Safety for journalists, including digital safety, is a matter of public concern that is wide-ranging. It is vital for those who practice journalism, for their families and for their sources. It is essential for the wellbeing of media institutions, civil society, academia and the private sector more broadly. If we value the free flow of information for citizens, their governments and their international organisations, then the safety of journalists is central (Getachew Engida, Deputy Director-General of UNESCO).
This years Safety conference at the OsloMet will focus on Digital Safety. We are happy to announce our Keynote speakers. Full program.
Muthoki Mumo. Muthoki Mumo joined the Committee to Protect Journalists as East Africa Correspondent in June 2017. She was named CPJ’s sub-Saharan Africa representative on August 1, 2018. She previously worked for six years as a journalist with the Nation Media Group, covering a variety of beats from East African Community integration and regional trade to technology and telecommunications for the Business Daily and Daily Nation. In 2017 she served as an alternate digital editor for the Business Daily. Mumo has a bachelor’s degree from the United States International University in Nairobi and a master’s degree jointly awarded by Aarhus University and the University of Hamburg.
Silvio Waisbord. Professor in the School of Media and Public Affairs at George Washington University. He is the author and editor of seventeen books, including more recently Communication: A Post-Discipline and A Communication Manifesto, both published by Polity Press. He is the former Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Communication and the International Journal of Press/Politics. He has lectured and worked in more than 30 countries in the Americas, Europe, Asia and Africa. He is a Fellow of the International Communication Association.
Guy Berger. Director for Freedom of Expression and Media Development at UNESCO. He is responsible for the Organization’s global work on press freedom, safety of journalists, internet freedom, media pluralism and independence, gender and media, media and information literacy, and journalism education. Before joining UNESCO, he headed the School of Journalism and Media Studies at Rhodes University, Grahamstown, South Africa. He has also worked in both press and television and had a long-running column on the The Mail & Guardian website.
Olivia Martin. Digital Security Trainer at Freedom of the Press Foundation. A graduate of NYU’s Gallatin School of Individualized Study, her professional work focuses on researching and delivering digital security trainings to journalists, activists, and human rights defenders. She has spent years in newsrooms as a designer and editor with new media and student publications, and uses this experience to aid in assessing the evolving needs of journalists in today’s media landscape.
Neena Kapur. Currently a senior information security analyst at The New York Times, where she researches and implements security solutions to combat modern threats targeting journalists and the media industry. Neena previously worked as a cyber threat intelligence analyst, where she researched cybercriminal activity. At the conference Kapur will do a workshop where she will share her team’s experience creating and running a doxxing education program at The New York Times. She’ll cover why doxxing is a threat to journalists, recommended tools and techniques for cleaning up your online footprint, and the process that the New York Times Information Security team went through to build this program within their newsroom.
Leandro Demori. Executive Editor The Intercept Brazil. Demori is also the author of La Cosa Nostra in Brazil: The Story of the Mafioso that Took Down the Empire (Companhia das Letras, 2016) and is a board member of the Brazilian Association of Investigative Journalism (Abraji). In the 2000s, he was an editor of the award-winning independent blog A Nova Corja (The New Scum), considered one of the “blogs of the decade” by O Estado de São Paulo newspaper.
Julie Posetti is an internationally published Australian journalist and academic. In 2018 she was appointed Senior Research Fellow with the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at the University of Oxford (UK). There, she leads RISJ’s new Journalism Innovation Project. Posetti is the author of UNESCO’s landmark global study ‘Protecting Journalism Sources in the Digital Age’ (2017)[1] which examines the erosion of journalistic source protection conventions essential to investigative journalism in the context of national security overreach, and widening surveillance nets. She has won multiple professional awards (including the 1996 Australian Human Rights Award for Radio for her coverage of social affairs for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and a 2017 Gold Award at the New York Radio Festival), and journalism education and research honours (including a national award for teaching and learning excellence in 2007
Vera Slavtcheva-Petkova is Senior Lecturer in Communications and Media Studies at the University of Liverpool, UK. Vera joined the University of Liverpool in September 2017 after having worked at the University of Chester and the Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford. Her undergraduate degree is in Journalism and Mass Communication from the American University in Bulgaria and her MA is in the European Union: Media, Politics and Society from the University of East Anglia. She completed her PhD in the Social Sciences at Loughborough University in 2011. Her PhD thesis was about Children, Europe and the media. Vera is the author of Russia’s Liberal Media: Handcuffed but Free (Routledge, 2018) and Global Journalism: An Introduction (Palgrave, 2018; with Professor Michael Bromley, Sheffield University). Vera sits on the Executive Committee of the Worlds of Journalism study –a ground-breaking academic project assessing the state of journalism in 67 countries in the second wave (2012-2016), and 110 countries in the forthcoming third wave (2020-2022).
Monir Zaarour Project Manager, International Federation of JournalistsMonir has 17 years’ experience in Media and Culture development. He has been working at the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) for eight years as Coordinator for the Middle East and the Arab World.He is responsible for devising, planning and supervising the implementation of the IFJ programme in the region, which is developed around five main campaigns; safety of journalists, media freedom and reform, trade-union solidarity, ethics and human rights.Monir has deployed the IFJ programme in most countries of the Arab World and the Middle East, working with national journalists unions, governments and other key national stakeholders, in cooperation with regional and international media development organizations, the International Trade-Union Confederation and Global Unions Federations.Before joining the IFJ, Monir worked at the Cinema Production Centre in Ramallah-Palestine as Art Director. Monir has a master degree in International Conflict Analysis from Brussels School of International Studies.