The Independent is delighted to announce its renewed partnership with Hay Festival Hay-on-Wye, reprising its hugely successful series of morning panels entitled The News Review.

As part of the festival programme, which features 600 sessions spread over 11 days between 22 May and 1 June, The News Review will help set the agenda of the day, with guests including world-renowned philosopher AC Grayling, broadcaster Anushka Asthan, comedian Sara Pascoe and historians David Olusoga and Kehinde Andrews, with many more to be revealed. Each morning at 10am, journalists from The Independent will dissect the breaking news of the day with these leading minds from politics, science and the arts in front of an audience of literature loving festival-goers.

The Independent’s expert journalists and News Review guests will play an important role in bringing their world-leading insight to Hay-on-Wye and will be an integral part of this year’s event. Across nine sessions, News Review panellists will provide incisive expertise on current affairs, covering pressing areas including climate science with academic Friederike Otto, the shifting nuances of geopolitics with journalists Lyse Doucet and Misha Glenny, and transatlantic developments with the BBC’s Jon Sopel.

Hay Festival president Stephen Fry highlighted the festival’s important role in this year’s tumultuous social and political climate: “Besides the fun and joy of gathering to share stories, it is also the antidote to disinformation and division,” he said.

The News Review programme includes nine sessions featuring major names across science, politics, law, academia, arts and comedy:

• Saturday 24 May 2025, 10am – Wye Stage. Mike Berners-Lee, sustainability researcher and professor in the Institute for Social Futures at Lancaster University, author of There is No Planet B; Misha Glenny, geopolitics journalist, author of McMafia.
• Sunday 25 May 2025, 10am – Global Stage. Friederike Otto, Senior Lecturer in Climate Science, Imperial College London.
• Monday 26 May 2025, 10am – Meadow Stage. David Olusoga, Historian and author of Black and British, presenter of Britain’s Forgotten Slave Owners; Helen Rebanks, farmer and author of The Farmer’s Wife.
• Tuesday 27 May 2025, 10am – Discovery Stage. TBA
• Wednesday 28 May 2025, 10am – Global Stage. Dame Tanni Grey-Thompson, Paralympic athlete and presenter; Sara Pascoe, award-winning comedian, host of BBC2’s Great British Sewing Bee, author of Sex Power Money.
• Thursday 29 May 2025, 10am – Meadow Stage. Kehinde Andrews, Professor of Black Studies at Birmingham City University, author of The New Age of Empire; Havana Marking, award-winning director of Undercover: Exposing the Far Right.
• Friday 30 May 2025, 10am – Discovery Stage. AC Grayling, philosopher, founder and principal of the New College of the Humanities at Northeastern University, London; Jon Sopel, former BBC North America editor, host of The News Agents, author of Strangeland.
• Saturday 31 May 2025, 10am – Discovery Stage. Anushka Asthana, ITV’s deputy political editor, author of Taken As Red: How Labour Won Big and the Tories Crashed the Party; Lyse Doucet, the BBC’s Chief International Correspondent and Senior Presenter.
• Sunday 1 June 2025, 10am – Wye Stage. Sigrid Rausing, publisher of Granta magazine and Granta Books; Philippe Sands KC, Professor of Law at University College London and author of East West Street.

Geordie Greig, Editor-in-Chief of The Independent, says: “Hay Festival remains the world’s greatest exchange for the best works of literature and a forum for ideas, philosophy, politics and provocative debate. I am so pleased that The Independent can once again be at the heart of this meeting of minds, bringing together our journalists with luminaries from all walks of life to discuss the pressing matters affecting us all. The Independent has more than 20 million readers in the UK alone, many of whom are passionate about culture in all its forms. I’m looking forward to a fascinating, thought-provoking series, discussing and shaping the news of the day.”

Julie Finch, Hay Festival Global CEO, adds: “We’re delighted to be working with The Independent on the News Review series, gathering festival guests each morning to discuss and debate the day’s headlines. With the news agenda changing so quickly, this opens up a space in our programme to be reactive and keep pace with the world around us.”