Conference Programme

 10.00 – 10.30am

Welcome from London Metropolitan University Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Professor Julie Hall
Introduction to the Conference Programme by Associate Professor in Journalism Wendy Sloane, London Metropolitan University, former Moscow correspondent for Moscow Magazine, Associated Press, Daily Telegraph, Christian Science Monitor and The Daily Telegraph

10.30 – 11.30am

Keynote Address with Q & A

Derk Sauer, founder of Independent Media, The Moscow Times, Cosmopolitan Russia, Vedomosti business newspaper, and the Russian-language VTimes platform 

‘Dutch courage: why we moved The Moscow Times to Amsterdam’

Q & A moderated by Wendy Sloane

11.30 – 11.40am

Tea/coffee break

11.40 – 1.00pm

Panel 1: Don’t mention the war!

Chair: Nanette van der Laan, Senior Producer, Channel 4 News and former Daily Telegraph and Moscow Times correspondent

Dr James Rodgers, author of Assignment Moscow: Reporting on Moscow from Lenin to Putin and a former Moscow correspondent. ‘Publish the propaganda - or face prison’

Tatiana Chervyakova, student of MSc of Media Management in Università della Svizzera Italiana, Lugano, Switzerland. ‘The tactics Russian independent media are employing during the war in Ukraine’

Peter Conradi, Sunday Times Europe Editor, author of Who Lost Russia? From the Collapse of the USSR to Putin’s War on Ukraine, and a former Moscow correspondent. ‘Did the Western media misjudge Putin?’

1.00 – 2.10pm

Lunch break

2.10 – 3.30pm

Panel 2: Disinformation, misinformation and fake news

Chair: Professor Andrew Moran, London Metropolitan University

Kate de Pury, current Moscow Bureau Chief, European Broadcasting Union, former AP Moscow Bureau Chief 2014 – 2019. ‘God, Tsar and the Fatherland - the “editorial standards” driving Russia’s new-generation propagandists’

Dr Ilya Kiriya, researcher at GRESEC Laboratory at University Grenoble Alpes in France and former Chair of the Institute of Media in Moscow. ‘Public expression in Russian academic institutions: what censorship in Russian universities looks like’

Alan Philps, former Reuters and Daily Telegraph Moscow correspondent and author of The Boy from Baby House 10, about adoption in Russia, and The Red Hotel: The Untold Story of Stalin’s Disinformation Campaign, published by Headline this month. ‘A comparison of two disinformation campaigns: Stalin during the Great Patriotic War and Putin’s special operations’

3.30 – 4.40pm

Tea/coffee break

4.40 – 6.00pm

Panel 3: Fit in or flee: Against Russia’s further crackdown on minoritised communities

Chair: Emily Couch, Freelance journalist specialising in Eastern Europe and Eurasia

Wendy Sloane, London Metropolitan University. ‘Reporting on Russia’s LGBTQIA+ community in a climate of censorship, propaganda and fear’

Leyla Latypova, Reporter, Moscow Times and indigenous rights activist. ‘The invisible ethnocide: what Russia's colonial war in Ukraine means for its indigenous peoples’

Samantha Berkhead, Senior Editor, Moscow Times. ‘How gender roles are being reinforced in the brave new Russian patriarchy’

10.00 – 10.10am

Welcome to Day 2 by Wendy Sloane

Panel 4: 10.10 – 11.30am

Russia’s info-wars: winners and losers

Chair: Dr Karen McNally, Reader in American Film, Television and Cultural History, London Metropolitan University

Ecaterina Miscisina, Media Content Analyst at watchdog.MD (Moldova). ‘Finding common ground: a mapping of Putin's speeches and Tucker Carlson’s Fox News narratives’

Dr Aleksandra Raspopina, London Metropolitan University. ‘Russian military censorship, like the Russian warship, can go f*** itself – an analysis of Russian anti-government media response to wartime media freedom’

Dr Gregory Asmolov, Kings College – ‘The history of Russian media regulation: crisis-led governance and the rise of the “disconnective society”

11.30 – 11.40am
Tea/coffee break

Panel 5: 11.40 – 1.00pm
Adapting to the New Normal: This is how we do it

Chair: Karen Dukess, author of The Last Book Party, former Moscow Magazine and Moscow Times reporter

Anastasia Stepanova, London Metropolitan University. ‘Media and the Kremlin: censorship, temniki (topics) and control’

Svetlana Kunitsyna, former NTV arts correspondent, editor-in-chief of the weekly Meantime magazine, editor of Snob magazine, director of broadcast content for Dailyonline.ru. ‘Guilty without the guilt: How the liberal Russian media lost 40 million viewers’

Dr Dmitry Kuznetsov, School of Journalism and Communication, Chinese University of Hong Kong. ‘Novaya Gazeta’s wartime transformation’

 
1.00 – 2.00pm
Lunch
 
Panel 6: 2.00 – 3.20pm
Putin, pride and public shaming

Chair: Dr Beth Knobel, former CBS Bureau Chief and Associate Professor Journalism, Fordham University

Galina Timchenko, Co-founder, CEO and publisher of Meduza. ‘Beating Kremlin censorship: How Meduza reaches its audience and delivers news inside Russia despite being banned and exiled.'

Prof Svetlana Stephenson, Professor in Sociology, London Metropolitan University. ‘Public shaming of celebrity emigration from Russia during the war against Ukraine’

Denis Bilunov, Faculty of Social Sciences, Charles University, Prague, founding member of Prague Russian Antiwar committee and journalist at The Insider. ‘Understanding Russian leadership by analysing current trends in Russian opposition media’

3.20 – 3.30pm
Tea/coffee break
 

3.30 – 5.00pm
Roundtable discussion: Why do Russians support the war in Ukraine?

Moderator: Dr Jonathan Sanders, Associate Professor, School of Communications and Journalism, Stony Brook University, founding Assistant Director of the Harriman Institute for Advanced Study of Soviet Union at Columbia University, former Moscow correspondent.

Stephanie Baker, Senior Writer, Bloomberg and oligarchy specialist, former Moscow correspondent

Dr Stephen Jones, Director, Program in Georgian Studies, Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies, Harvard University

Prof Samuel Greene, Professor of Russian Politics at King’s College London

Dr Robert Parsons, International Affairs Editor, France 24 and former BBC Moscow correspondent

Dr Gergely Gosztonyi, Hungarian lawyer and media researcher.

5.00pm

Closing of conference – Wendy Sloane