The CIJ organises occassional public events featuring leading figures from the world of investigative journalism from the UK, and around the world.
Whether talks, meetings, debates, or film screenings, the CIJ endeavours to engage excellence in investigative journalists, and ensure matters of public interest enter public discourse.
Public Events in 2011
WikiLeaks Press Conference
Wikileaks held a press conference at City University London on 1 December 2011 to launch its Spyfiles project, in collaboration with the Bureau of Investigative Journalism.
Watch on City University’s website: WikiLeaks Press Conference
CIJ – LSE/Polis seminars in Investigative Journalism and Law
How to Look for a Dictator’s Loot (this event is free to all)
20 October from 6.30-8pm at LSE.
This event will look at how dictators and corrupt politicians use the global financial system to loot government coffers, accept bribes and spend the proceeds of corruption on a life of luxury. Robert Palmer and Anthea Lawson will work through a number of Global Witness case studies – including the recent revelation of which banks held Libyan state funds – explaining the role of the financial sector in facilitating corruption and how to uncover it.
The room is CLM 302 – that is Clement House, Aldwych Third Floor. Here is a map (Clement House is bottom right) http://www2.lse.ac.uk/mapsAndDirections/findingYourWayAroundLSE.aspx
Spring and Summer events 2011
The next event is the CIJ Summer School from 15-17 July. You can find out more information and book your place on the Summer School website
Treasure Islands – Nicholas Shaxson
Wednesday 25 May, 6.30-8pm, Room A130, City University London.
In a rare public appearance in the UK, Nicholas Shaxson, a British writer, investigator and author of the acclaimed bestseller Treasure Islands, lifts the lid on where the globalisation project really went wrong. In this free talk he will take a look into the murky world of tax havens, the modern day Treasure Islands.
Using Social Networking Sites as an Investigative Tool
Wednesday 11 May, 6.30-8pm, City University London
Investigative Researcher, Neil Smith will show you to find and access the information held on a variety of social networking sites. Using only open, legal and free methods, from Friends Reunited to Facebook and Twitter, you will lean how to use social networking sites as an investigative tool.
Private Investigators – Winning Over witnesses
Tuesday 12 April, 6.30-8pm, City University London
Learn what you need to know from reluctant/hostile witnesses or while dealing with unpopular clients/causes with Jack Palladino and Sandra Sutherland.
CIJ Investigative Film Week 2011
Monday 7 – Saturday 12 March Oliver Thompson Theatre, City University London
The cij screened some of the best examples of investigative documentaries, followed by discussions with the filmmakers. You can learn more about the films and their reception at the Film Week website.
public events in 2010
How to Read Public Accounts
Wednesday 13 October, 6-8pm City University London
In this free talk, Sally Gainsbury will show you how to report accurately on public spending stories. She will explain the fundamentals of reporting public finance and how to avoid mistakes and spin.
cij summer school 2010
9-11 July 2010, City University London
In addition to our regular sessions, this year the school will focus on investigating scientific and pseudo-scientific claims made by the pharmaceutical industry, academics, governments and NGOs on issues such as health, climate change, GM crops and nuclear energy. Find out more
Transitions (TOL) investigative course
18-23 July 2010, Prague
On this five day course, students will learn how to use sources to put together a piece of investigative journalism and learn how to build a publishable case. The course is run by Transitions (TOL), a non-profit organisation established to strengthen the professionalism, independence and impact of the news media in the post-communist countries of Europe and the former Soviet Union.
Dirty Secrets: War Profiteering – Investigating corrupt military contracts in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Monday 17 May 2010, 6pm
Room A130, College Building, City University London
Pratap Chatterjee, one of the leading investigative journalists looking into corporate corruption in the US, discussed the methodology of identifying key players, finding military contracts, and uncovering corruption, while examining other related contracts for training the Afghan police and Kuwaiti-based companies that have been used to supply food to the US military in Iraq.
Perugia Journalism Festival
21-25 April 2010
The festival brings together the opportunity to listen and network with the best of world journalism. Gavin MacFadyen, cij director, will be speaking on a panel to discuss new business models for journalism. For more information visit the Perugia Journalism Festival website.
Frontline Club in association with the BBC College of Journalism
Rise of the superinjunction: libel, privacy and press freedom under fire in the UK
Wednesday 13 April, Frontline Club
It’s one of the world’s oldest democracies, but just how free is the British media? To debate the Frontline Club welcomes Guardian investigations editor David Leigh, Carter Ruck partner Nigel Tait, science writer Simon Singh and David Hooper, a media law specialist and partner at Reynolds Porter Chamberlain. The event is chaired by Clive Coleman, presenter of BBC Radio 4′s Law in Action programme and a former barrister.
Tax, Financial Secrecy and Investigative Journalism
Wednesday 10 February, 6.30pm
Room 107, New Academic Building, London School of Economics.
This seminar inaugurates a series of events focused on Investigative Journalism and Law.
cij investigative film week
Tuesday 2 – Saturday 6 February
Oliver Thompson Theatre, City University London
The cij screened some of the best examples of investigative documentaries, followed by discussions with the filmmakers.
public events in 2009
Food Industry’s Dirty Secrets
Thursday 3 December at 6pm
Room A130, College Building, City University London
A discussion about the shocking realities of the global food industry with Raj Patel and Professor Timothy Lang. Chaired by Gavin MacFadyen, Director of the cij.
Netzwerk Recherche Annual Journalism Conference
June 5-6. German Association Netzwerk Hamburg
Meet international research experts who share their experiences and methods. Hear about this year’s most intersting research in Germany and participate in ongoing debates – including a debate about new media models featuring; Jakob Augstein (from Freitag), Hans-Jürgen Jakobs (from Süddeutsche Zeitung), and blogger Stefan Niggemeier.
Screening: The Dust at Acre Mill, World in Action
Friday 29 May at 7pm. Frontline Club, 13 Norfolk Place London, W2 1QJ.
Regarded as a classic edition of the Granada Television current affairs series World in Action, The Dust at Acre Mill, transmitted on 28 June 1971, was the first programme to bring the lethal dangers of ill-protected contact with asbestos to the attention of the general public. Combining simple reconstruction with the testimony of former workers in the asbestos industry, it was a landmark in the treatment of health and safety at work. The production team of Richard Creasey, who conducted the investigation, Stephen Clarke, who produced, and John Sheppard, who directed, will be there to answer questions.
Debate: Kony and the Lord’s Resistance Army – The Last Chapter?
Thursday 16 April at 7pm Frontline Club, 13 Norfolk Place London, W2 1QJ.
Debate chaired by: tbc
Peter Eichstaedt (IWPR)
Barney Afako (Ugandan lawyer at Juba peace talks)
Joseph Ochieno (UK representative for Uganda People’s Congress)
Anneke van Woudenberg, senior researcher on the Democratic Republic of Congo at Human Rights Watch. For more information, see the Frontline Club.
Screening: The Reckoning
Friday 27 March at 7pm. Frontline Club, 13 Norfolk Place London, W2 1QJ.
Followed by Q&A with director Pamela Yates and producer Paco de Onis.
‘The Epic Story of the Battle for the International Criminal Court’
Late in the twentieth century, in response to repeated mass atrocities around the world, more than 120 countries united to form the International Criminal Court (ICC) – the first permanent court created to prosecute perpetrators (no matter how powerful) of crimes against humanity, war crimes and genocide.
The Reckoning follows dynamic ICC Prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo and his team for three years, across four continents as he issues arrest warrants for Lord’s Resistance Army leaders in Uganda, puts Congolese warlords on trial, shakes-up the Colombian justice system, and charges Sudan’s President Omar al-Bashir with genocide in Darfur, challenging the UN Security Council to arrest him. Building cases against genocidal criminals presents huge challenges, and the prosecutor has a mandate but no police force. At every turn, he must pressure the international community to muster political will for the cause. Further details from Frontline.
public events in 2008
Frontline Confidential in Association with the cij
Falsehood, Distortion and Propaganda in the Global Media
Wednesday 27 February, Frontline Club, 13 Norfolk Place London, W2 1QJ.
Nick Davies With David Leigh (The Guardian). Moderated by Gavin MacFadyen. Award-winning investigative journalist Nick Davies breaks Fleet Street’s unwritten rule and investigates his own colleagues, discovering that he works in “a corrupt profession”.
Frontline Confidential in Association with the cij
Organised Crime from Eastern Europe Moves West
Wednesday 12 March, Frontline Club, 13 Norfolk Place London, W2 1QJ.
Paul Radu of the Romanian Centre of Investigative Journalists talks about human trafficking from the Balkans and Russian organised crime infiltrating the football business in Eastern Europe.
Frontline Confidential With Andrew Gilligan
In Association with the cij
Wednesday 17 April Frontline Club, 13 Norfolk Place London, W2 1QJ.
Moderated by Gavin MacFadyen (cij). Andrew Gilligan, former BBC Radio 4 defence and diplomatic correspondent and the man at the centre of the Hutton Inquiry and the ‘sexing up of the dossier’ scandal, tells his side of the story.
Gilligan is best known for his report about the government’s dossier about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction which was published ahead of the invasion of Iraq and contained the infamous ’45-minutes claim’.
He resigned from the BBC following the publication of the Hutton Inquiry report, which among other things criticised Gilligan’s journalistic standards. He now writes for The Evening Standard about defence and diplomatic affairs
Frontline Confidential in Association with the cij
The Rise and Fall of ITV
Tuesday 13 May, Frontline Club, 13 Norfolk Place London, W2 1QJ.
Ray Fitzwalter, former executive producer of World in Action, talks about his book, The Dream that Died – The rise and fall of ITV and the unpleasant story of how ITV and Granada Television abandoned their popular social promise and became what many would describe as a wasteland. Moderated by Gavin MacFadyen (cij)
Frontline Confidential in Association with the cij
Adam Hochschild on King Leopold’s Ghost – In Conversation with Gavin MacFadyen (cij)
Tuesday 1 July
A conversation about the secret Holocaust in King Leopold’s Belgian Congo and the forced labour system that killed 10 million people. An extraordinary investigation that unearthed heroic and compassionate British investigators who formed one of the world’s first human rights organisations. And why it isn’t taught in most Belgian (or British) schools.
public events in 2007
Frontline Confidential in Association with the cij
Birmingham Six with Chris Mullin MP and Ray Fitzwalter
24 January, Frontline Club, 13 Norfolk Place London, W2 1QJ.
One of Britain’s foremost investigative journalists tells how six innocent men – the Birmingham Six – were released after spending 17 years in jail following an investigative series by World in Action.
Ray Fitzwalter will talk about the World in Action series, which led to the campaign to release the Birmingham Six, men who were wrongly convicted of bombing two Birmingham pubs in 1974 with the death of 21 people.
Fitzwalter will explain how the investigation got underway, outline the setbacks they faced and tell how the programme was finally broadcast after six years. Five programmes were shown despite significant obstruction by the government. He will also show 20 minutes from one of the programmes in the series ‘Who Bombed Birmingham?’
Ray Fitzwalter worked on the World in Action series at Granada Television for 23 years, including 11 years as an editor and five years as executive producer. He is the winner of two BAFTA awards and is a Fellow of the Royal Television Society. He has also been the chairman of the Campaign for Quality Television for 10 years. Ray Fitzwalter currently works as a Professor of Broadcasting at the International Media School at Salford University.
Frontline Confidential
Investigation and Intrusion
25 and 26 January, Oxford University – Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism
The cij’s director argued that as investigative reporting became increasingly marginalized and unfunded, wealthy tabloid proprietors’ unscrupulous practices were being used to smear investigations of government corruption.
Frontline Confidential in Association with the cij
Alice – A Fight for Life
21 February, Frontline Club, 13 Norfolk Place London, W2 1QJ.
A discussion with John Willis about the landmark investigation Alice – A Fight for Life that told the story of cover-ups and double standards in the asbestos industry set against one woman’s fight with asbestos-related cancer.
Immediately following the programme shares in the asbestos industry fell by £60 million and the government reduced the levels of asbestos permissible in factories.
John Willis talks about the power of research, the unusual mix of emotion and investigation and his fight against the industry. Willis started out at Yorkshire Television where he won countless awards for his investigative documentaries, including Alice – A Fight for Life.
In 1988 he joined Channel 4 as controller of factual programmes and five years later moved up to be director of programmes. Since then he has worked as chief executive at United Productions, sat on the boards of both ITN and Channel 5 and worked as director of factual and dearning programmes at the BBC.
Last last year he became chief executive of Mentorn Productions who make Question Time for the BBC, editions of Dispatches for Channel 4 and high impact factual drama like ‘The Government Inspector’ and ‘The Trial of Tony Blair’.
Frontline Confidential in Association with the cij
Sold into Sex Slavery
17 April, Frontline Club, 13 Norfolk Place London, W2 1QJ.
Author of Sex Traffic: Prostitution, Crime and Exploitation talks to Margaret Renn about the sex trade and why it is so difficult to curtail.
Frontline Confidential in Association with the cij
White Slavery
29 June, Frontline Club, 13 Norfolk Place London, W2 1QJ.
Don Jordan and Mike Walsh talk about investigating the forgotten story of thousands of white Britons who lived and died in bondage in Britain’s American Colonies.
Frontline Confidential in Association with the cij
Thalidomide: How to Take on the Pharmaceuticals and Win
11 July, Frontline Club, 13 Norfolk Place London, W2 1QJ.
The landmark Sunday Times Insight Team’s investigation of the Distillers’ wonder drug which caused severely deformed babies. The manufacturer who bragged that their wonder drug, Thalidomide, was completely safe, sold it in 46 countries under at least 37 names. Some patients began reporting unusual side effects, and pregnant women started giving birth to severely deformed babies. Still the manufacturer continued to dispute the claims.
But a crusading editorial policy and the Insight Team of the Sunday Times under editor Harold Evans, took on the drug companies to win compensation for the victims. The Insight Team eventually gained victory in the European Court of Human Rights. It was one of the most important victories of investigative reporting in British journalism
One special correspondent of this landmark investigation was Philip Knightley and another was Elaine Potter, who co-authored the history of the investigation, ‘Suffer the Children’ with Marjorie Wallace and Harold Evans.
Frontline Confidential in Association with the cij
Beslan: Has the truth been told? With Timothy Phillips.
Wednesday 19 September, Frontline Club, 13 Norfolk Place London, W2 1QJ.
Moderated by David Hearst or the Guardian, writer Timothy Phillips talks about Beslan three years after the terrible tragedy there. He looks at whether the small tight-knit community has been able to overcome the shock of what happened and questions whether we will ever find out the truth about the events of September 2004.
Watch the event video here.
Frontline Confidential in Association with the cij
Deception: The Sale of Nuclear Weapons Technology
25 September, Frontline Club, 13 Norfolk Place London, W2 1QJ.
Investigative journalists Adrian Levy and Catherine Scott-Clark reveal a vast nuclear black-market sanctioned by Pakistan’s military elite, financed by aid money from the US, Saudi Arabia and Libya and receiving assistance from China.
Frontline Confidential in Association with the cij
Whistleblowing
31 October, Frontline Club, 13 Norfolk Place London, W2 1QJ.
With David Leigh (the Guardian), Martin Bright (New Statesman), Guy Dehn (Public Concern at Work) and the ‘mystery contributor’.
public events in 2006
Frontline Club Public Forum
Sources Real and Unreal
12 January.
With Jeff Katz, Chief Executive of Bishop International, who has been responsible for hundreds of inquiries, ranging from due diligence investigations of controversial public figures to investigations involving homicide and political corruption. He speaks about the murky world of corporate investigation. And on plausible fraudsters who have hoodwinked journalists – what to be aware of, and how it happens.
Frontline Club Public Forum
The Zircon and Escholon Scandals
28 February.
Presented by Duncan Campbell. An extraordinary investigation into the vast government spying on ordinary citizens that resulted in Special Branch police raids on his offices.
Frontline Club Public Forum
Web of Curruption: Inside the Poulson Affair
5 April.
Investigative journalist Ray Fitzwalter speaks about the scandal and the endless lessons – many already forgotten – that the story held for journalists. The Poulson Affair was an underrated and underreported story of corruption that reached every level of government in Britain. Fitzwalter was for 15 years the editor and executive producer of Britain’s best investigative television series, World In Action.
Frontline Club Public Forum
Invisible University Project
July – August, University of Westminster, London
Provision of research for an architectural investigation into the differing uses and quantities of space in universities, municipalities and social organisations. An international research project for architects Samantha Hardingham and David Green, founder of Archigram. cij intern: Cosme Julien Madoni
Frontline Club Public Forum
Crisis in US investigative reporting
20 July.
Chuck Lewis, founder and chief executive of the Washington DC-based Center for Public Integrity, speaking on the failure of the US mainstream media to confront the Iraq war. Lewis is one of the most awarded anti-corruption journalists in the US whose books exposed the detail of congressional fraud and financial misrepresentation.
Frontline Club Public Forum
A Question of Torture
21 July.
Professor Alfred McCoy, speaking on the historical origins of the scientific study interrogation in the post-war US and Russian security services. McCoy, who first documented the controversial relationship between opium gum-base production in the ‘golden triangle’ and the US government, recently published a groundbreaking study on state terror and torture.
Frontline Confidential in Association with the cij
Sonia Shah: The Truth About the Pharmaceuticals
6 November. Frontline Club.
A report from Sonia Shah on unsupervised drug trials by big pharmaceutical companies in the developing world that have caused death and serious illness.
cij First Interns Meeting
8 November. City University
Expecting six or seven graduate students. Twenty-three international volunteers arrived from Brazil, Canada, India, Greece, France, Italy and the US to staff two specific investigative projects. The first report is on deaths in police custody in Britain and the second report on the activities of a major multinational. These two projects are expected to take nine or more months to complete before publication.
Anna Politkovskaya
9 November. City University
A memorial and protest at the murder of Anna Politkovskaya in which, with five others, Alexander Litvinenko was a featured speaker and who, sadly, at that point had just been admitted to hospital, poisoned.
Frontline Confidetial
The Insider
10 November. City University
Screening and discussion of “The Insider” with Richard Sambrook (Head of BBC Global News) and Gavin MacFadyen (cij) on the treatment of whistleblowers by their companies and the media, exemplified by CBS 60 Minutes. Producer Lowell Bergman.
Audrius Juzena
13 November.
Preparation of research programme and some assistance for the Lithuanian film director, Audrius Juzenas, on the mysterious life of Sugihara, a Japanese Schindler, during World War II.
Frontline Confidetial in Association with the cij
Would Proposed Changes to the Freedom of Information Act Violate the Public’s Right to Know?
21 November.
An important meeting on current threats to the UK’s only FOI law, with Heather Brooke, David Leigh, Maurice Frankel and Nick Fielding.
Preparation of Handbooks
28 November.
Three pamphlets commissioned by the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN) on interviewing, sources and libel. Writers include Melanie McFadyean (the Guardian), Margaret Renn (BBC Radio 4).
Frontline Confidetial in Association with the CIJ
Extraordinary Rendition
1 December, Frontline Club.
A Discussion with Stephen Grey on the history and methods of his landmark investigation into ‘extraordinary rendition’ and the outsourcing of torture.
public events in 2005
Frontline Club Public Forum
Death on the Rock
13 October
A screening of the controversial ‘This Week’ programme. Followed by QandA with reporter, Rosie Waterhouse, whose Sunday Times Insight Team memo enabled a successful libel action by the victims of the Murdoch press and security service killings.
Originally broadcast as part of ITV’s Thames Television current affairs series ‘This Week’ in April 1988, ‘Death on the Rock’ investigated the killing of three members of the IRA – sent to Gibraltar on an active service mission – by members of British special forces in March of 1988. It examined conflicting evidence about the manner in which the killings were carried out; the degree to which it was an “execution” was the subject of much debate.
Claiming that its transmission prior to the official inquest into the deaths was an impediment to justice, the then Foreign Secretary, Sir Geoffrey Howe, attempted, and failed, to stop ‘Death on the Rock’ from being broadcast.
Such was the debate which developed around the programme following its transmission that an independent inquiry was conducted at the behest of Thames Television. Set in the context of long-standing tension between the Conservative government and the media – particularly investigative journalists – on the matter of ‘national interest’ and on limits imposed on work which brought into question the activities of the state, the inquiry’s findings largely cleared the programme of any impropriety.
Widely viewed as the Conservative government’s revenge for ‘Death on the Rock’, Thames, one of the most innovative of the major companies, eventually lost its licence to broadcast under the new system of allocating ITV franchises instituted by then prime minister, Margaret Thatcher.
Frontline Club Public Forum
The EU Whistleblower
25 October.
With Hans-Martin Tillack of Stern and Stephen Grey of The Sunday Times discussing the arrest of a leading investigative journalist pursuing corruption in Belgium
“We have witnessed a gigantic fishing expedition in which Belgian police have been used by the European anti-corruption authority OLAF to try to intimidate a reporter. The campaign against [Tillack] has been unjust, the way it was carried out was cowardly and spiteful, and the threat it poses to every journalist is self-evident.” – Aidan White, IFJ General Secretary
In March 2004, Hans-Martin Tillack, then the EU correspondent for Stern in Brussels, was arrested by Belgian police on charges of allegedly bribing an EU official. The arrest followed the publication of his reports on corruption and democratic deficits within the Union – reports for which Tillack was eventually awarded the 2005 Leipzig Media Prize – and the seizure of materials in a series of raids on his home and office.
One of Germany’s foremost investigative journalists, Hans-Martin Tillack was the EU correspondent for Stern from 1999 through 2004. He is currently based in the Stern Berlin office, covering national politics.
The EU correspondent for The Sunday Times from 1998 through 2001, Stephen Grey currently works as a freelance investigative reporter, filing for the The Sunday Times, The Guardian, Atlantic Monthly, New York Times and New Statesman, amongst others. He was short-listed for two 2005 Amnesty International Media Awards for his investigation into CIA renditions.
Frontline Club Public Forum
Using the Freedom of Information Act
17 October.
A talk on journalists’ use of the new Act, its possibilities and exclusions, including the use of the Act in the USA, and methods and approaches to effective use by Heather Brooke, author of Your Right to Know.