Pedro Serrano, Justin Schlosberg and Yasmin Alibhai-Brown chaired Stephen Law

Media expert Professor Justin Schlosberg, journalist and commentator Yasmin Alibhai Brown and EU Ambassador to the UK Pedro Serrano discuss how recent major conflicts are being reported in the media and ask whether we can trust what we are being told.

The way Israeli-Palestinian, Russia-Ukraine, and other horrific conflicts have been reported on in the media has been highly controversial. Fake news is widespread, video and audio can be easily manipulated, and newspapers and other news sources often have their own agendas and biases. There is a huge amount of uncertainty about whom we can trust, if anyone. How can we come to reasonable conclusions about the rights and wrongs of such conflicts if we are so poorly informed about them?

Schlosberg is Professor of Media and Communications at the University of Westminster, co-founder of the Institute for Journalism and Social Change, a former Chair of the Media Reform Coalition, and Edmund J Safra Network Fellow at Harvard University. He is the author and co-author of several books about the media including the forthcoming Disinformation: A Critical Perspective.

Alibhai-Brown is a British journalist and author who has written extensively on a variety of issues, including conflicts from Iraq to Palestine and the ‘war on terror’. Her books include In Defence of Political Correctness, Refusing The Veil and Exotic England: The Making of A Curious Nation.

Serrano is the EU Ambassador to the UK. From 2000 onwards, he has contributed actively, in different capacities, to the development of the EU’s foreign, security, and defence policies. He sees Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine as one of the greatest challenges faced by the EU, other European countries, and the broader international community.

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.