The Frontline Club

With everyone talking about the future of journalism, it’s easy to forget what’s happening now. Do paywalls work? Is the industry still in crisis? Is it still too white and middle class? And where are the jobs?

Grapevine Events will be inviting some of the country’s top editors for a night of questions – and answers.

Doors 7:00 PM

First Panel 7:30 – 8:20 PM

Chaired by Archie Bland.

Zing Tsjeng, digital news editor, Dazed Magazine.

Stephen Bush, assistant comment editor, The Telegraph.

Emma Hogan, Britain correspondent, The Economist.

Alex Hern, tech reporter, The Guardian.

In July 2011, revelations that journalists from The News of the World hacked the phone of murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler created public outrage. But we were soon to learn this was just the tip of the iceberg. The revelations that followed revealed a scandal that has since engulfed Fleet Street, Scotland Yard and Downing Street.

The man behind that story, and the years of investigative work that came before it, was Nick Davies. In his new book Hack Attack: How The Truth Caught Up With Rupert Murdoch, Davies recounts his painstaking investigation and exposes the inside story of what went on in the newsrooms and the corridors of power.

Nick Davies will be joining us in conversation with Stewart Purvis, to talk about the investigation, the revelations and the future of press regulation. We will be asking how the press have changed in a post-Leveson world and whether they have really reformed.

Nick Davies writes investigative stories for The Guardian, and has been named Journalist of the Year, Reporter of the Year and Feature Writer of the Year in British Press Awards. He has written five books: White Lies, Murder on Ward Four, Dark Heart, School Report and Flat Earth News.

Stewart Purvis is professor of television journalism at City University. He is a former editor-in-chief and CEO of ITN, Ofcom’s Partner for Content and Standards, and author of When Reporters Cross The Line: The Heroes, the Villains, the Hackers and the Spies.

In July 2011, revelations that journalists from The News of the World hacked the phone of murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler created public outrage. But we were soon to learn this was just the tip of the iceberg. The revelations that followed revealed a scandal that has since engulfed Fleet Street, Scotland Yard and Downing Street.

The man behind that story, and the years of investigative work that came before it, was Nick Davies. In his new book Hack Attack: How The Truth Caught Up With Rupert Murdoch, Davies recounts his painstaking investigation and exposes the inside story of what went on in the newsrooms and the corridors of power.

Nick Davies will be joining us in conversation with Stewart Purvis, to talk about the investigation, the revelations and the future of press regulation. We will be asking how the press have changed in a post-Leveson world and whether they have really reformed.

Nick Davies writes investigative stories for The Guardian, and has been named Journalist of the Year, Reporter of the Year and Feature Writer of the Year in British Press Awards. He has written five books: White Lies, Murder on Ward Four, Dark Heart, School Report and Flat Earth News.

Stewart Purvis is professor of television journalism at City University. He is a former editor-in-chief and CEO of ITN, Ofcom’s Partner for Content and Standards, and author of When Reporters Cross The Line: The Heroes, the Villains, the Hackers and the Spies.

In July 2011, revelations that journalists from The News of the World hacked the phone of murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler created public outrage. But we were soon to learn this was just the tip of the iceberg. The revelations that followed revealed a scandal that has since engulfed Fleet Street, Scotland Yard and Downing Street.

The man behind that story, and the years of investigative work that came before it, was Nick Davies. In his new book Hack Attack: How The Truth Caught Up With Rupert Murdoch, Davies recounts his painstaking investigation and exposes the inside story of what went on in the newsrooms and the corridors of power.

Nick Davies will be joining us in conversation with Stewart Purvis, to talk about the investigation, the revelations and the future of press regulation. We will be asking how the press have changed in a post-Leveson world and whether they have really reformed.

Nick Davies writes investigative stories for The Guardian, and has been named Journalist of the Year, Reporter of the Year and Feature Writer of the Year in British Press Awards. He has written five books: White Lies, Murder on Ward Four, Dark Heart, School Report and Flat Earth News.

Stewart Purvis is professor of television journalism at City University. He is a former editor-in-chief and CEO of ITN, Ofcom’s Partner for Content and Standards, and author of When Reporters Cross The Line: The Heroes, the Villains, the Hackers and the Spies.

In the early hours of 4 June 1989, soldiers from the People’s Liberation Army opened fire on a pro-democracy protest in Tiananmen Square, killing untold hundreds of people. Twenty five years on, the event has been commemorated around the world, but how does China remembers this defining moment in the country’s history?

We will be joined by a panel including the award-winning journalist Louisa Lim, whose book The People’s Republic of Amnesia charts how events unfolded that night, revealing previously unknown details.

Whilst looking back, we will also trace the effect the crackdown had on society then and the impact it continues to have today. We will explore how the events of twenty five years ago have shaped national identity in China.

Chaired by Paul French, an author and a widely published analyst and commentator on Asia, Asian politics and current affairs. He is author of North Korea: State of Paranoia and the international bestseller Midnight in Peking.

The panel:

Louisa Lim as an award-winning journalist who has reported from China for a decade, most recently for National Public Radio. Previously she was the BBC’s Beijing correspondent. She is author of The People’s Republic of Amnesia: Tiananmen Revisited.

James Miles is the outgoing Beijing bureau chief of The Economist, a position he took up in 2001. He will begin a new appointment in August as The Economist‘s China Editor, based in London. He is the author of The Legacy of Tiananmen: China in Disarray.

Xiaolu Guo is a Chinese novelist and filmmaker. She studied film at the Beijing Film Academy and published six books in China before she moved to London in 2002. She is author of Village of Stone, A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers, 20 Fragments of a Ravenous Youth and most recently I Am China.

In the early hours of 4 June 1989, soldiers from the People’s Liberation Army opened fire on a pro-democracy protest in Tiananmen Square, killing untold hundreds of people. Twenty five years on, the event has been commemorated around the world, but how does China remembers this defining moment in the country’s history?

We will be joined by a panel including the award-winning journalist Louisa Lim, whose book The People’s Republic of Amnesia charts how events unfolded that night, revealing previously unknown details.

Whilst looking back, we will also trace the effect the crackdown had on society then and the impact it continues to have today. We will explore how the events of twenty five years ago have shaped national identity in China.

Chaired by Paul French, an author and a widely published analyst and commentator on Asia, Asian politics and current affairs. He is author of North Korea: State of Paranoia and the international bestseller Midnight in Peking.

The panel:

Louisa Lim as an award-winning journalist who has reported from China for a decade, most recently for National Public Radio. Previously she was the BBC’s Beijing correspondent. She is author of The People’s Republic of Amnesia: Tiananmen Revisited.

James Miles is the outgoing Beijing bureau chief of The Economist, a position he took up in 2001. He will begin a new appointment in August as The Economist‘s China Editor, based in London. He is the author of The Legacy of Tiananmen: China in Disarray.

Xiaolu Guo is a Chinese novelist and filmmaker. She studied film at the Beijing Film Academy and published six books in China before she moved to London in 2002. She is author of Village of Stone, A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers, 20 Fragments of a Ravenous Youth and most recently I Am China.

In the early hours of 4 June 1989, soldiers from the People’s Liberation Army opened fire on a pro-democracy protest in Tiananmen Square, killing untold hundreds of people. Twenty five years on, the event has been commemorated around the world, but how does China remembers this defining moment in the country’s history?

We will be joined by a panel including the award-winning journalist Louisa Lim, whose book The People’s Republic of Amnesia charts how events unfolded that night, revealing previously unknown details.

Whilst looking back, we will also trace the effect the crackdown had on society then and the impact it continues to have today. We will explore how the events of twenty five years ago have shaped national identity in China.

Chaired by Paul French, an author and a widely published analyst and commentator on Asia, Asian politics and current affairs. He is author of North Korea: State of Paranoia and the international bestseller Midnight in Peking.

The panel:

Louisa Lim as an award-winning journalist who has reported from China for a decade, most recently for National Public Radio. Previously she was the BBC’s Beijing correspondent. She is author of The People’s Republic of Amnesia: Tiananmen Revisited.

James Miles is the outgoing Beijing bureau chief of The Economist, a position he took up in 2001. He will begin a new appointment in August as The Economist‘s China Editor, based in London. He is the author of The Legacy of Tiananmen: China in Disarray.

Xiaolu Guo is a Chinese novelist and filmmaker. She studied film at the Beijing Film Academy and published six books in China before she moved to London in 2002. She is author of Village of Stone, A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers, 20 Fragments of a Ravenous Youth and most recently I Am China.

When Anastasia Taylor-Lind arrived in central Kiev on 1 February 2014, Maidan Nezalezhnosti (Independence Square) was under siege, surrounded by police loyal to the government. Rising tensions culminated in the worst day of violence on 20 February and the following day President Yanokovych fled Ukraine. In all, three months of protests resulted in 112 confirmed dead, and many more missing.

Taylor-Lind’s portraits have been uniformly shot against the black backdrop of her improvised studio, removing them from the context of the barricades just a few feet away. The ‘fighters’ are identified by their homemade body armour, and the ‘mourners’ by the bunches of flowers they have brought to pay their respects to the dead. Captured with an air of stillness and reflection, these photographs show the individuals involved in, and impacted by, the unrest.

Taylor-Lind will be joined in conversation by Olivier Laurent, the editor of TIME’s LightBox.

Maidan – Portraits from the Black Square will be published in its entirety by GOST Books in July 2014. Join Taylor-Lind for the official launch and signing on the book at the club on Thursday 24 July, from 6:30PM. For more details, see here.

Anastasia Taylor-Lind and Olivier Laurent will be delivering a day-long workshop looking at engaging with social media for photographers at the Frontline Club on Saturday 16 August 2014, 10:00AM – 5:00PM. For more details, see here.

When Anastasia Taylor-Lind arrived in central Kiev on 1 February 2014, Maidan Nezalezhnosti (Independence Square) was under siege, surrounded by police loyal to the government. Rising tensions culminated in the worst day of violence on 20 February and the following day President Yanokovych fled Ukraine. In all, three months of protests resulted in 112 confirmed dead, and many more missing.

Taylor-Lind’s portraits have been uniformly shot against the black backdrop of her improvised studio, removing them from the context of the barricades just a few feet away. The ‘fighters’ are identified by their homemade body armour, and the ‘mourners’ by the bunches of flowers they have brought to pay their respects to the dead. Captured with an air of stillness and reflection, these photographs show the individuals involved in, and impacted by, the unrest.

Taylor-Lind will be joined in conversation by Olivier Laurent, the editor of TIME’s LightBox.

Maidan – Portraits from the Black Square will be published in its entirety by GOST Books in July 2014. Join Taylor-Lind for the official launch and signing on the book at the club on Thursday 24 July, from 6:30PM. For more details, see here.

Anastasia Taylor-Lind and Olivier Laurent will be delivering a day-long workshop looking at engaging with social media for photographers at the Frontline Club on Saturday 16 August 2014, 10:00AM – 5:00PM. For more details, see here.

It is just over a year since protests to save Istanbul’s Gezi Park escalated after being met by an uncompromising stance from the government and a police crackdown. What started as an environmental movement became a wider protest against the perceived increased authoritarianism of the country’s leader.

As the protests continue and with the country due to vote in the first round of the presidential elections in early August, we will be bringing together a panel to gauge the political climate. With accusations of cronyism and mass corruption inside the government, we will explore what the protestors are fighting for and how much support they have across the country.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan faced large-scale criticism following his reaction to the industrial disaster that killed over 300 miners. We will be asking how much support he still maintains in the country and if he is to contest and win the election what does this mean for Turkey?

Chaired by Murat Nisancioglu, the head of Turkish Service at BBC Global News.

The panel:

Alexander Christie-Miller is a freelance journalist and Turkey correspondent for Newsweek, The Times, and the Christian Science Monitor. He has lived and worked in Istanbul for the past four years.

Fadi Hakura is an associate fellow at the Europe programme, Chatham House.

Sir David Reddaway was British Ambassador to Turkey from 2009 until January 2014. His other posts include Ambassador to Ireland, High Commissioner to Canada, Charge d’Affaires in Iran and UK Special Representative for Afghanistan.

Karabekir Akkoyunlu has recently completed a PhD in comparative politics at the LSE, where he researched political change in Iran and Turkey and taught classes on democratisation and Middle East politics. He was also a research associate at the Southeast European Studies at Oxford (SEESOX) working on Turkish foreign policy.