How have cuts within the industry and the turn to online readership impacted the phenomenon of ‘fake news’? And how can journalism maintain its integrity in a time when unverified information circulates on social media under the guise of fact?
Readers across the political spectrum are calling for new standards of accuracy and impartiality. In a monthly series of exclusive talks hosted by media analyst Roy Greenslade, we are bringing together today’s leading news editors to discuss the new challenges facing the online journalism industry. For the first of these talks, we will unpack the ‘fake news’ debate.
Host:
Roy Greenslade is one of Britain’s foremost media teachers. He is a leading commentator and columnist on the media, and currently blogs for The Guardian. As a journalist he rose to the highest levels of management in a career taking in The Sun, the Sunday Times, and culminating in the editorship of the Daily Mirror.
Speakers:
Ben de Pear is Editor of Channel 4 News. Previously Head of Foreign News, has led an award-winning team of foreign correspondents, including those that produced the BAFTA-winning coverage from the 2011 Japan earthquake. He also led the programme’s investigation into the end of Sri Lanka’s civil war which has prompted a UN investigation and global calls for a war crimes tribunal.
Rory Cellan-Jones has been a BBC reporter on business and economics for nearly 30 years. For the last decade he has been the BBC’s Technology Correspondent, charged with widening the Corporation’s coverage of the impact of technology on business and society. He has also presented a number of Radio 4 documentaries, including The Secret History of Social Networking and The Force of Google, an investigation into the power of Google’s search algorithm.
Madhumita Murgia is a prize-winning journalist and editor with expertise in the fields of technology and science. As the FT’s European tech correspondent, she reports on major news, trends and innovations in global technologies, and their impact on Europe. She was formerly head of the Telegraph’s technology section, where she wrote a weekly column on the business of technology, and has written features about data privacy, security and digital health for publications such as Wired, Newsweek and BBC Future.
Owen Bennett is Deputy Political Editor of The Huffington Post UK and a critically acclaimed author. His second book, ‘The Brexit Club: The Inside Story of The Leave Campaign’s Shock Victory’ was published in 2016, and was described as “a riveting inside account” of the referendum by The Observer. Bennett is a regular contributor to the BBC and Sky News and has also written for the New Statesman website and other political blogs.
]]>We want to give photographers a welcoming platform to practice their pitching skills while receiving valuable feedback from a panel of online editors, curators and publishers. Photographers’ Night is a great opportunity to determine which outlet is best suited for bringing your project to the right audience.
Photographers who would like to present their work to discuss in a 7 minute pitch should submit one project prior to the event. They will then be given a time slot and all presenters will be listed online. Those who would like to join as a general attendee can book online for £5. After each pitch, there will be a few minutes for questions and feedback from industry guests and others. Industry professionals will be present at tables respective to the platforms of their expertise, and everyone is encouraged to visit across these groups to have a chat and a drink.
To sign up for a pitching slot please email julianne.rooney@www.beta.frontlineclub.com with a paragraph summary of one project and stills/website link, under the subject heading ‘Photographers’ Night’. Priority will be given to new, story-led projects of journalistic nature.
Industry Guests
Kate Brooks began working as a freelance photojournalist in Russia while documenting child abuse in state orphanages. The resulting photographs were published worldwide and used by the Human Rights Watch to campaign for orphans’ rights. Brooks has been the recipient of numerous international awards, and her photographs are regularly published in American and European magazines. Her photographs have been exhibited in galleries and museums in Europe, the U.A.E and U.S. She researched the poaching of elephants and rhinos for the documentary film project The Last Animals that she is now working on between assignments in the Middle East.
Hannah Watson is Director of Trolley Books.
Sarah Tilotta is an award-winning multimedia producer, currently working as a photo editor for CNN International, and as a freelance photographer based in London. She has previously worked as a visual journalist at NPR, and in sales and communications roles for photographer-owned agency, NOOR Images in Amsterdam. Her work has been published internationally and focuses on themes of migration and human rights, including long-term projects on asylum-seekers in Europe and statelessness in the Dominican Republic
Alina Kisina is an award winning Ukrainian-British artist photographer working in the UK since 2003. Since 2014, Alina has been the official photographer for the Subtitle Film, Cat Laughs Comedy and Kilkenomics Economics Festivals in Ireland with work published in The Guardian and The Economist. Currently a Public Programme Artist at Chisenhale Art Place, Alina runs public masterclasses and workshops with partners including London Photomonth and Whitechapel Gallery.
Photographers Pitching
]]>In the past twenty years budget cuts across the foreign news industry have seen the near-demise of Western foreign correspondents posted abroad. In their place, local-national stringers have become increasingly important providers of foreign news stories. While the nature of conflicts changes and reporting from high-risk zones becomes more dangerous, the traditional model of the foreign correspondent has shifted. The majority of foreign news is no longer gathered by traditional foreign correspondents posted abroad, but by local nationals who were born and raised in the country they report on.
Is the foreign correspondent an endangered species in the news industry? What new models of foreign reporting are emerging alongside new information-gathering technologies? We will be joined by an expert panel to discuss trends in the industry and the future role of the foreign correspondent.
This is a free ticketed event – attendees must book via the link on this page.
Chair:
Rachael Jolley is the editor of Index on Censorship magazine.
Speakers (full panel announced soon):
Kim Sengupta is Defence Correspondent at The Independent.
Dr Haider Al Safi is a London-based Iraqi journalist and media consultant covering middle eastern politics. He started working as a journalist in 2003 during the American invasion of Iraq and ran the office for The Independent newspaper in Baghdad. Together with his colleagues he covered stories from all over Iraq exposing him to the dangers of war – he was caught in cross-fire, kidnapped and witnessed suicide attacks. He is Executive Producer of Hard-Talk Arabic.
Caroline Lees is a former news and foreign correspondent who has worked as South Asia correspondent for the Sunday Times, covering Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Kashmir and other areas. She has also covered many parts of Africa, including Eritrea for the Economist, the fall of Mobutu in the then Zaire and refugee camps in Goma. She has been an assistant foreign editor at the Sunday Times, Sunday Telegraph, foreign editor at the Sunday Express and Scotland on Sunday. She is now a researcher at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at the University of Oxford, and is editor of a Europe-wide network of journalism research platforms, the European Journalism Observatory.
Samira Shackle is a London-based freelance journalist who has reported extensively on Pakistan over the last five years, for publications including the Guardian, Times, Independent, and New Statesman. She has also reported from India, Bangladesh and Kenya for a range of British and international outlets. In 2015 she was shortlisted in the foreign correspondent category in the Words By Woman awards and the New Voices category of the One World Media awards. She was the 2015 recipient of the Times’ Richard Beeston fellowship for foreign reporting.
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Looking at Time, Brandon Lavoie
A panel of experienced filmmakers will come together to discuss their creative methods for short documentary production – focusing on cinematography, editing, and visual storytelling for capturing the essence of big stories in short format. Taking into account the development of online distribution platforms and Op-Docs, we will explore how new technologies and distribution methods are connected to creative practice.
Addressing the editorial challenges involved in short filmmaking and screening segments of stylistically varied and innovative projects, this discussion will be geared towards both filmmakers and short film enthusiasts.
Panelists:
Jenny Horwell (moderator) joined DocHouse as producer in 2012, organising weekly screenings of documentaries in London cinemas. In 2015 the organisation opened Bertha DocHouse, the documentary cinema based at the Curzon Bloomsbury. As well as her work at DocHouse, Jenny has programmed the documentary shorts for four editions of the London Short Film Festival, since 2013, selecting work from open submissions. Before all that, she spent several years working at film festivals and events, and produced promos, trailers and videos at Matter Productions.
Liam Saint-Pierre
Born in Blackburn, England, Liam’s background was in stills photography and as a documentary camera operator, where he worked with the likes of Shane Meadows at Warp Films.
With a desire to tell stories, Liam’s path naturally led to directing,where his skills as a versatile filmmaker allowed him to create beautiful and intimate imagery across a variety of mediums. His cinematic style mixed with a tender realism and subtle humour translates into different genres, with story telling always at the heart. Initially this was in documentaries, but a focus on narrative has been translated into music videos, short films and commercial work. His films have been selected to screen at numerous international film festivals, including Raindance, LSFF, Sheffield Docfest, DOC NYC and many more.
Chloe White
Chloe is an award-winning documentary filmmaker and photographer based in London. Her short films have screened worldwide at festivals as well as on the Guardian, BBC3, London Live, and BBC Radio 4. Chloe is interested in character-led documentaries and has made films on a diverse range of topics (lobster fisherwomen, female genital mutilation, self-marriage, launderettes, an atomic bomb survivor and elder transgender women) but has a special interest in female-related subjects.
Chloe also runs a production company called Whalebone Films, specialising in films for NGOs (Save the Children, WaterAid, Oxfam) and arts organisations (National Theatre, Barbican). Through this work Chloe has travelled around the world filming in over 25 countries.
Marc Silver
Marc works worldwide as a filmmaker and director of photography. His first feature length film ‘Who is Dayani Cristal?’ premiered at the Sundance Festival 2013 where it won Cinematography Award: World Cinema Documentary and the Amnesty International Best Documentary award 2014. His second film ’3½ Minutes, Ten Bullets’ about the murder of Jordan Davis premiered at the Sundance Festival 2015 winning U.S. Documentary Special Jury Award for Social Impact. It was shortlisted for an Academy Award and broadcast on HBO.
Marc’s rich portfolio includes documentaries, concert visuals, art installations and branding. He has created content for the BBC, Channel 4, Universal Music, The Guardian, The New York Times, Amnesty International, UNHCR and collaborated with artists such as Gael Garcia Bernal, Nitin Sawhney, Michael Nyman, Jamie Cullum, Ben Okri, Matthew Herbert and Cirque Du Soleil.
Marc is currently working on a new film about ayahuasca, neuroscience and global drug policy. He is Creative Director of The Filmmaker Fund.
Gemma Atkinson
Gemma Atkinson is an award-winning producer and director, with ten years experience of making documentaries through her production company Fat Rat Films. Her films have been screened at major festivals internationally (AFI Silverdocs, LSFF, Doc/Fest) broadcast on BBC, C4, Al Jazeera, The Guardian, and the New York Times. She is in production on her first feature documentary What We Leave Behind, an intense character study of a grieving undertaker, scheduled for release in Autumn 2016. She directs and produces documentaries around the world for various NGO’s including Amnesty International, Oxfam and The Elders.She is a co-founder and director of the hugely successful screening and networking event Doc Heads, playing to packed screenings for over 6 years.
In 2008 the Indian Government launched an initiative to train 500 million of the rural poor to work in its growing industrial sector. Migrants from the rural areas of India now make up a significant percentage of the country’s labour force.
Seduced by the opportunity to be independent, many hopeful young women, like best friends Bhanu and Bhutu, try their luck working for garment factories. As part of a wider recruitment and training scheme, these factories are monitored by mediating advocates such as British academic Orlanda. Her task is to bring in women from the impoverished countryside to Bangalore and other manufacturing centres, where she believes they can be “empowered” by the national economic boom.
Yet the women’s relative inexperience leaves them susceptible to exploitation, putting Orlanda’s capitalist optimism to the test. Documentary filmmaker Chloe Ruthven, who is also the protagonist’s sister, follows Orlanda as she and the workers are confronted with the brutal reality of sweatshop conditions and deliberate corporate negligence.
Directed by: Chloe Ruthven
Produced by: Mike Lerner
Country: India/United Kingdom
Runtime: 80′
This screening will be preceded by a discussion with author Mariusz Szczygieł, translator Antonia Lloyd-Jones and chaired by Bloomberg News writer Doug Lytle.
The Frontline Club is delighted to partner with Czech Centre London, the Polish Institute and the 13th Kinoteka Polish Film Festival to bring you a screening of Gottland, directed by Viera Cákanyová, Petr Hátle, Rozálie Kohoutová, Lukás Kokes, Radovan Síbrt, and Klára Tasovská. Gottland is a cross-genre film based on selected parts of the international bestseller Gottland: Mostly True Stories from Half of Czechoslovakia (European Book of the Year 2009) by Mariusz Szczygieł.
After reading his book about their compatriots, a group of young Czech filmmakers approached the Polish author to ask for his thoughts and advice on a film project based on five of the true stories he tells. Szczygieł replied that for a filmmaker, the best author is a dead, or at least a silent one, and that he would prefer to leave them to interpret his stories in their own way. The result is a film in five very different parts, each episode a spin-off from Szczygieł’s originals, rather than a retelling.
This event combines the literary and the cinematic versions. The screening of the Czech film will be preceded by a discussion with Mariusz Szczygieł about the source of inspiration for his moving and at times shocking accounts of the life stories of: the film star who was Goebbels’ mistress; the despotic founder of a shoe-making empire; the sculptor who lost his life creating the world’s biggest monument to Stalin; the writer who reinvented himself for political survival; and the ‘human torch’ who copied Jan Palach’s fateful gesture as recently as 2003.
Born in 1966, Mariusz Szczygieł has been a reporter for Gazeta Wyborcza since 1990. He is the recipient of numerous awards for his writing on Poland and Czechoslovakia, including the Europe Book Prize and the Prix l’Amphi for Gottland. From 1995-2001, he hosted his own talk show (Na każdy temat – ‘On Any Topic’), and he runs the Polish Reportage Institute in Warsaw together with Wojciech Tochman and Paweł Goźliński.
Translator Antonia Lloyd-Jones is the pre-eminent translator of Polish reportage: the authors she has translated include Wojciech Tochman, Wojciech Jagielski, Jacek Hugo-Bader, and Ryszard Kapuscinski. She received the Found in Translation Award from the Polish Cultural Institute in 2008 for her translation of Pawell Huelle’s novel The Last Supper.
This event is organised by the Polish Cultural Institute in London as part of the 13th Kinoteka Polish Film Festival in partnership with Czech Centre London.
Gottland (FILM)
Directed by Lukáš Kokeš, Petr Hátle, Viera Čákanyová, Rozálie Kohoutová, Klára Tasovská, Radovan Síbrt
Duration: 100′
Year: 2014
Czech Republic/Poland/Slovakia
Gottland: Mostly True Stories from Half of Czechoslovakia (BOOK)
By Mariusz Szczygieł
Translated by Antonia Lloyd-Jones
Published by Melville House
Year: 2014
By Sara Elizabeth Williams
The West’s reaction to 9/11 was excessive and misguided, wrongly influenced by hubris, hysteria and ignorance. Ten years on, we are still mired in a mess largely of our own making.
Last night’s First Wednesday Special: Changing world – conflict, culture and terrorism in the 21st century, which was in association with BBC Arabic, looked at how the decade post-9/11 has reshaped our world. Chaired by presenter of BBC Radio 4’s Broadcasting House, the discussion at the Royal Institution of Great Britain turned to the question of what we learned – and how could we have done things differently?
For all their differences of opinion, the five members of the panel – journalists Mehdi Hasan, Isabel Hilton and Michael Goldfarb, ex British diplomat and founder of Independent Diplomat Carne Ross, and co-Founder and executive director of Quilliam and Founder of Khudi, Maajid Nawaz were in agreement on the most critical point: the reaction to 9/11 was a wrong one.
The response to non-state terrorist action should no be a declaration of war against individual states, but action against the non-state organisations.
The state-directed violence employed has destabilised entire populations and brought about some of the very things it sought to eradicate. Homegrown radicalisation comes at a devastating cost, and it is one we are becoming all too familiar with in the Islamic world and in the US and Europe.
Nawaz, who was formerly on the UK national leadership for the global Islamist party Hizb ut-Tahrir, reminded the audience that the process of radicalisation is the result of a political awakening, not a religious experience. For this reason, the right reaction would have been to support democratisation. But this wasn’t on the policy agenda:
“For decades we have been following a policy of sponsoring dictatorships and human rights abusers, and we ended up with a choice: support dictators or terrorists. But there was a third way: we could have supported civil society.”
While terrorism undermines the rule of law, Ross and Hasan pointed out that the West’s reaction did the same: we failed ourselves and the communities we sought to reach. The price of this mistake, according to Hilton, who is editor of chinadialogue.net.
“Now we have no moral standing to talk about human rights. In the course of the war on terror, we threw away everything that was worth defending. The damage we did to ourselves was greater than that which was done to us.”
Hilton also brought up the language of fear and safety – the American rhetoric over the last ten years. This, again, was the wrong invocation: ten years on, Americans still don’t feel safe. But is the mistake reversible? Hasan, who is senior political editor at the New Statesman, described a “fear industry grown our of control”.
Another cost is financial. Being at war has become normal for Americans. This affects policy: few politicians are willing to question Homeland Security spending. But for how long? Goldfarb, who is an author, journalist, broadcaster and GlobalPost’s London correspondent, answered:
“‘The war on terror’ is the worst phrase ever concocted. It’s a forever concept that can never end.”
The panel also looked at how the West’s misreaction to 9/11 may have paved the way for China’s global advance. Hilton, an expert on the subject, pointed out that China is seeking economic power by securing food, resources and access to water while letting other states get on with the international security agenda. In another ten years, we may consider this anniversary the beginning of a second turning point in the geopolitical landscape. One of the evening’s most-tweeted comments was made by Hilton, who noted:
“Wars have very, very long tails… they don’t end when the whistle blows.”
For those at tonight’s event, it would seem that the end of these wars will be a long time coming, indeed.
The hashtag for this event was #fcbbca
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