About Engage2026
Engage2026 is a two-day virtual conference dedicated to engagement journalism: the growing practice of building deeper, more reciprocal relationships between journalists and the communities they serve.
Engage2026 brings together journalists, social scientists, educators, and community practitioners for focused learning and honest conversation.
Our core values are learning and community. Every part of Engage2026 — from the talks to conference radio to the conference magazine — is designed to create lasting connections and useful knowledge.
Engage2026 is produced by the Centre for Anthropology and Journalism.
This Year’s Theme: Caretaking
What happens when we view journalism as a caretaking profession? What does it mean to practice care in journalism? Not care as a soft abstraction, but care as a working method.
The 2026 theme invites proposals that explore care concepts that sustain engagement work. We are interested in talks that teach something. Let’s share practices that treat communities not as sources to extract from, but as partners in a shared effort to understand the world.
A few directions to consider:
- How an ethic of care has helped you move beyond the limitations of traditional, distant reporting to foster connection, compassion, and more responsible public understanding
- Projects and teams where care and empathy work together in practice
- How adopting caretaking as a stance has unlocked new capabilities or reached new audiences
- Your techniques for teaching caretaking within engagement journalism
- Broad reflections on what caretaking means for journalism’s relationship with communities
- Anything else you think this community would be eager to learn
April 30 early bird registration deadline!
Register here to take advantage of the discounted rate.
Who Should Attend
Engage2026 is designed for people doing engagement work from many starting points:
- Engagement journalists, editors, and newsroom leadersWorking to build stronger relationships with their communities
- Social scientists and anthropologists: Interested in getting their research in the public eye and/or whose research intersects with journalism, public life, or community practice
- Students: In journalism, anthropology, communications, or related fields who want to learn from practitioners
- Community organizers and civic practitioners: Doing community-centered work that connects to journalism’s mission
Whether you are deep into engagement practice or just beginning to explore it, there is a place for you here.
In the conference schedule will be a Pitchapalooza Event for Freelancers and Editors
FAQs ~
What is it? Like speed-dating for freelancers and editors. Editors chat in a Zoom breakout room for 10-mins per freelancer over the course of an afternoon on August 18, 2026.
What kind of editors can participate? We welcome any level of editor (associate editors, senior editors, EIC… whoever from your masthead is best to listen to pitches from freelancers), from all types of publications.
What commitment do you need from me as an editor? We are looking for editors to commit to a minimum 45-minute time block on August 19, 2026 anytime between noon – 4pm EST.
What else do you need from me? Name, email address, submission guidelines link and any specific submission requests the editor is looking for at this time.
Other info: Participating editors will receive a free ticket to the conference.
Who will be pitching me? Any conference participant can sign up for Pitchapalooza. Since the conference is an international engagement journalism conference, we anticipate most freelancers will be oriented to engaged reporting. We also anticipate some social scientists and anthropologists interested to be published outside of academia to participate. We will encourage participants to have some experience with journalism and freelance writing, but it will not be a requirement. All registrants will be provided the opportunity to take a “pitching tune-up” workshop in preparation.
How will you determine my Pitchapalooza schedule? If an editor can’t meet with everyone who requests them, we’ll curate their schedule with a view to align writers with their publication’s specific mandate or immediate requests. To this end, freelancers will be asked to fill out optional fields about topics of interests and work experience.
Do I have to commit to pitches that day? No (unless you want to). Most editors interested in a pitch will ask the freelancer to follow up via email. This is just a conversation, to get things started.
When do I need to tell you if I will participate (deadline)? We aim to have all Pitchapalooza editors confirmed by May 20, 2026.
