The late 1970s saw a sea-change in the photojournalistic coverage of world events that is still reverberating today. Photographers shifted from the concept of 'objective', balanced and supposedly 'truthful' documentation of the news to a more personal, partisan, subjective and authored approach that reflected the paradigms of the New Journalism of the 1970s. Two bodies of work, published as books during the early 1980s, stand out as seminal in this process, Nicaragua by Susan Meiselas and Telex Iran by Gilles Peress. Both set a new precedent for how the aesthetic and formal qualities of the image could be harnessed to depict political and social events, and for how the vision and commitment of the individual could become the story itself. To coincide with the exhibition 'Recording the Truth in Iran', this talk will compare two distinctive and vital depictions of societies caught up in the turbulence of revolution.

Paul Lowe is a senior lecturer in Photography at the University of the Arts London, and an award-winning photographer living and working between Sarajevo and London. His work is represented by Panos Pictures, and has appeared in Time, Newsweek, Life, The Sunday Times Magazine, The Observer and The Independent amongst others. He has covered breaking news the world over, including the fall of the Berlin Wall, Nelson Mandela's release, the conflict in the former Yugoslavia and the destruction of Grozny. Since 2004, Paul has been the Course leader of the Masters programme in Photojournalism and Documentary Photography at the London College of Communication. His book, Bosnians, documenting 10 years of the war and post war situation in Bosnia, was published in April 2005.

This event is free and open to all with no ticket required. Entry is on a first come, first served basis. For more information, email arts@lse.ac.uk

The past year has seen considerable debate about the media’s reporting of suicide. On Monday December 1st POLIS, in partnership with the Press Complaints Commission,  held a seminar discussion on the topic.

The seminar explored a number of ethical and practical issues relating to the coverage of suicide in both print and broadcast media – and will examine the importance of regulatory structures. It will also have an international perspective, comparing journalistic practices in several countries.

This will be an informal working seminar, aiming to gather contributions from a range of experts and practitioners with the aim of understanding and shaping editorial and regulatory practice.

Charlie Beckett, Director of POLIS, will chair the following panel of speakers:

Tim Toulmin (Director, PCC)

Professor Sonia Livingstone (London School of Economics)

Bob Satchwell (Executive Director, Society of Editors)

Anthony Langan (Public Affairs Manager, Samaritans)

Odd Isungset (Chairman, Norwegian Press Complaints Commission) 

Trevor Barnes (Senior Standards Manager, Ofcom)

This event has been kindly supported by the Press Complaints Commission www.pcc.org.uk

The Polis Media Leadership Dialogues

Michaelmas Term 2008

The Polis Media Leadership dialogues are a series of guest appearances from influential media figures in London and beyond. Each week we host a different talk from a media leader followed by an expert response.

Tom Loosemore
Head of 4iP, Channel Four

“4iP: Reinventing Public Service Media for a Digital Age”

With an expert response from Charlie Beckett, Polis Director
London School of Economics and Political Science

Tuesday November 25, 2008


17:00 to 18:30
Room E171, East Building  

ICE aims to bring together academics, professionals and campaigners from a range of disciplines in the field of communications to share interests and highlight ways of improving standards. Issues to be explored at the conference might include

• The history of scandal coverage in the media
• Case study analyses of media coverage of scandals
• Handling scandal coverage: the dilemmas of PR
• Handling scandal: journalists’ perspectives
• Corporate scandals: how managements respond
• Scandal and the ethics and dilemmas of whistleblowers
• Law and the rights of whistleblowers
• Sex, sleaze and celebrity scandal: the dumbing down debate
• The politics of scandal: feminist and Marxist approaches
• Law and scandal: is a new privacy law emerging ‘by the back door’?

Keynote speakers include:

“Reporters, Priests and Gossips: Unravelling the Gay Conundrum in the Church”
Michael Ford, writer and reporter/presenter for BBC Religion and Ethics and BBC World Service.

“Spinning tales: How PR deals with journalists' scandalous needs”
Simon Goldsworthy, Senior Lecturer in Public Communication, University of Westminster.

Those interested in presenting a paper to the conference should send 200-word abstracts to the ICE conference co-ordinators, Richard Lance Keeble (rkeeble@lincoln.ac.uk) or Fiona Thompson (f.thompson@leedstrinity.ac.uk) by October 1. The conference co-ordinators will respond to all submissions by October 14.

'Humanitarian Communications in a Global Media Age' is a culmination of a series of three high-level academic seminars. Bringing together outstanding international thinkers in this field, this one day symposium will exammine the state of communications around humanitarian relief, international development and human rights in a globalised digital communications age.

It will address the big questions: in an age of bloggers, celebrity campaigners and corporate public relations what are the ethics, politics and practicalities of humanitarian and development communications? How can communications attract the attention of the public and how can it convert that interest in to action?

The aim of the symposium is to broadly address the following key three themes, organised into a series of panels with leading thinkers in each area.

Panel 1: Humanitarianism, Media and the Cosmopolitan Public

Prof. Costas Douzinas, Birkbeck College

Empty Humanitarianism: This short talk will argue that the concept of 'humanity' is not a quality shared by humans but a strategy for ontological ordering. Its contemporary version of (cosmopolitan) humanitarianism is the latest phase of the 'civilising mission’.

Dr Kate Nash, Goldsmiths College

Creating Mediated Cosmopolitan Solidarity: In this paper I will reflect on how cosmopolitan solidarity beyond the national-state might be created and sustained in the absence of a global state. In ‘Global citizenship as show business: the cultural politics of Make Poverty History’ (Media, Culture and Society, 2008) I argued that the ‘Make Poverty History’ campaign in the UK, which aimed to bring about structural change in global economic governance, was also part of an innovative set of campaigns across the globe to build popular cosmopolitan solidarity. In this paper I consider further the limitations of the techniques and means used to build solidarity in Make Poverty History, and discuss analogous campaigns which have created ‘extraordinary solidarity’ historically. What do we know about the necessary conditions for creating cosmopolitan solidarity? In particular I reflect on the role that is played, and might be played, by the media in creating ‘extraordinary solidarity’.

Prof. Keith Tester, University of Hull

The Stories of Birhan Woldu: In this paper I use the example of Birhan Woldu, the so-called ‘icon of famine’ from Live Aid and Live 8 as an opportunity to raise questions about whether the media are a ‘cosmopolitanism generator’. The case of the appearance of Birhan Woldu raises questions about power and the paradoxes of liberal toleration that cast doubt on confident cosmopolitan assumptions. The point is that Birhan Woldu is represented in the media as uncosmopolitan – what does this imply?

Panel Two: Global Stakeholders in Humanitarian Communication

Dr Hans K. Hansen, Copenhagen Business School

Calibrating Humanitarian Risks: How Everyday Forms of Calculative Practice Shape the Engagement with Crisis, Conflict and Corruption:
When intergovernmental organizations, international financial institutions, non-governmental organizations and corporations engage with humanitarianism today, they typically draw on a wide range of more mundane and taken-for-granted calculative practices whose powers often go unnoticed in current discussions about cosmopolitanism, global politics and the mediatization of humanitarianism. These practices include the assessment of political risks of various sorts; the rating, ranking and benchmarking of countries and organizations according to specific governance criteria; and, the deployment of blacklisting of political and corporate entities under special circumstances. I propose we take a critical look at the role of these calculative practices, including their underlying frameworks and alignment to humanitarian projects and programs. First, the study of calculative practices can provide us with important insights into how activities carried out in the name of humanitarianism make visible and governable particular subjects and relations in global politics. Calculative practices establish a field in which standards for normalcy, deviance and responsibility are delineated. Such practices are more than mere analytical tools and embedded in systems of hierarchy and authority. Second, the study of how calculative practices are deployed draws our attention to organizational strategies of legitimation, including how humanitarian initiatives and interventions across the board - public and private, national, international and transnational – can bolster or undermine the public trust of key organizations with a humanitarian agenda. The argument is illustrated with examples from on ongoing research project on international anti-corruption. Specifically, I focus on how various calculative practices have been aligned to recent programs and projects conducted under the auspices of the World Bank and humanitarian organizations.

Prof. Mette Morsing, Copenhagen Business School

Towards Transparency or Silence?: The “global concern thesis” holds that contemporary corporations are responsible and transparent to the critical gaze of inquisitive stakeholders in global society. A central feature is the corporate response to form CSR policies demonstrating the willingness to take action on global humanitarian concerns about social and environmental issues. In fact, corporations have entered a competition to demonstrate themselves as the more globally concerned corporate citizen. While this demonstration of corporate “socially desirable behaviour” is appreciated, it is also a double-edged sword. No matter how much corporate leaders seek to manage their media visibility their ability to control is limited. The use of weblogs and other online media demonstrate how the news media and spatially isolated individuals may assert a collective influence on corporations by turning mass media into the mass’ media – for them: free of charge. In the competitive game of demonstrating a global concern, corporations may risk over-exposure followed by critique of hypocrisy. Rather than creating transparency, demonstrating a humanitarian concern becomes a source of uncertainty or fragility where the very possibility of being observed by thepublic implies a risk and a disciplining of corporate behaviour in terms of strategic silence.


Dr Natalie Fenton, Goldsmiths College

Cloning the News: NGOs, New Media and the News: This paper will consider the NGO as news source and the nature of its relationship to the professional journalist in a new media environment. It draws on a range of interviews with a variety of NGOs and journalists conducted throughout 2007/08. Publicity - both for campaigning and for fundraising is a central aspect of all NGOs work. For many, particularly the large, resource rich organizations, responding to a media saturated environment has meant a growth in press and PR offices increasingly staffed by trained professional journalists. These professionals apply the same norms and values to their work as any mainstream newsroom albeit with different aims and intentions; they use their contacts and cultural capital to gain access to key journalists and report increasing success in a media-expanded world. The resource poor however, far from finding a more levelled playing field with new media increasing access, as proclaimed by many early exponents of the advantages of new communication technologies, are forced to rely on long-standing credibility established by proven news-awareness and issue relevance. They find it much harder to keep up with changes in technology and the explosion of news space; and much harder to stand out amidst the countless voices on-line all competing for journalists’ attention. As journalists are now required to do more in less time, so their interactions with news sources dwindle. In news terms, NGOs may be getting more coverage (often on-line), but the nature of that news remains firmly within pre-established journalistic norms and values – a media logic that has led to ‘news cloning’.


Panel Three: The Mediated Visibility of Humanity

Dr Eric Guthey, Copenhagen Business School

Billanthropy, Business Celebrities, and All This Business About Humanitarian Causes: When the world’s richest business figures involve themselves in philanthropic ventures, the media take notice. The media become even more fascinated when business celebrities team up with their mega-celebrity counterparts from the realms of sports, music, and entertainment to champion humanitarian causes. More than just a public relations or branding strategy, the mediated combination of big business, celebrity and humanitarian concern speaks to something fundamental about the nature of business celebrity, and about its relationship both to corporate activity and to debates about what it means to be human in a corporate society. With these issues in mind, I propose a new understanding of celebrity that helps explain why media audiences are fated to keep looking at images of Bill Gates with Bono, images of Bill Gates with young babies in Africa, and images of various other business figures sharing the frame with all manner of celebrities and residents of the Third World in ways that accentuate the connections between mediated celebrity and humanitarian concern.


Prof. Luc Bovens, LSE

The Ethics of Photojournalism: Grace Mungai, a victim of Kenya's civil war, lies murdered in a puddle of blood in her house as her young son is crying in the background. This Reuters photograph was run in large format by The Observer (Feb 10, 2008). Every day we are bombarded in the media with photographs of such horrific magnitude. Clearly truthfulness is a constraint on what is being depicted—we object to photographs that are posed, doctored or are presented out of context. But truthfulness is only a minimal constraint. There is a public trust that certain photographs are blocked from publication for being too disconcerting. They may be disrespectful towards the people depicted. Larry Burrows, a photojournalist who was killed in Vietnam, wrote, "It's not easy to photograph a man dying in the arms of his fellow country-man ... Was I simply capitalizing on other men's grief?" Or they may be disrespectful towards the readers. As readers, we feel the discomfort of Leontius in Plato's Republic who cannot resist looking at the corpses after an execution and we object to being put in this position. What motivates this public trust? What are its unspoken rules? And how does one balance the constraints of this public trust against an obligation to truthful and comprehensive reporting?


Prof. Lilie Chouliaraki, LSE


Communicating the humanitarian cause: Towards a post-emotional sensibility: My empirical focus is humanitarian appeals as a genre of mediation that traditionally configures specific forms of action at a distance based on the ‘grand’ emotions of pity: indignation and protest or empathy and charity (Boltanski 1999). I explore contemporary examples of this genre of mediation in order to show how they articulate the semiotics of vulnerability and construe moral agency towards vulnerable others. I conclude that an emerging tendency in the mediation of humanitarian appeals is to break with traditional registers of pity and to privilege a light-touch and low-intensity form of agency, no longer inspired by ‘grand’ emotion or intellectual vision but momentarily engaging us in practices of playful consumerism.

A report about the symposium will be available shortly after the event.

Benedict Brogan is a career political journalist, having worked at the Glasgow Herald, the Daily Telegraph, and now as Political Editor of arguably the UK's most influential newspaper, the Daily Mail. He is well known for his widely read political blog. Ben is also a frequent political commentator on television and radio.

The talk will take place in E171, East Building, LSE on 14 Oct, 2008 from 5 - 6.30. Space is limited so please email polis@lse.ac.uk to reserve a seat.

On Monday 17th  November 2008 , POLIS will launch a ground-breaking research report on "Journalism as a Social Compact: The Rights and Duties of Financial and Business Journalists".

Dr Damian Tambini of the LSE Media and Communications Department, and his research team have been conducting a series of in depth interviews with senior financial journalists, and with leading financial PR executives, regulators, academic experts and other stakeholders. This report introduces a model of the rights and duties of financial and business journalists. It shows how journalistic privileges have been granted in recognition of the social function of ethical, responsible journalism, and examines the impact of current market and technological changes on the nature of those ethics and responsibilities.

Dr. Tambini and his team have also analysed ethical codes on financial journalism from the UK and the US, analysed existing research on the market impact of news, and conducted a series of pilot interviews with experts in the U.S. from Bloomberg, the Wall St Journal and other leading titles.

Speaking at the event is Ed Wasserman, Knight Professor in journalism at Washington and Lee University and Gillian Tett, Assistant Editor, Financial Times.

Seats are left but space is limited. Please email us polis@lse.ac.uk for more information. 
 

Robert Peston is the BBC's award-winning Business Editor, who on September 17 2008, exclusively revealed that the UK's battered mortgage giant, HBOS, was being taken over and rescued by Lloyds TSB. In 2007, Peston’s scoop on Northern Rock seeking emergency financial help from the Bank of England won the Royal Television Society’s Television Journalism Award for Scoop of the Year and the Wincott Award for Business News/Current Affairs Programme of the Year. He was Journalist of the Year in the Business Journalism of the Year Awards for 2007/8, and also won in the Scoop category. He was previously the Sunday Telegraph’s City Editor, in charge of its Business and Money Sections. In the 1990s, he was political editor, financial editor and head of investigations at the Financial Times, where he won the ‘What The Papers Say’ award for investigative journalism. His award-winning blog can be found at www.bbc.co.uk/robertpeston.

This event is an LSE public lecture and is being run by the LSE Events and Conferences Unit.  It is free and open to all however a ticket is required. One ticket per person can be requested from 10.00am on Friday 7 November via the online ticket request form.

Please contact the Press Office if you would like to reserve a press seat or if you have a media query about this event. Email pressoffice@lse.ac.uk.

The third in a series of panels on Humanitarian Communications held by POLIS, the discussion on Thursday November 13 focused on the mediatisation of humanitarian crises, the changing role of NGOs in relation to the media, how citizen journalism and aid agencies are affecting humanitarian reporting and the audience perspective on disaster reporting.

Professor Simon Cottle of Cardiff University’s School of Journalism opened the program by arguing that the fundamental relationship between news media and aid agencies is changing, fueled by the shifting ecology of global news. In a crowded field where big NGOs vie for media coverage, these organizations are learning how to “sell” humanitarian crises and brand their agencies. With reduced foreign bureaus, news agencies increasingly rely on well-packaged stories from the field by NGO aid workers reporting in disaster areas. NGOs are complicit in giving the media what they want – packaged stories to run about the ‘innocent victim’ which improves their organizations ‘brand’ – an important assent in a corporate environment where, according to Professor Cottle, “public profile becomes a bankable currency.” Aid agencies increasingly defend their brand by increasingly focusing resources in areas that look good on camera while avoiding critiques by the news media. But Professor Cottle and attendees questioned whether the media would hold them to account if they fail to devote resources to where they are actually needed, particularly if the media rely on aid organizations for foreign reporting.

Glenda Cooper, the Reuters Institute Fellow at Oxford University furthered the argument that the blurring of boundaries between the news media and aid agencies as foreign bureaus are shut is problematic and she raised important questions about the meteoric rise of user-generate content on the industry. Cooper looked at the influence of user generated content during the 2004 Southeast Asia Tsunami and the 2008 Sichuan earthquake to highlight the changing role of user generated content in the media world. She observed the changing control of a story in news coverage and reporting that shifts, the close, symbiotic relationship media and aid agencies previous had to one where the victim or bystander has the ability to report on a humanitarian crisis. This opening up allows more diversity in voices, but not necessarily stories and raises concerns over the possibility of hoaxes and objectivity of reports derived from user-generated content. Cooper also raised questioned about the increasing use of aid workers as reporters and bloggers. In a world where the “more media friendly the disaster, the more money it gets,” concerns over the veracity of aid worker’s reports arise when “media doesn’t prioritize objectivity and aid organizations do not object.” Cooper felt that news driven by agenda rather than neutral reporting blurs the boundaries of news objectivity that must not be allowed to deteriorate.

This ‘blurring of the lines’ is even more worrisome when you consider “who is sending what message to whom with what effects,” according to Professor John Ellis of the University of London. Prof Ellis focused on the receiver’s perspective on disaster reporting and the different agendas held by reporters, interviewees, aid agencies, and the individual viewer. The expectation of who is being addressed in the audience is a key relationship - a viewer is a necessary witness but not necessarily the principal addressee. The audiences role in this changing media ecology is very important when considering the future of humanitarian communications.

This report was written by POLIS intern Eli Lipmen.

In light of the Ofcom's review of Public Service Broadcasting in June, Ed Richard, Chief Executive of Ofcom, will join us to discuss the future of public service broadcasting and telecommunications in the UK for a Q & A.

A reception will follow the event. For more information please email us at polis@lse.ac.uk

This event has been supported by Hanover Communications

We will put together a series of academic seminars, panel debates, lectures and conferences beginning October 2008. In 2009 we will move onto a series od events more focused on enagagement with the public and stakeholders. We will also be launching a series of research projects and partners. To find out more about this please go to the research section of our website.

The events organised for 2008 are:

Panel Two: Humanitarian Campaigning and the Cosmopolitan Imagination, November 6th, G108, Kingsway, LSE, 6.30 - 8

The panel discusses the increasing commercialisation in the communication practices of NGOs and reflects on the tensions that this trend brings about. These are old tensions between fund- and awareness-raising, which are now reformulated as tensions between profit and justice; consumption and solidarity; entertainment and social change.

Invited Participants: Dr Nick Stevenson, University of Nottingham; Dr Bruna Seu, Birkbeck College; Denise Searle, management and communications consultant (Oxfam, Widows’ Rights International and aids2031) and Director of Marketing and Communications for ‘A Different Movie’;previously Senior Director of Campaigns, Amnesty International and Chief of Broadcasting, UNIFEC.

Panel Three: The Mediatisation of Humanitarian Crises, November 13th, G108, Kingsway, LSE, 6.30 - 8

This panel focuses on the symbiotic relationship between media and humanitarian NGOs, raising issues about the ways in which i) the media are currently shaping not only the reporting of emergencies and crises but also the very communication strategies and market images of NGOs and ii) the ways in which new media and citizen journalism may be changing the ways reporting of humanitarian issues takes place. It addresses the responsibility of media and journalists in reporting on human suffering- a responsibility not only about informing the public but also about shaping the conditions of solidarity with vulnerable others within and outside the West.

Invited Participants: Prof. Simon Cottle, University of Cardiff; Prof. John Ellis, Royal Holloway, University of London; Glenda Cooper, Reuters Institute Fellow, Oxford University;

To attend the events above please rsvp to polis@lse.ac.uk

Maps and directions: http://www.lse.ac.uk/resources/mapsAndDirections/


Symposium: Humanitarian Communication in the Global Media Age, November 21st (invitation only)

The symposium takes a broad view on humanitarianism as action on suffering others in the name of universal humanity and draws together the themes of i)ethics and the cosmopolitan imagination, ii) global politics, NGOs and corporations and iii) the mediatisation of suffering – all three addressed in the POLIS panels mentioned above. The aim of the Symposium is to debate the challenges of humanitarian communication today, with a particular focus on the moral, political and cultural implications they may have on the formation of contemporary public ethics.

CHAIR: The Earl of Stockton (Former Chairman Pan Macmillan Ltd)

DISCUSSANTS: Pete Clifton (Head of Editorial Development, Multi-Media Journalism The BBC)
Margaret Manning (Female Entrepreneur of the Year and Chief Executive Reading Room)
Peter Barron (Head of Comms Google UK, Ireland & Benelux, former Editor of Newsnight)
Neil McIntosh (Head of Editorial Development, guardian.co.uk)

TICKETS £10 IN ADVANCE STUDENTS ADMITTED FREE

Please send cheques to Sam Keegan, 29 Prothero Road, London SW6 7LY. Cheques payable to The Media Society.

For more information: sam_keegan@hotmail.com

Jeremy Hunt MP, the Shadow Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport will be making a keynote policy speech on the subject of public sector broadcasting and social responsibility. There will be an opportunity for questions. The speech is hosted by the LSE media think-tank Polis with the support of Hanover Communications.

This event is now full.  To read Jeremy Hunt MP's forthcoming speech tommorow, please click here

Although it is an old technology (deployed first in 1969) its expansion in the last two decades has weaved the entire realm of human activity in the Internet networks. While the digital divide persists, over 1.3 billion users of the Internet in 2008 and its potential expansion through wireless communication networks make the Internet in the Information Age the equivalent of the electrical grid and the electrical engine in the Industrial Age. However, in spite of ubiquituous presence of the Internet in our everyday life, its understanding as a social process of communication is blurred by myths and ideologies that populate the media. And yet, scholarly research has gathered a substantial amount of evidence, worldwide, in the last decade on the actuality of its effects. This lecture will summarize the main findings of such a body of research, including some conducted by Professor Castells on the specific effects of Internet-mediated communication in the patterns of social life, in business, in education, in public services, in politics, in the media and in culture, and will draw the analytical implications of these findings. Finally, the lecture will explore the reasons for the persistence of myths, be it utopian or dystopian, about the Internet in contrast with the knowledge we now have about its social consequences.

Professor Manuel Castells is the Wallis Annenberg Chair Professor of Communication Technology and Society at the Annenberg School of Communication, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, and Research Professor of Information Society at the Open University of Catalonia, Barcelona. He is as well Distinguished Visiting Professor of Technology and Society at M.I.T., and Distinguished Visiting Professor of Internet Studies at Oxford University.

This event is free and open to all with no ticket required. Entry is on a first come, first served basis. For more information, email events@lse.ac.uk or phone 020 7955 6043.

Media queries: please contact the Press Office if you would like to reserve a press seat or have a media query about this event, email pressoffice@lse.ac.uk or call 020 7955 7060.

If you are planning to attend this event and would like details on how to get here and what time to arrive, please refer to Coming to an event at LSE

The next lecture in this series will be delivered by Professor Anne-Marie Slaughter on the topic of America's Edge: a global country in a global century on Tuesday 28 October.You can see a list of all the lectures in this series at Space for Thought Inaugural Lecture Series here.

In close partnership with the LSE Law Department and BBC College of Journalism, on the evening of the 23rd of October POLIS will hold a high profile public panel debate to discuss current issues in media law and practice regarding contempt. Maxine Mawhinney from BBC News 24 will Chair, with contributions from Joshua Rozenburg (Legal Affairs Editor, Daily Telegraph), Jonathan Kotler (US Attorney and USC Annenburg School of Journalism), Mark Haslam (partner, BCL Burton Copeland, and Nick Davies (Guardian, author of Flat Earth News).

This will be followed by an invitation-only stakeholders' policy workshop on the 24th. A second stakeholders' forum, focused on the law of privacy, celebrity and investigative journalism will be held later in the year. To find out more on any of these events, or to reserve a seat for the public panel debate on the 23rd, please email us at polis@lse.ac.uk

All talks with will take place from 5 - 6.30 in  room E171, East Building, London School of Economics

14/10 Emily Bell, The Guardian

Emily has worked for the Observer and then the Guardian for the past seventeen years, setting up mediaguardian.co.uk in 2000 and becoming Editor-in-Chief of Guardian Unlimited in 2001. In September 2006, Emily was promoted to the new position of Director of Digital Content for Guardian News and Media. Guardian Unlimited, the Guardian and Observer’s network of websites, has won multiple awards, including the prestigious Webby for Best Newspaper on the world wide web in 2005, 2006 and 2007.

Emily writes a regular column for the Guardian about media policy issues and also for Broadcast magazine. She lives in Finsbury Park with her husband and three small children.


21/10 Peter Bazalgette, TV Executive, Endemol, YouGov, National Film and Television School, ENO

Peter Bazalgette is a media consultant. From 2004 – 2007 he was Chief Creative Officer of Endemol, to whom he remains an adviser. He has personally devised several internationally successful television formats such as Ready Steady Cook and Changing Rooms. He also brought Big Brother to the UK. Peter’s book about the international business of TV formats, Billion Dollar Game, was published in 2005.

Peter is a Non-Executive Director of YouGov and a former Board member of Channel 4. He is building a portfolio of investments in digital growth companies. Peter also serves as Deputy Chairman of the National Film and Television School and on the Board of the English National Opera.

4/11 Caroline Thomson, Chief Operating Officer, BBC

Caroline Thomson is the Chief Operating Officer of the BBC. She is a member of the BBC’s Executive Board and reports to the Director-General.

Caroline has responsibility for the BBC’s Strategy, Policy, Legal, Distribution and Business Continuity functions and for all of the BBC’s property plans. As a result she is the Executive Director accountable for the BBC’s major infrastructure projects: digital switchover, the move to Salford and the development of the BBC’s two major sites in central and west London. Caroline was also responsible for leading the BBC’s bid for a successful review of its Charter and negotiating the licence fee settlement. She manages the BBC's main policies in regulatory and compliance areas and freedom of information as well as the BBC's Legal Affairs and Government Relations unit. Caroline has responsibility for strategic analysis and planning and for the distribution of BBC services and is particularly involved in the development of the BBC’s digital strategy.

Caroline began her career in broadcasting 30 years ago, joining the BBC as a journalist trainee and going on to produce a range of BBC radio and television series including BBC Radio 4’s Analysis and BBC One’s Panorama. She left the BBC to work as political assistant to Roy Jenkins, then the leader of the SDP, during the 1983 General Election campaign.

In 1984, Caroline joined Channel 4 Television as Commissioning Editor, Science, Finance & Industry and went on to start Business Daily and the Equinox series. She was subsequently appointed Head of Corporate Affairs, reporting to the Chief Executive, Michael Grade.

11/11 Samira Ahmed, Channel 4 News

Samira Ahmed is a presenter and reporter at Channel 4 News. She's reported extensively on crime, terrorism and the arts including the cases of OJ Simpson, Jill Dando and Rochelle Holness, who was murdered by a serial sex offender. She started her career as a BBC graduate trainee in 1990, going on to work as a News Correspondent, a reporter on "Today" and "Newsnight" and a presenter for BBC World and News 24. Samira was the BBC's Los Angeles Correspondent from 1996-7 and a presenter for Deutsche Welle TV in Berlin 1998. Her documentary series "Islam Unveiled" on the status of Muslim women around the world, aired on Channel 4 in 2004.

18/11 Benedict Brogan, Daily Mail

Benedict Brogan is a career political journalist, having worked at the Glasgow Herald, the Daily Telegraph, and now as Political Editor of arguably the UK’s most influential newspaper, the Daily Mail. He is well known for his widely read political blog. Ben is also a frequent political commentator on television and radio.

25/11 James Harding, Editor, The Times

James Harding was appointed Editor of The Times on Wednesday 12th December 2007.

Prior to this appointment, he was The Times Business & City Editor having taken up the position in August 2006.

Before joining The Times, James worked for the Financial Times. He was the FT’s Washington bureau chief from 2002-2004, having previously been the FT’s media editor for three years. Between 1996 and 1999, he was a correspondent in China, where he opened the Shanghai bureau for the FT – the first European newspaper to open an office in the city since the 1949 revolution. He started at the Financial Times in 1994 as a corporate reporter.

Born in London in 1969, James studied History at Trinity College, Cambridge. He then learnt Japanese and went to work as a speechwriter in the office of Koichi Kato, then Japan’s chief cabinet secretary. From 1993 to 1994, he worked in the Japan unit of the European Commission. He speaks Japanese, Chinese, French and German.


2/12 Julia Hobsbawm, : 'From 24/7 to 24 Nanosecond: What this means for the media world', PR Consultant

Julia Hobsbawm is London’s first Professor of Public Relations at the London College of Communication (University of the Arts) and a pioneer of so-called ‘integrity PR’ in the UK.

In 2005 she launched Editorial Intelligence: Bringing You the World of Comment and Opinion (www.editorialintelligence.com) , a media analysis and networking firm which has been hailed as 'the smartest way to keep up with comment'.

Julia Hobsbawm co-authored Penguin’s Cosmopolitan Guide to Working in PR & Advertising in 1996, and edited the highly praised collection of essays on PR and Journalism entitled ‘Where the Truth Lies: Trust & Morality in PR and Journalism, published by Atlantic Books in 2007. In 2009 her book on work-life balance, entitled The See-Saw will be published.

Julia broadcasts regularly on the BBC and Sky about the media.

Each session is at 5pm at the LSE. Please email us to reserve a seat.

In celebration of its’ fifth anniversary year, the LSE’s Media and Communication’s Department held a conference in September about how the media and communications environment is implicated in shaping perceptions of the human condition and increasingly mediating human values, actions and social relations. The conference was focused on the following five areas: Communication and Difference; Democracy, Politics and Journalism Ethics; Globalization and Comparative Studies; Innovation, Governance and Policy; and Media and New Media Literary Studies. To read  the Fifith Anniversary Conference Report , please click here.

To read all about the POLIS/Ofcome public service broadcasting review options debate held last week, please click here.

The Role of the Press in Political and Social Change

The Embassy of Brazil, The London School of Economics and Political Science and The University of East London cordially invite you to the seminar on the role of media in development with specific focus on its role in Brazil.

In an era of increasing commercialization of the media worldwide and rise of cynicism in politics, can the press still have a role in strengthening democracy and can it contribute to wider political change? This seminar will compare media systems from different countries and the impact on the democratic process.

Speakers

• Carolina Matos, LSE Fellow in Political Communications. Author of Journalism and Political Democracy in Brazil (Lexington 2008)
• Charlie Beckett, Director of POLIS, LSE. Author of SuperMedia: Saving Journalism So It Can Save The World.
• Ashwani Sharma, Principal Lecturer in Media and Cultural Studies and Programme Leader of the MA in Global Media, UEL.

Chair

Robin Mansell, Head of Media and Communications Department at the London School of Economics

The debate will be followed by a reception and the launch of Journalism and Political Democracy in Brazil by Carolina Matos.

The event is free, but booking is essential at beth@brazil.org.uk.

...the struggle to ask meaningful questions, call governments to account and explore the ‘nerve-endings’ of the culture should be integral to television today...

Writer Alistair Beaton, whose television credits include Spitting image, Drop the Dead Donkey and The Trial of Tony Blair, investigates the role of humour in drama and questions the prevailing norms of good and bad taste, and makes a plea for comedy with a social purpose.

Booking essential as space is limited. Please RSVP to:
Sandra Borley
s.borley@lcc.arts.ac.uk
Tel: 020 7514 6806

The seminars are hosted by Pratap Rughani, Course Director for the MA in Documentary Research for Film & Television.

Drinks reception to follow.

The Ofcom review of Public Service Broadcasting closes its public consultation phase on June 19th. Join us on June 3rd for a last chance to hear from Ofcom and put your views to them direct. Senior Ofcom executive Steward Purvis will be on a panel with Patrick Barwise from the London Business School.

The VLV (Voice of the Listener and Viewer) have teamed up with Polis, the media think-tank at the London School of Economics to provide this forum. Please email us at polis@lse.ac.uk for further information and to
reserve a place as seats are limited. A reception will follow afterwards.

Relevant links:

• Ofcom: Review of Public Service Broadcasting
• PSB Review: Interactive Executive Summary
  
• Voice of the Listener & Viewer

On June 2^nd the London College of Communication will hold a debate on the future of the creative industries set to be poised for rapid growth. The focus of the debate will be on the recent Government strategy document ‘Creative Britain’, to make a difference and help turn talent into jobs. The debate will be chaired by Julia Hobsbawn, visiting professor at the LCC, with a key note speech by Estelle Morris, Former Secretary of State for Education and Skills and current Minister for the Arts.

To attend please email: j.carey@lcc.arts.ac.uk. RSVP is essential.

To find out more about the event please click here.

...the struggle to ask meaningful questions, call governments to account and explore the ‘nerve-endings’ of the culture should be integral to television today...

Peter Kosminsky is a singular voice in television drama and documentary; asking difficult questions with films including Britz (two films about being second generation Muslim in Britain today), The Government Inspector (the Dr David Kelly drama for Channel 4) and Warriors (on peace-keeping). All have won BAFTA awards. Clips from these dramas will be screened at the seminar.

Booking essential as space is limited. Please RSVP to:
Sandra Borley
s.borley@lcc.arts.ac.uk
Tel: 020 7514 6806

The seminars are hosted by Pratap Rughani, Course Director for the MA in Documentary Research for Film & Television.

In collaboration with the LSE Media Group and Innovation Forum Future Media series, POLIS will hold an event on the New new journalism, addressing the changing position of journalism in society and the new possibilities presented by technology and design with, Director of POLIS, Charlie Beckett speaking.

The event will focus on informal debate and discussion, and the participation of attendees will be critical.

As participation is restricted to 50 people, please book early if you want to take part. To book a ticket or to find out more information please click here.

Panelists

Charlie Beckett, Founding Director, POLIS

Charlie Beckett is the founding director of POLIS , the thinktank for research and debate into international journalism and society, a joint initiative between the LSE Media and Communications Department and the London College of Communication. POLIS hosts public lectures and seminars for journalists and the public. It runs Fellowship and Research programmes, and publishes reports on a range of topics including new media and journalism, media and development, financial journalism, and public service broadcasting. Becket has been a programme editor at ITN’s Channel 4 News, and a film-maker and programme editor at BBC News and Current affairs. He was also a Reuters Fellow at Oxford University, where he wrote a field-work based paper on New Technology and Journalism in Uganda. Beckett’s book SuperMedia: Saving Journalism So It Can Save the World is published by Blackwell on 20 May. It describes the crisis facing mainstream journalism and argues that ‘professional’ journalism must be transformed through the integration of the public into the production and dissemination of news.

Tessa Mayes, Campaigning investigative journalist

Tessa Mayes is a campaigning investigative journalist based in London and New York. Her investigations cover subjects ranging from pressures on illegal immigrants in prostitution to problems with the UK criminal justice system. Mayes’s reports have been broadcast on or appeared in: BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Five, the Spectator, The Sunday Times, the Guardian and spiked-online. She has written and spoken on legal, political and media issues and appears on CNN as a commentator. Mayes also campaigns in favour of free speech.

Bill Thompson, Journalist, commentator and technology critic

New media pioneer Bill Thompson is a journalist, commentator and technology critic based in Cambridge. He has been working in, on and around the Internet since 1984. He currently writes a weekly column for the technology section of the BBC News site, and contributes to other publications, both on and off-line, including the Guardian, The Register and the New Statesman. He writes a monthly column for new ’net users for BBC WebWise, and a technology column for Focus magazine. Bill appears weekly on Digital Planet (formerly Go Digital) on the BBC World Service and occasionally on other BBC radio and television programmes. Bill is a visiting lecturer at City University where he teaches Online Journalism in the Journalism and Publishing department, and is an external editor for openDemocracy.net. 

Julia Whitney, Head of Design & User Experience, Journalism, BBC Future Media & Technology

Julia Whitney is responsible for the design and user experience for BBC News, Sport and Weather on digital platforms. Before joining the BBC Julia was Director of Interactive Design at WGBH in Boston, a national producer of public service media for PBS. She received a BA in Mathematics from Brown University and an MFA in Graphic Design from Yale University, where she later taught graduate level interaction design.

Source: Innovation Forum

Chaired by LSE Professor. Mary Kaldor. Award–winning international journalist Misha Glenny will talk about his intrepid investigations into the world of transnational organised crime in his new book, McMafia: Crime without frontiers. It reveals how conventional policing cannot cope with globalised crime corrupting governments and how it is fuelling human rights abuses. Glenny offers an insight into the pitfalls of a globalisation where the rules dividing the legal from the illegal are often far from clear.

To reserve a seat, please email polis@lse.ac.uk

We're also hosting private seminars and conferences on a number of different issues including credibility and the media, politics and the media in South East Europe and the future of consumer publishing in Europe. If you're interested in any of these themes please contact us.

In the light of the recent revival of the cartoons controversy in Denmark and Western Europe, this talk will be addressing issues of free speech and the public-private divide through the question of images. The aim is to philosophize the twin and perhaps irreconcilable problems of free expression and moral degradation.

This debate, in partnership with the Gender Institute, will ask why, despite the increased number of women in the profession, many still accuse the media of not getting the gender balance right. As women become increasingly powerful in the news media, is journalism ‘female friendly’ or are women still repressed by the press? Confirmed speakers: Rosalind Gill, Professor of Social Psychology and Cultural Theory at the Open University and Samira Ahmed, Channel 4 News presenter.

Sir John Tusa is the Chairman of the University of the Arts of London. As Managing Director of the Barbican he revolutionised its arts programme. He had a long and distinguished career prior to that as a BBC presenter and Managing Director of the BBC World Service. He is a passionate defender of publicly-supported arts:

"Why is the demand for justification of the arts so often accompanied by the implied slur that those in the arts are engaged in a selfish activity? All the evidence points to widespread use made of the arts, the overwhelming support for their funding and the enjoyment that they bring. Why is so much overt public debate founded apparently on … wilfully false assumptions?" (The Times, April 17 th)

Panellists including PR expert Justine McGuiness, McCanns spokesperson Clarence Mitchell, media commentator Roy Greenslade, McCanns documentary maker David Mills, Dispatches Executive Producer Roger Graef and former Sun Editor Kelvin MacKenzie discussed their views on the McCanns story and the media phenomenon that surrounds it. The debate was chaired by columnist and broadcaster Steve Hewlett.

A podcast is available by clicking here.

The LSE's Professor Sonia Livingstone gave a recent lecture on the impact of children's media. To read her speech.

click here. To listen to the podcast click here.

Debate in partnership with the BBC Chinese Service. The event - held primarily in Chinese - was webcast via the BBC Chinese Service: for more details click here.

Head of Ofcom Ed Richards spoke on the Future of Broadcasting, in conversation with Damian Tambini.
To listen to the podcast of this event, click here.

Intelligence and the media - can we trust journalists with public security? Drawing on his experience as Head of SIS during 9/11 and the intervention in Iraq, Sir Richard Dearlove will examine the relationship between the intelligence services and the media: can we trust journalists with our safety and security?

Dearlove made headlines on the Today programme, BBC News, the Guardian, the Times, and the Mirror.

Media and democracy in post-Putin Russia - has the death of press freedom been exaggerated? A year on from Anna Politkovskaya's death, this debate asked who is to blame for the current state of the Russian media? Can press freedom be revived? The debate was chaired by Margot Light (LSE), with panellists including Edward Lucas (The Economist), OSCE Freedom of the Media representative Miklos Haraszti, Russian news agency Novosti's Pavel Andreev and Russia Today's Darya Pushkova.

The debate was highly controversial. If you missed it, click here for the podcast. To read what POLIS thought click here. Edward Lucas continued the debate on the Guardian's Comment is Free and Pavel Andreev blogged for The Telegraph. Nick Cohen also covered the event for The Observer.

Former LSE student Shrenik Rao launched his new documentary giving the inside story on Zimbabwe. The screening was followed by a panel debate on freedom of expression and human rights in Zimbabwe. For more information on Shrenik Rao, click here. The podcast of the event is now available here. click here to see the video

Can we still trust TV? The box in the dock. Speakers: Former chief executive of Channel Five David Elstein, media lawyer Mark Stephens, former controller of editorial policy at the BBC Stephen Whittle, documentary maker Paul Watson, Daily Telegraph TV Editor Neil Midgley and former BBC controller of editorial policy Phil Harding. Chair: Roger Bolton, presenter of Sunday and Feedback on Radio 4.

This event was held in partnership with the Media Society and the LSE Media Group. For more details click here.

To download the podcast of the debate click here.

The Future of Impartiality - is the public service ethos doomed? BBC critic Richard D North, The Guardian's Emily Bell, and the BBC's Economic Editor Evan Davis joined Roger Bolton to debate whether it is possible to regulate for impartiality in a post- 2012 world. For the podcast, click here.

This event is being held in partnership with the BBC College of Journalism.

The Iraq Commission: the Press and Public response. POLIS hosted the first public and press debate on the findings of the Iraq Commission, the independent cross-party body that will produce recommendations on the future of Britain's role in Iraq, run by Channel 4 and the Foreign Policy Centre. A recording will be made available via the LSE Event podcasts website.

Reporting Muslims and Extremism. The latest POLIS seminar, with leading Muslim figures, to debate how the media reports issues around public security and community cohesion. Click here for the report.

Development Governance and the Media: The role of the media in building African society. POLIS launched the report of the March conference with a panel debate and drinks reception at the LSE. Podcast available here.

Future of News Seminars - last of four private seminars bringing together leading New Media thinkers with high-level media executives to brainstorm the future of journalism. Click here to read the report.

Charlie Beckett delivered a presentation on press freedom at the UNESCO World Press Freedom Day debate.

Future of News Seminars - Third of four private seminars bringing together leading New Media thinkers with high-level media executives to brainstorm the future of journalism. Click here to read the report.

Development Governance and the Media: The role of the media in building African society. POLIS held a high-level conference bringing together academics, policy makers, donors and media practitioners to explore the role of the media in the DfID ‘Making Governance Work for the Poor’ agenda, in light of the July 2006 white paper.

Charlie Beckett delivered a presentation on Ethnicity and the Media at the Westminster Media Forum Seminar. Click here to read what was said.

Second of four private seminars bringing together leading New Media thinkers with high-level media executives to brainstorm the future of journalism.

The Annual Hugh Cudlipp lecture at the London College of Communication - Paul Dacre, Editor in Chief, Associated Newspapers

Allan Thompson launched his latest book on The Media and the Rwandan Genocide, the first book to explore both the international and local dimensions of the media equation. Allan Thompson's presentation was followed by a panel debate with James Putzel, LSE, Linda Melvern, author and investigative journalist, and Richard Dowden, Director of the Royal African Society.

This event was held in partnership with the Crisis States Research Centre.

A full transcript is now available.

POLIS Director Charlie Beckett presented a BBC Radio 4 Analysis documentary on reporting Muslims in Britain. You can view the transcript here and listen via Radio 4's website. And we always welcome your feedback - contact us here.

First of four private seminars bringing together leading New Media thinkers with high-level media executives to brainstorm the future of journalism.

The News We Deserve Lecture Series - Sir Christopher Meyer, Chairman, Press Complaints Commission: Protecting the Press or the People?

For details of what was said refer to our press release.
For the POLIS Director's reaction check out the weblog.
Here is what The Guardian had to say about the lecture.
A podcast is also now available. And you can watch the video highlights too.

David Lammy's speech is available here. The podcast is also now available.

This event was covered by The Guardian and the Press Gazette.

A panel of leading academics and journalists will discussed before a public audience the ideas and implications for journalism and media studies of the posthumously published Media and Morality by the late Professor Roger Silverstone. Charlie Beckett, Professor Lilie Chouliaraki, Professor Stan Cohen, Daniel Dayan, Richard Sambrook, Robin Mansell (Chair): Morality and Media in the 21st Century

Charlie Beckett's speech is available here, and please click here for a full podcast of the event.

The News We Deserve Lecture Series - Yosri Fouda, Chief Investigative Correspondent, Al Jazeera: Al Jazeera - A Different Voice in the World?

For Charlie Beckett's reaction, go to the Director's weblog.

Here is the transcript for Yosri Fouda's lecture. We hope that a podcast will be available shortly.