San Diego hosts second 'Festival of Books'

SAN DIEGO - The San Diego Union-Tribune hosted its second Festival of Books Saturday, with 31 scheduled panel discussions centered on reading and writing across all genres.

The festival, which drew an estimated 10,000 people in 2017, is modeled after the Los Angeles Times' Festival of Books, the largest book festival in the United States. The Los Angeles Times' festival began in 1996.

"It seemed like a natural fit for us,'' said Union-Tribune Editorial and Opinion Director Matthew Hall. "Our readers are readers by nature ... and we were looking to be more engaged in the community.''

Hall will spoke during a 10:15 a.m. panel discussion titled "Fake News. Real Problems,'' along with Brooke Binkowski, the former managing editor at Snopes, and Lora Cicalo, managing editor at the Union-Tribune. The panel sprung from a media literacy course of the same name that the Union-Tribune started a year ago to teach children how to best determine the quality of the news they might be reading.

"Our community advisory board wanted to do a fake news panel,'' Hall said, and the timing ended up meshing well. The audience for the panel was expected to be at full capacity, roughly 350-400 people.