Rebele Symposia

Rowland and Pat Rebele generously support the Dept. of Communication, providing funds for the Symposia and the Rebele Internship Program.

Rebele Symposium 2024:
Polarization and the Press: How to Reach Americans Who Don't Trust the Media

As the 2024 election cycle gets underway, Democrats and Republicans are farther apart ideologically than at any time in the past half century and distrust of the press continues to grow. How do editors produce news that people across the political spectrum will trust? What kind of community outreach is being done? What changes are newsroom leaders making – or need to be made -- to restore respect for credible, fact-based news in this critical moment?

Our Panelists:

Leroy Chapman Jr. is The Atlanta Journal-Constitution's Editor-in-Chief. Previously, he was managing editor where he was in charge of reporting teams that cover state, local and federal government; politics; education; public safety; local, state and federal courts; transportation; immigration and breaking news. He has worked at the AJC since 2011.

Lee Ann Colacioppo is the editor of The Denver Post, a position she has held since 2016. She joined the editorial board in 2018 and in that role is a voting member of the board and frequently edits Denver Post editorials. Her first job at The Post was in 1999 as an assistant city editor, and since then she has held several editing positions, including city editor, investigations editor and news director. She previously worked at The Des Moines Register, Greenville (S.C.) News and Kingsport (Tenn.) Times-News. She is a Denver native.

Julie Makinen is editor-in-chief of The San Francisco Standard. Julie has more than two decades of experience as a writer, editor and foreign correspondent for publications including the L.A. Times, Washington Post and International New York Times. She served as executive editor of The Desert Sun in Palm Springs and California editor for the USA Today Network. She was a JSK Journalism Fellow at Stanford University and a staff member of the Stanford Graduate School of Business’ Center for Entrepreneurial Studies. 

Our moderator is Janine Zacharia, Carlos Kelly McClatchy Lecturer in the Department of Communication.

Rebele Symposium 2023:
Covering Tech: Finding the Signal in the Noise

How technology is impacting the way we live is a paramount story of our time. This year’s Rebele Symposium, which took place February 7, 2023, explored how some of the nation’s top tech journalists determine and tell the crucial Silicon Valley stories amid increased scrutiny of how innovations (and their innovators) impact our world for better and for worse. Panelists were Lauren Goode, senior writer at Wired, Christina Passariello, Technology Editor, Washington Post, and Zoe Schiffer, managing editor, Platformer. Janine Zacharia, the Carlos Kelly McClatchy Lecturer in the Department of Communication, moderated.

Rebele Symposium 2022: 
The Facebook Files

The world's largest social network employs a team of researchers to study the consequences of its decisions, but much of that knowledge was kept secret -- until the Wall Street Journal obtained a trove of company documents which have become known as "The Facebook Files."

Panelists: Georgia Wells of the Wall Street Journal, Will Oremus of the Washington Post, and Communication Professor Jeff Hancock. Moderated by Stanford Lecturer R.B. Brenner, a former Washington Post editor.