“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

This conference is aimed freelance camera operators and photographers. The idea is to explore how to produce first class video and make it relevant today. We will be looking at the latest trends in broadcast, online and social video, storytelling, explore how to pitch your ideas and get them commissioned – and discuss the very latest innovations in filmmaking.

This is a practical day of tips and advice to help freelancers and aspiring filmmakers succeed in the industry. There will be a series of presentations, masterclasses, demonstrations and panel discussions.

An introduction to video in 2017

David Hayward will give and introduction to the state of the video industry in 2017. He’ll discuss the latest trends in video from the broadcast, online and social media perspective.

Video Storytelling Masterclass with Vin Ray

An introduction to video storytelling. Moving from the basic elements of television and video packaging through to the most sophisticated scripting techniques to help you improve your storytelling. Vin Ray will explore how everyone, from newcomers to experienced professionals, can improve their films and storytelling.

Pitching masterclass with Pervez Khan

The skill of successful pitching is an art form. You need to understand exactly what commissioners want and how to sell the story, the concept and the film to them. Perez Khan is an award winning the documentary series producer and renowned filmmaker. He will guide you through the pitching process and how to get your films commissioned.

Meet the commissioners – panel discussion

The first session of the afternoon is an informal panel discussion with some of the key commissioners from the broadcast and online media industry. We will look at the stories they want, the type of films they are commissioning at the moment – and how to pitch your ideas to them

Creating and telling a story across a multi-platform – with Tom Jenkins, The Guardian

Tom will discuss how he developed and pitched his ideas for stories and bringing them to fruition with The Guardian on Line video, text and in print.

 Innovation, Filmmaking and where next for video with Dr David Dunkley-Gyimah.

In this keynote address, Dr David Dunkley Gyimah will look at the ways video journalism and filmmaking are developing through technology and creative innovation. He will discuss the latest storytelling techniques, the future of the industry and how the most inventive videos are being produced in 2017.

All Governments Lie will change the way you look at mainstream media. Spotlighting the work of iconoclastic rebel journalist I.F. Stone, this eye-opening documentary lays bare the need for adversarial alternatives to the mainstream.

Giant media conglomerates are increasingly reluctant to investigate or criticise government policies – particularly on defence, security and intelligence issues. They are ceding responsibility for holding governments and corporations accountable to the independent journalists and filmmakers who risk their careers and their freedoms to expose the truth.

With government deception rampant, and intrusion of state surveillance into private life never more egregious, independent voices like Glenn Greenwald, Jeremy Scahill, and Amy Goodman are crucially important. All three are inspired by I. F. Stone, whose fearless, independent reporting from 1953 to 1971 filled a tiny 4-page newsletter which he wrote, published, and carried to the mailbox every week.

Stone is little known today, but All Governments Lie will reveal the profound influence he’s had on today’s independent journalists.

Directed by: Fred Peabody
Produced by: White Pine Pictures
Country: United States
Year: 2016
Runtime: 90′
Twitter: @AllGovsLieDoc

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.

On Tuesday 1st November, in an event organised in partnership with the London Press Club and Index on Censorship, six journalists met at the Frontline Club to redefine Foreign Correspondence.

“Where once we were seen as neutral observers, now we are targets” said Caroline Lees, author of Index’s recent article ‘Under The Wires’. Backed up by a deterioration in journalistic safety and evidence supplied by Assad defectors, it is clear that journalists are now firmly in the military’s crosshairs.

Freelance photojournalist Paul Conroy attributed this to the rise of the use of truth “as a weapon of war”. Kim Sengupta, Defence Correspondent at The Independent noted that the use of kidnapping and public beheading by rebel groups has led to “a huge tranche of Northern Syria not being covered”.

However, this tactic of limiting press freedom through violence is not limited to terrorist organisations.

Conroy is in a court case against the Assad regime after documents smuggled out of Syria proved that he and his colleague Marie Colvin were a victim of an assassination operation. These documents state that “international journalists were to be treated the same as combatants”.

The rise of untrained freelance journalists in the field worsens the problem. Freelancer Samira Shackle mentioned that she had come across numerous “horror stories” of young journalists arriving in hostile zones without even basic precautions. She cited the dangers of young reporters travelling without insurance or basic cyber security.

The problem is exacerbated by the increased role of ‘fixers’. As local employees who offer on the ground support to the international press, these freelancers run many of the same risks as Western journalists but with little of the support. They also must cope with increased hostilities and accusations of being a spy or traitor.

They are also often left out in the cold when it comes to kidnap or imprisonment.

Caroline Lees mentioned the case of Jovo Martinović, the Montenegrin investigative journalist arrested whilst researching a gun running story. Despite the dubious charges, the French station he was working for has done little to help him.

Dr Haider Al Safi formerly of The Independent, said that in many cases, these employees were being exploited: “They are overworked, not getting paid well and also not introduced to their rights”.

There was consensus on how the journalistic world could respond. This included major organisations taking more care in training all it’s employees. Some attempts have been made towards this end.

However, Lees mentioned sources from news organisations who said they didn’t support fixers because it was “too complicated, too expensive and they don’t want to accept liability”. With statements like this it is clear a sea change across journalism is a long way off.

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.

In the autumn of 1995 at the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base outside Dayton, Ohio, the then presidents of the Yugoslav federal states, Slobodan Milošević, Alija Izetbegović and Franjo Tuđman, came together to negotiate an agreement that would see the end of the most violent conflict in Europe since World War II.

The General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina, also known as the Dayton Agreement, stopped the fighting – but 20 years on have the divisions been bridged? Have the wounds healed?

We will be joined by a panel of those who were involved in the negotiations along with those who covered the war to reflect on the events of 20 years ago, the process of peace and reconciliation that followed, and whether the country today is reconciled.

Chaired by journalist and broadcaster Allan Little. In a career spanning over three decades at the BBC he has served as correspondent in Johannesburg, Moscow, Paris and the former Yugoslavia among others.

The panel:

Paddy Ashdown was the high representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina and the European Union special representative in Bosnia and Herzegovina from May 2002 until January 2006.

Anthony Loyd is a senior foreign correspondent for The Times. His career began in 1993 when he started reporting from the war in Bosnia. He is author of My War Gone By I Miss It So and Another Bloody Love Letter.

Kemal Pervanic was born in Prijedor, Bosnia-Herzegovina, one of the regions most severely affected during the Bosnian War. A survivor of the Omarska concentration camp, he has since dedicated his work to education, reconciliation and peace-building.

Zrinka Bralo was a radio journalist in Sarajevo and ended up working with leading international war correspondents during the siege of Sarajevo in the 90’s. Since she came to London in 1993 she has become one of the leading campaigners for social justice and rights of migrants and refugees.

PLEASE NOTE THIS EVENT WILL BE FILMED AND STREAMED LIVE ON OUR YOUTUBE CHANNEL

On Friday 5 June 2015, the News Impact Summit, a free of charge digital journalism conference will take place in the Sheikh Zayed Theatre on the LSE campus in London. This summit will centre on the theme – The Social Impact of Digital Storytelling – and shed a light on how digital age journalism plays a role in resulting the social impact, whether it is during the general election, natural disasters or humanitarian conflicts.

The Frontline Club has joined the international consortium of the organisers led by the European Journalism Centre, the News Lab at Google, LSE’s Polis think-tank. Participants will be offered free lunch and drinks during this event as well as a networking opportunity with the guests from the leading international and UK media outlets.

Speakers:
– George Arnett, data journalist, The Guardian
– Charlie Beckett, director, Polis at LSE
– Fergus Bell, head of newsroom partnerships and innovation, SAM
– Wendy Betts, director of eyeWitness, The International Bar Association
– John Burn-Murdoch, data journalist, The Financial Times
– Matt Cooke, European lead, News Lab at Google
– Evangeline de Bourgoing, programme manager, Global Editors Network
– Matthew Eltringham, editor, Journalism BBC Academy
– Miranda Green, freelance journalist
– Steve Herrmann, editor, BBC News Online
– Rohan Jayasekara, technology hub adviser, Internews
– Christoph Koettl, adviser on technology and human Rights, Amnesty International
– Megan Lucero, data journalism editor, The Times and Sunday Times
– Jason Mills, head of digital, ITV News
– Paul Myers, researcher, BBC
– Gavin Rees, director, Dart Centre Europe
– Allison Rockey, engagement editor, Vox.com
– Wilfried Ruetten, director, European Journalism Centre
– Frédérik Ruys, data journalist for ‘Netherlands from Above’, VPRO
– George Sargent, producer, Thomson Reuters
– Rina Tsubaki, European Journalism Centre
– Julia Ziemer, Polis at LSE

Partners:
Frontline Club
GEN
Amnesty International
Dart Centre Europe
eyeWitness
Internews
Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism
SAM
Foreign Press Association

For further details see here or contact the organisers via info@newsimpact.io

Hashtag: #nisldn
Website: http://newsimpact.io

One year on from the Islamic State’s (IS) seizure of Mosul, the coalition’s chances of recapturing the city seem further away than ever. The Pentagon’s optimistic hopes of a spring 2015 assault on the city have been dashed by the failure of the Iraqi Army further south in Anbar province. The Kurdish Peshmerga fighters who have almost surrounded the city in a 1000km long front line will now have to defend their trench positions against IS counterattacks until the Iraqi Army is finally fit for battle, at some unknown future date.

With rare access to the Peshmerga on the front lines of the war against the IS, The Road to Mosul unveils the reality of the Kurds’ war against the group, providing a portrait of ordinary volunteers, poorly trained and equipped, locked in stalemate against a powerful enemy. The film also captures the impact of the war on the civilians caught in between.

Chaired by Kevin Sutcliffe, the head of news programming for VICE EU.

The panel:

Frederick Paxton is a filmmaker and photographer for VICE News. He has worked in Iraq, Syria, Ukraine, Afghanistan and other locations.

Professor Toby Dodge is director of the Middle East Centre at LSE and author of Iraq: From War to a New authoritarianism.

Anthony Loyd is roving foreign correspondent for The Times and author of My War Gone By I Miss It So and Another Bloody Love Letter.

Patrick Cockburn is an Irish journalist who has been a Middle East correspondent for the Financial Times and, since 1991, The Independent.

Directed by Aris Roussinos and Frederick Paxton

Duration: 45′
Year: 2015

What are journalists worth in an age where anyone can tell their own story online? Has their diminishing value led to the growing violence against journalists across the world? This is the argument that executive director of the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), Joel Simon, put forward at the Frontline Club on Tuesday 17 March. Following the release of his latest book, A New Censorship: Inside the Global Battle for Media Freedom, Simon joined an engaged audience to discuss the reasons behind this ongoing diminishing of press freedom on a global scale. The discussion spanned from the current global spike in the murder, kidnapping and intimidation of journalists, to the futility of media blackouts, to the ways in which the internet has permanently changed the face of the news industry.

l-r: Richard Sambrook and Joel Simon

Speaking to Richard Sambrook, Director of Journalism at Cardiff University and chairman of the International News Safety Institute (INSI), Simon pointed to a paradox: access to overwhelming amounts of information blinding people to the urgency of the crisis in press freedom.

“We’re so deluged by information that I think we fail to see the ways in which censorship and repression are actually creating gaps in the essential knowledge that we need,” said Simon.

Using case studies of Vladimir Putin’s Russia, Hugo Chavez’s Venezuela and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s Turkey, Simon‘s book demonstrates how repressive governments use systems of state control to undermine the work of the press.

Sambrook agreed, and added that, “Increasingly, journalism is becoming politicised and the danger is growing of falling on the wrong side of oppressive regimes.”

In situations such as that in IS-controlled areas of Syria and Iraq, journalists are now seen as targets, rather than tools to spread messages, commented Simon. Changes in technology that have allowed anyone to share their own message online have also robbed journalists of their monopoly on disseminating information, he said. Simon noted a clear correlation between increased numbers of people active online and greater threats posed to press freedom.

“The value of journalists as individuals is diminished and that makes them more vulnerable. I believe that’s one of the reasons we’re seeing this spike in violence and this spike in repression.”

In the past, kidnapped journalists were able to argue their usefulness to captors by arguing that they were an invaluable tool for communicating their stories.

“If a journalist said that to IS they’d be laughed out of the room,” said Simon.

The discussion then moved to the frequent media blackouts that are actioned when journalists are kidnapped, under the pretence of allowing direct negotiations to take place. Simon, however, argued that these blackouts only allow captors, such as ISIS, to assume full control of the narrative.

We need to overturn the default press blackout on difficult news events. Coverage should be the default @Joelcpj @frontlineclub

— Tom Jeffery (@tdwjeffery) March 17, 2015

The wide-ranging discussion also looked at the problem of Western governments prioritising national security over freedom of expression in the wake of recent terror attacks on journalists at the satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo in Paris.

“I think the freedom of expression coalition lasted a couple of days and it’s been replaced by a national security coalition,” said Simon, and pointed to increased powers of state surveillance introduced in the UK within days of the attack.

To tackle the current crisis of press freedom, Simon proposed a broad alliance between journalists and all groups with an interest in ensuring the free flow of information.

“We need to form a grand coalition between all the forces which have a stake in ensuring that information flows freely,” he said.

Only with the help of the global business and technology communities, NGOs and like-minded governments could journalists make headway in preserving the fundamental right to free speech, he said.

More information on The New Censorship: Inside the Global Battle for Freedom of Expression is available here.

Watch and listen back below: