Annelies Beck is a Brussels-based journalist and writer. She anchors the daily current affairs TV-programme TerZake at VRT (Belgian public broadcast), covering both national and international politics. In that capacity she interviews top ranking politicians, policy makers and intellectuals. She is an experienced moderator of international High Level Panels on foreign affairs and cultural affairs. Previously, as a reporter, she covered elections and other developments in several European countries and in Brazil. She read History at Ghent University (BE) and obtained an MA in Brazilian Studies at ILAS, University of London (UK). She is the author Over het Kanaal (De Geus, 2011), a novel inspired by the plight of the Belgian refugees in Glasgow during the First World War, and Toekomstkoorts (De Geus, 2019), a novel set in today’s Brazil. She is fluent in Dutch, English, French and Portuguese.

Teresa Ribeiro, of Portugal, is the fifth Representative on Freedom of the Media. She has vast political, diplomatic, human rights and media experience.

Prior to this position, she was Secretary of State of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Portugal, while serving as President of the National Commission for Human Rights.

She was also Secretary of State for European Affairs at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Portugal and Deputy Secretary General at the Union for the Mediterranean, positions that gave her extensive experience in dealing with the EU institutions and Member States, as well as with its close neighbourhood.

Throughout her career, Teresa Ribeiro has held different positions in media, both in Portugal and in multilateral organizations, such as President of the Institute of the Media of Portugal, Chairperson of the Steering Committee on Mass Media of the Council of Europe, as well as co-founder and first elected President of the Executive Board of Obercom – Media Observatory.

She holds a degree in Philosophy from the University of Lisbon.

Indrė Makaraitytė is a Lithuanian journalist. During her journalistic career, she hosted various talk shows on Lithuanian national television channels. For more than ten years she worked as the editor-in-chief of one of the first independent newspapers, the weekly "Atgimimas", for almost ten years she was a member of the Board of the Lithuanian office of Transparency International and was a member of the Experts' Council of the Baltic American Partnership Programme. Since 2018, Indrė Makaraitytė has headed the investigative journalism team at the Lithuanian public service media LRT.

Indrė Makaraitytė studied at the Institute of International Relations and Political Science at Vilnius University and holds a master's degree in comparative politics.

As a journalist Manica specializes in foreign affairs, mainly European politics. 

From 1999 to 2022, she presented the main TV evening news bulletin of RTV Slovenija.

From March 2018 to December 2021, she was the editor in chief of the news and current affairs program of TV Slovenia.

Ricardo Gutiérrez is General Secretary of the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ), the largest journalists’ organisation in Europe, representing over 320,000 journalists in 45 countries. Former journalist for the Belgian daily newspaper “Le Soir”, he is senior lecturer at Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB). He is a member of the Belgian Press Council (CDJ) and of the Executive Committee of the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC). He has conducted training for journalists on hate speech, ethical journalism and reporting on ethnicity and religion.

Born in Kyiv, 1985. Majored in German studies, Kyiv National Taras Shevchenko University.

Worked as a correspondent and editor with printed media. In 2011 joined Euronews Kyiv bureau. Covered Ukrainian political and social affairs, Maydan protests, Russian aggression and conflict in Eastern Ukraine.

Joined an independent media project Hromadske TV in 2015 as a journalist and presenter. Covered trials against Ukrainian political prisoners in Russia, refugee crisis in Hungary. Co-authored investigations about events at Maydan, received a prize for investigative journalism. Worked as hromadske editor-in-chief for 3 years (2017-2020).

In 2016 graduated from Sergei Bukovski Documentary School. Participant at The School of Image and Evidence, Kiev Biennial 2015, GFZK Leipzig exhibition "Sentsov's Camera", 2016.

Guest fellow at the Institute for human sciences, Vienna (June 2017).

In March 2020 co-founded Public Interest Journalism Lab -  interdisciplinary coalition of partners, including the Arena Programme at the London School of Economics, Kharkiv Institute of Social Research, and Lviv Media Forum.

In March 2020 joined Ukrainian Public Broadcaster as a media manager and editor. Works as the head of news at UA:PBC since September 2021.

Tikhon Dzyadko is a Russian journalist, television presenter and media manager. He is the editor-in-chief of the Dozhd TV channel (TV Rain), the last independent TV station in Russia.

In the March of 2022, after the beginning of the Russian invasion into Ukraine Dzyadko with his colleagues was forced to leave Russia under the threat of persecution. TV Rain relaunched in July with more than 13 million viewers during the first month of the relaunch.

As a television reporter Peter ter Velde reported from many war zones and crisis areas such as Iraq, Israel, Palestine, Lebanon, Egypt, Haiti and Indonesia.

From 1996 to 2001, Peter was an Israel based correspondent for the Dutch national broadcaster NOS.

From 2006 to 2010 he was a special reporter on Afghanistan where he stayed for 4 to 5 months a year.

At the end of 2008, he wrote the book 'Kabul & Kamp Holland’, an exploration of the daily life of the many different ethnic groups living in Afghanistan that combines the history of Afghanistan, a look at the Dutch mission in the hostile province of Uruzgan as well as his meeting with Taliban fighters.

Since 2006, Ter Velde, his cameraman Eric Feijten and photographer Hans Stakelbeek started collecting amateur video's from soldiers. Realizing that this amazing footage gave such an insight in the lives of soldiers on the front lines, Ter Velde c.s. produced the documentary ‘Fokking Hell!’ that was broadcasted in several countries such as the Netherlands, China, France and Argentina. 

In 2011 Peter wrote the novel ‘De vader en de zoon’ (The father and the son), a semi-autobiography about his life in a Christian family. In 2014 he wrote his second novel ‘Paradijs om de hoek’ (Paradise around the corner).

Back in the Netherlands Peter developed the training ‘Reporting in Conflict Zones’ that is given a couple of times a year by the academy of the Journalists Union. He is also instructor of the Hostile Environment Safety Training by the European Broadcasting Union.

In 2015 Peter became Foreign News and Security Coordinator for NOS News. He is member of the Crisis Management Team of the NOS.

In 2019 he also became project manager of PersVeilig, an initiative by national police, the prosecutor’s office and the media industry to make work for journalists in the Netherlands safer.