From 8–10 December 2025 at the Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Centre (ADNEC), the BRIDGE Summit — the world’s largest debut media event — will highlight the Media Track as one of its seven core content pillars. This track will gather over 100 global editors, founders, policymakers, and investors across 50+ sessions, as part of the Summit’s broader 400+ speaker program, to explore how cross-sector collaboration can build a more resilient, credible, and inclusive global media ecosystem.
The past decade has redefined the boundaries of media and information. Streaming has overtaken broadcast, social platforms have surpassed newsrooms, and artificial intelligence is reshaping how truth is created, verified, and consumed. As audiences fragment and trust diminishes, questions of ownership, influence, and accountability have become defining challenges for the global information order — challenges that will take center stage at BRIDGE Summit 2025 in Abu Dhabi.
The Media Track will further BRIDGE Summit’s goal to serve as a global platform for industry leaders and stakeholders to connect, exchange knowledge, and forge partnerships that cultivate a more resilient and interconnected media ecosystem.
Themes and sessions highlighted in the media track include panels such as “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”, which 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.
Sessions like “The Threshold of Truth”, “When Everyone’s Verified”, “Who Can You Trust?”, “Stories with an Agenda”, and “Setting Standards for Responsible Storytelling” will delve into the evolving ethics of credibility and transparency in an age of synthetic content, algorithmic distribution, and advocacy-driven reporting.
Discussions 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 behavior, subcultures, and generational values are redefining what authenticity and attention mean to modern media.
Panels like “The Comfort Crisis in Media”, “The New Priorities of News Media”, and “Media Moneyball” will examine 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 tool, sessions like “How Media Shapes the Course of Modern Conflict and Leaks” and “Whistleblowers and the New Information Battlefield” will analyze the complex interplay between journalism, security, and global stability.
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 Guardian Media Group; Jessica Sibley, CEO 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 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 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 specializing 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.
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 a collaborative platform to strengthen the credibility, sustainability, and inclusivity of information systems worldwide.
Hosted in Abu Dhabi, the Summit also underscores the UAE’s role as a global hub for dialogue and cooperation.
