A panel of experts from the press, government, and academia discuss their new and upcoming projects. They discuss different methods of promoting investigative journalism, ranging from building non-profit institutions to converting the country of Iceland into a "free press haven."
The panel features Gavin MacFadyen (The Bureau for Investigative Journalism, UK), Chuck Lewis (American University), Julian Assange (WikiLeaks), Birgitta Jónsdóttir (Member of Parliament, Iceland) and Jon Weber (The Bay Citizen). Lowell Bergman moderates.
Bio
Julian Assange
Julian Assange is an Australian journalist, programmer and Internet activist, best known for his involvement with Wikileaks, a whistleblower website.
Lowell Bergman
Lowell Bergman is the Reva and David Logan Distinguished Professor of Investigative Reporting at the Graduate School of Journalism at UC Berkeley, and director of the Investigative Reporting Program. He is also a producer/correspondent for the PBS documentary series Frontline. Bergman’s career spans nearly four decades, most notably as a producer, a reporter and then the director of investigative reporting at ABC News, and as CBS News as a producer for60 Minutes. The story of his investigation into the tobacco industry was chronicled in the Academy Award–nominated film The Insider. From 1999 to 2008, Bergman was an investigative correspondent for The New York Times. Creating collaborative investigative projects using broadcast, print and the Web became his specialty. Bergman has received honors for both print and broadcasting, including the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service, awarded to The New York Times in 2004 for “A Dangerous Business” which detailed a record of worker safety violations coupled with the systematic violation of environmental laws in the cast-iron sewer and water pipe industry. That story is the only winner of the Pulitzer Prize to also be acknowledged with every major award in broadcasting. The recipient of numerous Emmys, Bergman has also been honored with five Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Silver and Golden Baton awards, three Peabodys, a Polk Award, a Sidney Hillman Award for Labor Reporting, a Bart Richards Award for Media Criticism, the National Press Club’s Arthur Rowse Award for Press Criticism, a Mirror Award from the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University, and the James Madison Freedom of Information Award for Career Achievement from the Society of Professional Journalists.
Birgitta Jonsdottir
Birgitta Jonsdottir was born in Reykjavik, Iceland 1967. She has lived in Denmark, Sweden, Norway, England, USA, Australia, New Zealand and The Netherlands. She is currently living in Iceland.
Jonsdottir has been active in the Icelandic literature, music, and art scenes for more then 20 years and is considered one of the pioneers in bringing art and literature to the Internet. Her first book of poetry, Frostdinglar (Icicles), was published when she was twenty by one of Iceland's leading publishers. Her art has been exhibited in the USA, Asia and Europe. She has performed and lectured at festivals around the world. Her work has been published in anthologies, TV, radio, magazines, newspapers and on the Internet.
In 2008 she was one of the primus motors in various grassroots movements and helped co-found Solitary, a coalition of the grassroots movements for social change because of the economical collapse in Iceland. Shortly thereafter she founded with others the Civic Movement, a political movement that ran for parliamentary election in April 2009. The movement got more then 7% of the vote despite the fact they were only formed 8 weeks before elections and had no money to spend. They got 4 members of Parliament. The Civic Movement is a hit and run party - its main aim is to bring on democratic reform, bring more power to the people and to work as a horizontal movement. In the summer of 2009 a faction of the Civic movement made a hostile takeover at the annual meeting and changed the fundamental laws about the functions of the Civic Movement - changing it from a movement to party politics. That takeover resulted in all the MPs to leaving the Civic Movement. They created the Movement in order to preserve the integrity of the hit and run policy and horizontal structure of power. Jonsdottir is one of the Members of Parliament for the Movement.
Charles Lewis
Charles Lewis is a professor of journalism and the founding executive editor of the new Investigative Reporting Workshop at the American University School of Communication, in Washington, D.C.
A national investigative journalist since 1977, Lewis is a bestselling author who has founded or co-founded four nonprofit enterprises in Washington, including the Center for Public Integrity. He left a successful career as an investigative producer for ABC News and the CBS News program "60 Minutes" and began the Center for Public Integrity from his home, growing it to a full-time staff of 40 people. Under his leadership, the Center published roughly 300 investigative reports, including 14 books, from 1989 through 2004, honored more than 30 times by national journalism organizations.
Lewis was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship in 1998. And in 2004, PEN USA, the respected literary organization, gave its First Amendment award to Lewis, "for expanding the reach of investigative journalism, for his courage in going after a story regardless of whose toes he steps on, and for boldly exercising his freedom of speech and freedom of the press." In 2009, the Encyclopedia of Journalism cited Lewis as "one of the 30 most notable investigative reporters in the U.S. since World War I."
Gavin MacFadyen
Gavin MacFadyen is the director of the Centre for Investigative Journalism, a visiting professor at City University and research consultant to several US documentary and feature film companies.
He is a former producer-director at Granada Television's World in Action, Channel 4's Dispatches, BBC documentaries and current affairs, PBS, Frontline and ABC.
In addition to designing training programs and speaking in Brazil, Canada, China, Serbia, Norway, and the U.S., he has three feature film projects, based on investigations, currently in development.
Jonathan Weber
Prior to joining as Editor-in-Chief of The Bay Citizen, Jonathan Weber worked as reporter, editor and media entrepreneur for more than 20 years.
He most recently served as CEO and editor-in-chief of New West Publishing, the Missoula, Montana-based media company that he founded in 2005. New West's flagship product is NewWest.Net, an award-winning local and regional online publication about the Rocky Mountain West. One of the earliest experiments in creating a new, Web-centric model for high-quality journalism, NewWest.Net combines traditional reporting and writing with various forms of participatory journalism. Weber also served as the first T. Anthony Pollner Distinguished Visiting Professor of Journalism at the University of Montana, and remains a member of the Journalism School Advisory Council.
Weber began his journalism career with Fairchild Publications, and served in that company's Paris bureau, among other assignments. He was part of the launch team for Geneva-based World Link magazine, a publication of the World Economic Forum.
Weber earned a B.A in Philosophy from Wesleyan University.
Collection, preparation, and distribution of news and related commentary and feature materials through media such as pamphlets, newsletters, newspapers, magazines, radio, film, television, and books. The term was originally applied to the reportage of current events in printed form, specifically newspapers, but in the late 20th century it came to include electronic media as well. It is sometimes used to refer to writing characterized by a direct presentation of facts or description of events without an attempt at interpretation. Colleges and universities confer degrees in journalism and sponsor research in related fields such as media studies and journalism ethics.
It is unforgivable that the US government is hiding information from the world about mission creep into Pakistan and the devastating loss of life in Afghanistan. I applaud all agents of TRUTH. An open society practices transparency even when it is at war.
Fine! Leak classified information!
He just should be prepared to be hung after the first confirmed loss of life due to the actions. Who is he to decide what should or should not be public? Would this have happened in WWII?
What a fantastic change to see real journalists/activists, discussing real ways that investigative reporting can be opened up to allow freedom of speech and protection for whistle-blowers. The ability to report what is really going on in the world is paramount as the ties between bankers, corporations, governments and the mainstream media get ever more intertwined.
Very inspiring!!!
I am so happy to know that there are a group of journalists with the bravery that you all exspresses, bringing the truth out to the people. Now I am more sure than ever that the World will go in the right direction. Thank you!
I am humbled by the humanity and bravery of these people who are getting the information out. I would like to record my appreciation of their devotion to the truth whilst protecting those brave enough to reveal it. A bit of fact at the right time in an argument can go a long way to convince others who are prepared to listen. Dissemination of information is the first step to forming the correct policies. both personally and within society. So thank you Birgitta, Julian, Gavin, Jon, Chuck and all the rest. DO NOT GIVE UP ON US.
member. 
