By Sofia Feeney
On February 7-8, 2025, The Forum for the Academy and the Public hosted Facts Under Fire: Reporting In Impossible Times. The annual forum is co-directed by Amy Wilentz (Professor of Literary Journalism) and Jeffrey Wasserstrom (Chancellor's Professor of History). Founded in 2015 with the goal of bringing complicated, intelligent dialogue among scholars, experts and artists before the public, the Forum for the Academy is an interdisciplinary collaboration between the Literary Journalism program, the School of Humanities and UCI Law.
Reflecting upon the importance of the annual event, Humanities Dean Tyrus Miller notes that, “Truly international in scope, the Forum provides a critical space for the broader UC Irvine community to connect around important issues that require a wide range of expertise to address. We’re thankful to the Forum’s founders, Amy and Jeff, for their dedication to hosting these conversations, and their mentorship of students as a part of the Forum.”
Reporting in impossible times
This year’s theme felt especially timely. While it may be true that facts are always under fire, across the globe and throughout time, right now is an especially tense time for presenting factual material – in the scientific, journalistic, medical and political realms. Journalists and their work are always under a tight lens of public scrutiny, reasonable or not.
As a student of literary journalism I often wonder: How do we, as a profession, bring our reporting and storytelling to the public? How do we show our audiences what matters in a way that they’ll actually listen? I remember the first time I was scared to pursue this career pathway. It was during the January 6th insurrection when I was a senior in high school, and I remember how I scrolled through articles and social media and witnessed the call for violence against members of mainstream media by hundreds of rioters in person and online. At that moment, I wanted to be one of those members of the media so badly. No – it’s not that I have a penchant for danger. I just greatly admired their dedication to reporting.
The dangers of storytelling
This year’s Forum was held at the UCI School of Law and drew a diverse crowd of journalists, photographers, climate scientists and other academics and experts. A few invited participants from abroad spoke about fleeing their home countries, while other presenters talked about time spent in jail, or being harassed both in person or online. The broad range of panelists certainly made clear that the fight against disinformation isn’t limited to the United States.
Panels and discussions like “Journalists as Targets” and the lunchtime conversation “A Dialogue on War Zones” asked the question of how to keep one another safe while reporting important stories.
I was in awe of these storytellers – the dangers they faced and the fire inside them that kept them yearning to work. As journalism is increasingly under fire, several forum participants emphasized the importance of community and of resources like the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). Jodie Ginsberg, the CEO of CPJ, talked about dedicating her career to defending the rights of journalists and promoting a free press worldwide. Many on the panels also considered the question of whether facts, real ones, that is, can even be perceived by the public, given social media mis- and disinformation campaigns and the twisting of facts that seems to pervade our culture.
Science + humanities + law
For many in the community, UC Irvine is perceived as a largely STEM-focused school. The campus prides itself on the research advancements and scientific breakthroughs that our faculty and students have made. And let’s be real: I barely passed high school biology. When I graduated, I promised myself that I would get STEM out of my life as much as I could. But the forum’s panel on “Climate as a Story or the Story” made me realize that I need to be more informed about scientific stories, not less. Being more knowledgeable is obviously important as an aspiring storyteller; it’s most crucial as just an inhabitant of the world!
The storytelling panel was moderated by Alex Wang (Professor of Law, UCLA), and included panelists Doug Kysar (Professor of Law, Yale University), Nina Lakhani (Senior Climate Justice Reporter, The Guardian), Cascade Sorte (Associate Professor of Biology, UCI) and Alan Weisman (award-winning journalist and author of The World Without Us). The discussion focused on the intersection of storytelling and STEM, climate change and its effects on agriculture, natural disasters and everyday life as we know it.
Weisman noted that people tend to realize that climate change exists when its effects begin to threaten them. I had believed this to be true as well, but wondered if I was maybe too optimistic. He gave me hope. Lakhani talked about being on the front lines of Hurricane Helene in North Carolina. In her experience, contrary to Weisman’s analysis, many people who were actual victims of the event still did not believe in climate change, or that it could affect their lives. This rang true to me as well. I had also witnessed people blame the horrific LA fires on an act of God, as opposed to wildfires whipped up by climate-change-affected winds and drought. How does one make sense of this?
Making space for disagreement
I was so happy to see Nina and Alan disagree. I squealed a little in my seat because it showed that we were not in an echo chamber of academics, “yes anding” each other. It was a respectful and progressive dialogue between the panel and the audience. In the polarizing space we live in, it’s easy to forget how opposing views are supposed to co-exist without getting nasty. Through disagreement and dissent we can work towards understanding one another and bettering the lives of people and the rest of the creatures on the planet.
For Wilentz, who co-launched the Forum over a decade ago, “What we want to show the public, which we consider an integral part of our events, is that intelligent discussion and argument don’t need to devolve into an erasure of one side over the other.” It’s important for the Forum “to encourage robust argument, intelligent dissent and wide-ranging fact-based debate, from a diverse and brilliant group of thinkers. We also encourage humor and we always try to include artists — whether novelists, photographers, musicians, screenwriters — or poets to join in the fun and the rough-and-tumble. The whole point is to gain real and valuable insight into the most pressing issues of our day.”
I didn’t leave this conference all warm and fuzzy. Truly: I left it with more questions than answers, and with a deep concern for the future of storytellers. But crucially, I wasn’t alone. The forum provided a space for having these hard conversations in community, and for an open dialogue between the seasoned professionals on the panels and members of the audience with great hopes for the future but with maybe a lot less life experience — like me.
About Sofia Feeney
Sofia is a fourth year literary journalism student with minors in creative writing and international studies. She currently works as an intern for the Center for Storytelling, a digital media and creative services intern for the Intercollegiate Athletics Department and as the assistant features editor at New University.