René Bucken is a German journalist and the youngest managing editor of the public service news program tagesschau, one of Europe’s highest-reach broadcasts. There, he leads teams across television and social media, engaging with an average of 10 million viewers on television, over 5 million predominantly young followers on Instagram and nearly 50 million likes on TikTok. René is also jointly responsible for shaping the company's AI strategy.

His focus is on a critical issue affecting not only legacy media companies but also broader public discourse: disinformation and misinformation. In these challenging times, René combats fake news by leveraging emerging technologies. He promotes media literacy and empowers young people to critically consume media.

In the past, he organized the VOCER Innovation Day - Germany's largest conference for sustainable innovation in journalism, which attracted over 300 participants. With the reputable Journalism in the Era of Disinformation Fellowship, René researched best practices in the U.S. on how to tackle deceptive news.

After identifying artificial intelligence-driven misinformation and disinformation as the biggest short-term threat to the global economy in its Global Risks Report 2024, the World Economic Forum invited René as a speaker at this year’s conference. In Davos, he discussed his experiences from theory and practice with EU Commissioner Iliana Ivanova and Harvard Professor Naomi Oreskes, among others.

For his efforts, Medium Magazin named him one of the "Top 30 to 30" talents in German journalism, and Forbes included him in its prestigious "30 under 30" list.