Talks and Screenings

Richard Norton-Taylor, veteran, much-garlanded national security reporter and author of The State of Secrecy: Spies and the Media in Britain, came (virtually) to the CIJ for an informal conversation with CIJ Director James Harkin about his experience as a reporter for the Guardian and the challenges faced by investigative journalists, the development of the national security state and the pace of its surveillance apparatus, and, after his pioneering work on verbatim theatre, the crucial importance of new kinds of documentary storytelling.

The Centre for Investigative Journalism (CIJ) and the ICA present Closed Circuit, a series of broadcast discussions on the status of information in the age of digital media. For the second episode, writer Simon Akam, journalist and editor Joseph Farrell, lawyer Mary Inman, New York Times-bestselling author Tom Mueller, and former assistant to Harvey Weinstein Zelda Perkins discuss the controversial publication of protected information.

The CIJ and the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) present Closed Circuit, a series of broadcast discussions on the status of information in the age of digital media. Bringing together figures from the worlds of journalism, politics, media theory and the arts, the series spans state-sponsored propaganda, ‘fake news’, revised histories, and the role of non-disclosure agreements and whistle-blowers in the shaping of public perceptions.

How do Chinese young people use new media like WeChat and Baidu and how has it changed their lives and relationships? Amid censorship, blocking and the advanced Chinese surveillance state, how much can they trust it and how does surveillance change their behaviour?

Amid the closure of some traditional outlets and the fracturing of traditional boundaries between left and right, what is the future of radical journalism? How much can it borrow from the outrage-fuelled world of new media, and how far is it in danger of taking refuge in echo chambers of its own making?

Amid the rise of populism and surveillance apparatuses and the fragility of liberal democracies, what does it mean to be subversive in the contemporary era? Srećko Horvat, one of the most exciting new radical philosophers, came to the Centre for Investigative Journalism (CIJ) to argue for the value of a genuinely subversive journalism and a fresh kind of radical internationalism.