Keynote speakers

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Keynote: 25 years after Macpherson, why does the media still find racial diversity such a struggle? 
Joseph Harker

Thursday 11 April, 2.00 - 3.00pm

Joseph Harker is Senior Editor for Diversity and Development at The Guardian. He was co-lead on the Guardian's Legacies of Enslavement project – which examined the links between the Guardian's founder and transatlantic slavery, issued an apology, and drew up a £10m+ restorative justice action plan. 

Joseph also sits on the board of the Society of Editors and is a former Deputy Opinion Editor. For over 20 years he has run the Guardian's Positive Action Scheme, which offers enhanced work experience to aspiring journalists who are ethnic-minority or have a disability: many have gone on to have successful media careers.

Before joining the Guardian, Joseph was Editor and Publisher of the weekly newspaper Black Briton, and prior to that he was Assistant Editor at The Voice. He tweets at @josephharker.
 

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Keynote: The Gendered and Gendering Role of Journalism in Conflict Zones: Interrogating the Dynamics of Inclusion or Division. Dr Emma Heywood.

Thursday 11 April, 5pm

In this keynote speech, Emma draws upon her extensive fieldwork researching the interplay between radio journalism and conflict zones in the Global South. By examining contexts of extreme insecurity, she highlights the gendered and gendering role of journalism, a complex dynamic that permeates the entire production cycle. She discusses structural and gendered inequalities that are deeply entrenched within journalistic institutions in these contexts, inequities that mirror and reinforce broader socio-cultural divides. She goes on to question the impact of these inequities on inclusivity in the news content, and on the reception of this content by audiences. She thus offers a nuanced understanding of journalism's capacity, in conflict settings, to either bridge societal rifts or exacerbate divisions along gendered lines.