Chair & Panelists Bios
Jon Snow (Chair)
CHAIR:
Jon Snow, Presenter Channel 4 News
Jon joined ITN in 1976 after working in local radio and was made Washington correspondent in 1984. He returned to the UK in 1986, spending the following three years as ITN's Diplomatic Editor.He reported on all the major stories around the world. He is the main presenter of UK Channel 4's award-winning flagship news programme, Channel 4 News, which ITN has produced since its launch in 1982. He also presents First Edition, the weekly news and current affairs programme aimed at 9-13 year a late night topical debate programme broadcast on Channel 4. Jon has won numerous awards for his reporting over the years including the Royal Television Society's 1979 News Feature Award for a report from Poland; the Monte Carlo Television Festival's 1979 Golden Nymph top news award for 'Eritrea Air Attack'”, the 1980 RTS TV Journalist of the Year Award for his coverage of Afghanistan, Iran, and the Middle East and in 1995 the award for Best Male Presenter from the Royal Television Society at their Programme and Technology Awards. Jon was presented with the prestigious Richard Dimbleby Award for his outstanding contribution to the world of news and current affairs at the 2005 BAFTA Television Awards. Some of his most recent shows are War on Terror Trial, Bloody Sunday Debate, Snow in Japan, The Emillionaire Show and Secrets of the Honours System. His interviewees range fromRonald Reagan to Monica Lewinski (her first ever interview), and include Margaret Thatcher, Kofi Anan, Slobodan Milosovic, Ehud Barak, Yasser Arafat, Moamar Ghadaffi, Tony Blair, Gerhard Schroeder, Lionel Jospin, Mikhail Gorbatchev and many others. He has made several documentary films and chaired many television debates and discussions about matters ranging from GM foods to religious persecution. Jon is Chairman of the New Horizon Youth Centre and Deputy Chairman of the Media Trust.
PANELISTS:
Ferial Haffajee, Editor of the Mail & Guardian South Africa
Ferial was only 22 when, in 1990, she received a daunting honour. Nelson Mandela had just been freed after 26 years of imprisonment, and Haffajee was picked to be on a panel of reporters that would question the future president in his first television interview. Fourteen years later, as South Africa prepared to celebrate the decade of democracy that began with Mandela’s inauguration on May 10, 1994, Haffajee was appointed editor of Johannesburg’s influential weekly Mail & Guardian newspaper. Founded in 1985 as a voice of the anti-apartheid movement, the Mail & Guardian has since become a mainstream paper with a reputation for feistiness. The daughter of garment workers, Haffajee grew up in the working-class Johannesburg suburb of Bosmont and attended the University of the Witwatersrand. After graduating, Haffajee became a trainee at the paper, then called the Weekly Mail. Stints in radio and television journalism followed before she won a job as a political writer at the Financial Mail, where she rose to the rank of managing editor before returning to the Mail & Guardian as an associate editor. She is a Board member of Gender Links (South Africa).
Lesley Abdela MBE, Eyecatcher Associates / Shevolution , Chief Executive of Project Parity
Lesley directs Shevolution. She is one of the world’s leading experts in the field of gender and an award-winning journalist. Lesley is a previous winner of the UK Woman of Europe award for her work on the political empowerment of women in Central and Eastern Europe. She was the first Political Editor of a major women’s magazine in the UK, appointed by Cosmopolitan in 1993. Lesley has over 20 years experience in the fields of gender and democratic development. Since 1992 she has worked in over 30 countries as an expert advisor to governments and international organisations, NGO's and the private sector. Born in London, Lesley Abdela started her career as an Advertising Executive. She then worked as a Researcher in the House of Commons and House of Lords and stood for Parliament. In 1980 Lesley founded the all-party 300 Group to campaign to get more women into local, national and European politics in the UK. Between 1979 and 1997 the number of women in the British House of Commons increased from 19 to 121. From 1992-1997 she was the European based Consultant on women to HarvardUniversity's Project Liberty. From 1993 to 1996 she was Political Editor for Cosmopolitan Magazine. She is currently a contributing editor for Executive Woman Magazine. Shevolution is a consultancy wing of Eyecatcher Associates set up to advise and develop strategies and actions for producing systems in which women and men work together in equal partnership.
Bob Jobbins OBE, former head of BBC World Service News and CurrentAffairs and Chairman of the Rory Peck Trust
Bob worked as a BBC foreign correspondent in the Middle East, the USA, South America and Asia.He was in involved in the launch of World Service Television (now BBC World), and its parallel Arabic Channel. He was responsible for the production of all news and information programming for BBC World Service Radio and Television. He became Chairman of the Rory Peck Trust in January 2001, and also works as a media consultant.
Lindsey Hilsum, Royal Television Society Specialist Journalist of the Year award 2003 and 2005, International Editor Channel 4 News
Lindsey is Channel 4 News' International Editor. She won the 2005 Royal Television Society Journalist of the Year Award for her reporting from Fallujah and Beslan, amongst other stories. She reported the 2003 war in Iraq from Baghdad, and has returned to Iraq several times. During the NATO Kosovo campaign she spent some time in Belgrade; she has also spent extended periods in Zimbabwe and the Middle East. She won the 2003 Royal Television Society Specialist Journalist of the Year award for her reports from the Palestinian refugee camp at Jenin, and has twice won awards from Amnesty. Previously she reported for the BBC, the Guardian and other newspapers from Africa and Latin America, where she had also been an aid worker for OXFAM and UNICEF. She is a regular contributor to the New Statesman, the Observer and Granta. She also won the Headliner award for her series of Channel 4 News Fallujah reports which were broadcast in the US on Jim Lehrer's The NewsHour on the PBS channel. This year she has continued to cover the Iraq war as well as the Darfur crisis and the Iraqi and Zimbabwean elections.
Yosri Fouda, Western Europe Correspondent for Al-Jazeera Satellite Channel
Yosri graduated from the AdhamCenter for Television Journalism, at the AmericanUniversity in Cairo in 1992. In 1994 he helped establish the Arabic BBC World Service television station. He gained valuable field experience as a roving reporter, covering some of the world's toughest stories. Yosri moved on to the Associated Press in London, where in 1996 he co-founded the first and only Middle East desk of its kind. He helped build the infrastructure of the London-based Arab News Network (ANN) and became the Western Europe Correspondent for the Al-Jazeera Satellite Channel. He is also the co-author of “Masterminds of Terror”, a book based on the only interviews ever carried out with the two main planners of the 9-11 attacks. Yosri is now Executive Producer of the 'Top Secret' programme and Deputy Executive Director of the AlJazeera London bureau.
Stephen Pritchard, Board Member of the Organisation of News Ombudsmen and Readers' Editor, The Observer
The concept of ombudsmanship is relatively new to Britain's newspapers. A readers' editor represents those who buy the paper, reflecting their views, correcting errors and reaching an independent adjudication in disputes. Stephen Pritchard has held this role at The Observer since March 2001. After several years working as a reporter and sub-editor on regional papers, Stephen moved to the London Evening Standard in 1984, where he became chief sub-editor, before joining The Observer as production editor in 1987. He subsequently became Managing Editor and Assistant Editor. He is currently a board member of the Organisation of News Ombudsmen, which has members working on newspapers, TV and radio stations right around the world.
