The Frontline Club

Environmental disasters and famines are being under-reported as lockdowns prevent access to journalistic scrutiny. Anti-government protests no longer take place in Iraq, Algeria and Lebanon. We have little news of the latest battles around Idlib, or the thousands held in squalid prisons across Syria.

A discussion about US Elections 2020, with James Naughtie, Ed O'keefe and Susan Glasser.

Even before the emergence of the Covid-19 pandemic, the 2020 race for the White House was certain to be highly contentious. The coronavirus, however, has now created profound uncertainties for the campaigns of President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden: it is predicted to take hundreds of thousands of American lives, radically stall the US economy and result in deep recession and long-term unemployment.

The dark art of using disinformation to sow discord is nothing new, but social media and political funding simply mean that false news now travels faster, deeper, and further than ever before.

From Cambridge Analytica to voter manipulation in the 2016 US Presidential election; from alleged Russian interference in the Brexit referendum to the growing influence of bots on social media, and a surge of conspiracy theories around Covid-19 circulating around the globe, seemingly no-one is now immune.

A discussion on the unprecedented challenges of covering one of the biggest and fastest-moving stories of our time, accurately and responsibly.

Interpret the scientific data, tell the human stories, counter conspiracy theories and hold governments to account.

Christina Lamb discusses her latest book 'Our bodies, their battlefield:What war does to women'.

In conversation with Lindsey Hilsum, Channel 4 News

This is A new podcast series from the Frontline Club

Every week, journalist Sean Langan will host an intimate conversation with a guest whose lived an interesting life and has a great story to tell.

Sean was kidnaped by the taliban in 2008 and spent 3 and a half months In captivity.

His first guest is Paul conroy, photojournalist with the Sunday Times and author of Under the wire. Paul was on assignment in Homs with Marie Colvin when she got killed.

Thirty years on, The Satanic Verses remains a novel that still provokes furious debate. To try and understand why, author, translator and journalist Maureen Freely will be joined by columnist and commentator Kenan Malik, presenters of recent radio 4 series ‘Fatwa’ Chloe Hadjimatheou and Mobeen Azhar, alongside Director of Southall Black Sisters Pragna Patel.

Within months of publication, Salman Rushdie’s fourth novel fictionalising the life of the prophet Mohammed was caught up in a maelstrom of protests and political power plays that engaged Muslims across the globe. On 14 February 1989 Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini rode a wave of anger and outrage to issue a Fatwa sentencing Rushdie to death, calling ‘all zealous Muslims’ to execute him – and everyone else involved in the books publication. In a manner unforeseen by the author, The Satanic Verses created and exposed cleavages in society like few other books throughout history.

What has happened since? In the intervening years, the arena for artistic, cultural and political expression has changed immeasurably. Many believe that, in the wake of the Fatwa, we live in a more censorious society, and the appetite for a diversity of voices – each with a label – has outgrown the need for genuinely diverse debate.

For others, the offence caused to Muslims in an already hostile environment still outweighs any defence of free expression and cultural enquiry. What is beyond doubt is that the book, and the Fatwa, redrew fault lines through the very ideas of community, race and debate in society, and that we still feel the reverberations today.

The Frontline Club presents a brand new 'In Conversation' series, talking to some of the world's most outstanding journalists about their unique stories, posing some burning questions, and taking a look behind the scenes in the news industry.

This weeks guest is former BBC political editor, journalist and broadcaster Nick Robinson. As one of the BBC most high-profile journalists, Nick has had an impressive career covering some of the biggest stories over the past decade.

To find out more about his highs and lows, and what he thinks of the constantly changing journalism landscape, we invited journalist Martha Gill to interview him upstairs at the club.

There is much debate over how Britain’s colonial past in Africa is remembered. Through the constantly shifting kaleidoscope of history, some momentous stories get quietly left behind. The Forgotten Heroes of Empire by Jack Losh and Alessandro Pavone, unearths an unfinished – and overlooked – chapter of that past. Join the filmmakers for a screening + Q&A with foreign correspondent Christina Lamb and a panel of experts to take a deeper look behind a disquieting story that is far from over.

When Frontline member Anthony Loyd found Shamima Begum in al-Hawl refugee camp, northern Syria, he helped unearth a series of unanswered questions for Western societies – and kickstarted a national debate in the United Kingdom.

When it comes to citizens returning from IS territory, what are our legal and moral responsibilities? Is there a two-tier system developing, with citizenship as privilege for the children of Muslim immigrants, and nationality as right for European ‘natives’?

With first-hand reporting from Anthony Loyd, and comment from columnist Nesrine Malik and expert on jihadist movements Shiraz Maher, we’ll be discussing the fallout of British Home Secretary Sajid Javid’s decision to revoke Shamima Begum’s citizenship. This discussion will be chaired by presenter of BBC HardTalk Stephen Sackur.