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Brexit, the Trump campaign, the rise of the far-right in Europe and Putin's propaganda have triggered a discussion about the way misinformation is being used in major campaigns around the world. Divisions are being exacerbated and exploited - Russia/Ukraine, Trump vs Hilary, Brexit. Nationalism is often at the heart of the campaigns. The nature of information technology fuels echo chambers and polarisation, contributing to the loss of public place and fostering an environment where people search for the (dis)information which confirms their prejudices and biases. Some commentators have started to speak of a 'post-fact' era. What can we expect, drawing on Russian experience, in this vacuum and with the rise in aggression and division? How will it effect our transnational relationships?
Join us for a panel discussion chaired by Anne Applebaum with the following speakers: Peter Pomerantsev, Arkady Ostrovsky, Mikhail Zygar and Will Moy.
Anne Applebaum is a columnist for the WASHINGTON POST and SLATE. She directs the Transitions Forum at the Legatum Institute in London and is an adjunct fellow of the Center for European Policy Analysis.
Formerly a member of the Washington Post editorial board, she has also worked as the Foreign and Deputy Editor of the Spectator magazine in London, as the Political Editor of the Evening Standard, and as a columnist at several British newspapers, including the Daily and Sunday Telegraphs. From 1988-1991 she covered the collapse of communism as the Warsaw correspondent of the Economist magazine. Anne Applebaum was born in Washington, DC in 1964. After graduating from Yale University, she was a Marshall Scholar at the LSE and St. Antony’s College, Oxford. Her husband, Radoslaw Sikorski, is a Polish politician and writer. They have two children, Alexander and Tadeusz.
Peter Pomerantsev, was born in Kiev and raised in England, and came to Moscow in the early 2000s to work in their fast-growing television and film industry. The job gave him first-hand access to every aspect of the country, and to the elite Russian rich in London and the west. He is an award-winning contributor to the London Review of Books and his writing has been published in the Financial Times, New Yorker, Wall Street Journal, Foreign Policy, Daily Beast, Newsweek and Le Monde Diplomatique, among others. He has also worked as a consultant for the EU and World Bank.
Arkady Ostrovsky is a Russian-born, British journalist who has spent some 18 years reporting from Moscow, for 10 years for the Financial Times, and currently works as Russia and Eastern Europe Editor for The Economist. He studied Russian theatre history in Moscow and holds a PhD in English Literature from Cambridge University. He translation of Tom Stoppard's trilogy The Coast of Utopia has been published in Russian. In addition to covering Russian politics and business, he also writes about Ukraine, Georgia and other former Soviet Republics. Arkady Ostrovsky is the author of The Invention of Russia: From Gorbachev's Freedom to Putin's War. The winner of the 2016 Orwell Prize. Available from Atlantic Books in the UK and from Viking in the US. One of the top 20 History Books chosen by Amazon Editros.
Mikhail Zygar is the editor-in-chief of the independent Russian TV channel Dozhd. Under Zygar's leadership, Dozhd has provided an alternative to Kremlin-controlled federal TV channels by focusing on news content and giving a platform to opposition voices. Zygar was appointed to the editorship of Dozhd TV in 2010, the same year the channel was founded. Prior to that, he worked for Newsweek Russia and the business daily Kommersant, where he covered the conflicts in Palestine, Lebanon, Iraq, Serbia, and Kosovo. He is co-author of the book Gazprom: Russia's New Weapon, which explores Russia's recent history through the currency of gas. His new book, Putin's U-Turn, a historical look at what has led to the Russian president's domestic and foreign policy choices, is scheduled for release by year's end.
Will Moy is Director of Full Fact, the UK's only independent factchecking organisation, which checks claims made by politicians, interest groups and the media. He previously worked for an independent crossbench peer. Will has given evidence to the Public Administration Select Committee on the communication of official statistics and the Leveson Inquiry on accuracy and press standards, on both occasions communicating the lessons from the hundreds of individual factchecks Full Fact has conducted. He has been a guest on TV and radio, from rolling news and the Today Programme through to discussion shows on Radio 5 Live and LBC. He and the team are often asked to assist the media with factual and statistical issues both on and off the record. Before Full Fact, Will worked for the Parliamentary Advisory Council on Transport Safety and then as a researcher in the House of Lords for the non-party affiliated peer Lord Low of Dalston.
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