SF Chronicle, CPJ and Washington Post Join UC Berkeley Forum on Press Freedom

Jason Rezaian spent 544 days wrongfully imprisoned in Iran after his 2014 arrest as The Washington Post's Tehran bureau chief. On March 31, he will take the stage at UC Berkeley's North Gate Hall to discuss what press freedom looks like when it is stripped away entirely.

Rezaian, now the Post's director of press freedom initiatives, will appear alongside Jodie Ginsberg, CEO of the Committee to Protect Journalists, for the 2026 Herb Caen Lecture titled "Press Freedom in Peril." San Francisco Chronicle Editor-in-Chief Emilio Garcia-Ruiz will moderate the conversation, which begins at 6:30 p.m. following a reception at 5:30 p.m. at the Logan Multimedia Center. Dean Michael D. Bolden of the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism will deliver opening remarks.

The event is co-presented by the Chronicle and Berkeley's journalism school, continuing a series established in 1996 through the Herb Caen/San Francisco Chronicle Lecture Fund, created by the Chronicle Publishing Company to honor the city's legendary columnist. Past editions have featured writer Rebecca Solnit with Chronicle Urban Design Critic John King, and former Washington Post opinion columnist Jennifer Rubin in conversation with Chronicle Senior Political Writer Joe Garofoli.

The 2026 edition carries a sharper edge. The lecture will examine threats to press independence in the United States and around the world, pairing Ginsberg's institutional vantage point at the CPJ with Rezaian's firsthand experience of what happens when those threats become personal. Garcia-Ruiz brings his own Washington Post history to the table: he spent nearly two decades there, serving as managing editor for digital before taking over the Chronicle.

Tickets are $10 and available online. Berkeley is also offering a Zoom registration option for those who cannot attend in person at North Gate Hall. Readers should confirm the final schedule with the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism, as sources list the main conversation at either 6:30 p.m. or 7:30 p.m.; the Berkeley event page lists 6:30 p.m. as the authoritative time.

The lecture lands at a moment when scrutiny of press independence has intensified on both the domestic and international fronts, making the pairing of a CPJ chief executive and a journalist who survived wrongful detention abroad a particularly pointed choice for a forum bearing the name of San Francisco's most beloved chronicler of city life.