Speakers, 2025 Conference

Sarah is the President of the Society of Editors and the Director of Newsgathering and Operations at Sky News with responsibility for UK and international journalism as well as Sky’s operations teams.

Sarah has been at Sky News for 13 years as Head of International News, Head of Home News and Deputy Head of Newsgathering before her most recent promotion. In her role as Deputy Head of Newsgathering she ran major events and special projects including Sky’s coverage of the death of the Queen, the Coronation and award-winning projects around climate in the run up to COP26 in Glasgow.

Before Sky News, Sarah was at the BBC. She has over 20 years’ experience working across TV, digital and audio and has worked in many genres including news, documentary and drama. She is a member of the DSMA Notice Committee and is on the board of the British Journalism Review.

John Battle is an employed barrister and advises editors and journalists for ITN’s news services – ITV News, Channel 4 News and Channel Five News.   He has a particular interest in open justice. He led the broadcast industry lobbying the judiciary and government to allow cameras in court, resulting  in legal reform allowing filming in the Court of Appeal and sentencing in the Crown Court. He also helped establish the CPS Police Media Protocol (which allows images shown in court to be provided to the media) and authored the Reporters’ Charter which details the rights of reporters to report the courts. He is a past Chair of the Media Lawyers Association and has previously worked for Associated Newspapers and News UK.

Carole Cadwalladr is a Pulitzer-nominated investigative journalist. In 2018, she exposed the Cambridge Analytica/Facebook scandal with the Observer/Guardian and New York Times and a year later gave a TED talk about how Facebook’s role in Brexit and the threat to democracy that’s been viewed more than 5m times and starred in the Netflix documentary, The Great Hack.

Catalina has more than 15 years of experience providing humanitarian and emergency assistance to journalists in crisis. In June 2019 she joined the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) as a Journalist Assistance Program Coordinator, and in April 2024 became CPJ’s Deputy Emergencies Director. She is currently serving as the Acting Emergencies Director. Prior to joining CPJ in 2019, she was Senior Programme Officer for Safety and the Americas at the London-based Rory Peck Trust, managing the organization’s training and operations in support of freelance journalists in distress. A native Spanish speaker, Catalina studied law and holds a master’s in International Politics and Human Rights from City University in London. She is based in the U.K. 

In her role, Katie Hind heads up the Showbusiness content for the Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday, Mail Online and Mail+.

She as previously Showbusiness Editor of The Mail on Sunday. During her time at the Mail Katie has won several awards, including Scoop of the Year for exposing Phillip Schofield’s relationship with a much younger colleague. It was the scandal that ended the presenter’s three-decade long career at ITV and prompted the broadcaster to launch an external investigation into its culture. 

Katie also won Showbiz Reporter of the Year twice consecutively.

She was previously Los Angeles Editor for the Mirror and Showbusiness Editor of the Sunday People. 

Owen is the chief executive of the NMA, appointed in July 2021. Previously CEO of the Professional Publishers Association, he has a wealth of experience in the media sector. He held a number of roles at the magazine and business media trade body prior to being appointed CEO, primarily overseeing public affairs. He stood as a parliamentary candidate in the 2017 General Election, narrowly missing out on being elected MP for Newcastle-under-Lyme. Owen sits on industry boards including the Advertising Association, World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers, Advertising Standards Board of Finance, and News Media Europe.

Camilla Tominey is one of the UK’s foremost journalists, serving as a Television Presenter for GB News, where she hosts an agenda-setting eponymous politics show every Sunday morning. As Associate Editor of the Telegraph since 2018, Camilla presents the Telegraph’s flagship podcast The Daily T,  providing listeners an insider’s perspective on the news. She also writes a weekly column for the Telegraph.

As one of the country’s foremost royal experts, Camilla has reported on pivotal stories such as the engagement of Prince William and the Princess of Wales Kate Middleton, the relationship between Prince Harry and Duchess Meghan Markle in 2016, the death of Queen Elizabeth II and the Coronation of King Charles III.  

As a seasoned commentator on politics and the royals, Camilla has worked all over the world, for media outlets such as NBC in USA, Nine Network in Australia, ZDF & ARD in Germany, RTL in France, among others. In the UK, she has also served as a Royal Correspondent for ITV’s This Morning. A respected journalist, Camilla was named Journalist of the Year at the McLean-DB Recovery+ Award for her work on the story about children of alcoholics.

Recognised across the world for her coverage of the Royal Wedding, she attracted a viewership of 55 million, which is no easy feat. Camilla’s accolades speak for themself – she was nominated Multimedia Journalist of the Year by London Press Club Awards in 2021, and as Journalist of the Year at the 2023 Publishing Awards. Last year she won a Television and Radio Industries Club (TRIC) Award for her poignant interview with former ITN anchor Alastair Stewart about his dementia diagnosis.

Dr Rebecca Whittington is the Online Safety Editor for Reach Plc, the UK’s largest commercial news publisher. She was appointed into the role, which was the first of its kind established in the UK, to protect journalists from online harassment and harm. Rebecca also writes about online threats, campaigns for the online safety of women in journalism and sits on the advisory committee for Women in Journalism and the employers sub-committee of the National Committee for the Safety of Journalists.