Global media leaders will debate the most pressing issues facing journalism and truth-telling at a summit held in memory of our late alumnus Sir Harry Evans.
The fourth annual Truth Tellers Summit will be held in London on Wednesday 6 May, and streamed free online.
Sir Harry Evans edited the Sunday Times from 1967 to 1981 and was voted by his peers the Greatest British Newspaper Editor of all time. He studied with us from 1949 to 1952. He was knighted in 2004 for services to journalism, and died in 2020, aged 92.
The Truth Tellers Summit is part of a partnership set up in his memory between Sir Harry’s widow Tina Brown CBE and her family, the news agency Reuters, and ourselves.
The Summit will bring together media and cultural leaders from across the world to discuss the most pressing issues facing truth and truth-telling today.
This year’s line-up includes Wall Street Journal editor-in-chief Emma Tucker, CNN Chief International Anchor Christiane Amanpour, content creator Don Lemon, bestselling author Patrick Radden Keefe, Nobel Peace Prize winner Maria Ressa, and many more.
Also present will be Nandhini Srinivasan, the fourth Sir Harry Evans Investigate Journalism Fellow, a Delhi-based investigative reporter.
Investigative journalism is under threat from political pressure, corporate timidity, AI disinformation, social media slop, a weakened business model, and lawfare from powerful special interests intended to intimate, harass, and silence. That’s why the Summit has never been more timely or critical. From dogged research and brave, front-line reporting to the instant flash of a camera, Truth Tellers celebrates journalistic rigour in all its forms. To quote our lodestar Harry Evans, we must all ‘Dig deeper, dig deeper, dig deeper’.
Academia and journalism are both critical to the pursuit and defence of truth – as truth keepers and truth tellers. At Durham University, we celebrate the achievements our great alumnus Sir Harry Evans, and take pride in nurturing the best investigative journalists of today and tomorrow. This year’s Truth Tellers Summit is much needed, timely, and we look forward to contributing to stimulating and challenging debate.
The Truth Tellers Summit takes place on Wednesday 6th May and is free to watch online: sirharrysummit.org.
Meanwhile, the first Sir Harry Evans Global Fellow in Photojournalism has been announced as Kiana Hayeri. Kiana is an award-winning photojournalist whose reporting centres on women and communities living through conflict, displacement, and political upheaval. As the Fellow, she will spend a year working with Reuters and Canada's Globe and Mail, mentored by both.
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