The Frontline Club

January 11, 2012 7:00 PM

With uprisings across the Middle East and North Africa setting a relentless pace in this year's news agenda, media outlets have frequently turned to freelances to cover events in countries where they are without staff bureaus and wire services.

The Frontline Club, in association with the BBC College of Journalism, will be bringing together a panel of freelancers who will discuss the practicalities of life as a freelance foreign correspondent from setting up in a country to finding and pitching stories and dealing with the realities of conflict.

In contrast to the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, the recent fighting in Libya was not subjec to embedding restrictions and freelances were able to descend on the country and compete to get to the frontline. Join us to discuss the issues working in a war zone raise for freelances.

Chaired by Paddy O'Connell of BBC Radio 4's Broadcasting House.

With:

Tom Finn, a freelance journalist currently based in Sana'a, Yemen. He moved to Sana'a in August 2010 to work as an editor at the Yemen Times. He has been covering Yemen's Arab uprising since January writing mainly for The Guardian but also for TIME, Foreign Policy Magazine, The Economist and Christian Science Monitor. In May his blog was selected by Foreign Policy Magazine as "recommended reading" for Barack Obama about the Persian Gulf. He is Al-Jazeera English's correspondent in Yemen. He also blogs on Yemen for the Frontline Club.

Twitter: @TomFinn2

Portia Walker, a freelance journalist who spent the past year covering the Arab Spring. After three years working for Al Jazeera English in London, she moved to Yemen, where she was the stringer for the Economist, the Washington Post, and briefly the Daily and Sunday Telegraph. After being deported from Yemen in March while reporting on the increasingly violent crackdown on anti-government demonstrators, she went to Libya where she covered the war and its aftermath for the Washington Post, the Independent, USA Today and Foreign Policy, among others.

Twitter: @portia_walker

James Longman, freelance journalist working as an online producer between Sky News and CNBC. After having spent the past four or five years traveling, working and studying in the Middle East, he headed to Syria to spend time with opposition groups involved in the country's uprising. Between June-July and September-October 2011, he spent time in hiding with groups in Zabadani, Homs, Rastan, Qabon, Madaya and Damascus where he wrote for the Times and the Telegraph and set up interviews for Sky News, NPR and PBS.

Twitter: @JamesReport

Ruth Sherlock, a freelance journalist who has spent the year chasing the Arab Spring. She moved to the Middle East in 2009, living and working in Israel and the West Bank. On 23 January she packed her bag for a three day trip to see the protests in Cairo, and didn't come back for six months. Writing primarily for the Daily Telegraph she covered the Egyptian revolution, then the Libyan civil war, and now focuses on the escalating conflict in Syria. Other outlets include Foreign Policy, Sunday Times, The LA Times, The Scotsman, and Al Jazeera English (web).

November 17, 2012 7:00PM

Alex Crawford's coverage in Libya won her widespread acclaim after she travelled into the conflict with rebel forces. The first journalist to make it into the city of Tripoli after it fell to rebel forces, she coloured her career further with the occasional arrest, detainment, bullet, IED, tear-gassing and mortar shell.

One of the most decorated journalists in the field, Alex Crawford, is the only person to be awarded three Royal Television Society journalist of the Year awards and has recently been presented the James Cameron Memorial Award 2011 for her coverage of the fighting in Libya and the Middle East.

Brought up in Nigeria and Zambia she began her journalistic career working on the Wokingham Times and later joined Sky News in 1989 where she has worked ever since, and is now their Special Correspondent.

She will be joining us at the Frontline Club in conversation with former BBC executive Vin Ray to take a look back over her career as a foreign correspondent.

January 15, 2013 7:00 PM

In a career that has spanned nearly half a century, the BBC's world affairs editor John Simpson has borne witness to change and upheaval in all corners of the globe. He will be joining us in conversation with Vin Ray, to look back on an unmatched lifelong career covering world events at the BBC.

He joined the BBC at 25 and in the 1970s was appointed political editor, but he soon realised his calling lay as a foreign correspondent. One of his first assignments was reporting on the civil war in Angola, from which he went on to cover many of the defining moments of the late 20th and early 21st century.

He has written several books, including five volumes of autobiography, and he has twice won the title of Royal Television Society's Journalist of the Year, along with countless other major television awards.

In association with: BBC CoJ

The past year has seen people take to the streets across the Middle East and North Africa to demand an end to tyranny and oppression and as a result, unprecedented regime change has taken place across the region.

Less known is the extent to which the protesters were influenced by the 83-year-old political scientist, Dr Gene Sharp. His book From Dictatorship to Democracy has previously been utilised as a blueprint by democratic movements from Serbia, to the Ukraine, Guatemala to Indonesia, in their fight to overthrow oppressive regimes .

We are thrilled to announce that Dr Gene Sharp will be joining us at the Frontline Club in conversation with Ruaridh Arrow, journalist, filmmaker and director of the award winning documentary How to Start a Revolution to discuss the uprisings across the Middle East and North Africa and his work.

January 30, 2012 7:00 PM

From the ground floor of his home in Boston the 83-year-old runs the Albert Einstein Institution which is devoted to the study and promotion of the use of nonviolent resistance worldwide. The 198 "non-violent weapons" listed in his book range from the use of colours and symbols, writing large banners in English to mock funerals and boycotts. First written in 1993 to support the opposition movement in Burma, Sharp's work has now been circulated amongst dissidents around the world.

April 18, 2012 7:00 PM

As we approach the one year anniversary of the death of Osama Bin Laden, Ahmed Rashid will be joining senior BBC presenter and special correspondent Lyse Doucet to discuss the future for Pakistan, Afghanistan and the United States.

An expert on Central Asia, jihad and Muslim extremists movements and insurgency, Ahmed Rashid is also an authority on the catastrophe of US policy in the region after 25 years of reporting from there.

Author of three books including Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia and Descent into Chaos: The U.S. and the Disaster in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Central Asia Ahmed Rashid is a regular contributor to the Financial Times, Washington Post and the International Herald Tribune, among others.

Join us for what is sure to be an insightful discussion on the future of the region with two highly respected journalists as they share their knowledge and experience.

September 24, 2012 7:00 PM

As urbanisation reshapes much of the world, refugees are increasingly moving to built up areas, including large towns and cities. Working with the International Rescue Committee and the European Commission’s humanitarian aid and civil protection department ECHO in eight cities across four continents, Panos Pictures photographer Andrew McConnell has spent many months documenting the new reality for refugees. Through images, refugee testimonies and video, the resulting body of work presents a unique insight into the lives of urban refugees today and challenges commonly held stereotypes. From Somali refugees in Nairobi to Syrian refugees in north Jordan, and from Burmese refugees in Kuala Lumpur to Afghani refugees in New York, the story of where people flee when all is lost is changing.

McConnell will present his work at the Frontline Club in an event moderated by Dr Sara Pantuliano, Head of the Humanitarian Policy Group at the Overseas Development Institute (ODI).

Andrew McConnell began his career covering the end of the conflict in his home country Ireland, before venturing overseas to document social issues around the world. McConnell‘s work has been published and exhibited internationally, appearing in National Geographic Magazine, Time Magazine, The New York Times, The Guardian, FT Magazine, Vanity Fair, the Sunday Times Magazine and Der Spiegel among other publications. In 2011, he won two 1st prizes at World Press Photo Awards and two National Press Photographers Awards, including the prestigious Best of Show.

Dr Sara Pantuliano is a political scientist with more than 20 years’ experience in conflict and post-conflict contexts. Prior to joining ODI, Pantuliano led UNDP Sudan’s Peace Building Unit. She has written extensively on Sudan and is a regular media commentator on Sudan and humanitarian issues. Pantuliano is the Managing Editor of Disasters, the leading peer-reviewed journal in the field of natural catastrophes and man-made disasters, anda member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on Catastrophic Risk.

In anticipation of this year’s Sheffield Doc/Fest, the biggest event in the UK’s documentary calendar, the Frontline Club is hosting a networking party for documentary filmmakers and those working in distribution and production.

With drinks sponsored by Chivas Regal, the party will pause at 7.30pm for a short panel discussion on how you can get your documentary distributed and how to get the most out of an industry festival like Sheffield.

Moderated by Charlotte Cook, Director of Programming at HotDocs.

With:

Nick Fraser, Editor of Storyville, the BBC’s documentary strand.

Mette Hoffmann Meyer, Head of Documentary at Danish broadcasting corporation DR.

James Mullighan, Festival Liaison, Cinelan.

Lucas Ochoa, Head of Film at Pulse Films.

In anticipation of this year’s Sheffield Doc/Fest, the biggest event in the UK’s documentary calendar, the Frontline Club is hosting a networking party for documentary filmmakers and those working in distribution and production.

With drinks sponsored by Chivas Regal, the party will pause at 7.30pm for a short panel discussion on how you can get your documentary distributed and how to get the most out of an industry festival like Sheffield.

Moderated by Charlotte Cook, Director of Programming at HotDocs.

With:

Nick Fraser, Editor of Storyville, the BBC’s documentary strand.

Mette Hoffmann Meyer, Head of Documentary at Danish broadcasting corporation DR.

James Mullighan, Festival Liaison, Cinelan.

Lucas Ochoa, Head of Film at Pulse Films.

In anticipation of this year’s Sheffield Doc/Fest, the biggest event in the UK’s documentary calendar, the Frontline Club is hosting a networking party for documentary filmmakers and those working in distribution and production.

With drinks sponsored by Chivas Regal, the party will pause at 7.30pm for a short panel discussion on how you can get your documentary distributed and how to get the most out of an industry festival like Sheffield.

Moderated by Charlotte Cook, Director of Programming at HotDocs.

With:

Nick Fraser, Editor of Storyville, the BBC’s documentary strand.

Mette Hoffmann Meyer, Head of Documentary at Danish broadcasting corporation DR.

James Mullighan, Festival Liaison, Cinelan.

Lucas Ochoa, Head of Film at Pulse Films.

In association with Open Society Foundations and the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism

On 12 November the longest-serving post-war Prime Minister of Italy Silvio Berlusconi resigned after losing his majority and public support.

While no longer Prime Minister, he continues to control one half of the countries terrestrial TV market and his company Media Set is a big player in the print and advertising sectors. What will Berlusconi’s influence be and will he still be able to shape the agenda through his party and media ownership?

We will be bringing together a panel of experts to discuss the future of the media in Italy.How will the channels he owns fair now he doesn’t have a hand in legislative decisions that affect them and what control will he wield over state funded channels?

Join us to discuss the future of his media empire and the prospects of Italy or the EU bringing in legislation to break up his media empire and prevent such a monopoly existing?

With:

Paolo Mancini, professor at Dipartimento Istituzioni e Società, Facoltà di Scienze Politiche, Università di Perugia. His scientific interests are focused on political communication and more generally on the relationship between politics and communication. While at the Reuters Institute Mancini is working on a project trying to interpret under a new light the political adventure of Silvio Berlusconi and to place it within the new forms that political participation is undertaking in different parts of the world.

Antonio Caprarica, a journalist and essayist Italian, he is the British correspondent for Rai.

Gianpietro Mazzoleni, professor of sociology of communication and of political communication at the University of Milan, Italy, where he coordinates the post-graduate courses in communication in the Faculty of Political Sciences. He is member of the editorial boards of the European Journal of Communication and of Political Communication and editor of the Italian scholarly journal Comunicazione Politica. His research interests focus especially on media policies and political communication.

Damian Tambini, senior lecturer in the department of media and communications at LSE and convenor of the MSC in Communication Regulation and Policy. He is an Associate Fellow at the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR), at the Oxford Internet Institute and at the Centre for Socio-Legal Studies. He co-edited Cyberdemocracy and Citizenship, Markets, and the State. Other recent and forthcoming publications include: Nationalism in Italian Politics, New News: Impartial Broadcasting in the Digital Age, Privacy and the Media and Codifying Cyberspace.