Laura Barrón-López to headline AccessFest 2026

Investigative Reporters & Editors is honored to announce that Laura Barrón-López will headline our keynote conversation for AccessFest26, the organization’s sixth virtual-by-design conference Oct. 8-10.

Barrón-López serves as an MS NOW White House Reporter. Her most recent reporting for MS NOW includes President Trump’s campaign to take over elections, his use of the nation’s intelligence community to spread false claims about foreign interference in elections, and uncovering the full scope of his deportation agenda.

She will join in conversation with MS NOW Legal Affairs Director and IRE Board Vice President Cindy Galli. Galli joined MS NOW after more than 13 years at ABC News, most recently as executive producer of the investigative unit. 

Prior to joining MS NOW, Barrón-López was the White House Correspondent for the PBS News Hour and was also a CNN political analyst. She covered the Biden administration for POLITICO, and has also worked for The Hill and HuffPost.

Barrón-López received two Peabody Awards as part of PBS News Hour’s coverage of Trump’s sweeping immigration crackdown during the first year of his second term, and in 2024 as part of News Hour’s coverage of the Israel-Hamas war.

This year, in continued celebration of IRE’s half-century mark, we are also offering a significantly reduced registration rate of $76 for professionals and $26 for students. The theme touches on how IRE held its first conference in 1976, and for students, we’re celebrating them joining us in the year 2026.

"Whether you want to level up your craft or understand how to better work your sources and your colleagues, there's something for you at AccessFest," said Jonathan Kealing, IRE's executive director. "This year's program is the perfect mix of learning and community building and will take the best of this year's outstanding conferences and make it accessible to every member, wherever they are."

The conference is centered on belonging, equity, and inclusion both in news coverage and within the newsroom. While the IRE and NICAR Conferences have some sessions on these topics, AccessFest allows journalists to dive deeper. The conference started out as the “DBEI Symposium” in 2021 and was rebranded as AccessFest in 2023.

The previous conferences have highlighted Indigenous, Black, Asian and Latino voices in the keynote conversation, including Tristan Ahtone of Grist, Anzio Williams of NBCUniversal, Sisi Wei of The Markup and Maria Hinojosa of Futuro Media. Last year, Sara Luterman of The 19th and Wendy Lu of The New York Times joined in conversation for the AccessFest keynote to discuss disability coverage and visibility in journalism, along with caregiving and LGBTQ+ issues.

Another AccessFest highlight is the opportunity for attendees to get IRE’s more traditional investigative and data training — from anywhere in the world — at a fraction of the cost of the in-person conferences.

AccessFest26 will be held online Oct. 8-10. Get additional details and register for the conference here.