She had said Trump\u2019s first election \u201cwas an eye-opening moment for many of us,\u201d that the West is \u201cfar less prepared\u201d for attacks against the press, and that the rest of the world is better prepared to handle \u201c[Trump\u2019s] kind of regime.\u201d<\/p>\n
The center\u2019s main website states \u201cWe are in uncharted waters. Intimidation threatens media practitioners worldwide, and disinformation campaigns destabilize public trust. Knowing how media practitioners work under the uneven power dynamics posed by authoritarian, racist, misogynist, homophobic, classist and settler-colonialist regimes helps us to defend media freedom everywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.thecollegefix.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Barbie_Zelizer.avif\")
U. Pennsylvania<\/p>\n
According to The Daily Pennsylvanian<\/a>, Zelizer (pictured) said her retirement decision \u201cevolved so quickly that there \u2018wasn\u2019t time\u2019 to find another director for the center.\u201d<\/p>\n UPenn Annenberg School Dean Sarah Banet-Weiser said closing the center \u201cwasn\u2019t even really a question\u201d as without Zelizer it \u201cmakes [no] sense\u201d to continue.<\/p>\n \u201cShe\u2019s an incredible force at Annenberg,\u201d Banet-Weiser said. \u201cThis center has really solidified the role of critical journalism, and the responsibility that we all have at Annenberg to think about things like suppression of the press and journalists at risk.\u201d<\/p>\n MORE: \u2018Disinformation\u2019 expert professor: U.S. needs \u2018common sense\u2019 speech restrictions<\/a><\/p>\n From the story<\/a>:<\/p>\n Zelizer said that she founded the center in 2018 following the \u201cenormous\u201d and \u201cimmediate\u201d threat of Trump\u2019s election.<\/p>\n \u201cIt needed people to be organizing in whatever fashion they could,\u201d she said. \u201cAs a former journalist, I figured that was the best way that I could organize.\u201d \u2026<\/p>\n Banet-Weiser said that Zelizer was the \u201cexact person to lead, to conceive of, and create the center,\u201d particularly as journalists \u201caround the world\u201d were facing threats to their wellbeing.<\/p>\n \u201cA center that called out media at risk came at the right moment to get us all thinking really intentionally about what it is that media practitioners, academics, journalists, can do to combat this increasing persecution of journalists, whether or not that\u2019s with death threats or silencing them in other ways,\u201d Banet-Weiser said.\u00a0<\/p>\n Past events featured at the center include a talk examining<\/a> \u201cmedia research and practice as a force not only for survival, but for hope and transformation [\u2026] at a time of profound upheaval,\u201d a discussion<\/a> with CNN\u2019s Brian Stelter about whether \u201cMedia Analysis [is] At Risk,\u201d and a chat with Guardian columnist Arwa Mahdawi who claimed<\/a> media self-censorship \u201chas more than tripled\u00a0in the US\u201d since the 1950s\u2019 McCarthy era.<\/p>\n Regarding censorship, during his tenure at the center research scholar S\u00e9bastien Mort<\/a> spoke out against a 2019 UPenn appearance by then-Turning Point USA official Candace Owens, saying<\/a> it was \u201cdisturbing in light of campus \u2018free-speech\u2019 ex order.\u201d<\/p>\n According to her faculty page, Zelizer taught courses such as \u201cCritical Perspectives in Journalism\u201d and \u201cCollective Memory and Journalism,\u201d and is co-editor of the journal\u00a0Journalism: Theory, Practice & Criticism.<\/p>\n