Digital technology promises a new world where a multiplicity of voices can be heard on affordable mobile and Internet platforms, diminishing the role and authority of traditional media. Be it images of Iranian dissent via Twitter or campaigns on council spending instigated by local groups like Kington Blackboard, citizen journalism is having an impact on political life globally and locally.

Wed 3 March, 11.00am The Courtyard Hereford
Day Ticket £15/£12

To open up the debate we bring together social media practitioners as well as print and broadcast journalists to consider practice, voice, impartiality and access.
Tim Beech, Editor of BBC Radio Shropshire and involved in discussions about the future of the BBC’s journalism and Emily James, the main producer of Climate Camp TV, are joining the panels.

11.00 – 12.30pm
Screening: Burma VJ – Reporting from A Closed Country (12A)
In 2007 100,000 people took to the streets to protest against the cruel dictatorship that has run Burma for more than 40 years. Foreign news crews were banned, the internet shut down, and Burma closed to the outside world. But a tenacious band of Burmese reporters armed with home video cameras risked death by covertly filming the crack-down. Their footage, rough and unprofessional, but also raw, immediate and, at times, overwhelmingly powerful, was smuggled to Norway, then broadcast back to Burma and across the world via satellite. A flawlessly constructed testament to individual bravery, as relentlessly gripping as educational, it’s an uplifting example of the importance of collective protest. Compelling and essential viewing, it’s hard to think of a braver, bolder example of citizen journalism in action.
“Burma VJ’ is simply unmissable.” Time Out
“It’s guerilla film-making of amazing courage.” Independent
Winner Movies That Matter Award Amsterdam International Documentary Film Festival 2008

12.30 – 1.30pm
Lunch

1.30 – 2.00pm
Christian Payne
One of the most widely recognised mobile media makers online, Christian Payne, aka Documentally / Our Man Inside, will talk about how he engages with his immediate surroundings and the wider world.

2.00 – 3.00pm
Get Local
Speakers: Matthew Engel, Guardian journalist; Jesse Norman, Conservative parliamentary candidate for Hereford; contributions from Hereford Heckler, the city’s one and only anarchic newsletter and from Kington Blackboard, an online local news site with recent campaign success under their belt. Chair: Bill Laws, freelance journalist, author and editor.

3.15 – 4.15pm
Go Global
Speakers: Helen Iles of Undercurrents, Winner Digital Hero Wales Award 2009; Christian Payne; Jake Bowers, Editor of Travellers Times Online and
representatives from Index on Censorship (TBC) and the Climate Camp.
Chair: Nic Millington, CEO of Rural Media Company

4.15 – 4.45pm
Tea

4.45 – 6.15pm
Screening: The Yes Men Fix The World (12A)
Two ‘jokers’ in cheap suits set out to pull a hoax and astoundingly knock $2 billion off the market price of Dow Chemical. The context was the 1984 Bhopal tragedy in which deadly gas leaked out of the Union Carbide plant contaminating local workers to devastating effect. Bichlbaum and Bonanno (fictitious names) are the self-styled Yes Men with a mission to do the right thing. With apparent disingenuity they combat globalisation by pulling outrageously inventive anti-establishment stunts. What’s chilling is that their transparently extremist Final Solution rhetoric doesn’t fall on completely deaf ears and their absurd gimmicks (Survivaballs!) often impress. Serious and delightful in equal measure.