Countdown to media freedom conference with Alan Johnston

Alan Johnston, former BBC corrrespondent in Gaza, recently held hostage, will speak on the problems of reporting conflict at a major NUJ conference, ‘New Threats to Media Freedom - how we fight back' on 26 January. Building on the success of the union's Journalism Matters campaign, the conference, sponsored by NUJ London Freelance Branch, is aimed at journalists, broadcasters, media campaigners, media students and academics. Sessions will cover the mounting political and commercial pressures on journalists, the crisis at the BBC, secrecy and censorship, and bias in war reporting.

Alan Johnston will lead a line-up of speakers including Martin Bright, political editor of the New Statesman; BBC Newsnight correspondent Paul Mason, Peter Wilby, former editor of the Independent on Sunday, Heather Brooke, specialist on the Freedom of Information Act and Jo Glanville of Index on Censorship.

How media unions around the world are resisting controls and defending standards will be covered in presentations by NUJ general secretary Jeremy Dear, Chris Frost of the NUJ Ethics Council, BECTU president Tony Lennon and leader of the International Federation of Journalists Aidan White.

The conference is being organised with the support of the Campaign for Press and Broadcasting Freedom (CPBF).

It will take place on Saturday 26 January 2008 from 9.30am-4.30pm at NUJ headquarters, 308 Gray's Inn Road, London WC1.
 
We regret that there are no more places available for this event.