Inside The Cartel Project: The Power of Collaborative Investigative Journalism

With Laurent Richard, Dana Priest and Jorge Carrasco
Moderated by Lynette Clemetson

 

The Eisendrath Symposium on International Reporting

Wednesday, March 24, 2021

12:30 p.m. ET

Watch now

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In 2012 Mexican journalist Regina Martinez was murdered in her home. She had been reporting on the links between drug cartels, public officials and thousands of individuals who had mysteriously disappeared. Eight years later, her investigations were published simultaneously around the world as The Cartel Project.

Forbidden Stories, a nonprofit newsroom created by Laurent Richard during his year as a Knight- Wallace Fellow at the University of Michigan, organized the project, secretly bringing together an international network of journalists dedicated to continuing the work of Martinez. Sixty reporters from 18 countries, followed her leads to expose a global network of Mexican drug cartels and their political connections around the world.

For a behind-the-scenes look at the global investigation, join the journalists who made it happen. Laurent Richard of Forbidden Stories, Dana Priest of The Washington Post and Jorge Carrasco, editor of Mexican news magazine Proceso, and a longtime friend of Regina Martinez, will share how collaborative journalism can keep alive the work of reporters who are silenced by threats, censorship or death.

The Eisendrath Symposium on International Reporting honors Charles R. Eisendrath, former director of Wallace House, and his lifelong commitment to international journalism.

More about The Cartel Project

About the speakers
Jorge Carrasco is a director of Proceso, an influential independent weekly in Mexico. Before joining Proceso 15 years ago, he was a reporter for El Economista and head of the UN Secretary General’s press office for Mexico, Cuba and the Dominican Republic.

Dana Priest has been a national security and investigative reporter for The Washington Post for more than 30 years. She is the recipient of two Pulitzer Prizes, an Emmy and two George Polk Awards, among other prizes. She is the author of two best-selling books and the Knight Chair in Public Affairs Journalism at the University of Maryland.

Laurent Richard is a French award-winning documentary filmmaker, producer and founder of Forbidden Stories, a network of investigative journalists whose mission is to continue and publish the work of other journalists facing threats, prison, or murder. Richard was a 2017 Knight-Wallace Fellow at the University of Michigan, where he developed Forbidden Stories.

About the moderator
Lynette Clemetson is the Charles R. Eisendrath Director of Wallace House, home of the Knight-Wallace Fellowships for Journalists and the Livingston Awards for Young Journalists at the University of Michigan.

About the translator
Ana Avila is an investigative journalist from Mexico, a 2020 Knight-Wallace Fellow and the current Marsh Visiting Professor of Journalism at the University of Michigan.

Knight Foundation is a co-sponsor of this event.

Knight Foundation is a national foundation with strong local roots. We invest in journalism, in the arts, and in the success of cities where brothers John S. and James L. Knight once published newspapers. Our goal is to foster informed and engaged communities, which we believe are essential for a healthy democracy. For more, visit knightfoundation.org.

Michigan Radio is a co-sponsor of this event.

Join our 2021 Virtual Awards Ceremony

Celebrating our 2021 Livingston Winners Together Online

 

Join us online from 12:30 to 2 p.m. ET on Thursday, June 10 for a virtual event to meet the Livingston winners in local, national and international reporting, honor their work in the pursuit of truth and celebrate the future of journalism. 

2021 marks 40 years of the Livingston Awards identifying exceptional young journalists and the next generation of newsroom leaders. This year’s fully virtual ceremony will feature all of the celebrity, young talent and inspiring journalism of our annual celebration in an online and safe environment.

We’ll miss gathering with our Livingston supporters and friends in person at our award luncheon in New York City, but we look forward to the participation of those from across the country and the world who can not regularly join us.  We look forward to celebrating with you on June 10.

Watch the ceremony on our Virtual Event page »

Public Engagement 2020-2021

During the 2020-2021 academic year, Wallace House teamed with partners across campus to bring conversations into the virtual public space.

Past Events | Fall 2020 – Winter 2021

Unearthing Tulsa: 100 Years Later

Unearthing Tulsa: 100 Years Later

A Conversation with Brent Staples, Fred Conrad and Scott Elsworth

Monday, May 17, 2021

4 p.m. ET

Register Now

Watch Here on May 17

Maybe you’ve heard of the Tulsa Race Massacre. It was one of the most horrific examples of white supremacist terrorism in the history of the United States and knowledge of the event was actively suppressed for over fifty years.

From May 31 to June 1, 1921, the Massacre saw the murder of hundreds of Black residents of the Greenwood neighborhood—a bustling and vibrant community known then as Black Wall Street—and more than one-thousand homes and businesses burned to the ground.

As we approach the 100-year anniversary of the Tulsa Race Massacre, UMMA and Wallace House invite you to revisit a moment in 1999 when the New York Times Magazine published Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Brent Staples‘ article “Unearthing a Riot,” which was the most significant national media coverage of the event at the time. Portraits of survivors made by renowned photojournalist and U-M alumnus Fred Conrad accompanied this important essay.

In this program, Staples and Conrad will be joined by U-M professor, best-selling author, and historian Scott Ellsworth, author of newly published book The Ground Breaking: An American City and Its Search for Justice, who will facilitate a conversation that will expand our understanding of what has been involved in making the history of Tulsa more visible and, by extension, illuminating the ever-present reality of racial terror and the resiliency of Black communities in our country.

This program is presented by UMMA as part of their ongoing commitment to anti-racist action, and organized in collaboration with professor Scott Ellsworth, a longtime Museum partner, and the Department of Afroamerican and African Studies with support from Wallace House.

Raney Aronson-Rath

Raney Aronson-Rath: A Conversation

Moderated by Lynette Clemetson

Friday, April 2, 2021

8 p.m. ET

Watch Here on April 2

Raney Aronson-Rath is the executive producer of FRONTLINE, PBS’ flagship investigative journalism series, and a leading voice on the future of journalism. Aronson-Rath oversees FRONTLINE’s acclaimed reporting on air and online and directs the series’ editorial vision, executive producing over 20 documentaries each year on critical issues facing the country and world. Under her leadership, FRONTLINE has earned two Oscar nominations, and has won every major award in broadcast journalism, including Peabody Awards, Emmy Awards, an Institutional Peabody Award, and the first Alfred I. duPont-Columbia Gold Baton awarded in a decade. She also serves as a judge for the Livingston Awards for Young Journalists. 

Aronson-Rath has led an ongoing charge for transparency in journalism – including throughthe FRONTLINE Transparency Project, an effort to open up the source material behind FRONTLINE’s reporting. She served as the sole public media representative on the Knight Commission on Trust, Media, and Democracy, a blue-ribbon panel that published a landmark report on the causes and consequences of growing distrust in democratic institutions, including the press. 

This conversation will be moderated by Lynette Clemetson, Director of Wallace House.

This program is a Penny Stamps Speaker Series Event, brought to you with support from Wallace House, Detroit Public Television and PBS Books

Domestic violent extremism: Threats, policies, and new approaches

Monday, March 29, 2021

4 p.m. ET

Register and receive link to watch

Free and open to the public. Join the conversation: #PolicyTalks

In the aftermath of the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, a fierce debate has emerged in the media, academia, and public policy about the threat of domestic violent extremism in the United States and what solutions and new approaches are needed to confront this. Towsley Foundation Policymaker in Residence Javed Ali will host Janet Reitman from the New York Times Magazine and Heidi Beirich, Co-Founder of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism, for an in-depth conversation on these and related issues. They will explore what key factors led to the insurrection on January 6, what policy gaps were exposed in the run-up to the events, and how different approaches are needed to tackle this threat before it worsens.

This event is a Policy Talks at the Ford School and Harry A and Margaret D Towsley Foundation Lecture Series event, co-sponsored by Wallace House.

An Ounce of Prevention: Confronting Concerns about the COVID-19 Vaccine

With Nicholas St. Fleur, Knight-Wallace Reporting Fellow

Moderated by Lynette Clemetson

Thursday, March 25, 2021

11 a.m. ET

Register and receive link to watch

Watch the event on Zoom

Covid-19 has wreaked havoc on our nation for almost a year. Death tolls are hitting their highest daily peak. The advent of a vaccine presents the promise of a way out of this pandemic. However, concerns over the safety of the vaccine in conjunction with the historical reservations of People of Color regarding medical research and treatment have made for a tepid response to the availability of the vaccine. What are the best options to move forward? How do we address the concerns of those reluctant to take the vaccine? Join panelists Dr. Jessie Marshall, Adjunct Clinical Assistant Professor of Internal Medicine, University of Michigan Medical School, Dr. Najibah Rehman, Medical Director, Detroit Health Department and Nicholas St. Fleur, Knight-Wallace Reporting Fellow, University of Michigan for a Town Hall Meeting as we discuss the concerns and offer solutions.

This conversation will be moderated by Lynette Clemetson, Director of Wallace House.

This event is co-sponsored by Wallace House and the University of Michigan Detroit Center.

Journalists Jorge Carrasco, Dana Priest and Laurent Richard

Inside The Cartel Project: The Power of Collaborative Investigative Journalism

With Laurent Richard, Dana Priest, Jorge Carrasco. Moderated by Lynette Clemetson.

The fourth annual Eisendrath Symposium

Wednesday, March 24, 2021

12:30 p.m. ET

Watch the event

In 2012 Mexican journalist Regina Martinez was murdered in her home. She had been reporting on the links between drug cartels, public officials and thousands of individuals who had mysteriously disappeared. Eight years later, her investigations were published simultaneously around the world as The Cartel Project.

Forbidden Stories, a nonprofit newsroom created by Laurent Richard during his year as a Knight- Wallace Fellow at the University of Michigan, organized the project, secretly bringing together an international network of journalists dedicated to continuing the work of Martinez. Sixty reporters from 18 countries, followed her leads to expose a global network of Mexican drug cartels and their political connections around the world.

Join journalists Laurent Richard of Forbidden Stories, Dana Priest of The Washington Post and Jorge Carrasco of Proceso for a behind the scenes look at the global investigation and learn how collaborative journalism can keep alive the work of reporters who are silenced by threats, censorship or death.

Eric Foner and Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Eric Foner: In Conversation

Moderated by Lynette Clemetson

Friday, January 29, 2021

8 p.m. ET

How to Watch

Pausing for a moment of post-inaugural reflection, following one of our nation’s most contentious presidential elections and it’s aftermath, this conversation brings together filmmaker, scholar, journalist and cultural critic, Henry Louis Gates, Jr. with prominent historian Eric Foner to contemplate how a divided nation comes together. The two will discuss Reconstruction, the all-too-brief period following the Civil War when the United States made its first effort to become an interracial democracy. The period saw the Constitution rewritten to incorporate the ideal of racial equality, but ended as a result of a violent backlash that erased many of the gains that had been made, with consequences we still confront as a nation. The program will also preview Gates’ most recent project, “The Black Church,” which will premiere on PBS in February.

Henry Louis Gates, Jr. is the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and Director of the Hutchins Center for African & African American Research at Harvard University. Professor Gates is an author and filmmaker whose work includes “Reconstruction: America after the Civil War,” and the related books, “Dark Sky Rising: Reconstruction and the Dawn of Jim Crow,” with Tonya Bolden, and “Stony the Road: Reconstruction, White Supremacy, and the Rise of Jim Crow.” Gates’ groundbreaking genealogy series, “Finding Your Roots,” is now in its sixth season on PBS.

Eric Foner, DeWitt Clinton Professor Emeritus of History at Columbia University, is one of this country’s most prominent historians. Professor Foner’s publications have concentrated on the intersections of intellectual, political and social history, and the history of American race relations. His books include “Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877,” winner of the Bancroft Prize, Parkman Prize, and the Los Angeles Times Book Award and “The Second Founding: How the Civil War and Reconstruction Remade the Constitution.”

This conversation will be moderated by Lynette Clemetson, Director of Wallace House.

This Penny Stamps Speaker Series event and U-M Reverend Martin Luther King Junior Symposium event is part of the Democracy & Debate theme semester with support from Wallace House and the Ford School of Public Policy.

Majora Carter

Community as Corporation: Talent Retention in Low-Status America
with Majora Carter, Urban Revitalization Strategist

Moderated by Lynette Clemetson

Friday, November 6, 2020

Noon – 1:30 p.m. ET

Learn More

Watch on YouTube

Majora Carter, real estate developer, urban revitalization strategy consultant, MacArthur Fellow, and Peabody Award-winning broadcaster, will speak as part of the Real World Perspectives on Poverty Solutions series. The virtual lectures introduce the key issues regarding the causes and consequences of poverty. The series explores interdisciplinary, real-world poverty solutions from a wide variety of perspectives and encourages the formation of a broad community of learners to engage in these issues together.

This conversation will be moderated by Lynette Clemetson, Director of Wallace House.

This event is part of the Real World Perspectives on Poverty Solutions speaker series in partnership with the William Davidson Institute, Wallace House, the Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation, and Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy

Nicholas Kristof

Tightrope: Americans Reaching for Hope
Nicholas Kristof, New York Times Columnist and Author

Friday, October 30, 2020

Noon – 1:30 p.m. ET

Learn more

Watch on YouTube

Nicholas Kristof, New York Times columnist and author, will speak as part of the Real World Perspectives on Poverty Solutions series. The virtual lectures introduce the key issues regarding the causes and consequences of poverty. The series explores interdisciplinary, real-world poverty solutions from a wide variety of perspectives and encourages the formation of a broad community of learners to engage in these issues together.

This event is part of the Real World Perspectives on Poverty Solutions speaker series in partnership with the William Davidson Institute, Wallace House, the Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation, and Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy

María Elena Salinas and Bryan Llenas

María Elena Salinas and Bryan Llenas: Covering America at a Moment of Rupture

Wednesday, October 21, 2020

5 p.m. ET

Register for a Reminder

From partisan politics to diversity shortfalls in U.S. newsrooms, what does it mean for the reporters on the ground? Hear from two of America’s most prominent Latinx journalists on the value of representation and reporting in this hyper-partisan moment. Join our conversation with CBS News contributor, María Elena Salinas and Fox News national correspondent, Bryan Llenas.

The conversation will include introductions by Robert Yoon, Associate Director of Wallace House.

This is part of the Democracy & Debate Theme Semester Event Series.

Jane Coaston and Daniel Strauss

Covering the Campaign: A conversation with national political reporters

Monday, October 12, 2020

11:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. ET

Learn more

Register for a reminder

Join us for a conversation with two senior political reporters, Jane Coaston of Vox and Daniel Strauss of The Guardian. Hear what it’s like to be a political reporter during an election season and what political and policy issues are at play in this presidential election. Paula Lantz, associate dean of the Ford School and James Hudak Professor of Health Policy will moderate the conversation.

This is part of the Policy Talks @ the Ford School event series and is co-sponsored by Wallace House.

Ken Burns and Isabel Wilkerson

In Conversation: Ken Burns and Isabel Wilkerson
Moderated by Lynette Clemetson

Friday, October 2, 2020

8 p.m. ET

Learn more

How to watch

Our lens on history powerfully influences how we envision and shape the future. Join two of our country’s most accomplished storytellers, documentary filmmaker, Ken Burns, and journalist and author, Isabel Wilkerson, as they discuss the complexities of the American narrative and how grappling with the past might lead us forward.

This conversation will be moderated by Lynette Clemetson, Director of Wallace House.

This is a Penny Stamps Speaker Series event and part of the Democracy & Debate Theme Semester with support from Wallace House and the University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA).

Jason Beaubien “Planes and Pestilence: Emerging Epidemics in a Globalized World”

Jason Beaubien event page30th Graham Hovey Lecture with Jason Beaubien, Knight-Wallace Fellow ’07

The annual Graham Hovey Lecture honors a Knight-Wallace journalist whose career exemplifies the benefits of a fellowship at the University of Michigan and whose ensuing work is at the forefront of national conversation.

“Planes and Pestilence: Emerging Epidemics in a Globalized World”
September 10, 2015
Wallace House

View video »

 
 

Watch the Lecture

Jason Beaubien, global health and development correspondent for NPR and Knight-Wallace alum, returned to Wallace House in September 2015 to deliver the 30th Graham Hovey Lecture. Drawing from his reporting on HIV/AIDS, MERS, SARS and the 2014 Ebola outbreak in West Africa, Beaubien examined the rapid spread of disease in a globalized economy, anticipated the coming of an ambitious virus that “transmits easily, bides its time and its host before making that host sick, and manages to spread all over the world,” then asked if the world was ready for the next pandemic.

From our archives is his talk “Planes and Pestilence: Emerging Epidemics in a Globalized World.”

 

About the Speaker

Jason Beaubien is the global health and development correspondent for NPR, where he was part of a team of reporters that won a Peabody Award in 2015 for their extensive coverage of the West Africa Ebola outbreak. He reports on a range of health issues across the globe. He’s covered the plight of Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh, mass cataract surgeries in Ethiopia, abortion in El Salvador, poisonous gold mines in Nigeria, drug-resistant malaria in Myanmar and tuberculosis in Tajikistan.

Prior to becoming NPR’s global health and development correspondent in 2012, Beaubien spent four years based in Mexico City covering Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean. He served as a foreign correspondent in Sub-Saharan Africa from 2002 to 2006 visiting 27 countries on the continent. Beaubien was one of the first journalists to report on the mass exodus of people out of Sudan’s Darfur region into Chad.

Beaubien earned a B.A. in English from San Francisco State University. As a Knight-Wallace Fellow at Michigan (2006-2007), he studied the intersection of the First and Third World.
 

About the Graham Hovey Lecture

The annual Graham Hovey Lecture recognizes a Knight-Wallace journalist whose career exemplifies the benefits of a fellowship at the University of Michigan and whose ensuing work is at the forefront of national conversation. The event is named for the late Graham Hovey, director of the fellowship program from 1980 to 1986 and a distinguished journalist for The New York Times.

Wallace House Presents “Duterte’s Facebook-Fueled Rise to Power: Manipulating Public Opinion to Capture an Election”

Wallace House Presents Davey Alba of The New York Times and 2019 Livingston Award winner with Ceren Budak of the School of Information and College of Engineering 

Wednesday, January 29 | 4 – 5:30 p.m.
Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy
Annenberg Auditorium
Free and open to the public

Watch the discussion here »

Join the Conversation

In 2018, journalist Davey Alba traveled to the Philippines to investigate Facebook’s breakneck proliferation in that country and President Rodrigo Duterte’s rise to power. She revealed how the politician’s incendiary style aligned perfectly with the tech company’s algorithms that reward entertaining, inflammatory content. From maligning opponents to espousing hardline policies to combat the drug trade, Duterte’s operatives created memes, propaganda and egregious libel that flourished on Facebook. Join Alba and Ceren Budak, associate professor, University of Michigan, for an examination of how demagogic political campaigns worldwide have weaponized the social media platform.

About the Speakers

Davey Alba is a reporter for The New York Times covering technology. Prior to joining the Times, she was a senior reporter at BuzzFeed News. She has been a staff writer at Wired and an editor at Popular Mechanics. Alba grew up in the Philippines and holds a B.A. degree from De La Salle University in Manila and an M.A. in science journalism from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. She received the 2019 Livingston Award for international reporting for her BuzzFeed investigation  “How Duterte Used Facebook to Fuel the Philippine Drug War“.

Ceren Budak is an assistant professor at the University of Michigan School of Information and the College of Engineering. Her research interests lie in the area of computational social science, a discipline at the intersection of computer science, statistics and the social sciences.  Previously, she was a postdoctoral researcher at Microsoft Research New York. Budak received a Ph.D. from the computer science department at University of California, Santa Barbara and a bachelor’s degree in computer science from Bilkent University in Turkey.

About the Moderator

Molly Kleinman is the program manager of the Science, Technology, and Public Policy program at the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy. She studies higher education policy, access to information, and faculty experiences with technology. Kleinman received a Ph.D. in higher education policy from the University of Michigan Center for the Study of Higher and Postsecondary Education, a M.S. degree in information from the University of Michigan School of Information, and a B.A. degree in English and gender studies from Bryn Mawr College.

This Livingston Lecture event is co-sponsored by the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy and the Science, Technology and Public Policy Program.

This event is produced with support from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.

Wallace House Presents “The 1619 Project: Examining the Legacy of Slavery and the Building of a Nation” 

“The 1619 Project: Examining the Legacy of Slavery and the Building of a Nation” with Nikole Hannah-Jones, New York Times reporter in conversation with Rochelle Riley, Director of Arts and Culture at the Detroit Office of the Arts, Culture and Entrepreneurship

January 28, 2020 | 6 p.m.

Rackham Auditorium
915 E Washington St, Ann Arbor, MI 48109

Free and open to the public.

About the Event

Journalism is often called the first draft of history. But journalism can also be used as a powerful tool for examining history.

Four hundred years ago, in August 1619, a ship carrying enslaved Africans arrived in the English colony of Virginia, establishing the system of slavery on which the United States was built.

With The 1619 Project, The New York Times is prompting conversation and debate about the legacy of slavery and its influence over American society and culture. From mass incarceration to traffic jams, the project seeks to reframe our understanding of American history and the fight to live up to our nation’s central promise.

Wallace House Presents the project’s creator, New York Times Magazine reporter Nikole Hannah-Jones, in conversation with Rochelle Riley, longtime journalist and columnist.

1619 at Michigan

In coordination with the event, the Department of Afroamerican and African Studies at the University of Michigan sponsored five discussion sessions on the 1619 podcasts, one for each of the five episodes. Each listening session drew a larger audience than the previous and each episode drove lively, inquisitive conversations about critically important issues facing our nation.

This video, produced by Wallace House, includes some of the voices of students who attended the discussions, their perspectives on The 1619 Project and the continued relevance of the history of slavery.

About the Speaker

Nikole Hannah-Jones is a domestic correspondent for The New York Times Magazine focusing on racial injustice. She has written on federal failures to enforce the Fair Housing Act, the resegregation of American schools and policing in America. Her extensive reporting in both print and radio on the ways segregation in housing and schools is maintained through official action and policy has earned the National Magazine Award, a Peabody and a Polk Award. Her work designing “The 1619 Project” has been met with universal acclaim. The project was released in August 2019 to mark the 400th anniversary of American slavery and re-examines the role it plays in the history of the United States.

Hannah-Jones earned her bachelor’s in history and African-American studies from the University of Notre Dame and her master’s in journalism and mass communication from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

About the Moderator

Rochelle Riley was a 2007-2008 Knight-Wallace Fellow and is the Director of Arts and Culture at the Office of Arts, Culture and Entrepreneurship for the City of Detroit. For  nineteen years she was a columnist at the Detroit Free Press. Riley is author of “The Burden: African Americans and the Enduring Impact of Slavery” and the upcoming “That They Lived: Twenty African Americans Who Changed The World.”  She has won numerous national, state and local honors, including the 2017 Ida B. Wells Award from the National Association of Black Journalists for her outstanding efforts to make newsrooms and news coverage more accurately reflect the diversity of the communities they serve and the 2018 Detroit SPJ Lifetime Achievement Award alongside her longtime friend, Walter Middlebrook. She was a 2016 inductee into the Michigan Journalism Hall of Fame.

This is a 2020 Annual U-M Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Symposium event.

Co-sponsors:
U-M College of Literature, Science, and the Arts
U-M Center for Social Solutions
Office of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion

Documentary Screening “The Jewish Underground”


A documentary screening and conversation with Shai Gal and Jim Burnstein

November 4, 2019 | 2:30 p.m.

Annenberg Auditorium
735 S State St, Ann Arbor, MI 48109

Free and open to the public.

Refreshments will be provided. 
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In the early 1980s, a network of right-wing settlers plotted to blow up the Dome of the Rock, the oldest existing Islamic monument situated on the most volatile site in the Middle East, the Temple Mount. Arrested in 1984 by the Israeli secret service Shin Bet, the conspirators were found to be responsible for several other attacks against Palestinians, including a series of car bomb attacks against West Bank mayors and schemes to blow-up civilian buses at rush-hour. Shai Gal’s documentary recounts the events surrounding their case and reveals the ties between the convicted plotters and leaders of the current Israeli government. Join us for a viewing and stay for a conversation with the documentary’s filmmaker, Shai Gal, and U-M’s director of screenwriting program, Jim Burnstein.

Watch the trailer  “The Jewish Underground”

 

About the Filmmaker:

Shai Gal is an Israeli filmmaker and investigative TV journalist. He was a correspondent for Channel 2 (Israel) and a 2012-2013 Knight-Wallace Fellow studying how extremists control the lives of others.

About the Moderator:

Jim Burnstein is a screenwriter, professor and director of the screenwriting program at the University of Michigan. He managed to beat the odds and make it as a successful Hollywood screenwriter without moving from his home in Plymouth, Michigan. Burnstein’s screen credits include “Renaissance Man,” the 1994 comedy directed by Penny Marshall and starring Danny DeVito; “D3: The Mighty Ducks” (1996-1997); “Ruffian,” the 2007 drama starring Sam Shepard co-written with Garrett Schiff of Los Angeles for ABC and ESPN; and “Love and Honor” (2013) starring Liam Hemsworth and Teresa Palmer, also written with Schiff.

The Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy is a co-sponsor of the event.

Wallace House Presents “Held Hostage: Ensuring the Safe Return of Americans Held Captive Abroad”

“Held Hostage: Ensuring the Safe Return of Americans Held Captive Abroad” with Joel Simon of the Committee to Protect Journalists and Diane Foley of the James W. Foley Legacy Foundation

October 7, 2019 | 4 p.m.

Annenberg Auditorium
735 S State St, Ann Arbor, MI 48109

Free and open to the public.
Watch the discussion here»

 

 

On November 22, 2012, American journalist James W. Foley was kidnapped in northern Syria while reporting for GlobalPost and Agence France-Presse. On August 19, 2014, ISIS posted a video online showing his murder. It’s estimated that hundreds of American journalists, humanitarian aid workers, business people and tourists are taken captive by foreign governments, terrorist groups and criminal organizations each year. How can we better understand U.S. hostage policy and the risks and challenges of bringing our fellow Americans home? Join us for a discussion on negotiating with hostile actors, growing threats to journalists and aid workers both at home and abroad, and the safety measures they should undertake.

Watch the trailer to the documentary “Jim: The James Foley Story”

Panelists:

Joel Simon is the executive director of the Committee to Protect Journalists. He has written widely on media issues, contributing to Slate, Columbia Journalism Review, The New York Review of Books, World Policy Journal, Asahi Shimbun, and The Times of India. He has led numerous international missions to advance press freedom. His book, “The New Censorship: Inside the Global Battle for Media Freedom,” was published in November 2014.

Diane Foley is the mother of five children, including freelance conflict journalist James W. Foley. She founded the James W. Foley Legacy Foundation (JWFLF) in September 2014, less than a month after his public execution. Foley is currently serving as the President and Executive Director of JWFLF. Since 2014, she has led the foundation’s efforts to fund the start of Hostage US and the international Alliance for a Culture of Safety. In 2015, she actively participated in the National Counterterrorism Center hostage review which culminated in the Presidential Policy Directive-30. This directive re-organized U.S. efforts on behalf of Americans taken hostage abroad into an interagency Hostage Recovery Fusion Cell, Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs and a White House Hostage Response Group. Foley worked first as a community health nurse and then as a family nurse practitioner for 18 years. She received both her undergraduate and master’s degrees from the University of New Hampshire in Durham.

 

Moderator:

Margaux Ewen is the executive director of the James W. Foley Legacy Foundation. The foundation’s mission is to advocate for the freedom of all Americans held hostage or unjustly detained abroad and promote the safety of journalists worldwide. Prior to joining the Foley Foundation, Ewen was North America director for Reporters Without Borders. She has two law degrees from the Sorbonne in France and from The George Washington University in the U.S.

Michigan Radio and the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy are a co-sponsors of the event.

Wallace House Presents McKenzie Funk on Climate Change

The 34th Graham Hovey Lecture

“Seeing Green: The Business and Inequity of Climate Change” with McKenzie Funk ’12

September 10, 2019 | 5 p.m.

Wallace House Gardens
620 Oxford Road, Ann Arbor

Welcome remarks by Mark S. Schlissel, President, University of Michigan

Watch the discussion here »

While the issue of climate change rises in importance to the U.S. electorate, players in energy, banking and business are cashing in on the environmental crisis. McKenzie Funk, 2012 Knight-Wallace Fellow, is the author of “Windfall: The Booming Business of Global Warming.” Join him for a critical discussion of drought, rising seas, profiteering, and the hardest truth about climate change: It’s not equally bad for everyone.

Funk writes for Harper’s, National Geographic, Rolling Stone, Outside, The New York Times Magazine and the London Review of Books. His 2014 book “Windfall” won a PEN Literary Award and was named a book of the year by The New Yorker, Mother Jones, Salon and Amazon.com. A National Magazine Award and Livingston Award finalist, Funk won the Oakes Prize for Environmental Journalism for his reporting on the melting Arctic and has received fellowships at the Open Society Foundations and MacDowell Colony for his forthcoming work on data and privacy.

Funk studied philosophy and comparative literature at Swarthmore College and capitalism and the paradigm of endless growth as a 2012 Knight-Wallace Journalism Fellow at the University of Michigan. He speaks five languages and is a native of the Pacific Northwest, where he lives with his wife and sons.

The annual Graham Hovey Lecture recognizes a Knight-Wallace journalist whose career exemplifies the benefits of a fellowship at the University of Michigan and whose ensuing work is at the forefront of national conversation. The event is named for the late Graham Hovey, director of the fellowship program from 1980 to 1986 and a distinguished journalist for The New York Times.

How to Use Audio to Break Assumptions and Create Empathy

Livingston Awards winners Lindsey Smith and Kate Wells speak at 2019 IRE Houston

June 14 | 3:45 p.m.
Texas F
2019 IRE Houston

 

Meet the 2019 winners of the Livingston Awards for Young Journalists. Michigan Radio and NPR’s podcast “Believed” moved beyond the headlines for an intimate look at how a detective, prosecutor and army of survivors brought down former U.S.A. Gymnastics doctor and serial sex offender, Larry Nassar. Learn how Kate Wells and Lindsey Smith investigated Nassar’s assaults through the voices and experiences of his victims and their families to capture listeners and hit the number one spot on the iTunes chart.

 

Panelists:

  • Lindsey Smith, 2019 Livingston Award winner for local reporting. Michigan Radio’s Investigative Reporter. Mom of two girls. Lover of The Great Lakes. Lindsey Smith teamed up with Kate Wells on “Believed,” a podcast exploring how former sports doctor Larry Nassar got away with child sexual abuse for decades. The podcast was awarded a Livingston Award and Peabody, two firsts for the station. Smith’s 2015 documentary, “Not Safe to Drink,” led Michigan Radio’s award-winning coverage of the Flint water crisis.
  • Kate Wells, 2019 Livingston Award winner for local reporting. Kate’s a reporter at Michigan Radio and the co-host of the Livingston Award-winning NPR podcast, Believed. @KateLouiseWells

 

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