BUFFALO, N.Y. – Read all about it! “Breaking News” is the theme of this year’s Buffalo Humanities Festival, a two-day event on Sept. 25 and 26 that will feature award-winning journalist Juan González, co-host of “Democracy Now!,” as the spotlight speaker.

Presented by the University at Buffalo’s Humanities Institute (HI), in cooperation with Canisius University, Daemen University, Niagara University, SUNY Buffalo State University, and the Buffalo & Erie County Public Library, the festival is made possible with support from the UB College of Arts and Sciences, UB Office of Research, Innovation and Economic Development, and the Hispanic Heritage Council of Western New York.

González, a two-time winner of the George Polk Award for commentary and a former president of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, will open the festival with a spotlight talk on Sept. 25 at 5 p.m. González will also join the festival on Sept. 26 for the first session, “The Value of Local Journalism,” a roundtable representing several Buffalo-based news organizations such as The Buffalo News, Buffalo Latino Village, Buffalo Niagara Proud Alliance, M.U.V. Magazine and Investigative Post. All festival events, talks and panels on both days will take place at the central branch of the Buffalo & Erie County Public Library, 1 Lafayette Square in Buffalo.

A complete list of festival speakers and events is available online.

“Breaking News” will explore the past, present and future of news media. What is the source of our news? How is that information delivered? And what can be trusted?

In the 2011 book, “News for all the People: The Epic Story of Race and the American Media,” González, with co-author Joseph Torres, wrote: “Despite [the] incessant chatter, many Americans remain remarkably misinformed about the world around us.”

But breaking news, as a festival theme, asks a question at the same time it refers to an emerging story, according to Christina Milletti, PhD, associate professor of English at UB and HI’s interim director.

“Embedded within our 2026 theme is a pun: Is breaking news announcing something new? Or does breaking news warn us that the news is really falling apart? Is it breaking or is it broken,” she says. “Our speakers and panels will look at shifting media platforms and patterns, growing monopolies and editorial judgements. Are the problems new or have they always been there?”

Andrea Pitts, PhD, associate professor of comparative literature at UB and interim executive director of HI, asks “if the media is broken then what’s emerging in the cracks of that rupture?”

The festival’s range of speakers in history, sociology and criminology, media studies, political science, filmmaking and library science will address the questions relating to breaking news from local, national and international perspectives that examine how news has been gathered, produced and shared over time.

“This is an especially relevant conversation to have within the humanities because we have training in historical analysis, archival analysis, literary studies, visual rhetoric and media analysis,” says Pitts. “The strengths of these disciplines can show how media circulate and change.”

Milletti says the humanities are the “connective tissue” bringing the festival’s campus and community participants together.

“The humanities enable ‘acts of encounter’ and the festival, through the years and across various themes, has asked challenging questions about the most significant issues of our time so that, alongside our Buffalo communities, we can all learn together,” she says.

Events on day two (Sept. 26) of the festival will include:

• Adam Zyglis, Pulitzer Prize-winning political cartoonist for The Buffalo News. His work has been syndicated through Cagle Cartoons and has appeared in publications around the world.
  
  
• Veronica Horowitz, PhD, an associate professor of sociology and criminology at UB, is an expert on the U.S. criminal punishment system. Her research focuses on issues of gender, mercy and inequality.
  
  
• Yini Zhang, PhD, an associate professor of communication at UB, studies social media and AI, focusing on how they shape contemporary information ecology and their broader implications for politics and society.
  
  
• I’Jaz Ja’ciel is an Edward R. Murrow award-winning journalist, who has worked for WBFO, Spectrum News, and Investigative Post before returning to Buffalo Toronto Public Media in 2026. She is the president of the Buffalo chapter of the National Association of Black Journalists.