(13 Mar) George Brock: Journalism, disinformation and Facebook

Journalism, disinformation and Facebook: How to survive an earthquake

Speaker:  George Brock
Date:  Wednesday, 13 March 2019
Time:  2:30 – 4:30pm
Venue:  CPD 2.42, 2/F, The Jockey Club Tower, Centennial Campus, The University of Hong Kong (Directions)

All are welcome. No registration required.

News journalism across much of the world is being battered by a long digital disruption. Journalists have always had to adapt to changes in technology, law and society, but online communication has radically redistributed the power to publish and is rewriting the rules of the public sphere. Journalism which pursues the truth is now one kind of content among many distributed by social networks. Platforms such as Facebook stand accused of spreading disinformation on a vast scale. This may have distorted the result of the 2016 vote in the UK to leave the European Union (due to take effect at the end of March 2019). This lecture by George Brock will suggest ways in which people can agree once again on how to recognize truth and to debate differences peacefully even in polarized societies.

About George Brock

George Brock is a journalist, consultant and Visiting Professor at City, University of London, where he directed the journalism school from 2009-14.

He began his reporting career at the Yorkshire Evening Press and The Observer, joining The Times in 1981. After starting at The Times as a feature writer, he became a features editor and, in 1984, op-ed page editor. He was subsequently foreign editor, Brussels bureau chief, European Editor, Managing Editor and Saturday Editor.

He consults and advises in newsrooms, start-ups and on research projects. He is on the board of the Bureau of Investigative Journalism and Gresham College. He was on the board of the World Editors Forum (2001-14) and WEF’s president 2004-08. He has served as a member of the executive board of the International Press Institute.

He broadcasts, lectures and is the author of Out of Print: Newspapers, Journalism and the Business of News in the Digital Age (2013). His study The Right To Be Forgotten: privacy and the media in the digital age was published by the Reuters Institute, Oxford University, in 2016. He blogs at http://georgebrock.net and tweets at @georgeprof.