Julie Posetti

Julie Posetti (PhD) is the Global Director of Research at the International Center for Journalists (ICFJ). She is also a Senior Researcher with the Centre for Freedom of the Media (CFOM) at the University of Sheffield, and Research Associate at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism (RISJ) at the University of Oxford. Previously was Senior Research Fellow at RISJ where she led the Journalism Innovation Project. She researches at the intersection of journalism practice, digital media, disinformation, gender, journalism safety, and freedom of expression. Posetti is the author of Protecting Journalism Sources in the Digital Age (UNESCO 2017) and the co-editor of Journalism, ‘Fake News’ and Disinformation (UNESCO 2018) and Balancing Act: Responding to Disinformation While Respecting Freedom of Expression (UNESCO/ITU 2020). She was awarded her PhD in 2018, and her academic research has been published internationally in peer reviewed journals and scholarly books.

Dr. Posetti brings over three decades of high-level international journalism practice to her research, including time as a news editor, documentary reporter and national political correspondent with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC). In this capacity, she was awarded the Australian Human Rights Awards for Radio for her coverage of Indigenous affairs, the resurgence of the ‘racist right’, and systemic child abuse in state care. She was also a recipient of the Australian National Press Club’s ‘German Award for Journalism’. More recently, her work has been published by The Atlantic, Harvard University’s Nieman Lab, the BBC, The Sydney Morning Herald and The Guardian.

She is also a former Research Fellow and Editor with the Paris-based World Association of News Publishers (WAN-IFRA) and the World Editors’ Forum, where she edited their flagship international industry report Trends in Newsrooms. She was Head of Digital Editorial Capability for Fairfax Media, publisher of The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age 2016/2017. In this role, she facilitated and co-produced the investigative podcast series ‘Phoebe’s Fall’, which won gold at the New York Radio Festival, along with a host of other awards.

Known for her early research and reporting about the transformative impacts of social media practice on journalism (from the clash of private and public spheres, to new patterns of audience engagement, and challenges to traditional modes of verification), Posetti has also been at the forefront of understanding and documenting converging Digital Age threats to investigative journalism, in particular journalistic source confidentiality and online harassment.