GCMS 2022 – How Can Journalism Counter War Propaganda?
Since February 2022, the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine has been the dominant topic in media coverage across the world. Misinformation, fake news and propaganda have become widely used tools to mislead the public in various societies around the world and shape the narratives about the war.
How can you distinguish between what is true, what is false and what is misleading? Does the spread of misinformation and propaganda impact the credibility of media? What lessons have media learned since the annexation of Crimea and the beginning of the war in the Donbass in 2014? How does propaganda target different geographical regions and demographics? And how can journalists cover and respond to propaganda narratives to inform their audiences?
For the fourth time, the German Canadian Media Symposium (GCMS), organized by the German Consulate General in Toronto in cooperation with Massey College and the University of Toronto, is bringing outstanding media professionals from Germany and Canada together to discuss a pressing issue confronting journalists this year.
Join us online or in person for the following sessions
Countering Propaganda Through Frontline Journalism
Panelists: Zuhal Ahad, Marc Dugge and Michelle Shephard. Moderated by Omayra Issa
How to Address Impacts of Propaganda in Diverse Workspaces
Jan Bock in conversation with Wanja Gathu
War Propaganda and Counter-Propaganda in Social Media
Panelists: Anatoliy Gruzd, Sabine Muscat and Aaron Wendland. Moderated by Hannah Hoag
MASSEY MEMBERS: Please login using your registered Massey email to receive applicable discounts and offers.
Speakers
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Michelle Shephardinvestigative reporter, author and filmmakerMichelle Shephard is an award-winning journalist, author and filmmaker who has covered issues of terrorism and civil rights since the 9/11 attacks. During her two decades at the Toronto Star, she reported from more than 25 countries, including Somalia, Yemen, Syria, Pakistan and went behind the wire at the U.S. Naval prison in Guantanamo Bay more than two dozen times. Shephard was the co-director and producer of the Emmy-nominated documentary Guantanamo’s Child, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2015 and won Canada Screen Awards for best direction and the Donald Brittain Award for Best Social or Political Program.
299508_286317648054157_1758400370_nHer other films include CBC’s The Way Out (2018, co-director, co-producer, writer), NFB’s Uyghurs: Prisoners of the Absurd (2015, producer) and the Peabody Award-winning Under Fire: Journalists in Combat (2011, associate producer and consultant). She is a three-time recipient of the National Newspaper Award; and the Governor-General’s Michener Award for public service journalism, and the author of Guantanamo’s Child: The Untold Story of Omar Khadr, published in 2008 and Decade of Fear: Reporting from Terrorism’s Grey Zone, published in 2011. -
Zuhal Ahad2022-2023 Journalism Fellow - CJFE / Massey College Fellow
Zuhal Ahad is a journalist from Afghanistan who has worked as a multimedia Women’s Affairs journalist with the BBC in Afghanistan. Prior to this, she worked as a trainer and Assistant Director to the Afghan Women Journalists Union where she delivered and coordinated training programs for provincial Afghan women journalists about report writing, ways of gathering information for writing reports, anti-harassment law, and access to information law. In addition, she worked as a research officer with a consultancy company for more than 2 years. During her studies, she also worked as an English language instructor. Zuhal holds two bachelor’s degrees; a major in business administration; focusing in management from the American University of Afghanistan and bachelors in communication and journalism from Kabul University. After the changes in Afghanistan, Zuhal fled Afghanistan to Dubai and then to Toronto, Canada. She is currently working as a freelance journalist who has published articles with the Guardian and Al Jazeera.
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Wanja Gathu2022-2023 Journalism Fellow - Gordon N. Fisher / JHR Fellow
Wanja Gathu is a Kenyan Journalist with over 15 years experience, working with both local and international media. She is a passionate human rights defender and a strong advocate for social justice and peace building. She aspires to a world where people’s rights are respected and protected – a world free from injustice and all forms of discrimination. She has written and published hard-hitting articles that speak truth to power and calling out government excesses in her home country Kenya. Wanja holds a Diploma in Mass Communication from the Kenya Institute of Mass Communication and is an avid student of Peace building and Conflict Transformation. She the mother of two teenage sons. She enjoys travelling, reading and writing.
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Hannah Hoag2022-2023 Journalism Fellow - Webster McConnell Fellow
Hannah Hoag is a Toronto-based science journalist and editor. She is the deputy editor and the energy and environment editor at The Conversation Canada, was the founding managing editor of Arctic Deeply, covering circumpolar issues, and is part of the group that wrote The Science Writers’ Handbook, a guide to the craft and business of popular science writing. She has covered science, medicine and the environment for 20 years, freelancing for the New York Times, the Globe and Mail, Maclean’s, the Atlantic, Wired, Science and Nature, among others.
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Omayra Issa2022-2023 CBC / Radio-Canada Journalism Fellow, Massey College
Omayra Issa is a senior reporter for CBC News. She co-created and co-produced CBC’s Black on the Prairies, which brought to life stories detailing Black lives past, present, and future in Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and Alberta. She reports on all major stories in Saskatchewan for a national audience, including COVID-19, the Humboldt Broncos bus crash tragedy, and the shooting of Colten Boushie. She is a YWCA Women of Distinction Award nominee. She sits on the board of the Canadian Association of Journalists and mentors early career journalists. She is fluent in five languages.
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Jan-Jonathan Bock
Dr. Jan-Jonathan Bock is an expert in democratic life, trust in the state and social transformations. He holds a PhD in Social Anthropology from the University of Cambridge and has led interdisciplinary research projects into populist politics and pluralist societies. Jan has published on citizenship, diversity and crisis experiences across Europe, the Gulf region and India. He currently leads the ‘Business Council for Democracy’ for the Hertie Foundation in Germany — an initiative that counters divisive disinformation through digital-citizenship trainings in the workplace
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Sabine Muscat
Sabine Muscat (she/her) runs the program on Technology and Digital Policy at the Heinrich Boell Foundation Washington, DC. The program promotes transatlantic and global dialog on fostering a sustainable and inclusive digital transformation of our economies and societies as well as on strengthening democracy and human rights in the digital age.
A journalist by background, Sabine reported from the United States, Germany and China for major US and German media outlets (Wall Street Journal, N24 (Welt), Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung). She was the Financial Times Deutschland’s last Washington correspondent from 2007 to 2012.
During her time as Financial Times Deutschland’s Asia desk editor, she reported from China and other parts of Asia. She also worked as a consultant for the Mercator Institute for China Studies in Berlin. Sabine holds an MA Chinese Studies from the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, UK. -
Marc Dugge
Marc Dugge studied political science, communication science and modern German literature in Munich. At that time, he became very interested in foreign policy – and also wanted to become a foreign correspondent. After completing his traineeship at Hessischer Rundfunk in Frankfurt he worked at the hr1 radio station as an editor for the early morning programme “Start” and as a presenter. In spring 2006 Marc Dugge moved to the hr/RBB/SR/RB group studio in Washington as a junior radio correspondent before becoming head of the ARD radio studio North and West Africa in Rabat, Morocco in 2008.
At Hessischer Rundfunk, he presented the current information sections in hr-iNFO and the programme hr-iNFO “Das Interview” from 2012. He also worked as an editor in the hr-iNFO research editorial team and became bureau chief and correspondent of the HR Madrid office in 2015. Today he is back in with the HR in Frankfurt and working for example as ARD crisis correspondent in Ukraine.
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Anatoily Gruzd
Anatoliy Gruzd is a Canada Research Chair in Privacy Preserving Digital Technologies and Professor at the Ted Rogers School of Management at Toronto Metropolitan University. He researches the ethical uses of social media to tackle societal problems, and has studied Russia’s use of bots, trolls and hackers to shape public perception of the war in Ukraine.
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Aaron Wendland
Aaron James Wendland completed his Doctorate in Philosophy at Somerville College, Oxford, and he is currently Vision Fellow in Public Philosophy at King’s College London. Aaron has co-edited two collections for Routledge, Heidegger on Technology and Wittgenstein and Heidegger, and he is now editing The Cambridge Critical Guide to Being and Time for Cambridge University Press. Aaron has published numerous pieces of popular philosophy in The New York Times, The New Statesman, The Moscow Times, The Toronto Star, and The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. He is also the Philosophy Editor at The New Statesman, an Associate Producer at Ideas on CBC Radio, and a Senior Research Fellow at Massey College in the University of Toronto. He spent time in Summer 2023 in Ukraine Reporting for The Toronto Star and The Wall Street Journal.
