Who Owns the Truth... and is it True?
- Date
-
Tue 4 May 2021
7:30 pm - 9:00 pm
- Venue
- Online
An exploration of media, misinformation and conspiracy in the year of the pandemic.
The last few years have seen the emergence of a plethora of new terms, like ‘fake news’ and ‘alternative facts’, alongside a perceived rise in disinformation and misinformation. During the pandemic large numbers of people have become convinced that the state and the media are misinforming the public about key public health and human rights issues, from the vaccine to police violence to public protests.
Increasingly it feels impossible to be certain of the truth in what we read, listen to or watch in the media.
How, as a society, can we unpick this? What solutions should we be advocating for and what are the consequences of such a distrust of the fourth estate?
This live stream panel event brings together media experts, journalists, academics and commentators including Kerry Anne Mendoza, Editor in Chief of the Canary, Bywire News founder Michael O'Sullivan and Declassified UK co-founder and investigative journalist Matt Kennard.
Join us to discuss the problems we face - and the potential for new solutions in response.
Kerry-anne is Editor-in-Chief of The Canary. She is known for creating one of the UK’s top independent political blogs (Scriptonite Daily), for authoring the best-seller 'Austerity', and for her Middle East reporting (notably Operation Protective Edge from Gaza through the Summer of 2014). Her passions are politics, economics and current affairs, which she examines with the basic question: “How do we build a world that works for everyone?” She is based in Bristol, UK.
Matt Kennard is an investigative journalist and co-founder of Declassified UK, a news outlet covering British national security issues. He worked as a staff writer for the Financial Times in the US and UK and is the author of two books, Irregular Army (2012), which investigated the degradation of the US military during the War on Terror and The Racket (2015), which investigated how the US rigs the global economy for the benefit of its elite.