workshop! We will spend our few moments together getting to know each other a bit before diving into the workshop.

10:30 am

Innovate and Advocate

Marissa Lang, Washington Post

An inspiring discussion of how to stand up for yourself and push for what you want in a variety of circumstances — to your editor, to your sources, to your company. Discussion topics will include building sources in a male-dominated field, engaging communities of which you are not a part, managing up, negotiating pay and benefits, knowing the rules — and when to break them, finding mentors and more.

11:45am

Centering consensus and care in the newsroom

Tara Francis Chan, The Appeal

Worker-led efforts are showing what it takes to rethink newsrooms, and the health of the journalists within them, from the ground up. This session will highlight how to flip outdated norms and adapt democratic and consensus decision-making models for any newsroom. It will also spotlight broad policies through to small actions that journalists can use to prevent burnout and support better boundaries for those around them.

1:00 pm

Lunch provided

2:00 pm

Elevate and Exchange

Emily Lytle, RJI

In this more-fun-than-speed-dating session we’re pairing up in multiple rounds to exchange moments of success, inspiration, collaboration and impact.

3:00 pm

How to talk in “human” to connect with audiences on social media

Laura Garcia, BBC Mundo

This hands on session will help you get over your fear/hatred/reluctance of being “casual” as a journalist. We will learn how to use the language of social media, vertical videos, TikTok and influencers to tell deeply reported stories with as much accuracy and detail as we do in other spaces.

5:00 pm

WIJ Welcome Reception

Join us for our welcome event! Appetizers, drinks and special guests at a private venue nearby.

Saturday April 12, 2025

Breakfast provided

9:00

Self-care for the resilient journalist

Stefanie Friedhoff

Trauma is an occupational hazard for journalists. One doesn’t need to be on the frontlines of war or national tragedies to encounter stories of destruction, suffering and despair. Add the stressors of fast-paced news environments, and you’re no longer wondering why you are so exhausted at the end of the day. Let’s explore some essentials about trauma and resilience that help us prepare for difficult assignments and taxing experiences — and discover self-care habits that help keep us sane in the long run.

10:15 am

Holistic HEFAT training

Vanessa Charlot

This Holistic HEFAT (Hostile Environment and First Aid Training) session equips journalists with the critical tools needed to stay safe in hostile environments, emphasizing identity-based risks and situational awareness. Participants will learn how factors like race, gender, and other social identities impact risk assessment, while mastering de-escalation techniques and understanding common police tactics. The session also covers practical survival skills, offering simple tactical movements to navigate physical threats, ensuring journalists are prepared to handle complex challenges in the field with resilience and confidence..

11:30 am

Self-defense + Protective gear prep

Leah Millis, Reuters

We’ll practice in groups and pairs: how to get away from an attacker with various holds, disengage when overpowered and other self-defense tactics. Leah will also share her protective prep kit: what gear she carries and how she prepares for situations that may be volatile.

1:00 pm

Lunch provided & puppies to cuddle

It’s lunch time! Grab some food and head outside. The adoptable pups from Unchained Melodies Dog Rescue will also be outside to provide puppy cuddles!

2:00 pm

How to lead across roles and teams

Marian Chia-Ming Liu

Learn to lead from any point of the newsroom and how to maximize meetings to get things accomplished

3:00

Own Your Success

Dana Piccoli

Women and nonbinary people in the journalism industry have much more to deal with than deadlines and cultivating sources. Imposter syndrome is an epidemic among women in the industry. Whether you’re an award-winning journalist or an emerging talent, it can be hard to silence the voices of doubt. In this session, we’ll work at identifying the causes of imposter syndrome and lifting each other up in interactive breakouts.

4:00

TBD

5:00

Hula hooping and sunshine

Imaeyen Ibanga

Lets head outside to the grass to end our day with some sunshine and fun!

• Pick up a hoop and get ready to hoop to music with Laura (hoops provided)
• Or relax on the grass and enjoy some time to chat and relax with fellow attendees as we wind down for the day

Grab dinner, rest at your hotel, take a walk – or head to our game night!

5:00 (Optional activity)

Game night! Head to the board game cafe down the street where you’ll be able to choose from over 300+ board games to play. Snacks and beverages also available.

Sunday, April 13, 2025

Breakfast provided

9:30am

Digital security habits worth building: Keeping yourself, your data, and your sources safe

Davis Erin Anderson, Free of the Press Foundation

Computers and phones and all manner of other digital devices are essential to our lives and our livelihoods, and yet they open all of us up to new — and not so new, let’s be honest — risks. This session will offer a pathway to sorting out which digital security concerns are worth your attention, and we’ll start you off on a path for setting up and keeping helpful habits that will keep you and your sources safe(r).

11:00 am

Community Listening

Maritza L. Félix, Connecta Arizona

TBD

12:00

Lunch provided

1:00 pm

TBD

2:00

How to create change

Kathy Lu, Independent

An interactive session to understand the dynamics of leading change in your organization. Through using the principles of “Switch” by Chip Heath and Dan Heath, you’ll work through scenarios with your group and plan to lead change in your newsroom inspired by an experience or skill you learned this weekend at WIJ!