Adeola Yusuf Secures Columbia Varsity Journalism School Symposium Support

Multiple award winning Nigerian Journalist, Adeola Yusuf, has secured a free ticket from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism to attend Columbia Journalism Review (CJR) symposium.

Yusuf, the convener of Platforms Africa, who is a Thomson Reuters Foundation laureate and a one-time winner of Africa Investigative Journalism Conference Bursary, was given the free ticket to, alongside A-list journalists across the World, attend the highly sought-after symposium themed; “The New Journalism: Rethinking the news in the wake of COVID-19 and the fight against racism.”

The symposium to be held online is, according to an electronic message sent to Yusuf, being facilitated fir two days by fourteen top Professors and veterans of journalism including Steve Coll, Dean, Columbia Graduate School of Journalism; Bill Grueskin, Professor, Columbia Graduate School of Journalism; Ethan Zuckerman, Professor, co-founder Global Voices; Kyle Pope, editor and publisher, Columbia Journalism Review and Ira A. Lipman Professor of Journalism at Columbia University.

“Journalism was in crisis well before COVID, the recent uprisings against racism, and the deep recession. Now, we are facing a blank-slate moment. Much is being lost, but that also means there are huge opportunities to think fresh and rebuild the news industry from scratch. What should we keep and what should we ditch? Who should tell our stories and what should those stories be? How can we hold our media institutions accountable?

“Join us for a series of conversations to tackle these questions. We‘ll hear from some of the most urgent voices in media to talk about where journalism goes next,” the message read.

Speakers for the two-day symposium, it continued, include Emily Bell, founding director of the Tow Center for Digital Journalism; Maria Bustillos, founding editor, Popula; Sewell Chan, editorial page editor, The Los Angeles Times; Susan Chira, editor in chief, The Marshall Project; and Jelani Cobb, staff writer, The New Yorker, Ira A. Lipman Professor of Journalism at Columbia University.

Others are Steve Coll, Dean, Columbia Graduate School of Journalism; Bill Grueskin, professor, Columbia Graduate School of Journalism; Cierra Hinton, publisher, Scalawag; Ashton Lattimore, editor in chief, Prism; Kyle Pope, editor and publisher, Columbia Journalism Review, Ben Smith, media columnist, The New York Times; Susan Smith Richardson, chief executive officer, Center for Public Integrity; Duy Linh Tu, documentarian, Columbia Graduate School of Journalism; and Ethan Zuckerman, professor, co-founder Global Voices.

Yusuf has, in about two decades of active journalism practice, won several global and local journalism awards, bursaries and recognitions including the prestigious Nigeria Media Merit Award (NMMA) as the Energy Reporter of the Year on two occasions; and the Tax Justice Network Africa (TJN-A) Conference Bursary, Nairobi, Kenya.

He has travelled to some major countries of the World for conferences, workshop, seminar, and symposium.