Last month, at the Edinburgh Television Festival Dorothy Byrne, Channel 4’s highly respected Head of News and Current Affairs, delivered a funny, brutal and hard-hitting MacTaggart lecture that has been described as a clarion call for broadcast journalism to step up to the plate at a time when national and international democracy is being undermined. 

In her speech, Byrne called out television’s current lack of bravery, innovation and commitment and called on commissioners and producers to embrace serious analysis, respect its viewers and return to clever, controversial and difficult TV that challenged contemporary society and helped to shape society for the better.

Byrne cited television’s lack of diversity, its reliance on a posh white male elite and recalled its sexist past, arguing that the industry’s failure to become more ethnically diverse undermines its important role as a mediator between politicians and the public. At a time when politicians are increasingly unwilling to give in-depth interviews on television and radio, she called on them to hold themselves up to proper scrutiny and accountability..

At its heart was a serious message about the role and responsibility of the free press in a democracy and a plea for television journalists to stand up and speak truth to power.

Join Dorothy Byrne in conversation with Jodie Ginsberg, Chief Executive of Index on Censorship in what promises to be a hard-hitting, honest and illuminating discussion.

Speaker:

Dorothy Byrne is Head of News & Current Affairs at Channel Four Television. During her tenure, the Channel 4 News and current affairs programmes have won numerous BAFTA, RTS, Emmy Awards and others.

Dorothy was made a Fellow of The Royal Television Society for her outstanding contribution to television and received the Outstanding Contribution Award at the RTS Journalism Awards in 2018. She has received a BAFTA Scotland award for her services to television and has also won the Factual Award given by Women in Film and Television. She is the chair of the Ethical Journalism Network an alliance of reporters, editors and publishers that works to build trust in news media and strengthen journalism around the world through training, education and research.

She is a former World In Action producer and editor of ITV’s The Big Story. Before joining Channel 4 she also produced arts programmes and executive produced history series for the channel.  She is a Visiting Professor at De Montfort University where Channel Four supports an MA in Investigative Journalism. 

Chair:

Jodie Ginsberg is Chief Executive of Index on Censorship, a London-based organisation that has published work by censored writers and artists and campaigned globally on freedom of expression issues since 1972. Prior to joining Index, Jodie worked as a foreign correspondent and business journalist and was UK Bureau Chief for Reuters news agency. She sits on the council of global free expression network IFEX and the board of the Trust for The Bureau of Investigative Journalism, and is a regular commentator in international media on freedom of expression issues.

Presented in partnership with the Ethical Journalism Network

  Watch the video stream of Dorothy Byrne: the MacTaggart Conversation

More and more people are now using their smartphones to shoot and create stories whether they are for a short film, multimedia/journalism or corporate content.

This workshop is a hands-on experience which you take you through how to record video and audio, edit your footage and export the content online or social media. During the course you will also get a chance to use a variety of microphones, grips and tripods.

The workshop will cover the following:

• Learn how to record audio and use a microphone to get the best sound
• Shoot video interviews and learn how to frame the subject correctly using well established cinematography techniques
• Shoot voxpops, point-of-view shots, action shots
• Use your smartphone to film establishing shots and cutaway shots
• Learn how to use natural lighting as a key light to model and illuminate the subject
• Use good interview technique and learn how to edit for the sound
• Take photographs and learn how to use picture composition and rule of thirds
• Learn how to edit your clips on the smartphone and create a video news story
• Launch video news stories online and blogs using social media sites.

Before the course, we will contact participants to find out what type of smartphone they’ll bring to the course and to provide a list of apps to download before the workshop. The majority of these are free, but the list may include a couple of paid-for apps. These should not come to more that £20 in total.

About the trainer:
The course tutor, Bill Shepherd teaches mobile and video journalism using smartphones and mirrorless cameras at billshepherdmedia.com. He is a member of the National Union of Journalists, the Guild of Television Camera Professionals and he is also a production editor at The Guardian and The Observer.

Image: via Shutterstock / drpnncpptak

August Bank Holiday Weekend
Pippingford Park, East Sussex, UK

Join us at Byline – the world’s first festival for independent journalism and freedom of speech – to debate, discuss, dance, laugh, and change the world. 

Throughout the festival Frontline will be running a curated series of talks and documentary screenings exploring two of this year’s festival themes: Defending Democracy and The Power of Journalism.

Frontline Events include:

DEBATE: The Extradition of Julian Assange – Friday 23 August, 3pm

We’ll be hearing from journalist Nick Davies, politician and activist Birgitta Jonsdottir and Frontline’s Vaughan Smith as they debate the legacy and the future for Assange, as the likelihood of his extradition to the USA looms.

TALK: The Parallel state: Truth, Lies & Political Fiction in Contemporary Turkey – Friday 23 August, 4.30pm

What began as a project about Turkish soap operas for award-winning photographer Guy Martin soon turned into a photographic exploration of the fault lines of truth, power and politics in Turkey. Chaired by journalist Jo Glanville.

FILM: Under the Wire – Saturday 26 August, 3pm

On 13 February 2012, war-correspondent Marie Colvin and photographer Paul Conroy entered war-ravaged Syria to cover the plight of civilians trapped in the besieged Homs, under attack by the Syrian army. Only one of them returned. This is their story.

FILM: White Right: Meeting the Enemy – Sunday 25 August, 10.30am 

Filmmaker Deeyah Khan meets U.S. neo-Nazis and white nationalists face to face and attends the now-infamous Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville as she seeks to understand the personal and political motivations behind the resurgence of far-right extremism in the U.S. Won 2018 Emmy for best international current affairs documentary. 

FILM: Unquiet Graves – Sunday 25 August, 3pm

Sean Murray‘s powerful film tells the story of how members of the RUC and UDR (a British Army Regiment) were involved in the murder of 120 innocent civilians in the targeted terrorising of the most vulnerable members of society during “the Troubles” conflict in Northern Ireland.

FILM: When Lambs Become Lions – Sunday 25 August, 6.20pm

In the Kenyan bush, a small-time ivory dealer fights to stay on top while forces mobilize to destroy his trade. When he turns to his younger cousin, a conflicted wildlife ranger who hasn’t been paid in months, they both see a possible lifeline.

TALK: The Price of Paradise – Monday 26 August, 1.10pm

Investigative journalist and author Iain Overton will be in conversation about his latest book, which looks at the influence of the suicide bomber on modern society from pre-revolutionary Russia to the present day.

The Frontline Cub Tent can be your base between events: take refreshment from our bar, try our delicious Norfolk mezze of food, and enjoy some laid-back entertainment including music, poetry and games.

Travel is just over an hour from London by train so bring your friends, colleagues and family. The festival is family friendly with lots of activities for children of all ages.

Tickets: Day and weekend tickets are available with a specially-discounted weekend rate for Frontline Club friends and members.

Links:

• For more information about the festival, visit the Byline website. 
• To keep up to date with news about Frontline events at Byline, sign up to our newsletter.

Ten years later, despite numerous obstacles (the book’s release was stopped by authorities in 2008 and again in 2016), Malik returns to this extraordinary tale. He asks where we can place our trust – in reams of evidence, in a government we believe is on our side, in a terrorist who swears he’s changed, in a friend who has no one else to turn to. Malik explores the uncomfortable questions about why he, as well as the wider media and the nation, surrendered to fear so easily. And he reveals how the age of terror laid the groundwork for an era of fake news and demagogues.

Malik will be joined in conversation with James Brabazon, an award-winning journalist, filmmaker and author of the critically acclaimed memoir My Friend the Mercenary.

‘Gripping and disquieting, this true story of homegrown terrorism and shifting allegiances is as thrilling as any spy novel. I devoured it in a single sitting.’ CAL FLYN

‘This book has literally kept me up at night way past bedtime… so riveting.’ KATE KILALEA

Speakers

James Brabazon is an award-winning frontline journalist and documentary filmmaker. Based in London, he has travelled in over seventy countries, investigating, filming and directing in the world’s most hostile environments. His awards include the Rory Peck Trust International Impact Award, the Rory Peck Freelancer’s choice Award, the IDA Courage Under Fire Award and the FPA’s TV News Story of the Year. He has made over forty films broadcast by the BBC, Channel 4, HBO, CNN and the Discovery Channel. He lectures on the ethics and practicalities of reporting from war zones and his reportage has been published in the Observer and the Guardian. He is the author of the critically acclaimed memoir My Friend the Mercenary. He released his first novel, The Break Line, last year.

Shiv Malik is a former investigative journalist who – alongside reporting from Afghanistan and Pakistan – worked for the Guardian for five years breaking exclusive front page stories on everything from UK austerity to secret ISIS documents. He is the co-author of the 2010 cult economics book Jilted Generation and co-founder of a think-tank, the Intergenerational Foundation. He now contributes to the open source, Smart City technology project Streamr and is a regular panelist on BBC Radio 4’s The Moral Maze.

On the eve of the UK’s first Global Conference for Media Freedom in London, this event will examine the new and current threats facing journalists – both online and offline – and explore potential solutions for protecting reporters’ lives and the freedom of information. It features journalist Lindsey Hilsum, author of In Extremis: The Life and Death of the War Correspondent Marie Colvin; journalist and author Peter Greste, who spent 400 days behind bars in Egypt on terrorism charges and Courtney Radsch, Advocacy Director for Committee to Protect Journalists.

The panel will also discuss the idea behind The Last Column, a new book and multimedia project supported by CPJ which collects the last stories published by 24 journalists who have been killed since 1992 as a way to remember those who gave heir lives to uncover the truth.

Moderator:

Jon Williams is Managing Director, RTÉ News & Current Affairs. He was previously Managing Editor, International News, at ABC News in New York where he shaped the organisation’s international news coverage and strategy and led ABC’s reporting of the war in Ukraine, the European refugee crisis, and the coverage of the ISIS terrorist attacks in Europe. Jon was the BBC’s UK News Editor during the 2005 general election and 7/7 terror attacks on the London transport network, coverage of which was recognised with a BAFTA award. He was also Deputy Editor of the BBC’s Six O’Clock News and BBC’s World News Editor, managing a staff of 200 people in 30 different countries. Before leaving the BBC, Jon oversaw the reporting of the civil war in Syria, which earned him a second Emmy, and was honoured with the 2013 International Prize by the Royal Television Society.

Speakers:

Lindsey Hilsum is Channel 4 News International Editor, and has covered many of the conflicts of recent years including in Syria, Ukraine and the Arab Spring. She was in Baghdad for the 2003 US invasion of Iraq, and in Belgrade for the 1999 NATO bombing. In 1994, she was the only English-speaking correspondent in Rwanda when the genocide began. She has won awards from the Royal Television Society and BAFTA amongst others, and received the 2017 Patron’s Medal from the Royal Geographical Society. She has just published a biography: “In Extremis – the Life of War Correspondent Marie Colvin”.

Peter Greste is an Award winning foreign correspondent and UNESCO Chair of Journalism and Communications, University of Queensland. He began his career as a foreign correspondent, covering the war in Yugoslavia and South Africa’s first democratic election before being appointed as the BBC’s Afghanistan correspondent in 1995. In 2013, he made headlines himself when he was arrested in Egypt on charges of terrorism and threatening national security. He spent 400 days behind bars and has since become a devoted advocate for press freedom. His book, The First Casualty, is part memoir, part history about the threats to modern journalism, and the fraught quest – and desperate need – for truth in the age of terrorism.

Courtney C. Radsch is advocacy director at the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). She serves as chief spokesperson on global press freedom issues for the organization and oversees CPJ’s engagement with the United Nations, the Internet Governance Forum, and other multilateral institutions as well as CPJ’s campaigns on behalf of journalists killed and imprisoned for their work. As a veteran journalist, researcher, and free expression advocate, she frequently writes and speaks about the intersection of media, technology, and human rights. Her book Cyberactivism and Citizen Journalism in Egypt: Digital Dissidence and Political Change was published in 2016. Prior to joining CPJ, Radsch worked for UNESCO and edited the flagship publication World Trends in Freedom of Expression and Media Development, and managed the Global Freedom of Expression Campaign at Freedom House. She has worked as a journalist in the United States and Middle East with Al-Arabiya, the Daily Star, and The New York Times.

Synopsis

Nicaragua’s president Ortega has launched a crackdown on the independent media in a country gripped by civil disruption and economic chaos. Sahar Zand meets the journalists risking a beating or worse to get their stories out and others who have decided the only way to survive is to flee. Producer/Director Roeland Doust’s film takes us from the newsroom of the country’s oldest newspaper, La Prensa, to independent TV studios and a blogger’s home as the journalists decide if their profession is still worth the huge risk to their safety.

You can read the latest Reporters Sans Frontieres reports from Nicaragua here.

Chair

Sue Turton is the current Series Editor for Channel 4’s Unreported World. She moved into documentary production, with films in Afghanistan, the Philippines (award-winning), Indonesia and on the ISIS attacks in Paris, after 28 years on the road as a correspondent. Prior to this she joined Al Jazeera English as Afghanistan Correspondent in 2010 before covering the Arab Uprisings as a roving war correspondent reporting on the Libyan revolution from beginning to end, the Syrian war with missions alongside Al Qaeda affiliate Jabhat al Nusra and embedded with the Peshmerga during Iraq’s battle against ISIS. Sue led a campaign to free her colleagues from an Egyptian prison after she and six other Al Jazeera staff were wrongly convicted of terrorism offences. She is still on the run.

Speakers

Roeland Doust is a freelance documentary director and cameraman. He has made films for all major UK & US broadcasters, recently focussing on more observational films and current affairs. Some of the subjects he has covered include homosexuality in BAME communities, the impact of the US War on Drugs, cousin marriages in Pakistani families and the global rise of online misogyny.

Sahar Zand is a British Iranian journalist and presenter, and an international award winning documentary maker. She joined BBC World News and BBC World Service in 2014, and has made a number of TV, radio and digital pieces from around the world covering a wide range of stories. 

Six extraordinary projects are shortlisted for this year’s Visionary Award from the Tim Hetherington Trust. The six shortlisted for the award will present their work and talk abut their approaches that attracted the interest of the jury.

The panel has now been announced!

• Stephen Mayes, Executive Director of the Tim Hetherington Trust will be joined by two of the judges of this year’s award to introduce the work:
• Francis Hodgson – Professor In The Culture of Photography, University of Brighton
• Dan Archer – Founder and Principal of www.empatheticmedia.com

The six projects are:

1. HUMANITY LOST, HUMANITY FOUND: 25 years after Rwanda’s genocide
   by Gadi Habumugisha, Mussa Uwitonze & Bizimana Jean
   https://thegroundtruthproject.org/humanity-lost-humanity-found-25-years-after-rwandas-genocide/
   
2.  RUNNING TO NOWHERE – the Central American Refugee Crisis. 
   by Christina Simons
   http://www.christinasimons.com/running-to-nowhere-the-central-american-refugee-crisis
3. UKRAINE.
   by Christopher Nunn.
   http://www.christophernunn.co.uk/ukraine-2013-2015/lwmex7ikzys73vl9iqvdoqj9m395nu
4. NECESSARY FICTIONS: Pineland.
   by Debi Cornwall
   https://www.debicornwall.com/Necessary-Fictions/3-Pineland/1
5. LIVING LULLABIES.
   by Hannah Reyes Morales
   http://hannah.ph/
6. FIREFLIES: A Brownsville Story.
   by People’s Culture
   http://www.peoplesculture.org/firefly.html

The Tim Hetherington Trust continues Tim’s mission to inquire more deeply and to communicate more effectively by showcasing similarly inspirational work by today’s generation of visual storytellers.  To this end, the Visionary Award identifies journalists and artists breaking new ground in diverse visual disciplines.  We’re very proud to hosting this event in memory of Tim which will allow intimate questioning with these extraordinary people – followed by more casual discussion in the Frontline bar.

© Christopher Nunn

“SAVING THE NEWS: Ethics and the fight for the future of journalism”, features 20 articles by journalists reporting from Kenya to Honduras, Jordan to the Philippines, South Sudan to Mexico, as well as how journalists are adjusting to life being labelled “enemies of the people” in Trump’s America. 

Alan Rusbridger, opens the Ethical Journalism Network’s annual magazine with a heartfelt plea for a return to ethics in journalism. 

The former Guardian editor, who broke the story that convulsed the UK media industry when some national newspapers were shown to have a culture of illegally hacking mobile phones, writes in his foreword: 

‘There has always been a strand of amorality in the attitudes of some journalists and editors. They are neither very moral, nor terribly immoral. They don’t necessarily believe in doing bad things. But newspapering is (they might say) “rough old craft” and in the end, it’s the story that counts.’

Join us on April 8th for the launch of the report and a discussion with some of the report’s authors. You will even be able to get your hands on a printed copy!

Chair

Dorothy Byrne is Chair of the Ethical Journalism Network and Head of News and Current Affairs at Channel 4. She was appointed in September 2003, having previously edited the award-winning Dispatches. During her tenure, the Channel’s news and current affairs programmes have won numerous BAFTA, RTS, Emmy Awards and others. In 2014, Dispatches won the RTS Journalism Awards for both best Home and best International Current Affairs, the first time one strand won both awards, and Channel Four News won the RTS Journalism Award for Best News Programme of the Year for the second year running.

Speakers

Hannah Storm becomes the new Director and CEO of the Ethical Journalism Network in April 2019. Storm joined the International News Safety Institute (INSI) in 2010, becoming its director in 2012. Before joining INSI, Storm spent more than a decade working as a journalist for television and radio, online and print for outlets including the BBC, The Times, Reuters and ITN, and Oxfam. She has also worked as a freelance media consultant for different UN agencies with a specific focus on gender and media. In her freelance capacity, she is currently developing a curriculum for the Poynter Institute in Florida in partnership with the Press Forward to counter sexual harassment in the newsroom.

Salim Amin is Chairman of Camerapix, Chairman of The Mohamed Amin Foundation and co-founder and former Chairman of Africa24 Media. Amin’s father was Mohamed Amin MBE, a Kenyan photojournalist noted for his pictures and videotapes of the Ethiopian famine that led to the Live Aid concert. He is a Fellow of the African Leadership Initiative and a member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network. In December 2012, Salim was named as one of the 100 Most Influential Africans by the New African magazine, which also named him in their ’50 Under 50’ Africans in May 2013. Amin is a trustee of the EJN.

Chris Elliott served as the readers editor at The Guardian having been appointed managing editor in February 2000. Elliott has worked as the home affairs correspondent for the Sunday Telegraph, chief reporter for the Sunday Correspondent and assistant news editor for the Times. He has also served on the board of the International News Safety Institute (INSI) and the Nomination Committee of the Reuters Founders Share Company until 2015. He chaired the UK’s major journalism training body, between 2010 and 2016. Elliott was the EJN’s interim CEO and Director from April 2018 to April 2019 and has now returned to his role as a trustee.

Aidan White is the Founder and President of the Ethical Journalism Network. White founded the EJN in 2012 after he left the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) where he was General Secretary for 25 years. He has written extensively on human rights, ethics and journalism issues and played a leading role in establishing International Freedom of Expression Exchange (IFEX), a global network of free expression campaigners and the International News Safety Institute (INSI).

  Watch the video stream of Saving the News: Ethics And The Fight For The Future Of Journalism

Once little more than a glorified porn filter, China’s ‘Great Firewall’ has evolved into the most sophisticated system of online censorship in the world. As the Chinese internet grows and online businesses thrive, speech is controlled, dissent quashed, and attempts to organise outside the official Communist Party are quickly stamped out. But the effects of the Great Firewall are not confined to China itself.

Through years of investigation James Griffiths gained unprecedented access to the Great Firewall and the politicians, tech leaders, dissidents and hackers whose lives revolve around it. As distortion, post-truth and fake news become old news James Griffiths shows just how far the Great Firewall has spread. Now is the time for a radical new vision of online liberty.

James Griffiths talks about his book with bestselling author Paul French – who is no stranger to Chinese censorship himself – and Anna Bacciarelli, who spearheaded Amnesty UK’s successful (for now) Google Drop Dragonfly campaign. They discuss how the Firewall is affecting human rights and journalistic freedoms in China, as well as all over the world as the model is actively exported to countries from Russia to in the Africa continent.

Chair

Born in London and educated there and in Glasgow, Paul French has lived and worked in Shanghai for many years. As a leading expert on North Korea he is a widely published analyst and commentator on Asia and has written a number of books dealing with China’s pre-1949 history, Asian politics and current affairs. His previous books include a history of North Korea, a biography of Shanghai adman and adventurer Carl Crow, and a history of foreign correspondents in China.Paul was awarded the 2013 Edgar for best fact crime for his international best-seller Midnight in Peking.

Speakers

James Griffiths is a reporter and producer for CNN International, currently based in Hong Kong. He has reported from Hong Kong, China, South Korea and Australia for outlets including the Atlantic, Vice and the Daily Beast. He was previously a reporter and assistant editor at the South China Morning Post, where he played a key role in the paper’s award winning coverage of the 2014 Umbrella Movement protests in Hong Kong.

Anna Bacciarelli is a Technology and Human Rights Researcher and Advisor at Amnesty International, where she investigates the impact of developments in artificial intelligence, big data and automated decision-making on human rights. She advocates for human rights protections in the creation and use of technology around the world, and jointly led Amnesty’s campaign calling on Google to Drop Project Dragonfly, after it was revealed that the company planned to u-turn and comply with the Chinese government’s strict censorship and surveillance laws last year.

  Watch the video stream of The Great Firewall of China

China has 55 recognised minority groups. Although Beijing demands state control over all faiths – including Christianity, Tibetan Buddhism and even ‘Chinese’ religions such as Taoism – it is the country’s 20 million Muslims that are facing the hardest clampdown on religious, cultural, linguistic and even culinary activities. Styled as ‘re-education’ centres by central government, over one million Uighurs are incarcerated in mass internments camps in Xinjiang. As accounts from inside trickle through China and across the world, other groups are now looking over their shoulders, fearing what could be to come.

Join a panel of experts and reporters to discuss what’s happening to the edifice of minority culture in China and whether – in the face of intensifying Han nationalism – the ‘flowers in the backyard’ can ever blossom.

Chair:

Isabel Hilton is a London-based international journalist and broadcaster. She studied at the Beijing Foreign Language and Culture University and at Fudan University in Shanghai before taking up a career in written and broadcast journalism, working for The Sunday Times, The Independent, The Guardian, and the New Yorker. In 1992 she became a presenter of the BBC’s flagship news program, “The World Tonight” then BBC Radio Three’s cultural program “Night Waves.” She is a columnist for The Guardian and her work has appeared in the Financial Times, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Granta, the New Statesman, El Pais, Index on Censorship, and many other publications. She is the author and co-author of several books and is founder and editor of chinadialogue.net, a non-profit, fully bilingual online publication based in London, Beijing, and Delhi that focuses on the environment and climate change. Hilton holds two honorary doctorates and was awarded the OBE for her work in raising environmental awareness in China.

Speakers:

James Palmer is a senior editor at Foreign Policy. Palmer is the author of The Bloody White Baron: The Extraordinary Story of the Russian Nobleman Who Became the Last Khan of Mongolia and The Death of Mao: The Tangshan Earthquake and the Birth of the New China. He won the Shiva Naipaul prize for travel writing in 2003.

Emily Feng is NPR’s incoming international correspondent in Beijing. For the last two years, she was a China correspondent at the Financial Times, covering everything from technology to human rights. Her reportage on the ongoing detention campaign in the Xinjiang region was shortlisted for best international reporting and best young journalist by the Press Awards, the UK’s equivalent to the Pulitzer, as well the Anthony Lewis Prize. She graduated from Duke University with a degree in Public Policy.

  Watch the video stream of China’s Inner Turmoil