Pete Madden is an award-winning investigative producer, reporter and editor. As a member of the ABC News Investigative Unit, he contributed coverage of national security, political corruption and human rights to Good Morning America, World News Tonight with David Muir, Nightline and 20/20, and led several groundbreaking investigations that pushed for accountability from governments, corporations and other powerful organizations. He is a graduate of Vanderbilt University and the Columbia Journalism School.

Sam Rabiyah is a journalist and multidisciplinary technologist working at the intersection of investigative reporting, counter-mapping, data visualization, and oral history to make information more actionable to movement-based organizers and the public. Sam was a reporter and news apps developer at the New York City newsroom THE CITY, where he is currently a contributing editor. He is an adjunct professor at NYU Wagner and a graduate of Wesleyan University.

Susanna Granieri is a reporter and researcher for First Amendment Watch. She previously reported on politics and policy for the Albany-based Legislative Gazette and investigated the use of faulty forensic science in death penalty convictions with the Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting. She is a graduate of SUNY New Paltz and the Columbia Journalism School.

Sarah Almukhtar is a designer and journalist. She worked for The New York Times from 2015 to 2024, where she designed visual stories about the news using data, mapping, and multimedia. Her contributions included work on two Pulitzer Prize-winning teams — in 2021 for Public Service and 2022 for International Reporting. Sarah studied urban planning at Columbia University and architecture at New Jersey Institute of Technology.

Derek Abella is a queer Cuban-American illustrator and artist based in New York City who creates dream-like work for clients all over the world, big and small. His images have supported publications and brands such as The New York Times, The New Yorker, NBC News, Vice, and Red Bull. He is a graduate of the Pratt Institute.

Sonya Carson is a recent graduate of Boston University’s College of Communication, where she studied journalism, political science and philosophy. She previously interned at The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. Her freelance work has appeared in the Bay State Banner, the Concord Bridge and the Daily Free Press.

Ethan Du is a current student at New York University studying economics, political science and computer science. His past internships include working for the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), where he produced a PSA describing the free speech implications of proposed deepfake regulations. He has also interned for numerous political organizations, including the Illinois Democratic County Chairs’ Association, where he focused on preparing the Illinois Delegation for the 2024 Democratic National Convention.

Steve Solomon is Marjorie Deane Professor at NYU’s Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute, where he teaches First Amendment law, and founder and director of NYU’s M.A. program in Business and Economic Reporting. His most recent book, Revolutionary Dissent: How the Founding Generation Created the Freedom of Speech, explored the birth of freedom of expression in America’s founding period. He is a graduate of Penn State University and Georgetown University Law Center.

Laura Prather is a partner at the international law firm Haynes Boone. A sought-after authority on anti-SLAPP laws, she served as an American Bar Association Advisor to the Uniform Law Commission (ULC) Model Anti-SLAPP Committee, which wrote the Uniform Public Expression Protection Act adopted in 2020. She is now working with the ULC Enactment Committee to have the legislation serve as a model for the passage of anti-SLAPP laws in all 50 states. Prather holds business and legal degrees from the University of Texas and is barred in four states and the District of Columbia.

Victoria Baranetsky counsels reporters on newsgathering, libel, privacy, subpoenas and other newsroom matters. At CIR, she manages defamation litigation, including a complex, six-year, multi-jurisdiction anti-SLAPP case that succeeded in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. She is an adjunct professor at Berkeley Law School and a fellow at Columbia's Tow Center. Baranetsky holds degrees from Columbia Journalism School, Harvard Law School and Oxford University and is barred in three states.

Stephen J. Adler is board chair of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press and founder and director of the Ethics and Journalism Initiative at NYU’s Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute. A global advocate for free speech and journalism ethics, Adler has served as deputy managing editor of The Wall Street Journal, editor-in-chief of BusinessWeek and, most recently, editor-in- chief of Reuters. Under his leadership, Reuters won eight Pulitzer Prizes. He is also a board member and immediate past chair at the Columbia Journalism Review and serves on the advisory board of the Clooney Foundation for Justice. He is a graduate of Harvard College and the Harvard Law School.

Dick Tofel is the principal of Gallatin Advisory LLC and the author of the Second Rough Draft newsletter on Substack. He was the founding general manager (and first employee) of ProPublica from 2007-2012, and its president from 2013 until September 2021. As president, he had responsibility for all of ProPublica’s non-journalism operations, including communications, legal, development, finance and budgeting, and human resources. During the period of Tofel’s business leadership, ProPublica published stories that won seven Pulitzer Prizes. Tofel was formerly the assistant publisher of The Wall Street Journal and, previously, an assistant managing editor of the paper, vice president of corporate communications for Dow Jones & Company, and an assistant general counsel of Dow Jones. Tofel is a graduate of Harvard College, Harvard Law School and the Harvard Kennedy School.

Jared Schroeder is an associate professor at the Missouri School of Journalism. His research specializes in First Amendment theory and law, with particular concern for the past, present, and future of the flow of ideas in democratic society. SLAPPs represent a threat to the flow of ideas and Schroeder written about this concern for Columbia Journalism Review, Nieman Reports, and other publications.