The 2026 Buffalo Humanities Festival

Byline: Katie Dusza, Managing Editor 

This past weekend, the Buffalo Humanities Festival took place downtown at the Erie County Public Library. The two–day event hosted by the University at Buffalo’s Humanities Institute, held space for several organizations and universities, including Canisius, as well as other members of the community to talk about how western New York can support fact–based research and reporting in a time where public media is actively being threatened. 

The festival kicked off Sept. 25 with an evening with Juan González, an award–winning journalist, author and social activist. The next day of the festival held four sessions, each having a couple breakout rooms led by professors from Canisius, Niagara, UB, Daemen and Buffalo State as well as other people involved in local media. The festival ended with a session featuring Pulitzer Prize winning cartoonist for The Buffalo News, and Canisius alumnus, Adam Zyglis.

Editor-In-Chief Andrew Nowel and I had the pleasure of being on the “Future of Journalism” roundtable with fellow student journalists; representatives from Buffalo State’s The Record, and University at Buffalo’s The Spectrum. Each of us panelists were asked several questions about the process of managing a student paper. The event was a great opportunity to meet other student journalists and hear about their passion for it.

Overall, the Buffalo Humanities Festival was a successful way of making people aware of the importance of journalism and fact–based journalism at that. Through panels and other discussions, participants learned how to look for what are facts and how to not fall for fake news.