HONOLULU (June 28, 2018) – The 2022 East-West Center International Media Conference kicked off in true Hawai‘i style last night as participants gathered oceanfront at Waikīkī for the conference’s welcome reception, illuminated by a spectacular sunset over the Pacific. (View a photo gallery.) 

As the Center’s first major conference bringing attendees from numerous countries together in person after two years of pandemic restrictions, the celebration at the picturesque Honolulu Elks Lodge was especially poignant as old colleagues and friends were reunited, and new ones joined the media conference ‘ohana (extended family). Some 300 journalists and media professionals from 35 countries are attending the three-day conference on the theme “Connecting in Zero-Trust World,” in search of ways to break through the growing disconnect in media and societies, and get back to some kind of shared, fact-based reality. 

After postponing the biennial conference since 2018 due to COVID, conference director Susan Kreifels told the assembled participants she was “absolutely overjoyed to see so many faces of longtime friends and colleagues, and so many new faces!” Noting that it was the first time the Center had ever held the conference inside the United States, Kreifels said: “Here we are in beautiful Hawai‘i, the home state of the East-West Center, on Waikīkī beach at sunset. It doesn't get any better than this, does it?” 

East-West Center President Suzanne Vares-Lum, who majored in journalism herself at the University of Hawai‘i, said, “We have so many distinguished journalists here, and I want to thank each one of you from the bottom of my heart for taking the time to care about our world, to care about this region and about people. That's why you do what you do, bringing facts to light in a world that so very much needs it.” 

Longtime journalist Ansgar Graw, now director of conference cohost Konrad Adenauer Stiftungʻs Asia media program, said, “I think the title of our conference, Connecting in a Zero-Trust World is so important in several directions. We really have to regain trust in this world, and we have to ask ourselves honestly as journalists whether we have made some mistakes that have hurt trust, and work on it. But I think we are all able, and we are all eager, to fulfill this responsibility of spreading the news.” 

HONOLULU (June 28, 2018) – The 2022 East-West Center International Media Conference kicked off in true Hawai‘i style last night as participants gathered oceanfront at Waikīkī for the conference’s welcome reception, illuminated by a spectacular sunset over the Pacific. (View a photo gallery.) 

As the Center’s first major conference bringing attendees from numerous countries together in person after two years of pandemic restrictions, the celebration at the picturesque Honolulu Elks Lodge was especially poignant as old colleagues and friends were reunited, and new ones joined the media conference ‘ohana (extended family). Some 300 journalists and media professionals from 35 countries are attending the three-day conference on the theme “Connecting in Zero-Trust World,” in search of ways to break through the growing disconnect in media and societies, and get back to some kind of shared, fact-based reality. 

After postponing the biennial conference since 2018 due to COVID, conference director Susan Kreifels told the assembled participants she was “absolutely overjoyed to see so many faces of longtime friends and colleagues, and so many new faces!” Noting that it was the first time the Center had ever held the conference inside the United States, Kreifels said: “Here we are in beautiful Hawai‘i, the home state of the East-West Center, on Waikīkī beach at sunset. It doesn't get any better than this, does it?” 

East-West Center President Suzanne Vares-Lum, who majored in journalism herself at the University of Hawai‘i, said, “We have so many distinguished journalists here, and I want to thank each one of you from the bottom of my heart for taking the time to care about our world, to care about this region and about people. That's why you do what you do, bringing facts to light in a world that so very much needs it.” 

Longtime journalist Ansgar Graw, now director of conference cohost Konrad Adenauer Stiftungʻs Asia media program, said, “I think the title of our conference, Connecting in a Zero-Trust World is so important in several directions. We really have to regain trust in this world, and we have to ask ourselves honestly as journalists whether we have made some mistakes that have hurt trust, and work on it. But I think we are all able, and we are all eager, to fulfill this responsibility of spreading the news.”