commentators – Frontline Club

Trump’s First Year and the Foreign Media.

Laura Gane — Tue, 23 Jan 2018 11:32:31 +0000

We’re now over a year into the Trump presidency but how well have the foreign and British press in particular been covering it? We’re joined by some senior editors and commentators wrestling with the dilemma of covering Trump. The panel will tackle the difficulties of reporting on the presidency in relation to previous governments. Have have commentators been focusing too much on his ‘unpresidential’ behaviour and not enough on the political shift in Congress?

Chair

Michael Goldfarb

Michael Goldfarb is an American journalist, broadcaster and author. He has written for The Guardian, The New York Times and The Washington Post but is best known for his work in public radio. Throughout the 1990’s, as NPR’s London Correspondent and then Bureau Chief, he covered conflicts and conflict resolution from Northern Ireland to Bosnia to Iraq for NPR. He is host of the FRDH podcast that can be found here.

Speakers

Jonny Dymond

Jonny Dymond is Royal Correspondent for the BBC and a presenter of BBC Radio 4 and BBC World Service News programmes. He covered the US elections of 2000 and 2012 for the BBC as Washington Correspondent

Dan Roberts

Dan Roberts is the Guardian’s Brexit policy editor. Previously he was the Washington bureau chief and covered the 2016 presidential election. He was also head of UK national news and business editor.

Andrew MacLeod

Is an Australian/British businessman, author, humanitarian lawyer and former aid worker. He is now a regular contributor for the Independent and a regular commentator on US politics.

Interested in the Iranian election? Make sure you’re at the Frontline Club in June

Millicent Teasdale — Fri, 31 May 2013 16:19:16 +0000

On 14 June Iranians will go to to the polls to vote for a new president. The last presidential election in 2009 saw mass protest on the streets, resulting in a violent crackdown.

Throughout June, in association with BBC Persian, we will be joined by experts, journalists and commentators to make sure you are up to date with events in the country. We will be offering a portrait of outgoing President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, analysing the candidates and, following the election, we will be asking what the result means for the future of the country.

Sneak Preview BBC Persian screening: Ahmadinejad – The Populist and the Pariah

Monday 3 June 2013, 7:00 PM
The screening is organised by BBC Persian Service.
Since his election in 2005, Iran’s President Ahmadinejad has become the most well-known Iranian since the founder of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Khomeini. Produced by the BBC Persian Service, this documentary looks at the rise of Ahmadinejad and explains how this provincial politician with a PhD in traffic management became a personality to be reckoned with.
Followed by a panel discussion with: Sadeq Saba, head of BBC Persian; Bozorgmehr Sharafedin, filmmaker and journalist and Kasra Naji, special correspondent for BBC Persian TV.

First Wednesday: Who will be the next president of Iran and why does it matter?

Wednesday 5 June 2013, 7:00 PM
On 14 June Iranians will go to to the polls to vote for a president to replace Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, but what significance does this election hold? Join us to analyse the approaching election, the main players and what the result will mean for the future of Iran. With: Kelly Golnoush Niknejad, founder and editor-in-chief of the award-winning Tehran Bureau; Roberto Toscano, Italian Ambassador to Iran (2003-2008); Saeed Barzin, Iran analyst with BBC Persian Service and the BBC Monitoring service since 2006; and Roger Cohen, a journalist, author and op-ed columnist for The New York Times.

Iran after Ahmadinejad

Wednesday 26 June 2013, 7:00 PM
Following the presidential election in Iran, we will be bringing together a panel of experts to deliberate the results and what they mean for the future of the country. In association with BBC Persian Service, we will be taking an in-depth look at Iran’s new president, exploring his affiliations and policies both at home and internationally. With: Mark Fitzpatrick, director of the Non-Proliferation and Disarmament Programme at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS); Saeed Barzin, Iran analyst with BBC Persian Service and the BBC Monitoring service since 2006. Additional speakers to be confirmed.

In association with BBC Persian:

First Wednesday: Who will be the next president of Iran and why does it matter?

Millicent Teasdale — Thu, 02 May 2013 12:10:02 +0000

https://soundcloud.com/frontlineclub/first-wednesday-who-will-be

On 14 June Iranians will go to to the polls to vote for a president to replace Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, but what significance does this election hold? Iran’s Guardian Council has approved eight candidates from the list of more than 600 hopefuls. Two notable exclusions were leading contenders Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei.

We will be joined by a panel of experts to ask if these disqualifications signal a demise of hope for peaceful change in Iran and a move towards absolute dictatorship. What does this mean for the reform movement?

Join us to analyse the approaching election, the main players and what the result will mean for the future of Iran.

Chaired by Martin Fletcher, former assistant editor and foreign editor of The Times. He covered the 2009 presidential election in Iran.

The panel:

Kelly Golnoush Niknejad is founder and editor-in-chief of the award-winning Tehran Bureau, which is hosted by the Guardian. She is also the inaugural recipient of the Innovator Award from Columbia Journalism School for “inspiring, creating, developing, or implementing new ideas that further the cause of journalism”.

Roberto Toscano was the Italian Ambassador to Iran for five years (2003-2008). As a career diplomat, he has served in a number of other posts (India, Chile, USSR, Spain, United States, as well as at Italy’s Permanent Mission to the United Nations at Geneva). He is the author of books and articles on human rights, peacekeeping, conflict prevention, ethics and international relations.

Saeed Barzin has been an Iran analyst with BBC Persian Service and the BBC Monitoring service since 2006. He has written extensively on Iranian politics, media and society for general audiences, internal BBC customers and UK government officials. Over the past 15 years he has written for a number of current affairs journals and has published several books, including the Political Biography of Mehdi Bazargan which was among the top ten best-selling books in Iran in mid 1990s.

Roger Cohen is a journalist, author and op-ed columnist for The New York Times. He joined The New York Times in 1990 where he was a foreign correspondent for more than a decade before becoming acting foreign editor on 11 September 2001, and foreign editor six months later. Since 2004, he has written a column for the International Herald Tribune and 2009 he was named a columnist of The New York Times. He is author of Hearts Grown Brutal: Sagas of Sarajevo and Soldiers and Slaves: American POWs Trapped by the Nazis’ Final Gamble, he has also co-written a biography of General Norman Schwarzkopf, In the Eye of the Storm.

This session is in association with BBC Persian Service.