Colloquium 2026: Reporters from Ibero-America gather at UT

Editor’s Note: This article was originally written by Mauricio Davila and Montserrat Martinez the 22nd of September of 2026 and translated to English by Mia Valeria Sifuentes.

Facing new developments that threaten journalism–including the rights of reporters in countries in crisis and the risks of artificial intelligence– journalists from Ibero-America offered their solutions for the future this past Saturday during the 19th Ibero-American Journalism Colloquium , hosted here at UT and carried out by Centro Knight for Journalism in the Americas.

After the closing of the 27th International Symposium of Journalism, journalists from Latin America, the Caribbean, Spain and Portugal presented their recommendations to combat these threats planted by A.I. and the reporting on communities in danger. 

According to Kevin Hall, editor of the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), the organizations can fight organized crime by supporting local journalists from across Latin America to create freely available investigative information networks online.

For Clavel Rangel Jiminez, co-founder of the Red de Periodistas de la Amazonia, organizations also could offer mentorship and workshops to expand journalists in small communities where the press faces violence against them. He also emphasized strengthening the confidence of the public in these communities. The cofounder of Solutions Journalism Network, Tina Rosenberg, also offers training in journalism production of solutions to promote sustainability models that combine sponsorship to local journalists, audience revenue, and philanthropy.  Strengthening communities with journalism was an idea also promoted by Daniel Molina, founder and director of Revista Concolón, who defended the importance of telling stories of a small community from within it with his successes creating new products in comics, podcasts, and special investigations.

The Ibero-American journalists also presented the new tools, formats and products that they have introduced with the purpose to create relevant stories that connect with their audiences. The work of Ramon Zamora, anthropologist and sociologist of Archivo de Medios Independientes de Centroamerica, showcased the benefits of these efforts. The reporter explained how he used Claude to build a code that helped identify the facts within a Guatemalan government report and create a story.

This introduced another relevant question about; How do we prepare the reporters when interacting with artificial intelligence without abandoning the principles of journalism? Alessandra de Falco, professor of the Universidades Federales de São Joã o del Rei y Mato Grosso de Sul, explained the importance of having the students learn about how to use A.I. as a tool, now that it is present in almost all modern fields.

The participants of the Colloquium continued explaining how this preparation is necessary for writing as well. Illustrating how A.I. can also promote misinformation and commenting about how reporters should help their audiences understand the risks of A.I. In the face of these challenges the panelists remind us of the value of continuing these conversations in journalism, to find the best way to work with A.I.

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