Press Freedom in Peril: 2026 Herb Caen Lecture at UC Berkeley

Join Jodie Ginsberg, chief executive officer of the Committee to Protect Journalists, and Jason Rezaian, director of Press Freedom Initiatives for The Washington Post in conversation with San Francisco Chronicle Editor in Chief Emilio Garcia-Ruiz. Opening remarks by Dean Michael D. Bolden.

Tickets: $10

Zoom: FREE

5:30 pm Reception

6:30 pm Main Event


SPEAKERS:

Jodie Ginsberg

Jodie Ginsberg is the chief executive officer of the Committee to Protect Journalists. A journalist by profession, Ginsberg joined CPJ in 2022 from Internews Europe, where she was chief executive officer. Ginsberg began her career as a graduate trainee with Reuters news agency and worked as a commodities reporter in London before taking up a posting as a foreign correspondent in Johannesburg, South Africa. She subsequently worked as Reuters’ chief correspondent in Ireland, and then bureau chief for the U.K. and Ireland. In 2014, Ginsberg was appointed chief executive of London-based freedom of expression group Index on Censorship, which she led until 2020.

An internationally respected campaigner on issues of media freedom and freedom of expression, Ginsberg is a regular speaker on journalist safety and issues involving access to information. She serves on the boards of The Trust for the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, the John S. Knight Journalism Fellowships at Stanford, and as a Council member of IFEX, the international network for freedom of expression organizations. Ginsberg has a BA in English Literature from the University of Cambridge and a postgraduate diploma in newspaper journalism from City St George’s, University of London.


Jason Rezaian

Jason Rezaian is Director of Press Freedom Initiatives at The Washington Post. From 2018-2024 he was an Opinions columnist and before that he served as Tehran bureau chief for the Post from 2012 to 2016. In July 2014, he was arrested by Iranian authorities and wrongly imprisoned for 544 days until his release in January 2016.

His memoir, Prisoner was published in January 2019. Rezaian is also a regular contributor to CNN, MS Now, NPR and others and the host of the Spotify limited podcast series 544 Days.

He was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University, Class of 2017 and a Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School’s Institute of Politics in 2023.

Currently he is a teaching fellow at the University of Oregon’s School of Journalism and Communications and is the Co-Executive Director of the Commission on Hostage Taking and Wrongful Detention and the Center for Strategic and International Studies.


MODERATOR

Emilio Garcia-Ruiz

Emilio Garcia-Ruiz is the Editor in Chief of the San Francisco Chronicle, the leading news source in the Bay Area. The Chronicle focuses its coverage on the issues critical to its readers, including health, homelessness, the post-pandemic future of the city, climate change and its deadly consequences and the area’s world-class food and wine scene.

Garcia-Ruiz joined the Chronicle in September 2020 after spending the previous 19 years at The Washington Post. His final role at The Post was as Managing Editor for Digital, where he oversaw the development and execution of digital strategy, supervising more than 350 journalists. He edited the 2000 Pulitzer prize-winning investigation by the St. Paul Pioneer Press that uncovered academic fraud in the University of Minnesota men’s basketball program. His career includes editing at the Orange County Register and Los Angeles Times.