Program


Time Session
9:00 a.m. - 9:45 a.m.

Adapting to a Culture of Continuous Crisis

The pace of TV newsroom life no longer allows for periods to regroup between major stories. Journalists are grappling with burnout, a barrage of threats both virtual and in person, an erosion of their collective mental health and job insecurity. TV stations must harden their physical infrastructure against devastating weather events and better train their staffs to be safer in the field. How can the industry evolve fast enough to sustain the incessant red line of pressure on which it now operates daily?

Speakers:

Ellen Crooke, SVP of News, Tegna

Barb Maushard, SVP of News, Hearst Television

Joe DiGiovanni, Head of North American Sales, The Weather Company, an IBM Business

Sam Singal, Group Vice President of Editorial and Content, Spectrum Networks

Nora Zimmett, President, News and Original Series, The Weather Group

Michael Depp, Editor, TVNewsCheck
Chief Content Officer, NewsCheckMedia LLC (moderator)

9:45 a.m. - 10:00 a.m.

Fireside Chat: AI and the Future of Broadcast Workflows

Artificial Intelligence is dominating discussions on a global scale, influencing various domains across different industries. The realm of media is no stranger to this phenomenon. However, the pertinent question remains: what is the actual impact of AI on broadcast production workflows in both the immediate and distant future? Through the introduction of Avid Ada, this session delves into needs of the broadcast industry, how Avid is strategically integrating AI to introduce features that not only optimize workflow efficiency but also expedite content delivery, and our commitment to responsible AI, embodying a tangible advancement in the broadcast production landscape.

Speakers:

Ray Thompson, Senior Director Partners and Alliances, Avid

Kathy Haley, Co-Founder & Publisher, TVNewsCheck (moderator)

10:00 a.m. - 10:45 a.m.

Keynote: Democracy, Technology, TV Journalism and the 2024 Election

Never has the direct relationship between a free press and healthy democracy been so keenly felt and precarious as it does now. As we head into a crucial U.S. election year when mistrust, misinformation and disinformation are circulating with furious velocity, video journalists face a crucible. A look at how the industry must meet that moment, where emerging technologies will come to bear and what’s at stake in the work they do over the next year.

Speakers:

Connell McShane, Anchor, NewsNation

Adam Symson, President and CEO, E.W. Scripps

Michael Depp, Editor, TVNewsCheck
Chief Content Officer, NewsCheckMedia LLC (moderator)

10:45 a.m. - 11:15 a.m.

Networking Break

11:15 a.m. - 12:00 p.m.

Reassessing the Streaming News Content Strategy

The news industry is already several years into a broad embrace of streaming as a necessary distribution channel for its content. What has it learned about what consumers want to see there? How are organizations continuing to develop and iterate original content for streaming? How are data and technology facilitating decision making? How deep are audiences’ appetites for experimentation on news streaming? And how are organizations programming FAST and channels for maximum impact?

Speakers:

Mike Braun, SVP, Digital Media, Gray Television

Greg Morrow, GM of ViewNexa, Bitcentral

Sahand Sephernia, SVP, Streaming, CBS News & Stations

Rick Young, SVP, Head of Global Products, LTN

Jeff Zellmer, SVP Digital Operations, Fox Television Stations

Michael Depp, Editor, TVNewsCheck
Chief Content Officer, NewsCheckMedia LLC (moderator)

12:00 p.m. - 1:00 p.m.

Lunch

1:00 p.m. - 1:45 p.m.

Harvesting the Archive for New Content and Opportunities

Media companies are beginning to use technology to tag, index and search for video to enhance storytelling, create new shows and, eventually, find new revenue by licensing content. How are the newest in AI making these tasks significantly easier? Will AI offer a path to circumventing metatagging altogether? And how can media companies authenticate their deep trove of archival content and determine rights ownership?

Speakers:

Devon Armijo, Director of Digital News Integration, Hearst Television

Mike Palmer, AVP, Advanced Technology/Media Management, Sinclair Broadcast Group

Philippe Petitpont, CEO, Newsbridge

Ben Ramos, VP, Fox Archive, Field and Emerging Tech, Fox News

Glen Dickson, Contributing Editor, TVNewsCheck (moderator)

1:45 p.m. - 2:00 p.m.

Fireside Chat — News: The Last Frontier for AR and Virtual Sets

Widely used in sports programming, augmented reality and virtual sets are making their way into news programming, thanks to photo realism and other technologies that have ramped up quality. How are AR and virtual sets affecting news storytelling and expanding companies’ ability to go beyond the news into magazines and other formats? Is the cost of AR and virtual sets in line with the needs of local news organizations? How do AR and virtual sets empower new creativity and flexibility in news programming?

Speakers:

David Rodríguez Moldes, Product Manager, Brainstorm

Kathy Haley, Co-Founder & Publisher, TVNewsCheck (moderator)

2:00 p.m. - 2:45 p.m.

Building the Architecture of More Collaborative Content Creation

News organizations are increasingly undertaking ambitious, wide-ranging and often daily collaborations across their groups. How are they organizing their newsrooms to best foster these collaborations, identify topics of maximum national impact and connect colleagues across vastly different markets? What technologies are surfacing to best enable these projects, facilitate cross-group communication and make promising local content visible to all?

Speakers:

Stephane Guez, Co-Founder and Principal, Dalet

Meredith McGinn, EVP, Diginets & Original Production, NBCUniversal Local

Kate O’Brian, President, Scripps News, The E.W. Scripps Co.

Kengo Tsutsumi, Partnerships Editor, ProPublica

Lee Zurik, VP of Investigations, Gray Television

Michael Depp, Editor, TVNewsCheck
Chief Content Officer, NewsCheckMedia LLC (moderator)

2:45 p.m. - 3:15 p.m.

Networking Break

3:15 p.m. - 4:00 p.m.

Agility in News Production

Major technology changes to studio design and production have transformed how newscasts can be produced and how they feel to audiences. Technologists and journalists take an in-depth look at how news studio advances in video walls, augmented and extended reality are changing the fabric of newscasts themselves. And they examine how dramatic leaps in field production technology are forever changing workflows and the shape and speed in which content can be generated.

Speakers:

Ernie Ensign, AVP, News Technology and Operations, Sinclair

Steve Fastook, SVP of Technical and Commercial Operations, CNBC

Clint Moore, Director of Broadcast Operations, Gray Television

Erik Smith, VP of News Operations and Technology, Fox Television Stations 

Glen Dickson, Contributing Editor, TVNewsCheck (moderator)

4:00 p.m. - 4:15 p.m.

Fireside Chat

4:15 p.m. - 5:00 p.m.

Chasing AI: Threatening or Enhancing the News? 

Artificial intelligence is reshaping the way organizations produce news. On the positive side, operational functions like speech-to-text transcription, translation, editing, quality control monitoring and metatagging have eased workflow burdens. But generative AI presents far thornier challenges for newsrooms, complicating journalistic rules and even posing an existential threat to the profession. A candid look at how news organizations are continuously reassessing their guidelines around AI usage and grappling with the step change it presents to the industry.

Speakers:

Laura Ellis, Head of Technology Forecasting, BBC

Claire Leibowicz, Head of AI and Media Integrity, Partnership on AI

Santiago Lyon, Head of Advocacy & Education, Content Authenticity Initiative, Adobe

Aimee Rinehart, Senior Project Manager for AI Strategy, Associated Press

Ray Thompson, Senior Director, Partners and Alliances, Avid

Michael Depp, Editor, TVNewsCheck
Chief Content Officer, NewsCheckMedia LLC (moderator)