Justin Schlosberg, Yasmin Alibhai-Brown and Iain Dale Chaired by Stephen Law

Former chair of the Media Reform Coalition Dr Justin Schlosberg, journalist and author Yasmin Alibhai Brown, and LBC radio host Ian Dale look at the state of the Press today and ask some serious questions about how and whether it shapes public opinion.

According to The Sun newspaper, ‘It’s The Sun Wot Won It’ for the Tories in 1992. But is that true? Do our newspapers significantly shape public opinion, or do they just feed back to the public what they know the public want to hear? Are journalists becoming too close to politicians, with a revolving door between the two? What have been the most serious misrepresentations by the Press over the last decade?

Schlosberg is a former chair of the Media Reform Coalition and Edmund J Safra Network Fellow at Harvard University. He co-founded Truth Defence and has authored or co-authored books including Media Ownership and Agenda Control and Bad News for Labour. Alibhai-Brown is a British journalist and author who has written extensively on issues of diversity and social justice. Her books include In Defence of Political Correctness, Refusing The Veil, and Exotic England: The Making of A Curious Nation. Dale is an accomplished broadcaster, presenting his own daily radio show on LBC, and several podcasts, including For the Many and Iain Dale All Talk. He is a regular on Question Time, Newsnight, Good Morning Britain, and Politics Live and a columnist for the Telegraph. He is also the author or editor of more than 40 books, most recently On This Day in Politics.

Discussions are chaired by Dr Stephen Law, a philosopher and academic, author of bestselling introductions to philosophy for adults and children, editor of the Royal Institute of Philosophy Journal Think, and the festival’s major projects director.