The Frontline Club

An evening of conversation between film maker and executive producer Jo Ruxton and investigative journalist Oliver Steeds. Jo will be discusses the motivation and process of making the film.

Formerly a Blue Planet producer, Jo wanted to raise awareness and show the true extent to which plastic has polluted the world’s seas. Accompanied by scientists, conservationists and engineers, Jo set out to some of the most remote parts of the world to document the true extent of plastic pollution and its consequences on ecosystems and human health.

We discuss how both visually stunning and shocking images can be used in environmental activism, and the best tactics to bring about change.

Jo Ruxton worked for the WWF in Asia for 7 years, before joining the BBC Natural History Unit as a Producer, where she was a part of the celebrated Blue Planet Team. Much of her life has been spent filming underwater. She is a co-founder of Plastic Oceans Foundation, and a Producer of and Ambassador for the film A Plastic Ocean

Oliver Steeds is a critically acclaimed international investigative journalist and broadcaster. His films, reports and series have been broadcast by NBC, ABC, Al Jazeera, Channel 4 and Discovery Channels. He is also a founder and Mission Director of Nekton, a new marine institute that explores and protects the deep ocean. Oliver’s investigations have included exposing ongoing chattel slavery in Niger and Mauritania; the theft of malaria treatment drugs in the ‘malarial capital in the world’ in Uganda; grave robbing in Peru; thousands of mentally impaired people being abducted into slavery in China; antiquity smuggling in Israel; hidden ethnic wars in Burma; the lives of 9-11 hijackers in Saudi Arabia, and al Qaeda gun markets in Yemen. He has been nominated for the Rory Peck Impact Award, Best Current Affairs Programme, Livingstone Award for Young Journalists and Overseas Press Awards.

Radicals. Not something society thinks about very often, ignored or dismissed and left on the fringes. But as usual, the internet changed everything, now the radicals can find each other, unite and influence the mainstream.

Author Jamie Bartlett has written about some of the disparate worlds united by their radicalism. They’re innovators, disruptors, idealists and extremists who think society is broken, and believe they have the answers to fix it.

Jamie was joined in a fascinating discussion by Matthew Goodwin, a writer, speaker and professor of politics at the University of Kent.

In their conversation Jamie explains how spending time with the English Defence League is more fun than a weekend with radical environmentalists and how alt-right figures have inadvertently made millions on bitcoin after being pushed away from mainstream banking institutions.

In a trip fraught with danger and trauma, Stacey asks: can justice ever really be served for women like Shireen?

The Frontline Club screened a new BBC documentary, Stacey Dooley – Face to Face with ISIS followed by a Q&A with Stacey and director Joshua Baker in conversation with Catrin Nye.

Link to the film:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p05vtv1t/stacey-dooley-face-to-face-with-isis

We’re now over a year into the Trump presidency but how well have the foreign and British press in particular been covering it? We were joined by senior editors and commentators wrestling with the dilemma of covering Trump. The panel tackles the difficulties of reporting on the presidency in relation to previous governments. Have commentators been focusing too much on his ‘unpresidential’ behaviour and not enough on the political shift in Congress?

Michael Goldfarb is an American journalist, broadcaster and author. He has written for The Guardian, The New York Times and The Washington Post but is best known for his work in public radio. Throughout the 1990’s, as NPR’s London Correspondent and then Bureau Chief, he covered conflicts and conflict resolution from Northern Ireland to Bosnia to Iraq for NPR. He is host of the FRDH podcast that can be found here.

Jonny Dymond is Royal Correspondent for the BBC and a presenter of BBC Radio 4 and BBC World Service News programmes. He covered the US elections of 2000 and 2012 for the BBC as Washington Correspondent

Dan Roberts is the Guardian’s Brexit policy editor. Previously he was the Washington bureau chief and covered the 2016 presidential election. He was also head of UK national news and business editor.

Andrew MacLeod is an Australian/British businessman, author, humanitarian lawyer and former aid worker. He is now a regular contributor for the Independent and a regular commentator on US politics.

In December, Walt Disney agreed to buy 21st Century Fox including its huge stake in Sky News from Rupert Murdoch for £39bn. This will massively change the landscape of both British and American media. In light of recent events join our panel in a comparative discussion of the standards and ethics of the British Press 2011 – 2018.

Will recent events change the outcome of 21st Century Fox’s attempted £11.7 billion takeover of Sky News, at present referred to the Competition and Markets Authority for further investigation? The investigation in part must examine Murdoch’s commitment to ethical broadcasting standards.

While the CMA investigates this claim, due to make its decision in March, the next tranche of phone hacking trials continue to go ahead in January 2018. It also begs the question if the Leveson Part 2 Inquiry will ever take place.

The Leveson Inquiry into the press in 2011 / 2012 was split into two parts to avoid jeopardising the criminal investigations. The first half investigated the ethics, practice and culture of of the press. The second trial is set to investigate the phone hacking specifically. During her election campaign, Theresa May bowed to newspaper pressure to scrap the second part of the trial. However this officially has not been done so yet.

Chair

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

Graham Johnson is Head of Investigations at Byline. He is an author and investigative journalist who has contributed to a variety of publications including News of the World, Sunday Mirror, The Observer, Vice magazine, The Guardian and Liverpool Echo. He has been a finalist for Reporter of the Year three times and has covered stories ranging from drug dealing in Britain, people smuggling in Europe, child slavery in India and Pakistan, and war in the Balkans.

Mark Lewis is an internationally renowned media lawyer who pioneered the phone hacking claims. Mark has represented the Dowler family in the largest ever financial claim, which led to the closure of the News of the World, and undertook the first hacking claim against both News of the World and the Mirror Group. More recently the team has undertaken the Twibel (twitter libel) trial for Jack Monroe v Katie Hopkins.

Alaphia Zoyab is a former TV anchor, now senior campaigner working on Avaaz’s campaign to stop the Murdoch takeover of Sky

“It’s been striking to me that, in my years of working in the world of digital activism, from WikiLeaks to a diverse range of internet groups, women are active and hold important positions, yet are seldom prominent. This is not because women lack the assertiveness to occupy a role in the foreground, as is so often claimed with a certain paternalism. It stems, in part, from the unwillingness of mainstream media to appreciate and fairly report the role of women” – Angela Richter

The most controversial activist organisation of the 21st century, WikiLeaks has attracted strong, divergent opinions from across the political spectrum. Lauded by its supporters for its indispensable role in holding governments, corporations, and human rights abusers to account, its advocates and journalists have been excoriated by opponents as traitors, threats to legitimate governments, and misogynists. Yet so much media attention is focused upon founder Julian Assange, and his ongoing confinement in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, that the broader dimensions of WikiLeaks are rarely aired. Especially critical in these omissions is the role of women, both in the organisation and the more general struggle for information freedom.

The protagonists of the new book:Women, Whistleblowing, WikiLeaks will be in conversation to discuss the themes of their new book and show the various ways they’ve been at the forefront of such activity: acclaimed journalist and human rights advocate Sarah Harrison, Croatian-German theatre director, activist and author Angela Richter, and Renata Avila, a celebrated Guatemalan human rights lawyer and digital rights expert. Ranging widely, from the dishonesty of the mainstream media and its contrasting treatment of Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning to the terrifying monopolisation of personal data under tech behemoths such as Facebook and Google, join us for an ongoing debate around digital activism

The Serious Fraud Office has had a big year. In January, its investigation into corruption at Rolls-Royce – which lasted four years, involving 30 million documents — led to a landmark deferred prosecution agreement and the largest fine ever imposed on a UK company for criminal conduct. In March, it reached another substantial DPA, with Tesco Stores Ltd, and in June it charged Barclays and some of its former senior executives with fraud offences. It has probes ongoing into Airbus, Rio Tinto, and other household names.

The fines add up. Since April 2014, the SFO has cost the taxpayer £216 million, but earned the Treasury £676 million – a return of £1million for every employee.

Then came the general election, at which the Conservative Party’s manifesto promised to “incorporate” the SFO into the National Crime Agency – widely taken to involve stripping the SFO of its independence. Although that promise did not make it into the Queen’s Speech, thanks to Theresa May failing to win a majority, the future of the SFO is not resolved. This is therefore a time of both success, and uncertainty.

At the Frontline Club’s seventh kleptoscope, hosted as usual by journalist Oliver Bullough, SFO director David Green will talk about how the SFO works, and what might lie ahead for the investigation of fraud and corruption in the UK post-Brexit. He will be joined by Camilla de Silva, who led a key strand of the SFO’s investigation into Rolls-Royce and was recently rewarded with the Bar Council’s Award of Employed Barrister of the Year, for what promises to be a fascinating evening even by kleptoscope’s standards.

Filmmaker Bryan Fogel set out on a mission to learn about performance-enhancing drugs in sports. What he ended up discovering is far bigger than anyone could have even imagined.

Fogel’s investigation into doping — the art and science of evading drug tests in global athletic competitions — leads him to Dr. Grigory Rodchenkov, the scientist in charge of Russia’s anti-doping laboratory. Over a year of Skype calls and visits from Moscow, Dr. Rodchenkov orchestrates a steroid regimen for Fogel designed to game the system. When news breaks of an alleged Russian plot to cheat the Olympics, Fogel discovers that Rodchenkov is in possession of state secrets. Within days, Rodchenkov confides to Bryan that his life is in danger, setting off a chain of events revealing a conspiracy with its roots at the heart of the Kremlin. Rodchenkov escapes to the United States with Fogel’s help and becomes a whistleblower.

The revelations first made by Rodchenkov in the film, have since been corroborated by multiple forensic and journalistic investigations. His on-camera testimony along with the film itself was cited as critical evidence in The International Olympic Committee’s decision to ban Russia from the 2018 Winter Olympics.

Watch the trailer here.

Chair

Luke Harding is a foreign correspondent for the Guardian and was the Russia correspondent from 2007 – 2011 whereupon he was refused re-entry to the country due to his reporting. He is the author of Mafia State, which describes the political system under Putin

Speakers

Bryan Fogel (Director)

Dan Cogan (Producer)

Bill Browder is the founder and CEO of Hermitage Capital Management, which was the investment adviser to the largest foreign investment fund in Russia until 2005, when Bill was denied entry to the country and declared a “threat to national security” as a result of his battle against corporate corruption. Following his expulsion, the Russian authorities raided his offices, seized Hermitage Fund’s investment companies and used them to steal $230 million of taxes that the companies had previously paid. When Browder’s lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky, investigated the crime, he was arrested by the same officers he implicated, tortured for 358 days, and killed in custody at the age of 37 in November 2009. Since then, Browder has spent the last 5 years fighting for justice for Mr. Magnitsky.

The Ransom dives into the secret system of Kidnap & Ransom, designed by major insurance companies in response to the 30,000 kidnappings committed every year around the world. International insurance companies have created kidnap & ransom, ultra-confidential contracts that are experiencing an unprecedented boom. Following a pending case in Venezuela, The Ransom, filmed in Africa, Europe and the USA, features insurers, negotiators and ex-hostages who speak out for the first time.

In 2018, the Frontline Club is partnering with Britain’s most prestigious non-fiction book prize, The Baillie Gifford Prize, to host a series of events entitled ‘Thinking Allowed’.

Every other month, we will present our audience with a question on a specific contemporary issue and ask two distinguished speakers to argue their answer.

We are kicking off the first of the series with ‘Who is Winning the Culture Wars?’

It has been said that for the last 30 years, the political right won all the arguments about economics and the political left won all the arguments about culture. But in the last few years, it seems that liberals are losing ground across the West, as more nationalistic and socially conservative governments come to power. At the same time, hardly a day passes without a new front being opened in what have become known as ‘the culture wars’, whether it be about the nature (or even existence) of institutional racism; the repatriation of museum pieces; the removal of statues of Britain’s imperial heroes; trans rights, or promotion of diversity as an end in its self. The fierce arguments over safe spaces; free speech; and the right not to be offended are no longer confined to American campuses.

Critics of this new identity politics charge it with the very intolerance and illiberalism it purports to oppose; its advocates argue that they are fighting deeply ingrained prejudice and correcting historic injustice. But who is right?

Chair

Toby Mundy is Executive Director of the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction. In 2000 he founded Atlantic Books, where he was Chief Executive and Publisher until 2014, when he left to start literary agency TMA Limited. He is also chair of trustees of Wimbledon BookFest, a registered charity; a partner at the management and communications consultancy Jericho Chambers and chair of the advisory board of The Sunday Times EFG Short Story Award.

Speakers

Munira Mirza is an adviser on arts and philanthropy. She was deputy mayor for education and culture at the Greater London Authority. She has worked for a range of cultural and charitable organisations including the Royal Society of Arts, the independent think tank Policy Exchange, and Tate. In 2009 she completed her PhD in sociology at the University of Kent. She has written extensively about cultural and social policy in the UK. Munira is a member of the boards of the Royal Opera House.

Afua Hirsch is an author, journalist and broadcaster. She was the Guardian correspondent for West Africa, the social affairs editor for Sky News, and practised law as a human rights barrister. Her first book, Brit(ish) is about Britishness and identity, and will be published in February 2018 by Jonathan Cape.