Events

Past Event

Journalism + Crisis

April 16, 2024
6:00 PM
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The Forum at Columbia University (601 West 125th Street New York, NY 10027)

Three specialized panels will discuss some of the most critical questions facing journalists and journalism today, particularly in an international context.

I. Ethical Responsibilities and Personal Risk

Journalists play a crucial role in fostering democratic discourse, one that comes with ethical responsibilities and personal risks. This panel explores how journalists navigate difficult and complex ethical questions, particularly when working with vulnerable contributors and how they assess issues of risk and endangerment when covering conflict and violence.

Moderated by Lydia Polgreen, Committee to Protect Journalists

  • Saidu Tejan-Thomas, former host of the podcast Resistance and producer of the Peabody Award-winning podcast Uncivil
  • Sylvie KauffmannLe Monde foreign affairs columnist and former Editor-in-Chief
  • Habiba Nosheen, Peabody and Emmy Award-winning Pakistani journalist and a filmmaker
  • Moderated by Lydia Polgreen, board member of the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) and an opinion columnist at The New York Times

II. Collaborating Across Borders

Cross-border collaboration is increasingly vital in reporting on global crises. This panel explores how journalists can share sources and data to strengthen the scope and reach of their reporting and how a collaborative approach helps them become resilient in the face of coercion, censorship, intimidation, and threats of violence.

  • Laurent Richard, investigative journalist and founder of Forbidden Stories
  • Asia BalluffierLe Monde head of visual investigations
  • Hoda Osman, Executive Editor of Arab reporters for investigative journalism (ARIJ)
  • Moderated by Bruce Shapiro, Director of the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma

III. Trust and Transparency

In an era of rampant misinformation, disinformation, and eroding trust in the media, how can journalists and journalism outlets create meaningful relationships with their constituents? This panel examines the role of transparency in building bridges between journalists and the communities they serve – and what it means to democratize journalism.

  • Elvire CamusLe Monde in English founder and Editor-in-Chief
  • Gilles ParisLe Monde editorialist and a foreign affairs columnist
  • Robe Imbriano, Emmy-award winning journalist and Director of the Ira A. Lipman Center for Journalism and Civil and Human Rights at Columbia University
  • Moderated by Jelani Cobb, staff writer at The New Yorker and Dean of Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism

Free and Open to the Public. Reception to follow

Panelists

Asia Balluffier is a journalist and head of visual investigations at Le Monde. The visual investigations unit was created in 2019 during the Yellow Vest movement, when Le Monde realized the power of open source intelligence (OSINT) through collecting, verifying images and reconstructing scenes of police violence. Now its visual investigations are primarily focused on international crises and human rights violations.

Elvire Camus is Le Monde in English's founder and editor-in-chief. A breaking news editor on the French side from 2017 to 2021, she particularly worked on developing the live blog format and on how to build bridges between journalists and readers. She had previously covered the 2017 French presidential election and written about France's relation to its Muslim population. She has been working at Le Monde for 11 years.

Robe Imbriano is the Emmy Award-winning showrunner of the Hulu series Killing County and co-creator of the Netflix documentary series Amend. He was a showrunner of the launch of Soul of a Nation, the very first major broadcast network series about Black life in America, nominated for 11 Emmy Awards in its first season. He is the Ira A. Lipman Associate Professor of Journalism at Columbia Journalism School and Director of the Ira. A. Lipman Center for Journalism and Civil and Human Rights.

Sylvie Kauffmann is a foreign affairs columnist at the French newspaper Le Monde. She is also a regular contributor to the opinion pages of the Financial Times and has been a contributing writer for the New York Times. She was the editor-in-chief of Le Monde in 2010-2011. She joined the newspaper in 1987 as Moscow correspondent. Since then, she has been Eastern and Central Europe correspondent, US correspondent based in Washington DC, New York Bureau Chief and reporter-at-large in Asia, based in Singapore. Prior to joining Le Monde, Sylvie Kauffmann worked for Agence France-Presse as a foreign correspondent, in London, New Caledonia (South Pacific), Warsaw and Moscow. She graduated from Faculté de droit d’Aix-en-Provence, Institut d’Etudes Politiques d’Aix-en-Provence, Universidad de Deusto (Bilbao, Spain) and Centre de Formation des Journalistes in Paris. Sylvie Kauffmann is the author of Les Aveuglés – Comment Paris et Berlin ont ouvert la voie à la Russie (2023), a book about France, Germany and Putin’s Russia.

Habiba Nosheen is a three-time Emmy award-winning investigative reporter and filmmaker. She is currently the Laventhol Visiting Assistant Professor of Journalism at Columbia University. She is the host of the investigative podcast Conviction: The Disappearance of Nuseiba Hasanwith Gimlet Media and Spotify Studios. Previously, she was the co-host of CBC News investigative documentary program, The Fifth Estate and served as an investigative correspondent for CBC News. Prior to the CBC, she was with CBS NEWS: 60 Minutes in New York. Additionally, she was also the director and reporter for the award-winning documentary, Outlawed in Pakistan. Her radio documentary, What Happened at Dos Erres for This American Life was honored with a Peabody award. Born in Pakistan she moved to Canada at the age of nine as a refugee. She currently splits her time between New York and Toronto. She is a graduate of Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism. Website.

Hoda Osman is executive editor for Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism (ARIJ), where she focuses on cross-border investigations and international collaborations. Osman is an investigative journalist and trainer based in New York. She is the president of the Arab and Middle Eastern Journalists Association (AMEJA). She worked at the investigative unit of ABC News, with the investigative unit at CBS News and as France 24's correspondent. She also worked with FrontlinePBS and APTN. She has taught investigative journalism worldwide. Osman has a bachelor's in journalism and a master's in Middle Eastern studies from the American University in Cairo.

Gilles Paris is a Le Monde editorialist and a foreign affairs columnist. He was involved in thinking about the creation of Le Monde in English on his return from Washington, where he was a correspondent from 2014 to 2021. Previously, he headed Le Monde's international service after reporting from the Middle East for more than ten years, including as a correspondent in Jerusalem during the second Intifada.

Laurent Richard is a French award-winning documentary filmmaker, producer, and founder of Forbidden Stories, a global network of journalists whose mission is to pursue the investigations of reporters who have been murdered, jailed or threatened. He has directed documentaries for 20 years and was a Knight-Wallace Fellow in 2017 at the University of Michigan. He was named European Journalist of the year 2018 by the Prix Europa in Berlin.

Saidu Tejan-Thomas Jr. is a multidisciplinary storyteller. He produced the Peabody Award-winning history podcast, Uncivil, and edited the Pulitzer Prize award-winning podcast, Stolen. He was the co-creator and host of the Spotify original podcast, Resistance, chronicling the 2020 Black Lives Matter Uprisings.

Moderators

Jelani Cobb joined the Columbia Journalism School faculty in 2016 and became Dean in 2022. He has been a staff writer at The New Yorker since 2015. He received a Peabody Award for his 2020 PBS Frontline film Whose Vote Counts? and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Commentary in 2018. He has also been a political analyst for MSNBC since 2019. Dr. Cobb was educated at Jamaica High School in Queens, NY, Howard University, where he earned a B.A. in English, and Rutgers University, where he completed his MA and doctorate in American History in 2003.

Bruce Shapiro is Executive Director of the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma, a project of Columbia Journalism School encouraging innovative reporting on violence, conflict and tragedy worldwide. An award-winning reporter on human rights, criminal justice and politics, Shapiro is a contributing editor at The Nation and U.S. correspondent for Late Night Live on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s Radio National. He teaches ethics at Columbia Journalism School, where he is adjunct professor and Senior Advisor for Academic Affairs, and he also teaches investigative reporting at Yale University. He is the author of “Shaking the Foundations: 200 Years of Investigative Journalism in America,” and a founding board member of the Global Investigative Journalism Network.

Lydia Polgreen is the vice chair of the board of the Committee to Protect Journalists and an opinion columnist at The New York Times. Previously, she served as managing director of Gimlet, a podcast studio at Spotify, and as editor-in-chief of HuffPost, leading a team of hundreds of journalists publishing 16 editions across the globe in nine languages. Her leadership at HuffPost followed a 15-year career at The New York Times that included roles as associate masthead editor, deputy international editor, South Africa bureau chief, a correspondent for the New Delhi bureau and chief of the West Africa bureau.

Organizers

Columbia Global Centers | Paris addresses pressing global issues that are at the forefront of international education and research: agency and gender; climate and the environment; critical dialogues for just societies; encounters in the arts; and health and medical science.

Le Monde is France’s leading newspaper. It has provided news coverage, unique perspectives and in-depth analysis to francophones all around the world since 1944. Le Monde in English, founded in 2022, brings the best of our award-winning journalism from France, Europe and all around the world, to anglophones.

For more than a century, the Columbia Maison Française has been a leader in fostering intellectual and cultural exchange between the United States and France, Europe, and the French-speaking world.

Sponsors

This series is co-sponsored by Columbia Global, the Graduate School of Journalism, the Dart Center, the Alliance Program, the Society of Fellows and Heyman Center for the Humanities, the Middle East Institute, and Forbidden Stories.