In September 2023, CFOM launched their seminar series. The CFOM seminar series features speakers talking about issues concerning journalism safety and media freedom. The seminar series is hosted online. New events will feature on this page and you can watch any of the seminars that you might have missed by clicking the button below.
The European Media Freedom Act: A European gamechanger for media freedom advocates
Renate Schroeder
Director of the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ)
12 November 2025
14:00 UK Time
The European Media Freedom Act (EMFA) officially came into force across all EU Member States on August 8, 2025. The Act was designed to provide guarantees towards safeguarding media freedom across Europe with the recognition of certain protections, including the protection of sources and the protection from spyware, alongside promoting transparency surrounding media ownership and state advertisement. However, despite the introduction of the EMFA, there are some Member States where implementation is a long way off. Across Europe, we have seen the rise of populist governments that have attempted to shut down media freedom, with journalists being forced into exile and arbitrarily detained for doing their job. There are concerns that in those States, the EMFA will not be fully implemented and is not a ‘silver bullet’ towards providing protection for journalists.
In this Centre for Freedom of the Media (CFOM) seminar, Renate Schroeder, Director of the European Federation of Journalists, talks to us about the Act and the articles that are designed to protect journalists and media freedom advocates, highlighting how in several Member States implementation is not taking place. Renate will also discuss the newly installed Media Board, designed to oversee implementation of the Act, and how it needs to step-up and be more than a bureaucratic box-ticking mechanism in order to protect media freedom across Europe.
Renate Schroeder is the Director of the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ), in 1993 she joined the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) and since 2003 she has worked for the EFJ.
Her responsibilities include advocacy at the EU and Council of Europe levels, representing the EFJ at international meetings, delivering lectures, participating in fact-finding missions on media freedom, and serving on juries for journalistic prizes. She also oversees project work and provides guidance to several EFJ expert groups, including those focused on freelancers, public service media and AI. She has been leading the Federation’s debate on the European Media Freedom Act.
Renate studied International Relations and Political Science at Boston University (Bachelor’s Degree in 1988) and in Berlin at the Free University (Master in 1992). She worked at the Friedrich-Ebert Foundation in Brussels before she joined the EFJ. She is of German nationality and speaks English, French, Italian, German, and (passive) Spanish.
Panel Event: The Future of Press Freedom
4 December
4pm UK Time
Across the world, there are threats to press freedom, including restrictive legislation, the development of AI, financial constraints, erosion of public trust and populist governments attempting to silence media outlets. Journalism has had to adapt to these challenges to try and find a way to survive. In the United States, the protection from the First Amendment has been challenged and, as our speakers state, ‘The American press is facing a perilous moment’.
In this panel event organised by the Centre for Freedom of the Media, our speakers discuss the current state of press freedom in the US, highlighting the evolving threats to the function of a press in a democratic society and what this means for the First Amendment protection. This panel event focuses on the recently edited volume by RonNell Andersen Jones and Sonja R. West: ‘The Future of Press Freedom: Democracy, Law, and the News in Changing Time’. We will examine the threats the press are facing and also address questions of how the press can continue to function in these challenging times that they are facing.
Panellists
Professor RonNell Andersen Jones
Professor RonNell Andersen Jones is the Teitelbaum Chair and a University Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of Utah’s S.J. Quinney College of Law. She is an Affiliated Fellow at Yale Law School’s Information Society Project.
A former newspaper reporter and editor, Professor Andersen Jones is a First Amendment scholar who teaches, researches, and writes on legal issues affecting the press. Her scholarship addresses issues of press freedom and its role in a healthy democracy. She is a widely cited national expert on defamation, reporter’s privilege, and newsgathering rights. Her scholarly work has appeared in numerous books and journals, including Northwestern Law Review, Michigan Law Review, UCLA Law Review, Minnesota Law Review, and the Harvard Law Review Forum. She is also a regular public commentator on press freedom issues. Her op-eds have been published in several major news outlets, including CNN and The New York Times, and her research has been quoted in The New Yorker, the Washington Post, The Guardian, and other national and international publications. In 2023-24, she was Senior Visiting Research Scholar at the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University. In 2025, she was a visiting scholar at the Bonavero Institute of Human Rights at Oxford University. She is an elected member of the American Law Institute.
Professor Andersen Jones clerked for the Honorable William A. Fletcher on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and for Justice Sandra Day O’Connor on the United States Supreme Court. Prior to entering academia, she was an attorney in the Issues & Appeals section of Jones Day, where her work focused on Supreme Court litigation.
Professor Sonja R. West
Sonja R. West is the Brumby Distinguished Professor in First Amendment Law at the University of Georgia School of Law, a post shared with the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication.
Professor West’s scholarship examines the interpretation of the First Amendment’s Press Clause, legal protections for the press, and the role of the courts in protecting expressive freedoms. Her work has appeared in numerous top legal journals such as Harvard Law Review, California Law Review, UCLA Law Review, and Northwestern Law Review. In recognition of her scholarly impact, Professor West was twice awarded the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication’s Harry W. Stonecipher Award for Distinguished Research on Media Law and Policy and received the National Communication Association’s Franklyn S. Haiman Award for Distinguished Scholarship in Freedom of Expression.
A graduate of the University of Chicago School of Law, Professor West served as a law clerk for Judge Dorothy W. Nelson of the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals and for U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens. She is a former reporter and spent several years practicing media and appellate law with the Los Angeles law firms Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP and Davis Wright Tremaine LLP.
Professor Christina Koningisor
Christina Koningisor is an Associate Professor of Law at the University of California School of Law, San Francisco, where she teaches courses on constitutional law, civil procedure, and information law. Her scholarship focuses on First Amendment law, media law, and the law of information access and government transparency. Her articles have appeared or are forthcoming in the Columbia Law Review, Northwestern University Law Review, University of Pennsylvania Law Review, Virginia Law Review, and Yale Law Journal. She has previously served as a lawyer for the New York Times, a law clerk on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, and a Fulbright fellow in Kuwait. She is a graduate of Yale Law School and Brown University.
