Friday, 5 April 2019

Fergal Keane is to give a lecture on Journalism and Democracy under Siege: How Can We Combat the Threat of Fake News and the Rise of Populism.

Mr Keane, who is the new Adjunct Professor of Journalism at UL, will give the keynote lecture as part of a major journalism conference at the University on Thursday, April 11 at 10.30am.

The lecture, which is part of the Celebrating 10 Years of Journalism@UL Conference, will start at 10.30am in the Graduate Entry Medical School (GEMS) at UL in the GEMSO – 016 lecture hall.

This will be followed by a panel discussion on the topic by some of the country’s leading journalists and editors including: RTE broadcaster Miriam O’Callaghan, Irish Independent Editor Fionnán Sheahan, Irish Times News Editor Mark Hennessy and University of Limerick Professor of Politics Maura Adshead.

Head of Journalism at the University of Limerick Mary Dundon said that they are delighted to have someone of Fergal Keane’s caliber giving the keynote address at their 10th anniversary conference.

“He is an award-winning journalist who has covered most of the global war zones over the past 28 years and won numerous international awards for his fearless reporting – including an OBE from Queen Elizabeth for his services,“  Ms Dundon said.

Mr Keane started his career in journalism with the Limerick Leader newspaper and he then moved to the Irish Press and RTE. He became the Ireland Correspondent for the BBC in 1989 and was subsequently promoted to a range of BBC foreign postings including: South Africa Correspondent; Asia Correspondent; Special Correspondent and Africa Editor.

A Q&A session will follow the discussion.

In the afternoon there will be a panel discussion featuring UL journalism graduates including Hilary McGann, CNN, Cillian Sherlock, RTE, Denise Calnan, Irish Independent, Andrew Roberts, The Journal and Michelle Hogan, The Leinster Leader.

Their topic for this panel discussion is: How Journalism@UL Helped Us to Secure a Successful Career in National and International Media Organisations.

This will be followed by a panel discussion profiling UL’s latest journalism and media academic research. The topic: Journalism, Discourse and Inequality, will be discussed by Dr Fergal Quinn,  Dr Martin Power, Kathryn Hayes and Audrey Galvin, Dr Muireann Prendergast and Dr Maria Reider, chaired by Dr Henry Silke.

The conference is open to all members of the campus community and members of the public who are interested in these topics.