Robert A. Bertsche, a First Amendment and media litigator and counselor, holds up Klaris’s Boston location. A former journalist, Rob has earned a national reputation representing print and online magazines, newspapers, broadcasters, documentary filmmakers, and websites, including in their video, film, podcast, television, and social media incarnations. He serves as editorial counsel to dozens of publications nationwide, including not only one of the country’s largest-circulation consumer magazines, but also one of its most storied and respected news magazines.

Rob specializes in extensive prepublication and pre-broadcast review and also counsels editors and journalists with the aim of avoiding litigation when possible. Where that has not been possible, he has represented media in more than 35 lawsuits in federal and state courts in New York, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and New Hampshire, including two libel trials and other cases involving invasion of privacy, access, and public records, copyright and trademark infringement, and Section 230.

Longtime general counsel to the New England Newspaper and Press Association, Rob also serves on the board of the New England First Amendment Coalition and as a member of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court’s Judiciary-Media Committee. For the Media Law Resource Center, he writes the annual outlines of First Circuit media libel and Massachusetts employment libel law. Since 2005, he has been selected by the American Society of Magazine Editors to conduct annual legal training programs in the editorial and business aspects of print and online publications.

For the past 15 years, Rob has regularly been rated as a “Best Lawyer”® and “Super Lawyer”® in the fields of media law and First Amendment litigation. He has also been honored by Massachusetts Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts for his pro bono work and is an Oliver Wendell Holmes Fellow of the Massachusetts Bar Foundation, Life Fellow of the American Bar Foundation, and member of the invitation-only Litigation Counsel of America. Most recently, he was recognized by a national publication as Boston’s 2022 “Lawyer of the Year” for First Amendment litigation and media law. A graduate of Wesleyan University and Harvard Law School, Rob is admitted to practice in Massachusetts, New York, New Hampshire, and Pennsylvania.

Katherine Jacobsen is the U.S. and Canada Program Coordinator at the Committee to Protect Journalists, a global non-profit organization based in New York. In this role, Jacobsen works with local news organizations and reporters to monitor and respond to attacks on the media.  Prior to working at CPJ, Jacobsen worked for four years as a reporter in Ukraine and Russia, writing for outlets including the Associated Press and Businessweek.

Stephanie Sugars is the senior reporter for the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker, where she documents press freedom violations in the U.S. and by U.S. officials abroad. A graduate of NYU’s Global and Joint Program Studies program in journalism and international relations, her professional work focuses on human rights, politics and identity-targeted violence. She has previously worked at the Committee to Protect Journalists and the Post-Conflict Research Center, and her freelance reporting has appeared in Al Jazeera, Open Democracy and Balkan Diskurs.

Judith Meyer is executive editor of the Sun Journal, Kennebec Journal, the Morning Sentinel, and six weekly newspapers owned by the Sun Media Group.

A journalist since 1990 and former editorial page editor for the Sun Journal, she was named Maine’s Journalist of the Year in 2003 and was inducted into the Maine Press Association Hall of Fame in October 2021.

She serves as vice president of the Maine Freedom of Information Coalition and is a member of the Right to Know Advisory Committee to the Legislature.

She is the former president of the New England Newspaper & Press Association Board of Directors, is on the board of the New England First Amendment Coalition, and was the 2018 recipient of the Judith Vance Weld Brown Spirit of Journalism Award in New England.

Evan Allen is an investigative reporter on the Globe’s Narratives and Quick Strike investigative teams. She began freelancing for the Globe in 2011 and joined the staff in 2013. She has covered police, breaking news, and major events including the Boston Marathon bombings. She was part of a team that won the 2021 Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting for a series about dangerous drivers. She has won the Scripps Howard Award and the Meyer “Mike” Berger Award; she was a finalist for the Livingston and Goldsmith awards; and her work has been published in The Best American Newspaper Narratives. She grew up in Quincy, Mass., where she still lives, and graduated from Emerson College.

Richard E. Brown is a News/Media Alliance Rising Star recipient, the former director of renewals and digital sales strategy at LPi, and the former director of digital operations and sales of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. He recently served as the head of digital subscriber churn for Gannett | USA TODAY NETWORK and is now the senior director of retention for The Daily Beast. He is also a member of the board of directors for the Wisconsin Newspaper Association Foundation.

Richard Watts is a member of the NENPA Board of Directors and the founder of the Center for Community News, Co-Director of the Reporting & Documentary Storytelling program at the University of Vermont and coordinator of the Community News Service – a state-wide, multi-outlet academic-news partnership with a mission to provide content to community news outlets and give students applied learning experiences. Richard has a master’s degree in journalism from the S.I. Newhouse School at Syracuse University and a Ph.D. related to media studies from the Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources and has worked as a reporter, campaign manager, policy analyst, and researcher.

Reuben Fischer-Baum is an editor on the graphics team at The Washington Post, where he leads a team of reporters focused on trackers and reader tools. He previously worked as a visual journalist at FiveThirtyEight and Deadspin and has taught data visualization at Parsons School of Design. He was a 2021-2022 fellow at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard, and a 2017-2018 Paul Miller Fellow at the National Press Foundation.

John Voket has primarily worked in journalism, broadcasting and communications all his life, holding positions as an Associated Press stringer; a reporter, designer and editor for numerous community papers in Connecticut; and is currently Editor of The Newtown Bee serving Newtown and Sandy Hook, CT.

In his tenure with “The Bee,” John has covered virtually every local municipal department, board, and commission; written about hundreds of local personalities, community events, cultural & arts activities; and he was the first working journalist on the scene following the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings — delivering some of the initial video and reporting that fateful morning in 2012 to local, state, and global audiences. He continues to report regularly on the aftermath and outcomes of that tragedy, and in July 2021, he was promoted to lead the newspaper’s editorial team.

As director of Public Affairs for Connecticut-based Connoisseur Media, John’s award-winning radio program ‘For the People’ is syndicated on Connecticut’s largest radio network – 99.1-WPLR / STAR 99.9 / 95.9-The FOX / WEBE 108 / WICC-AM/FM – and is available as a weekly podcast on various platforms. John has also served on the board, and previously held an executive board seat with NENPA – the New England Newspaper & Press Association – and served as President in 2018.

Jerry Berger had a passion for Statehouse reporting from the start of his journalism career at a small daily newspaper, checking in with area legislators on key issues facing Beacon Hill and their local impact. He took that interest along with him to United Press International, where he reported from Beacon Hill for six years. Rising to bureau chief, he covered a presidential campaign and two gubernatorial elections. He’s also seen government and policy from the inside, working as communications director for the Senate Ways and Means Committee and the state arts agency.

He served as media relations director at Boston’s Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center for over a decade, leading the institution through the communication challenges during the attack on the Boston Marathon. He keeps his writing and reporting skills sharp as a freelancer for health care-related organizations, consults on media strategy and is active on social media.

He brings that background to the Statehouse Program, where students get hands-on experience covering state government for regional outlets across Massachusetts. Reporters, elected officials and advocates join the discussion to help lay the groundwork on the do’s and don’ts of reporting on public affairs and politics.