WREFORD WATSON LECTURE 2016

Lindsey Hilsum, International Editor for Channel 4 News*

*WORLD WITHOUT BORDERS: HOW WARFARE AND WHATSAPP ARE CHANGING REPORTING*

DATE: Thursday 12 May 2016

TIME: 16:30

PLACE: George Square Lecture Theatre, George Square, EH8 9LH

Tickets can be reserved on Eventbrite (by 28 April 2016).

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/wreford-watson-public-lecture-2016-tickets-22741611773

Lindsey is a renowned TV journalist and writer. Recently she reported the refugee and migrant crisis in Europe and Lebanon and the Paris terror attacks, as well as conflicts in Syria, Ukraine, and Mali. She covered the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Kosovo, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the genocide in Rwanda, as well as witnessing the Arab Spring uprisings in Libya and Egypt. From 2006-8 she was based in China. She is the author of Sandstorm; Libya in the Time of Revolution, which was shortlisted for the Guardian First Book Award and is currently writing a biography of Marie Colvin, the war correspondent who was killed in Syria in 2012.

She was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Essex in 2004, and has won several awards including the Royal Television Society Journalist of the Year, James Cameron Award, One World Broadcasting Trust Award, Voice of the Viewer and Listener, and the Charles Wheeler Award. In 2015, Lindsey Hilsum was awarded the Mungo Park Medal of the Royal Scottish Geographical Society by HRH Princess Anne, the Princess Royal and Chancellor of the University of Edinburgh.

The lecture will be a first-hand account of war reporting. Lindsey will discuss the new ways refugees and reporters try to overcome restrictions on movement and information. Governments and rebel groups use increasingly brutal methods to stop journalists from seeing what’s really going on while, under the pressure of mass migration, Europe has re-imposed borders that had melted away. In reponse, new virtual geographies are being created as citizen journalists send videos by Youtube and refugees resort to smugglers and move cash through cyberspace.

The Wreford Watson Lecture series commemorates the life and work of James Wreford Watson (1915-1990), the distinguished geographer and poet, who held a chair at the University of Edinburgh (from 1953 to 1983) and who served as Chief Geographer to the Canadian Government.