National Liberal Club in London on Tuesday 23rd May 2023

Tom Fletcher CMG shared his unique insights gained from his distinguished career in diplomacy and foreign policy to give us his current assessment of global trends and challenges. He examined the challenges facing liberal democracy in the 21st Century in new media and the information age.

Speaker

• Tom Fletcher CMG, Principal of Hertford College, Oxford University. Former Ambassador to Lebanon & Foreign Policy adviser to Prime Ministers Blair, Brown, Cameron https://www.hertford.ox.ac.uk/staff/tom-fletcher . Author of Ten Survival Skills For A World In Flux (Harper Collins 2022) & The Ambassador (Canelo 2022). BBC Radio 4 Series The Battle For Liberal Democracy (2023)

• Chair – Rt Hon Lord Lothian KC – Chairman of Global Strategy Forum & Former Northern Ireland Minister.

You can watch the event here:

Wednesday 22nd March, London: Today’s conflicts aren’t just conducted on the battlefield but increasingly in the media and online. Much time and scrutiny is given to how journalists cover conflicts across the globe. Less focus is given to how armies conduct warfare in the age of of 24hour news, social media, citizen journalists and the ability to report war in real time.

Speakers

• General Sir Nick Carter –  Former Chief of the Defence Staff 2018-2021 will give us an insight from a military perspective of the challenges and opportunities faced by armies in the age of the “goldfish bowl” of 24 hour news and social media.
• Manveen Rana – is an Award winning investigative journalist and host of The Times Radio podcast “Stories of our times”.

Chair Peter Apps – Global Affairs Columnist at Thomson Reuters.

You can watch the event here:

May 2022, in conjunction with the Global Strategy Forum at National Liberal Club in London
Chaired by Tom Tugendhat MP, Chair of the Parliamentary Foreign Affairs Committee, this debate on an often overlooked world showcased the work of negotiators in the Middle East Peace Process, Northern Ireland and other parts of the world.
The event was inspired by Academy Award-nominated Israeli filmmaker Dror Moreh’s “The Human Factor”, a gripping documentary ‘insider’ account of three decades of the Middle East Peace Process from the perspective of the US negotiators involved.
Speakers

• Dror Moreh explained the thinking and process behind the documentary. He discussed his approach to getting US Middle East Peace negotiators and those usually reluctant to see the media limelight to talk on camera. He also discussed his new documentary, Corridors of Power, where he interviewed all living US Secretaries of State from Henry Kissinger up to and including Antony Blinken on how the US decides in which conflicts it should intervene.
• Jonathan Powell provided an insight into the role of a negotiator as former Chief of Staff to Prime Minister Tony Blair and UK chief negotiator in the Northern Ireland Peace Process as well as sharing some other relevant experiences, for example, as Prime Minister David Cameron’s Special Envoy on Libya. Jonathan (along with Martin Griffiths,
  the current UN Under Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs) is a co-founder of Inter Mediate which advances dialogue and mediation in global conflicts.

February 2020 in conjunction with Project for the Study of the 21st Century (PS21) at King’s College London.

Chaired by Deborah Pout of Oxford Media Network
This event reviewed the emergence of so-called ‘alternative media’ and social media which are increasingly being relied on as a means to obtain information is subject to much debate in the Western hemisphere. Meanwhile, citizens of authoritarian regimes such as the Philippines and Turkey have to rely on social media and ‘alternative media outlets’, as traditional media outlets are often mouthpieces of propagandist governments.

Questions raised included how does the changing nature of the media affect freedom of speech in the world, and who should citizens turn to for information. What is the responsibility of journalists, media outlets and governments in ensuring freedom of expression as well as factuality? How do we fight disinformation in the new media age? And, who has the authority to decide what is real news, and what is fake news?

Speakers:

• Jodie Ginsberg  – Chief Executive at Index on Censorship.
• Kemal Goktas – Turkish scholar and journalist for Cumhuryet and other Turkish media
• Dr Peter Busch – Senior Lecturer at the Department of War Studies, King’s College London
• Meera Selva – Director of the Journalism Fellowship Programme at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, previously a journalist for the Associated Press, the Independent and Handelsblatt Global.

July 2019, OMN/Channel 4 Television event

Chaired by Lindsey Hilsum, International Editor, Channel 4 News

The event explored what could be done under an unravelling world order to shore up international safety protocols. Report after report from specialist international agencies such as the US-based Committee to Protect Journalists and the UK-based ARTICLE 19 stress that press freedom is under more threat internationally than at any time since the end of World War II. The event focussed on attacks on journalists and discussed ideas on how to better safeguard freedom of the press and mechanisms to hold to account those who target journalists.

Speakers

• Dorothy Byrne, Head of News & Current Affairs Channel 4 (Opening Remarks)
• Rasmus Nielsen, Professor of Communication & Director of the Reuters Institute, University of Oxford, who provided a global overview
• Mimi Mefo, Award Winning Journalist at Equinoxe TV Cameroon & Pen Sponsored Journalist, who gave her account of being imprisoned for her reporting
• Her Excellency Baiba Braize, Ambassador of the Republic of Latvia, who introduced a pioneering new initiative in this area