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

 

Sponsored by the Knight Foundation

The Threat to Global Press Freedom: Censorship, Imprisonment and Murder

Vanessa Gezari, Itai Anghel, Leonard Niehoff and Jawad Sukhanyar
Clockwise: Vanessa Gezari, Itai Anghel, Leonard Niehoff and Jawad Sukhanyar

Knight-Wallace Fellows Vanessa Gezari, Itai Anghel and Jawad Sukhanyar with media law scholar Leonard Niehoff at the Eisendrath Symposium

March 26, 2019 | 3 p.m.
Rackham Amphitheatre, fourth floor
915 Washington Street, Ann Arbor

Watch the discussion »

 

 

 

On stage with the foreign correspondents of Wallace House at the Eisendrath Symposium

Harmful rhetoric towards journalists and the press casts doubt about the future of a free press and the safety of reporters. This was evident following the murders of five staff members at the Capital Gazette and Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi. As democratic nations fall short in protecting press freedom, what are the implications for journalists of all nations? In alarming numbers, reporters around the world are persecuted, jailed, exiled and even killed for exposing the truth.

Knight-Wallace journalists Vanessa Gezari of The Intercept, Itai Anghel of Israeli TV, and Jawad Sukhanyar of The New York Times discuss how threats and state censorship impact their work. In a discussion led by the University’s media law and First Amendment scholar Professor Leonard Niehoff, they share their experiences reporting from Eastern Europe, the Middle East, South Asia and Africa and discuss what can be done to protect journalists and foster press freedom around the world.

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

 

About the Speakers

Vanessa Gezari is a 2012 Knight-Wallace Fellow and The Intercept’s national security editor. She has reported from four continents, nine countries, and many corners of the United States for outlets such as the Washington Post, Slate and the New Republic. She is the author of “The Tender Soldier,” about an experimental U.S. military program and its use in Afghanistan, and an adjunct professor at Columbia Journalism School.

Itai Anghel is a 2019 Knight-Wallace Fellow and a correspondent and documentary filmmaker for UVDA, a weekly investigative current affairs and documentary program on Israeli TV, Channel 2, where he also worked as a senior foreign affairs correspondent. Previously, he was a correspondent and chief editor of foreign affairs at Galatz (GLZ) Radio Station. He received the Sokolov Award, the highest award for outstanding journalism in Israel, in 2017, and he is a five-time recipient of the Best TV Documentary in Israel award from the Israeli Forum of Documentary Filmmakers.

Jawad Sukhanyar is a 2019 Knight-Wallace Fellow and a reporter for The New York Times in Afghanistan. He joined the Times in 2011 and is now the longest serving reporter in the paper’s Kabul bureau. Sukhanyar covers human rights and women’s issues and also covered the 2014 disputed Afghan presidential election. He worked as a researcher on a book about a couple who escaped an Afghan honor killing for the author Rod Nordland. Until 2011, he was a freelance reporter and researcher for various foreign news organizations. He also served as interpreter and researcher on a biography of former Afghan president Hamid Karzai for the author Bette Dam.

About the Moderator
Leonard Niehoff  is a professor at the University of Michigan Law School, where he teaches courses in Media Law, First Amendment, and the history of banned books, among other things. He is the author of more than one-hundred articles, many in the field of free speech, and is currently at work on a book about the First Amendment. He has also practiced media and First Amendment law for over thirty years, representing numerous print publications, broadcasters, online media, and journalists. He is a graduate of the University of Michigan Law School.

 

Free and open to the public.

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

Michigan Radio and the Center for Russian, East European & Eurasian Studies are co-sponsors of the event.

Livingston Winners at The Power of Narrative Conference

 

Longform Narrative on a Breaking News Cycle: Crafting the “74 Seconds” Podcast

March 23 | 10: a.m.
Boston University, George Sherman Union
Backcourt

Wallace House travels to Boston University’s The Power of Narrative conference with the 2018 Livingston Award winning Minnesota Public Radio team. Riham Feshir, Tracy Mumford and Meg Martin will share how they traced the shooting death of Philando Castile, followed the officer’s courtroom trial and brought contextual insights about race, law enforcement and justice together for a 22-episode podcast, while simultaneously reporting the breaking news story for radio and the internet.

Speakers:

  • Riham Feshir is a reporter at Minnesota Public Radio currently reporting on immigration policy, race and culture. Feshir graduated from the University of Minnesota’s journalism program and started her career working at community newspapers in greater Minnesota and the Twin Cities area. She came to MPR four years ago as an evening general assignment reporter chasing breaking news. She quickly jumped into coverage of police shootings in the Twin Cities and the aftermath of high profile incidents including the shooting of Jamar Clark and the Minneapolis police fourth precinct occupation that followed. She reported on marches, protests and highway shutdowns, along with other daily news and enterprise stories on various topics including mental health and vulnerable adults.

 

  • Meg Martin is a managing editor on the enterprise team at Minnesota Public Radio. She joined the MPR newsroom as a digital editor after a short stint at MPR’s Public Insight Network and five years in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Roanoke. She is a graduate of the University of Notre Dame. Martin was the editor behind the ’74 Seconds’ 22-episode podcast, for which she received the 2018 Livingston Award for Local Reporting.

 

  • Tracy Mumford is a podcast developer producer for American Public Media, the parent company of Minnesota Public Radio. A graduate of the University of Chicago and the Salt institute, she served a one-year term with AmeriCorps and worked at nonprofit art organizations before landing her first journalism job at Minnesota Public Radio. As a producer, Mumford joined the team in writing, reporting and producing every episode of ’74 Seconds.’ The team received several awards for the podcast. Mumford  and two of her colleagues also received the 2018 Livingston Award for Local Reporting.

Wallace House Presents an Evening with Ronan Farrow and Ken Auletta


Ken Auletta and Ronan Farrow

“The Weinstein Effect: Breaking the Stories That Spurred a Movement”

Tuesday, March 19
Rackham Auditorium

Watch the discussion here »











 





 





Wallace House Presents an evening with Ronan Farrow and Ken Auletta









In October, 2017, The New Yorker published reporter Ronan Farrow’s exposé detailing the first on-the-record accounts of alleged assault and rape by Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein, followed by a series of pieces on the systems that enabled him. Farrow’s investigation helped spur a worldwide movement that redefined our cultural and institutional responses to sexual harassment and assault. Word of Weinstein’s abusive behavior had circulated among Hollywood and media circles for years. In 2002, the acclaimed author and New Yorker media writer Ken Auletta published a deeply reported profile detailing the powerful producer’s threats and intimidation tactics, but he could not get any of the women alleging sexual assault to go on the record. What changed—in Hollywood, in media, in society—to make 2017 such a turning point?





Join Wallace House Presents for an evening with reporters Ken Auletta and Ronan Farrow as they discuss their individual attempts to get to the truth about Harvey Weinstein and how reporters ultimately stood together in confronting one of the biggest stories in recent memory.





Questions for speakers? Tweet us using #WallaceHouse.





 





About the Speakers









Ronan Farrow is a contributing writer for The New Yorker and the author of “War and Peace: The End of Diplomacy and the Decline of American Influence.” His next book, “Catch and Kill,” about how Weinstein and other power brokers wield influence to suppress explosive stories, is forthcoming. In 2018, Farrow received a Livingston Award for his New Yorker investigation of Harvey Weinstein. A native of New York City, he is a lawyer and former government advisor. Farrow is a graduate of Bard College and Yale Law School.





Ken Auletta is an author and media writer who has written the “Annals of Communications” profiles and essays for The New Yorker since 1992. He joined the Livingston Awards national judging panel 37 years ago and is now the program’s longest serving judge. He recused himself from voting in the national reporting category in 2018. The author of twelve books, his most recent book, “Frenemies: The Epic Disruption of the Ad Business (and Everything Else),” was published in 2018. His writing and journalism has been recognized with numerous awards and honors including the 2002 National Magazine Award and a Lifetime Achievement Award by the Society of Silurians.









This event is co-sponsored by
U-M College of Literature, Arts and Science
Department of American Culture
Department of Women’s Studies
Department of English Language and Literature





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







			


	



			
				

	

		
U.S. Military and Counter-Terrorism in Africa: Is Anybody Watching?

				

					

			


	

		
 


John Ciorciari, Christina Goldbaum and Bronwyn Bruton
John Ciorciari, Christina Goldbaum and Bronwyn Bruton


Wallace House Presents Christina Goldbaum, Bronwyn Bruton and John Ciorciari  


NEW DATE

Wednesday, March 13 | 4 – 5:30 p.m.

Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy

Annenberg Auditorium

Free and open to the public


Watch video »


 


Join the Conversation


In 2017, journalist Christina Goldbaum’s on-the-ground investigation in Somalia exposed a U.S. military raid alleged to have resulted in the deaths of 10 Somali civilians. From a peacekeeping and nation–building force to troop build-ups, drone strikes and counter-terrorism operations, the U.S. rules of engagement are changing. Join Goldbaum, the Atlantic Council ‘s Bronwyn Bruton and the Ford School’s John Ciorciari for an examination of the U.S. military’s presence and role in Africa and the implications for civilian lives and global security.


 


About the Speakers


Christina Goldbaum is a reporter for The New York Times covering immigration. Prior to joining the Times, she was a freelance foreign correspondent in East Africa, where she spent a year in Somalia reporting on U.S. national security issues. Goldbaum received the 2018 Livingston Award for international reporting for her story of the U.S. military’s alleged role in the massacre of Somali civilians.  Goldbaum also broke stories on the build up of a secretive U.S. military post and the details of the first two U.S. combat deaths in Somalia since Black Hawk Down.


Bronwyn Bruton is director of programs and studies and deputy director of the Africa Center at the Atlantic Council. Recognized as an authority on the Horn of Africa,  her articles and editorials about the region appear regularly in Foreign Affairs, The New York Times, Foreign Policy magazine and other publications. Bruton has held fellowships at the Council on Foreign Relations and the Center for Strategic and International Studies.


 


About the Moderator


John Ciorciari is an associate professor of public policy and director of the Ford School’s International Policy Center and director of the Weiser Diplomacy Center. His research focuses on international law and politics in the Global South.


 


This Livingston Lecture event is co-sponsored by the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy and the International Policy Center.


 


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


 




			


	



			
				

	

		
Wallace House Presents “Prisoner: My 544 Days in an Iranian Prison”

				

					

			


	

		
Journalist and author, Jason Rezaian


“Prisoner: My 544 Days in an Iranian Prison” with journalist and author Jason Rezaian


March 12, 2019 | 4 p.m. to 5:30 p.m.


Lydia Mendelssohn Theatre


Free and open to the public.


Book signing by author will follow the event.


Watch video»


 


In July 2014 Washington Post journalist and former Tehran bureau chief, Jason Rezaian, was arrested by Iranian police on charges of espionage. What followed was a harrowing 544 day stint in an Iranian prison, and an extraordinary campaign led by his family, the Washington Post, and prominent journalism organizations for his release. Join Rezaian for a discussion on his book “Prisoner,” which details his 18-month imprisonment in a maximum security facility, his journey through the Iranian legal system and how his release became part of the Iran nuclear deal.


Jason Rezaian is a contributor to CNN and  a writer for Global Opinions at the Washington Post. He served as the paper’s correspondent in Tehran from 2012 to 2016. Born and raised in Marin Country, California, Rezaian is a graduate of Eugene Lang College, New School University.


 


Iranian Studies, Global Islamic Studies Center and Center for Middle Eastern and North African Studies are a co-sponsors of this event.


			


	



			
				

	

		
Wallace House Presents María Elena Salinas with journalists Ginger Thompson and Aaron Nelsen, and policy expert Ann Lin

				

					

			


	

		
 


María Elena Salinas, Ann Lin, Aaron Nelsen and Ginger Thompson to discuss the border crisis
María Elena Salinas, Ann Lin, Aaron Nelsen and Ginger Thompson (clockwise) 


Spanish language translation available here


“Crisis at the Border: Shifting Policy in a Country of Immigrants”


October 9, 2018 | 4:30 p.m.

The Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy

Annenberg Auditorium


Free and open to the public.

View video »


 


 


Join the conversation

From zero tolerance and separation of families to harsh rhetoric likening some immigrants to “animals,” America’s current approach to immigration has sent shock waves through both sides of the Rio Grande. Now a country built on the shoulders of immigrants is deeply divided on how to stem the current crisis. Join acclaimed journalist María Elena Salinas as she talks with a Ford School policy expert and reporters who have covered both sides of the U.S.- Mexico border and the complex web of issues driving the immigration debate.


 


Moderator


    

  • María Elena Salinas is a Livingston Awards national judge and the host of newsmagazine show, “The Real Story with María Elena Salinas,” on the Investigation Discovery network. She is the former co-anchor of Univision Network’s flagship daily newscast, “Noticiero Univision,” and weekly newsmagazine, “Aquí y Ahora.” Called the “Voice of Hispanic America” by The New York Times, Salinas is the most recognized Hispanic female journalist in the United States.
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Panelists


    

  • Ann Lin is an associate professor of public policy in the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan. She teaches courses on public policy implementation, gender and politics, qualitative research methods and immigration. Lin is currently studying potential immigration policies and the beliefs of American immigrants, with a special focus on Arab Americans.
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  • Aaron Nelsen is a 2019 Knight-Wallace Fellow and the Rio Grande Valley Bureau Chief for the San Antonio Express-News. Previously, he was a Time correspondent and New York Times contributor in Chile. In the past year, he documented a small group of community activists in the Rio Grande Valley as they worked to save a wildlife preserve from the path of President Trump’s border wall. As a Knight-Wallace Fellow at the University of Michigan, Nelsen is studying the effect of militarization on communities along the U.S.-Mexico border.
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  • Ginger Thompson is a senior reporter at ProPublica. A Pulitzer Prize winner, she spent fifteen years at The New York Times, where she served as an investigative reporter, Washington D.C. correspondent and Mexico City Bureau Chief. Thompson was part of a team of national reporters  that was awarded a 2000 Pulitzer Prize for the series “How Race is Lived in America.” Thompson’s 2018 investigation about the Drug Enforcement Administration’s role in a Mexican massacre was nominated for a National Magazine Award.
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Co-sponsored by the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy, the National Center for Institutional Diversity, the Office of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion and the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies.


 


 


			


	



			
				

	

		
Wallace House Presents ProPublica’s Bernice Yeung

				

					

			


	

		
The 33rd Graham Hovey Lecture


“Unheard Voices of the #MeToo Movement: Telling the Stories of America’s Most Vulnerable Workers” with Bernice Yeung ’16


September 18, 2018 | 5 p.m.


Wallace House Gardens

620 Oxford Road, Ann Arbor


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


View video »


Bernice Yeung, 2016 Knight-Wallace Fellow, will discuss the sexual harassment and assault that migrant farmworkers and night-shift janitors routinely face on the job and examine what these workers have done to fight back and seek justice.


Yeung is a reporter with ProPublica who covers labor and employment. Previously, she was a reporter with Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting, where she was part of the national Emmy-nominated “Rape in the Fields” reporting team, which investigated the sexual assault of immigrant farmworkers. The project won an Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Award and a Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award and was a finalist for the Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting. Yeung also was the lead reporter for the national Emmy-nominated “Rape on the Night Shift” team, which examined sexual violence against female janitors. That work won an Investigative Reporters and Editors Award, the Society of Professional Journalists Sigma Delta Chi Award for investigative journalism, and the Third Coast/Richard H. Driehaus Foundation Competition. Those projects led to her first book, “In a Day’s Work: The Fight to End Sexual Violence Against America’s Most Vulnerable Workers.”


Yeung has a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Northwestern University and a master’s degree from Fordham University, where she studied sociology with a focus on crime and justice. ​​As a 2015-2016 Knight-Wallace Fellow at the University of Michigan,​​ she explored how journalists can employ social science survey methods in their reporting.


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.


Michigan Radio is a co-sponsor of the event.


Read the conversation between Wallace House Director Lynette Clemetson and Bernice Yeung ’16 regarding Yeung’s work in the context of the #MeToo Movement.