Register now for AJE UK spring event: 101 days since the world changed – how the news media is responding
We are excited to announce details for a special AJE event being held this spring.
Event: AJE UK: 101 days since the world changed – how the news media is responding
Date and time: Friday, May 2, 2025 from 1.30pm to 3pm (BST)
Location: Online (Zoom) – free admission. Register your place for the event via Eventbrite HERE.
Details:
The AJE UK has gathered together a wealth of experienced journalism educators, and journalists, to explore how the news media across the globe is responding to the changed world order that we are now experiencing.
We will be joined by a panel that consists of Professor Ivor Gaber (University of Sussex), Dr Imke Henkel (University of Leeds), Associate Professor Robert (Ted) Gutsche (Florida Atlantic University) and Professor John Affleck (Penn State University), who will be reflecting on their own research and extensive experience reporting politics and political communication.
The panel will share their views and we will explore the challenges and opportunities in teaching journalism in this changed environment – and look at how we best prepare our students to work in challenged news environments.
We are looking forward to a fascinating conversation and to being joined by AJE members and friends.
The event will be chaired by Dr Margaret Hughes (UWS) and Dr Fiona McKay (University of Strathclyde). It will be online, please sign up at EventBrite HERE.
Speaker biographies:
Prof. John Affleck, a reporter and editor for more than 30 years, is the department head for journalism in the Donald P. Bellisario College of Communications at Penn State, where he also serves as the Knight Chair in Sports Journalism and Society and director of the John Curley Center for Sports Journalism. He has been the US facilitator for project which brought Penn State students to the UK to look at lessons from the fight against drug addiction in Glasgow (2023) and lessons from the British election (2024), and hosted UK students in 2024 with a focus on the US Presidential election and Pennsylvania’s role as a swing state.
Prof Ivor Gaber is the University’s first Professor of Journalism (now Professor of Political Journalism) and is Emeritus Professor of Broadcast Journalism at Goldsmiths, University of London. Prior to joining Sussex he held chairs in Journalism at City University London and the University of Bedfordshire. His main area of academic interest is political communications and has published four books and over 50 articles and chapters on the topic. He is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Science, the Higher Education Academy and the Royal Society of Arts. Ivor was a political journalist for BBC TV and Radio, ITN, Channel Four and Sky News. He currently makes documentary programmes for Radio 4 and was an Independent Editorial Advisor to the BBC Trust and has been an adviser to ITV News’ election results programmes for every campaign since 1997. He is a regular contributor to UK and international channels on media and politics.
Assoc Prof Robert (Ted) Gutsche is associate professor in Digital Culture in the School of Communication and Multimedia Studies at Florida Atlantic University and a Visiting Professor in the Faculty of Informatics at Vytautas Magnus University, in Lithuania. At FAU, he is affiliated with the Political Communication and Public Opinion Research Lab (PolCom Lab), the Department of Geosciences, and the Center for Peace, Justice, and Human Rights. Previously, Ted was an Associate Professor (Senior Lecturer) in Critical Digital Media Practice at Lancaster University, in the U.K. Ted’s most recent books are include The Trump Presidency, Journalism, and Democracy (Routledge), and The Future of the Presidency, Journalism, and Democracy: After Trump (Routledge). He has appeared as an expert for international news stations about U.S. politics and media, having conducted more than 300 interviews for channels, including CNN, BuzzFeed, Deutsche Welle, Business Insider, CNBC, TRT, RT, France 24, Sky News, Al Jazeera, BBC radio, and Australia ABC. As a journalist, his work has appeared in The Washington Post, The New York Times, Chicago Tribune, Newsday, The Guardian, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, and other regional and local news outlets in the U.S.
Dr Imke Henkel is deputy programme leader in BA (H) Journalism at the University of Leeds. She joined Leeds in September 2024. Previously, Imke was a Lecturer in Digital Journalism at Birkbeck, University of London, where she remains an Honorary Research Fellow. Before that she taught journalism at the University of Lincoln between 2015 and 2021. Imke’s research interests include the democratic function of news media, comparing different media and political systems; digital media and the interaction between technological change and changing professional ideologies; climate change and justice reporting; and mis- and disinformation. In 2021, her book Destructive Storytelling: Disinformation and the Eurosceptic Myth that Shaped Brexit explored why disinformation prevails even after its falsehood has been exposed. She is part of the Worlds of Journalism Study as a joint PI for the UK (together with Neil Thurman and Sina Thäsler-Kordonouri, both LMU Munich). Imke has worked as journalist for German national media, including most major radio stations such as Deutschlandfunk, WDR, BR, NDR, HR, SWR/SDR, and news papers Süddeutsche Zeitung and Die Zeit. Between 2004 and 2014 she was the UK and Ireland correspondent for the German news magazine Focus.