Media Track at BRIDGE Summit to confront global credibility crisis and economics of influence

More than 100 speakers to debate who funds, owns, and verifies the world’s stories across 50+ sessions in Abu Dhabi, December 8 - 10

From 8–10 December 2025 at the Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Centre (ADNEC), BRIDGE Summit — the world’s largest debut media event — will spotlight the Media Track as one of its seven core content pillars. The track will convene more than 100 global editors, founders, policymakers, and investors across 50+ sessions, as part of the Summit’s wider 400+ speaker programme, to examine how collaboration across sectors can enable a more resilient, credible and inclusive global media ecosystem.

The past decade has redrawn the boundaries of media and information. Streaming has eclipsed broadcast, social platforms have overtaken newsrooms, and artificial intelligence is rewriting how truth is created, verified and consumed. As audiences fragment and trust erodes, questions of ownership, influence and accountability have become defining challenges for the global information order — challenges that will take centre stage at BRIDGE Summit 2025 in Abu Dhabi.

The Media Track will further BRIDGE Summit’s ambitions to serve as a global platform for industry leaders and stakeholders to connect, exchange knowledge, and forge partnerships that will create a more resilient and interconnected media ecosystem.

Themes and sessions celebrated by the Media track

Panels including ‘Money Talks: Who’s Funding the News You Read?’, ‘Media’s New Centres of Gravity’, ‘Who Pays When Journalism Goes Broke’, and ‘The End of Media’s Philanthropic Whiplash’ will explore how capital, technology, and philanthropy are redefining editorial independence, and whether new ownership models can coexist with the mission of free and independent journalism.

‘The Threshold of Truth’, ‘When Everyone’s Verified’, ‘Who Can You Trust?’, ‘Stories with an Agenda’, and ‘Setting Standards for Responsible Storytelling’ unpack the evolving ethics of credibility and transparency in an age of synthetic content, algorithmic distribution, and advocacy-driven reporting.

Sessions such as ‘Memes as a Media Business’, ‘Winning Back Gen Z One Swipe at a Time’, and ‘Fighting for Depth in a Shallow Media World’ will investigate how audience behaviour, subcultures, and generational values are redefining what authenticity and attention mean to modern media.

‘The Comfort Crisis in Media’, ‘The New Priorities of News Media’, and ‘Media Moneyball’ will explore how publishers and creators are rebuilding sustainability through direct audience ownership, first-party intelligence, and new data-driven investment logic.

As information becomes a geopolitical instrument, ‘How Media Shapes the Course of Modern Conflict and Leaks’ and ‘Whistleblowers and the New Information Battlefield’ will analyse the complex interplay between journalism, security, and global stability.

Global voices driving the conversation

The Media Track brings together an unprecedented lineup of media pioneers, cultural leaders, and policy thinkers. Headlining speakers include Gary Vaynerchuk, Chairman of VaynerX; Moira Forbes, Executive Vice President of Forbes; Joanna Coles, Chief Creative and Content Officer at The Daily Beast; Pooja Bagga, Chief Information Officer of the Guardian Media Group, Jessica Sibley is the Chief Executive Officer of TIME, Justin Smith, Co-Founder and CEO of Semafor; Nancy Gibbs, Director of the Shorenstein Center at Harvard Kennedy School and former Editor-in-Chief of TIME; Andrew Zimmern, Emmy and James Beard Award-winning host and storyteller; Anthony Scaramucci, Founder and Managing Partner of SkyBridge and Founder of SALT; and Shekhar Gupta, Founder and Editor-in-Chief of ThePrint.

They will be joined by HRH Princess Lamia Bint Majid Al Saud, Secretary General of Alwaleed Philanthropies; Dr. Julie Gichuru, Founder and CEO of the Africa Leadership and Dialogue Institute; Andrew Sollinger, CEO and Publisher of Foreign Policy; Eric Schurenberg, Founder of the Alliance for Trust in Media and former CEO of Inc. and Fast Company; Rt. Hon. Lucy Frazer KC, former UK Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport; Sir Liam Fox, former UK Secretary of State for International Trade and Defence; Horst Bente, private investor of the Adi Dassler family legacy in global sports media and culture; Christoph Sonnen, Co-Founder of LEAD Sports and Health Tech Partners; Earl Wilkinson, Executive Director and CEO of the International News Media Association (INMA); Keith Bonnici, President and COO of The Daily Beast; and Ahmed Hussain, Senior Executive at the BBC and Head of BBC Asian Network.

The stage will also feature Uche Pedro, Founder of BellaNaija; Abdul Karim Abdullah, Founder and CEO of Culture Management Group and Founder of AfroFuture Festival; Ken Ansah, COO of Multimedia Group Limited; Ferial Haffajee, Associate Editor of Daily Maverick; Prof. Robert G. Picard, Media Economist at the Reuters Institute, University of Oxford; Sulemana Braimah, Executive Director of the Media Foundation for West Africa; Diego Escosteguy, Founder of O Bastidor; Mpindi Abaas, Co-Founder and CEO of the Media Challenge Initiative; Betty Irabor, Founder of Genevieve Magazine; Drew Baldwin, CEO of Tubefilter and Creator of The Streamy Awards; Carole House, Former Special Advisor for Cybersecurity at the White House National Security Council; Anu Duggal, Founding Partner of the Female Founders Fund; Stephanie Mehta, CEO of Mansueto Ventures; Máximos Mazzocco, Founder of EcoNews; Resham Kotecha, Global AI, Data and Strategy Expert; Regina Kim, journalist specialising in Asian-American culture and entertainment; Justin Norman, Founder of The Flip; Dr. Yemisi Akinbobola, Co-Founder of African Women in Media; Nahjae Nunes, Scholar-Practitioner at UNICEF Innocenti; Dr. Lee Bofkin, Co-Founder and CEO of Global Street Art; and Branko Brkic, Leader of Project Kontinuum and former Editor-in-Chief of Daily Maverick.

Together, these voices represent the institutions, insurgencies, capital, culture, and policy forces redefining how the world produces, distributes, monetizes, and governs information.

Enabling collaboration across sectors

The Media Track exemplifies the purpose of BRIDGE Summit: to facilitate cross-sector integration and advance access to the content economy. As the media ecosystem evolves at the intersection of technology, finance, policy, and culture, BRIDGE Summit will provide the space for global collaboration that strengthens the credibility, sustainability, and inclusivity of information systems worldwide.

Hosted in Abu Dhabi, the Summit also reinforces the UAE’s role as a global hub for dialogue and cooperation.