4 Journalists Panal Discussion at JA FEST 2023
Channel: Ja Theatre
Date: 2023-04-17

4 Journalists Panal Discussion at JA FEST 2023

4 Interrupted Lives Exhibition
This exhibition is dedicated to four journalists who died in the line of duty: Veronica Guerin (Ireland), Anna Politkovskaya (Russia), Natalia Estemirova (Chechnya) and Daphne Caruana Galizia (Malta). It celebrates their courage, their resilience, their belief in freedom of expression, the importance of bearing witness and chronicling the truth without fear or favour, and the universality of human rights.

These four women wove their lives around a singular idea, that of a society free of corruption, brutality and oppression. We believe their lives and work exemplify values that are worth living by and ideals worth aspiring to.

They personify the values-based approach to journalism that not only records facts but also speaks to human values and emotional truth. We hope that glimpses into their achievements and struggles – their twinned personal and  professional realities as people, mothers, professionals – will kickstart a dialogue on the shifting interface between journalistic investigations and the ethics and function of truth in contemporary society.

This exhibition will juxtapose short films displaying extracts from their work or their descriptions of it with material evoking rituals from their personal lives. This will provide a basis for panel discussions and leiturias in a companion event at Casa Fernando Pessoa on April 14 on journalistic truth, freedom and narrativization with journalists and activists who have a lived-in experience of truth telling and standing up to power hierarchies.

This is how we remember them and honour them and their ethos.

We will kick off the exhibition with a vernissage on April 13  at 4 pm with an introduction by Lana Estemirova (journalist) and Martina Urso (activist from the Daphne Foundation).

13-18 APRIL 2023
FRIDAY, APRIL 14
PANEL DISCUSSION
This event celebrates the audacity of truth-telling while raising questions. What is the biggest worry of journalists working in the field today? How effective are the organisations that have sprung up over the last two decades to protect journalists? Are activist organisations playing a complementary role? What is the role of the public apart from consumption of news? What else can the public do?

How has social media changed the journalistic landscape in the last couple of decades? Is social media a friend or a foe of today’s journalist? In a world torn by conflict, is there a dividing line between “impartial” journalism and activism or have they become impossibly intertwined?
These issues will be highlighted through a panel discussion with journalists and activists who have experienced the harsh choices and harsher consequences of bearing witness to the truth in troubled corners of the world, ranging from Lebanon and Yemen to Chechnya and Malta, closer to home.