Ready for day three of the 2021 World Congress of the IPI global network? Editors, leading journalists and media executives talking with one other and learning from one another – that’s our network in action.

Today we went inside some of the world’s most innovative newsrooms, from Aftenposten in Norway to 263Chat in Zimbabwe to The Continent in South Africa, to see how they are using product thinking to make journalism break through in the attention economy, leaving us with tonnes of takeaways and revealing their secret sauce along the way. If you missed the sessions, we’ll be sharing the videos in the next weeks.

Congratulations to our World Press Freedom Hero Yuliya Slutskaya, the founder and chairperson of Press Club Belarus, and our Free Media Pioneer, India’s The Wire, represented at the Congress by Siddharth Varadarajan and Sangeeta Barooah, who received their awards at a very special event this evening.

We also called for the immediate release of all 28 journalists still jailed in Belarus.

Friday September 17: Here’s what you need to know for tomorrow’s programme.

All sessions are at the magnificent Rathaus, Vienna’s City Hall, and streamed on Zoom.

If you are joining us in person, please arrive by 9am for coffee and with enough time to register. The official program will start at 9.30 sharp.

For our first session at 10.00 am CEST we’ll be sharing strategies for resistance at our Town Hall on how we keep high-integrity news and information free and flowing to our communities.

Be part of the movement to turn the tables on populist and authoritarian restrictions on journalism. At the Town Hall you’ll hear from some of the smartest people on the front line, like Maria Ressa (the Philippines), Pravit Rojanaphruk (Thailand), Galina Timchenko (Russia), Zaffar Abbas (Pakistan), Khadija Patel (South Africa), Mary Fitzgerald (OSF), Teresa Ribeiro (OSCE) — and you!

Just before that, we’ll be hosting a special conversation with European Commission Vice President Věra Jourová.

Then we’ll turn to find out what’s working to keep our newfound audiences after the urgency of the pandemic drove a news boom that many were able to translate into reader revenues. After all, reporting is only journalism if it engages an audience. (12:00 – 13:00 CET)

After lunch the discussion will turn to media capture in Central Europe, with some of the leading independent voices in journalism from Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and Bulgaria. Working as a journalist in some Central European countries can be dangerous, challenged by the domino effect of the Hungarian model and the failure of democratic Europe to stand in its way. How can we create a countermovement to protect independent journalism here, and wherever journalism is threatened? (14:00 – 15:00 CEST)

We’ll then have two key contributions. First from ProPublica Editor-in-Chief Stephen Engelberg, followed by Alexander Wrabetz, director general of the Austrian public service broadcaster ORF.

And we’ll end the programme with a brainstorm for New ways to fund good journalism, a special session organized with Presseclub Concordia (held in German with English interpretation).

And if you are with us in Vienna, please stay for the closing dinner at the Rathaus (17:30 – 21:00 CEST). It will be a beautiful way to ring out the #IPIWoCo 2021.

The Vienna City Hall (Rathaus) will be the Congress home for the whole day. Built in the late 19th century, the Rathaus’s Festival Hall was the biggest hall in the country (71m long) – big enough for 1,500 couples to waltz at the same time!

Can’t wait? Neither can we! See you there or online. See the full programme here