White Helmets And Black-ops: The Propaganda Wars Over Syria
With the Syrian conflict in its 8th year, the propaganda on all sides grows ever more intense, never more so than in the barrage of conflicting narratives about the role of The White Helmets. Are they a volunteer organisation working to rescue Syrians on all sides, a propaganda front for Western governments or allies of Al-Qaeda? More generally, can we believe all we read on the mainstream media on Syria – and how do we get to the truth about Syria?
Anand Gopal
Anand Gopal is a journalist and author of No Good Men Among the Living: America, the Taliban and the War Through Afghan Eyes, which describes the travails of three Afghans caught in the war on terror. It was a finalist for the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for general non-fiction, the 2014 National Book Award and the 2015 Helen Bernstein Award.
James Harkin
James Harkin is the director of the Centre for Investigative Journalism. He is a journalist who covers social change and political conflict and whose work appears in Vanity Fair, Harper’s, GQ, The Smithsonian, Prospect and the Guardian.
Mowaffaq Safadi
Mowaffaq Safadi is a Syrian freelance journalist who works across broadcast and print media. He writes regularly for Arabic and Syria-opposition websites and was a presenter for Syrian radio station Hawa Smart.
Nour Samaha
Nour Samaha is a freelance journalist based in Beirut, Lebanon. She has been covering the region for over a decade, with a specific focus on Syria, Lebanon and Israel-Palestine. She has produced in-depth reports and investigations from the ground for publications including The Intercept, The Century Foundation, Al Monitor, Al Jazeera and Foreign Policy.
Patrick Cockburn
Patrick Cockburn is an award-winning writer on The Independent who specialises in analysis of Iraq, Syria and wars in the Middle East. In 2014 he forecasted the rise of Isis before it was well known, and has written extensively about it and other players in the region.
- 20 October 2018 17.00–18.00