Speakers
Speakers from Afghanistan, Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Brazil, Bulgaria, Cambodia, Canada, Colombia, Denmark, Egypt, Fiji, France, Germany, Great Britain, Guatemala, India, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Kenya, Mexico, Namibia, Nepal,Netherlands, Norway, Peru, Philippines, Romania, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Sweden, Syria, U.S., Zaire.
Niloufar Ahmadzadeh is a Canadian journalist with work experience in Canada, the UK, Mexico and Peru. She has worked for BBC-Wales, CBC and CTV in Canada. She is currently a producer-editor at the Instituto de Defensa Legal (IDL-Ideele) in Lima, Peru -- a 23 year old media/NGO institute. She was raised in Iran, India and Canada and has traveled and worked in more than 15 countries. Her interests and work are on the ethics of reporting conflicts, media concentration, indigenous issues, and women and the Middle East. She serves as consultant to El Comercio newspaper in Peru on the same. Her work in Mexico was as researcher for a best-selling investigative book on the MS-13 (Mara Salvatrucha) gang in the US and Central America. Her current journalistic work in Peru is on post-conflict, post-CVR (Commission for Truth and Reconciliation) reparations, violence and memory, working closely with the President for Reparations.
Abeer Al-Askary is an Egyptian journalist who has published several investigative reports on controversial and threatening issues. Among her writings are reports on state security officers with the Ministry of the Interior who have supervised torture against activists and prisoners. She has also written on corruption and lack of transparency in the educational system in Egypt. Additionally her writings have contributed to revealing fraud during the Egyptian elections, especially concerning the President’s son and the issue of bequeathing the presidency to him. Because of her writings she has fallen victim to a series of attacks by the Egyptian state security authorities.
Brigitte Alfter is the EU-correspondent in Brussels for the Danish daily Information. She has covered EU-matters for a number of years, and also writes about media law to journalist magazines in European countries. She uses freedom of information legislation as a journalistic tool, conducts training on the subject and is part of the www.farmsubsidy.org network, where freedom of information, CAR and international networking are combined. A board member of the Danish Association for Investigative Journalism since 2002, she is one of the coordinators for the Danish Scoop project to support investigative journalism in South East Europe and the Ukraine. Currently on behalf of the Belgian Pascal Decroos Foundation she is building a website on how to apply European FOI.
Maher Arar is a wireless technology consultant. He was born in Syria and came to Canada with his family at the age of 17 and became a Canadian citizen in 1991. On Sept. 26, 2002, while in transit in New York’s JFK airport when returning home from a vacation, Arar was detained by US officials and interrogated about alleged links to al-Qaeda. Twelve days later, he was flown to Syria, where he was held in a tiny “grave-like” cell for ten months and ten days. In Syria, he was beaten, tortured and forced to make a false confession. During his imprisonment, Arar's wife, Monia Mazigh, campaigned relentlessly on his behalf until he was returned to Canada in October 2003. On Jan. 28, 2004, under pressure from Canadian human rights organizations and a growing number of citizens, the Government of Canada announced a Commission of Inquiry into the Actions of Canadian Officials in Relation to Maher Arar. On September 18, 2006, the Commissioner of the Inquiry, Justice Dennis O'Connor, cleared Arar of all terrorism allegations, stating he was "able to say categorically that there is no evidence to indicate that Mr. Arar has committed any offence or that his activities constitute a threat to the security of Canada." On January 26, the Government of Canada offered a formal apology to Maher and his family for any role Canadian officials may have played in his ordeal. The government also paid him compensation. His ordeal is one of the most documented of the U.S. renditions cases.
Pedro Enrique Armendares is Executive Director of the Centro de Periodistas de Investigación, A.C. (CPI), which works closely with journalists in Mexico and the rest of Latin America. He frequently takes part as an instructor and panelist in journalism workshops and seminars, and he teaches a course on Computer Assisted Journalism, Globalization & Investigative Journalism at the Masters Program in Journalism of the University of Miami. He has worked as an investigative reporter for the Mexico City daily La Jornada and contributed to other media Mexican and international media. He has worked in television and radio, including the Latin American Service of the BBC, and he was trained in Cinematography at the Centro de Capacitación Cinematográfica (México City).
Sally Armstrong is an Amnesty International award-winner, a member of the Order of Canada, a documentary filmmaker, teacher, author, human rights activist and contributing editor at Maclean’s magazine. She has covered stories about women and girls in conflict zones from Bosnia and Somalia to Rwanda and Afghanistan. Sally’s best selling book, Veiled Threat: The Hidden Power of the Women of Afghanistan, was published in 2002. The Nine Lives of Charlotte Taylor: The first woman settler of the Miramichi was published in March, 2007. Sally is the co-producer and host of several documentaries, including They fell from the Sky in 2001 and The Daughters of Afghanistanin 2003.
David Asper was called to the Manitoba Bar in 1986, and practiced primarily in the area of criminal defense litigation. He left the practice of law in 1992 after successfully serving as co-counsel in the David Milgaard wrongful conviction case and winning Mr. Milgaard’s freedom in the Supreme Court of Canada. He joined CanWest Global Communications Corp. as part of a decision by the Asper family to begin the process of second-generation ownership succession. He has held several operational and corporate executive positions within the company including operating television stations in Saskatchewan, leading the company's entry into the United Kingdom through radio and bidding for the national Channel 5 television license, as well as the acquisition of 30% of Ulster Television in Northern Ireland. David Asper also oversaw the company's worldwide program buying from US studios and commissioning of new programming from independent producers.
Aniruddha Bahal is the founder and editor-in-chief of Cobrapost.com, an Indian news and views website. He is also the co-founder and former CEO of Tehelka.com , the news website famous for Operation Westend, which uncovered widespread corruption in defense procurement in India. Bahal was one of the reporters who broke that story and is equally famous for his exposure of match-fixing in international cricket. More recently he headed Operation Duryodhana, an investigation into Indian Parliamentarians taking cash for asking questions in the Indian parliament.
Andrew Bailey recently completed his first year as a Computer Assisted Reporting Analyst for the Toronto Star. Andy came to Canada from the Buffalo News where he spent seven years as a news researcher. A veteran of several NICAR boot-camps and conferences, he specializes in retrieval and analysis of the data that can either illuminate everyday stories or drive investigations.
Sandra Bartlett is co-chair of the Toronto Global Investigative Journalism Conference 2007. Sandra is a CBC Radio National Reporter and a Producer in the Investigative Unit. She has worked with reporters across the country on stories - about allegations of biker gang infiltration of the Edmonton police - the Missing Women investigation in B.C. - problems with Canada Pension disability benefits in Saskatchewan - a police drug squad scandal in Toronto - problems with Ottawa's adverse drug reaction reporting system - scams in the goods and services tax system that saw crooks get away with millions. Many of these stories have been recognized with awards in investigative journalism. Sandra began her journalism career researching for the book, A Canadian Tragedy, written by Maggie Siggins. This book tells the story of Saskatchewan politician, Colin Thatcher who was convicted of killing his former wife JoAnn Wilson. Sandra also worked on the award winning CBC Television mini-series which followed, called Love and Hate.
Ira Basen has been with CBC Radio since 1984. He was senior producer at Sunday Morning and Quirks and Quarks. He has been involved in the creation of three network programs; The Inside Track (1985), This Morning (1997) and Workology (2001), as well as several special series, including “Spin Cycles”, a six part look at PR and the media, that was broadcast on CBC Radio One in January/February 2007. He has also written for Saturday Night, The Globe and Mail, The Walrus, and cbc.ca. He has developed several training programs for CBC journalists, and has taught at the University of Toronto and Ryerson. In the fall of 2007, he will be teaching a course on “Critical Perspectives on Public Relations” at the University of Western Ontario. . He is the co-author of the Canadian edition of The Book of Lists (Knopf Canada, 2005).
Maud Beelman is the Assistant Managing Editor for Investigations and Projects at The Dallas Morning News, which she joined in July 2004. Prior to that, she was founding director of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists at the Center for Public Integrity in Washington, D.C. Maud was an Associated Press reporter for 14 years, in the U.S. and abroad. She covered German unification, Iran and Iraq after the first Gulf War and the wars in the former Yugoslavia. Maud's investigations have won a George Polk, an IRE and a Sigma Delta Chi, among other awards. A native of New Orleans, Maud has a bachelor's degree in journalism from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette and a master's from the University of Florida.
Avril Benoît is director of communications for Médecins Sans Frontières / Doctors Without Borders in Canada. She joined the medical humanitarian organization in 2006 after 20 years in radio, television and print journalism. She has reported for CBC Radio from Brazil, Burundi, Haïti, India, Kenya and Germany, among other places. In 2004-2005 she was Knowlton Nash Fellow at the University of Toronto with a research interest in human rights, global governance and overseas development assistance. She is working toward an MBA in Community Economic Development.
Lowell Bergman is a producer/correspondent for the PBS documentary series "Frontline". Mr. Bergman also teaches a seminar dedicated to investigative reporting at the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California at Berkeley. Lowell Bergman's career spans more than 35 years, beginning in the late 1960s as a freelance investigative reporter. He was a cofounder of the Center for Investigative Reporting and an editor of Rolling Stone.
He has worked at ABC News, “20/20” and, CBS News "60 Minutes," where over the course of 14 years he produced more than 50 stories about organized crime, international arms and drug trafficking, terrorism, and corporate crime. The story of his investigation of the tobacco industry for 60 Minutes was chronicled in the Academy Award nominated feature film "The Insider".
After leaving CBS News as its senior investigative producer in 1998, he forged an alliance between The New York Times and PBS "Frontline" - the only regularly scheduled long-form public affairs documentary series on American television. He has received top honors in both print and broadcasting, including the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service, awarded to The New York Times in 2004 for "A Dangerous Business" which detailed a record of egregious worker safety violations coupled with the systematic violation of environmental laws in the iron sewer and water pipe industry. That story, which appeared as both a print series and a documentary, produced in collaboration with the CBC as well as the New York Times, was the only winner of the Pulitzer Prize to ever also win every major award in broadcasting.
Kim Bolan has been a reporter at The Vancouver Sun since 1984, covering minority, women’s, education, and social services issues. She is also a regular contributor to CBC-Radio. She has won and been shortlisted for over twenty major national and international journalism awards, including the Courage in Journalism Award in 1999 for her continuing coverage of the Air-India story while under death threats. She has also just won the Pen Canada-Paul Kidd Courage Award for her journalism and her first book Loss of Faith: How the Air India Bombers Got Away with Murder. Kim lives in Vancouver with her two sons.
Joop Bouma is an editor and reporter for the Dutch daily newspaper Trouw. He is the author of The Smokescreen: The Power of the Dutch Tobacco Industry, which examines influence-peddling in the government and media by cigarette companies, as well as behind-the-scenes deals surrounding the tobacco industry in the Netherlands. Bouma wrote a series of reports investigating the growing influence of the pharmaceutical industry on doctors. In 2006 he wrote a book (How sick is the Pharmaceutical Industry) about the uneasy relationship between Big Pharma and physicians. He revealed the attempts of the industry to affect the wording of medical guidelines for doctors, which prompted an investigation by Dutch government.
Kevin Bousquet is the President of Corpa Investigation a 15 year old private investigation company involved in Corporate, Financial and Fraud Investigation. He has been a private investigator since 1986. He is a graduate in Law Enforcement 1986, Law Clerk Certified 1991and a Certified Fraud Examiner with the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners. Corpa acts for leading law firms, banks and insurance companies throughout Canada and the United States. Kevin also has his own TV Show on Persona Cable called Undercover With Kevin Bousquet http://www.resourceschannel.com/programs-undercover.html
Jim Bronskill is a reporter in the Ottawa bureau of The Canadian Press news agency, specializing in security and intelligence, policing and justice-related issues including civil liberties and human rights. He has considerable experience using information laws to uncover stories. Before joining CP in November 2003, Jim was a reporter with Southam News (now CanWest News Service). He is a co-founder and steering committee member of Open Government Canada, a national coalition formed to guard against undue government secrecy.
Patrick Brown is the Senior Asia Correspondent for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, based in Beijing China. He travels the region to produce documentaries and series for CBC Television’s flagship news program The National, and for other CBC News and Current Affairs programs. Born in the United Kingdom, Patrick settled in Montreal in 1971, and joined Radio Canada International as an editor in 1974. He became a national reporter for CBC Radio News in Montreal in 1976, and moved to London as a Foreign Correspondent in 1980. He has served as CBC Bureau Chief in Beijing, been based in New Delhi, India, and Bangkok Thailand. He has covered major events in Europe, the Middle East and Asia, including the rise of the Solidarity movement in Poland, the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982, the collapse of the Marcos dictatorship in The Philippines, Tiananmen Square and the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Gulf Wars in 1980, 1990 and 2003, and Afghanistan before during and after the Taliban regime.
The Honourable Michael J. Bryant has been Attorney General of Ontario since October 23, 2003. He has also served as Minister for Aboriginal Affairs and as Ontario's first Minister Responsible for Democratic Renewal. He re-established Ontario's Law Reform Commission and reformed the human rights system for the first time in 40 years He has published articles and books on public law and criminal law.
Judy Budd was born and raised in Saskatchewan where she received her Bachelor of Science in Nursing 1972. She raised four children while working part time. Her husband, Brian Keating, a Saskatoon city police officer, died of cancer in 1993 after a four-year illness. Shane Keating was the second of Judy’s four children. Shane became a Corporal in the Canadian Armed Forces and was a member of 2nd Battalion, Princess Patricia Canadian Light Infantry, based at CFB Shilo, Manitoba. On September 18, 2006, Shane was killed in Afghanistan by a suicide bomber on a bicycle while he was conducting a security patrol. Three days later Judy and her family faced the media on the front lawn of their home to talk about Shanes death.
Theresa Burke is a Producer/Director at the fifth estate. CBC Television’s Investigative journalism program. On May 20, 1999, Theresa was on the telephone with bank robber Ty Conn, an escapee from the Kingston Penitentiary (one of Canada's most secure and notorious prisons) when he shot himself as the police were attempting his re-arrest. She co-authored Who Killed Ty Conn (2001) with fifth estate host, Linden MacIntrye. Theresa won a Canadian Association of Journalists award in 2000 for her work on His Word Against History, a fifth estate production about the life of Steven Truscott, a Canadian man who, in 1959, as a fourteen year old was sentenced to hang for the murder of a twelve year old school girl.
Stefan Candea has been an investigative journalist for the newspaper Evenimentul Zilei and has worked for the Romanian department of Deutsche Welle in Germany. He is a co-founder and vice-president of the Romanian Centre for Investigative Journalism. With colleagues from the Romanian Centre for Investigative Journalism, Stefan Candea launched the first investigative TV show in Romania (Reporteri Incognito), using hidden camera techniques, on the channel Prima TV. Stefan has an interest in organized crime, international and military and secret services.
Bob Carty is an Ottawa-based documentary producer for The Sunday Edition and The Current on CBC Radio One. He also participates in special investigative projects with CBC TV and Radio News. Bob’s radio documentaries have won numerous awards including a prestigious Peabody Award and a Gabriel Award. Bob is a member of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) and is active in freedom of expression issues as a board member of Canadian Journalists for Free Expression (CJFE) and he is one of the founders of the International Freedom of Expression eXchange (IFEX).
Harvey Cashore is a senior editor with CBC News. His 2006 story, “Luck of the Draw” about the high incidence of insider lottery wins in Ontario prompted an investigation by Ontario's Ombudsman, and changes in operating practices at several provincial lottery corporations across the country. It has been nominated for CAJ and Michener Awards for investigative journalism. Harvey has worked on both the fifth estate and CBC News: Disclosure, and is now working at CBC's Investigative Unit and the fifth estate. Harvey has been involved in major investigations that have made a significant social impact – from a man wrongly accused of being a Russian spy, to sexual assault complaints against a Nova Scotia premier, to the story of how Pepsi Cola lobbied for and won approval from Health Canada to add caffeine to Mountain Dew and an investigation into secret commissions paid in the sale of Airbus aircraft to Air Canada. Harvey co-authored a book out of that investigation, "The Last Amigo: Karlheinz Schreiber and the Anatomy of a Scandal."
David Cay Johnston of The New York Times won a Pulitzer in 2001. His best-selling tax book, Perfectly Legal, won a medal as IRE's 2004 book of the year. His next book, Free Lunch, will be out in October. He has been called “our most gifted reader of the national ledgers,” “the de facto chief tax enforcement officer of the United States” and, by The Washingon Monthly, “one of this country’s most important journalists.”
Lo Chiang Cheng is the Chief of Reporting and Outreach for Environment Canada's Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Division. She is the program manager responsible for the harmonized Greenhouse Gas Emissions Reporting Program to collect GHG emissions information from industry. She is also coordinating the development of Canada's National GHG Inventory Report, an annual reporting obligation to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Lo Chiang has an Environmental Engineering degree and over 10 years of environmental and information technology experience. She began her career in the private sector with PriceWaterhouseCoopers and Nortel Networks. She joined Environment Canada in 2003 to coordinate climate change policies and programs as well as the Organization of Economic Co-operation and Development review of France's air quality policies and programs.
Byron Christopher is a courthouse reporter for 630-CHED radio in Edmonton where he has worked for the last 10 years. Before joining CHED he spent 14 years with CBC Radio News and CBC Radio Current Affairs in Edmonton. Christopher has had many exclusive interviews, often with people accused of high-profile crimes, including David Milgaard, Michael White, Joseph Laboucan (recently convicted of killing 13-year-old Nina Courtepatte), Colin Thatcher, Wiebo Ludwig, and dangerous-offender Leo Teskey. He has faced about six search warrants and three subpoenas related to his investigations over the last 15 years. Most recently, in October 2006, Edmonton Police served 630-CHED with a search warrant for any information related to the second-degree murder case against Michael White. Christopher had conducted a series of interviews with White and gathered extensive research on his case.
Campbell Clark is a political reporter in the Ottawa Bureau of Canada’s national newspaper, The Globe and Mail where he has been since 2000. His work with colleague Daniel Leblanc investigating the Canadian federal government’s sponsorship program found that a little-known initiative to fund cultural events and festivals was used to funnel public money to firms friendly to the governing Liberal Party, and in some cases, into the party’s coffers. The stories uncovered fat contracts for cronies selling everything from ads to gold watches, and led to changes in political fundraising laws and a dramatic public inquiry. The Globe and Mail won a Michener Award for Public Service in Journalism, one of the most prestigious awards in Canadian journalism, for these stories. Previously Campbell worked for the National Post newspaper and The Gazette. At The Gazette Campbell’s investigative reporting for the paper included an award-winning series on the extensive defrauding of government-guaranteed loans issued by The National Bank of Canada.
Wendell Cochran is an associate professor and journalism division director at American University in Washington, where he teaches graduate and undergraduate reporting courses, classes in computer-assisted journalism and journalism ethics, among others. Before joining the American faculty in1994, Cochran spent more than 25 years in daily newspaper journalism. Immediately prior to joining the faculty, he was special projects editor at Gannett News Service’s Washington Bureau, where he reported and directed award-winning computer-assisted journalism projects.
Anne Collins has been vice president and publisher of Random House Canada since 1998. Some of the writers she publishes in Canada include Douglas Coupland, Sandra Birdsell, Carol Off, Terry Gould, Jane Jacobs, Gen. Romeo Dallaire, Irshad Manji and Peter C. Newman. Before moving over to the world of book publishing, Ms. Collins spent twenty years as a writer and magazine editor, most recently as executive editor of Toronto Life and senior editor of Saturday Night. Anne is he author of two acclaimed books of non-fiction: The Big Evasion (1985), the first Canadian history of the politics of the abortion issue, and In the Sleep Room: The Story of the CIA Brainwashing Experiments in Canada, which won the 1988 Governor General's Award for Non-fiction and was made into a CBC miniseries that aired in January 1998.
Sheila S. Coronel is currently a professor at the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University and head of the Toni Stabile Center for Investigative Journalism there. Prior to that, she was executive director of the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ) in Manila. The PCIJ is an independent, nonprofit media organization that has published over 200 investigative reports and about two dozen books since its founding in 1989. Coronel previously worked for the Philippine Panorama Magazine and The Manila Chronicle and also filed reports from Manila for The New York Times. In 1993, she published a collection of reportage entitled, Coups, Cults and Cannibals. She has also edited and co-authored several books, including, most recently, The Rulemakers: How the Wealthy and Well-Born Dominate Congress.
Robert Cribb is an award-winning investigative reporter at the Toronto Star. His investigations include food safety problems in restaurants, illegal slaughterhouses, fraudulent telemarketing boiler rooms, dangerous doctors, decrepit rental housing, airline safety and government corruption. Robert is past president of the Canadian Association of Journalists, a lecturer at Ryerson University's School of Journalism and co-author of Digging Deeper: A Canadian Reporter's Research Guide (Oxford University Press).
Bob Culbert is Vice-President of Documentaries for CTV. Previously, Culbert had a distinguished 29-year career at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. From 1994 to1999, he was Executive Director of News and Current Affairs. In this role, he was responsible for all network news and current affairs programming, and Newsworld, CBC’s 24-hour news channel. In addition to his television journalism experience, he also worked in print media in Northern Ireland and the Winnipeg Free Press (1968-1970), after immigrating to Canada in 1968.
Sunday Dare is the author of the recently released book, Guerrilla Journalism: Dispatches From the Underground" a personal narrative about his experience working under successive military dictatorships in Nigeria. Sunday also works with the United States International Broadcasting, the Voice of America where he currently heads the Hausa Service in the Africa Division in Washington DC. Sunday is responsible for directing International radio broadcasters in preparing over 12 hours of weekly radio news and programs for broadcast to Nigeria, Ghana, Niger, Cameroon and Chad-with over 20 million listeners. These countries together have one of the single largest Muslim populations in Africa and in the world. Before joining the Voice of America, Dare was General Editor of two of Nigeria’s independent weekly newsmagazines, The News and Tempo based in Lagos, Nigeria. In 2000 Sunday received a special citation for Courage in Journalism from the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) for his work in Nigeria.
Ides Debruyne is cofounder of the Dutch-Flemish Association of Research Journalists (VVOJ) and the Belgian Pascal Decroos Fund for Investigative Journalism. He is committee member of the VVOJ and director of The Pascal Decroos Fund. Nowadays he is trying to lay the foundations of a European fund for research journalism. Ides is coordinator of the International Research Journalism training course at the Katholieke Hogeschool Mechelen (Belgium). He also delivers lectures on research journalism at Flemish colleges and universities. He is administrator and webmaster of www.fondspascaldecroos.org.
Alexenia Dimitrova is a journalist and author with more than 20 years’ experience. She works for the second largest daily in Bulgaria 24 Hours (24 chasa). Her specialist interests include money laundering, property rackets and secret societies. Her recent investigations involved the search for missing persons all over the world and reuniting them. Her book The Iron Fist — Inside the Bulgarian and American Secret Archives was published in 2005 in English and Bulgarian (under the title The War of the Spies).
Zoya Dimitrova is Deputy-Editor of POLITIKA weekly. Member of International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. Founder and President of Bulgarian Investigative Journalists Association. She has worked on stories on the intelligence services, the arms trade, national security, political parties funding, organised crime, and corporate business. Co-author of the best selling documentary book for 2001 in Bulgaria – “Ognian Doinov Memories”.
Neil Docherty is a Senior Editor/Producer with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's investigative documentary program, "the fifth estate". Since 1992, he has also produced and directed films for WGBH's prestigious documentary show, Frontline. Scottish by birth, Neil started work for the CBC in 1990 and since coming to Canada, has won over 40 awards for his films including an International Emmy in 1992. His most recent films include: A fifth estate, Frontline, New York Times co-production (“War Without Borders” in Canada and “Al Qaeda’s New Front” in the US—broadcast 2005. A one-hour documentary called “Party Games” on the politics of Rising China as part of a four hour series. This is an international co-production with the CBC, ZDF, Times Discovery and other international partners. It premiered on CBC in January 2006
David Donald is the training director for Investigative Reporters and Editors and the National Institute for Computer-Assisted Reporting. In the past three years, he has coordinated and conducted more than 150 investigative and computer-assisted reporting workshops both in the United States and abroad for print, broadcast and online journalists. He has spoken at conferences for editors' journalism organizations, minority journalism organizations and many beat-related organizations. An award-winning reporter, Donald oversaw the CAR and research programs at the Savannah Morning News after stints on the education beat and the projects team.
Kevin Donovan is the Toronto Star's investigative editor and a senior reporter at the paper. His investigations include probes of charities, police, children's aid societies, lawyers, doctors and the environment. Kevin has been honoured with three national newspaper awards, the Michener Award (one of the most prestigious awards in Canadian journalism for public service journalism) and two CAJ awards.
Bill Dunphy has, over his 26 years in the news business, worked as an editor, copy editor, daily news columnist, investigative reporter, crime reporter, satirist and weather columnist at community and daily newspapers in Toronto and Hamilton. Currently he's a poverty beat reporter for the Hamilton Spectator. His investigating reporting of the white racist movement sparked a parliamentary inquiry, an unprecedented report from the Security Intelligence Review Committee and garnered him a CAJ nomination and a number of awards. In 2001 he cultivated a relationship with the head of a Hamilton crime family that were the chief suspects in the 1998 pre-dawn shotgun slaying of defence lawyer Lynn Gilbank and her husband Fred. Gilbank had helped a drug runner who informed on the crime family. Two members of that organization were eventually charged in the murders and in 2006, with their case falling apart in a protracted bail hearing, the police pursued Bill for all his notes, recordings and files relating to five years of conversations, meetings and interviews with the crime boss. It was, as lawyer Brian Rogers said, the first time a production order (under Section 487.012 of the Canadian Criminal Code) had been used against a reporter. In an all-too-rare victory, the order was refused after a two day hearing with the judge saying he had not been satisfied that alternative sources had been "thoroughly investigated or exhausted", and concluded that it was not "an appropriate case" to override the "judicially accepted" vital role of the media in favour of the prosecutorial interest. The murder charges were later withdrawn by the crown.
Peter Edwards is a reporter at The Toronto Star, and the author of One Dead Indian: The Premier, the Police and the Ipperwash Crisis. He was a consultant for the movie One Dead Indian, for the CTV and the Aboriginal Peoples Television networks, which was produced by Sienna Films of Toronto and won three Gemini Awards. Peter and Harold Levy of The Toronto Star wrote more than 500 articles on the 1995 shooting of native activist Anthony (Dudley) George outside Ipperwash Provincial Park in a burial grounds protest. Peter was honoured with an eagle feather from the Union of Ontario Indians and a gold medal from the Human Rights and Race Relations Centre for his coverage of the Ipperwash story. His other books include A Mother’s Story; the fight to free my son David (with Joyce Milgaard) and The Encyclopedia of Canadian Organized Crime (with Michel Auger). Peter is working on his twelfth non-fiction book.
Henk van Ess is an internet trainer and consultant for radio, TV and newspapers in The Netherlands, Belgium, Germany and Great Britain. He trained over 1000 reporters in the practical use of information technology. Henk also teaches internet research & digital journalism at the Universiteit van Amsterdam, the Erasmusuniversiteit in Rotterdam en de Katholieke Hogeschool in Mechelen (Belgium). He is the former head of internet at www.ad.nl and publishes two websites about internet research, www.voelspriet.nl (Dutch) en www.searchbistro.com (English). Henk is a board member of the Dutch-Flemish association of investigating journalists VVOJ, the host of the last Global Investigative Journalism Conference in 2005.
Dr. Feinstein is a Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Toronto and Director of the Neuropsychiatry Program at Sunnybrook and Women¹s College Health Science Centre. Dr. Feinstein is the author of Dangerous Lives: War and the Men and Women Who Report It (Thomas Allen, Toronto 2003), The Clinical Neuropsychiatry of Multiple Sclerosis (Cambridge University Press 1999, with a second edition due out in 2007), In Conflict (New Namibia Books, 1998), an autobiographical account of his time as a medical officer in the Angolan and Namibian wars, and Michael Rabin, America’s Virtuoso Violinist (Amadeus Press, 2005). His latest book, Journalists Under Fire: the Psychological Hazards of Covering War (John Hopkins University Press) which addresses the questions: How are journalists affected emotionally by their work in war zones and what motivates them to pursue such dangerous occupations? In 2000-2001 he was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship to study mental health issues in post-apartheid Namibia. This led to the development of that country’s first rating scale for mental illness. He is currently engaged on a similar project in Botswana.
Gillian Findlay is a host of the CBC Television’s investigative documentary program, “the fifth estate.” Gillian started at CBC Television News as a reporter in Vancouver. In 1985, she moved to CBC,s The Journal and later became a member of their prestigious documentary unit. Her story on David Milgaard helped make the case for his innocence and against the man who was eventually convicted. Gillian has worked in London for CBC, in Moscow and Jerusalem for the U-S ABC network where she covered the war in the former Yugoslavia, the famine in Somalia, the Persian Gulf War and its aftermath, the attempted coup in Russia in 1993, the 1994 elections in South Africa, and the Palestinian Intifada. Her 2006 story, “Luck of the Draw” about the high incidence of insider lottery wins in Ontario prompted an investigation by Ontario's Ombudsman, and changes in operating practices at several provincial lottery corporations across the country. It has been nominated for CAJ and Michener Awards for investigative journalism.
Derek Finkle was a contributing features editor at Saturday Night magazine before he became the editor of Toro magazine in 2002. His 1998 book, No Claim to Mercy, was about the circumstantial case against Robert Baltovich, who was convicted in 1992 of murdering his girlfriend Elizabeth Bain. The book was named a Book of the Year by the Globe and Mail and won the Crime Writers Arthur Ellis Award for best non-fiction. In 2000, Robert Baltovich was released on bail pending his appeal. In 2004 the Ontario Court of Appeal, in a decision that was highly critical of the judge who presided over Baltovichs original trial, overturned Baltovichs conviction and ordered a new trial, set to start in the fall of 2007. In October 2006, a subpoena was issued to Finkle by Crown prosecutors demanding that he turn over his Baltovich research in its entirety. He and his lawyer, Iain Mackinnon, are preparing to argue against the subpoena on May 29 and 30, 2007.
John Flanders has worked for Statistics Canada since 1993 as a senior media advisor. His main task is as "news editor" of The Daily, the Agency's official release bulletin. Before joining Statistics Canada, he worked for 25 years as reporter and editor with the Hamilton Spectator – the last eight and a half covering the federal government on Parliament Hill as the Spectators Ottawa bureau chief.
Hannah Foullah heads Radio Democracy, the most-listened-to FM radio station in Sierra Leone, located in the capitol of Freetown. She began the station in 1996 Andrew Kromah and their first big project was to cover the country’s first election after a brutal civil war. With no broadcasting infrastructure and no funding, they asked other radio stations to combine resources with Radio Democracy, forming the independent radio network to cover the elections.
Robert M. Frank is an advocate of mutual support for journalists who experience traumatic stress and for education to teach their colleagues what they can do to help. He began his career in television news with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, hosted a radio current affairs morning show on Baffin island in the Canadian Arctic, and later worked as a spokesman for several large organizations.
From 1999 onward, he reported freelance for The New York Times. Robert’s observations of the toll that traumatic stress took on news people in the wake of the September 1998 Swissair 111 crash spurred him to act. Details of his experience were published by the United Nations with eerie timing on September 13, 2001, in the book Sharing the Front Line and the Back Hills. He is a member of the board of directors of the Canadian Association of Journalists and the Canadian Association of Journalists Educational Foundation and acting president of CAJ Montreal.
Sage Gayala is a senior reporter on Kinshasa's independent weekly Africa News. He regularly receives visits from men in military uniform threatening to arrest him for 'defamation', an inevitable consequence of exposing corruption of the ruling business and political elite in his country. Sage has exposed corrupt housing contracts, diamond exploitation by local as well as South African companies and the misuse of voter education money in run-up to the recent elections. He recently led a FAIR team in investigating the murder of fellow journalist Franck Ngyke Kangundu and his wife Helene. Sage now spearheads FAIR's establishment in the French-speaking African countries.
Silvia Gereda Valenzuela is the founder and a Director of elPeriódico, since 1996. Sylvia Gereda founded the Investigative Journalism Team at elPeriódico 10 years ago (the only one of its kind in Guatemala) and has stood out for her in-depth investigations on corruption. Many of these investigations have served as a basis for the Public Ministry to initiate legal actions against public officials. The stories by the Team of Investigators at elPeriódico prompted officials to open legal proceedings against former Guatemalan President Alfonso Portillo who is a fugitive of the law and currently residing in Mexico, as well as other officials in his administration. In 2004, Sylvia was recognized as an "honorable citizen" by Guatemalan President Oscar Berger and was called to partake in the National Council Against Corruption and to implement laws in favor of Transparency. Sylvia has been working with Reporters Sans Frontieres, as a correspondent and representative in Guatemala since 1996.
Gustavo Gorriti Is and award-winning Peruvian journalist based in Lima. He covered Peru's internal war, drug trafficking and corruption. He is the author, among other books, of The Shining Path: A History of the Millenarian War in Peru. He was Associate Director of Panama's La Prensa, Co-Director of Peru's La Republica and is currently a columnist for Caretas, Peru's leading newsmagazine.
Terry Gould specializes in uncovering the mechanisms by which entire countries are run according to the principles of organized crime, whereby national leaders license illegal activity in return for favors that perpetuate their reign and profit themselves and their supporters. His book Paper Fan: The Hunt for Triad Gangster Steven Wong, tracked a fugitive crime boss’s career of impunity over a dozen years and across six countries. Terry is currently completing Murder Without Borders, a book that traces the murders of journalists in five countries. He examines the journalists’ bravery in face of threats and the national systems that have allowed them to be killed, with no charges brought against the public figures who ordered the killings. Terry’s books and articles have earned 46 awards and honors from the National Magazine Awards, the Canadian Association of Journalists, and the Canadian Journalists for Free Expression, among others. In 2005, he delivered the plenary keynote addresses at the Criminal Intelligence Service’s regional conferences on organized crime and intelligence gathering, as well as at the Mountie Officer of the Year Awards Ceremony in B.C.
Stephen Grey is a UK based journalist, writing mainly about national security issues. A former editor of the Sunday Times' investigations unit, the Insight Team, he continues to contribute to the Sunday Times, as well contributing recently to the New York Times, Guardian, Times, Independent, Newsweek, the Atlantic Monthly. He has reported for BBC Newsnight, BBC Radio Four and World Service. He has reported from India and Pakistan, and Afghanistan under the Taliban. He has worked on investigations that exposed corruption in the European Commission. In the summer of 2003, Stephen began investigating reports of the CIA's secret system of renditions (transfer of terror suspects to foreign jails, where many faced torture). In May 2004 in the New Statesman and then in November 2004 in the Sunday Times, he broke the world exclusive story of the flight logs and secret fleet of aircraft used by the CIA for rendition. His book on the CIA rendition program, Ghost Plane, was published in October 2006.
Chris Hall is the bureau chief for CBC Radios parliamentary bureau in Ottawa. He arrived in the bureau in 1998, intending to spend only a few years. Its now the longest posting he’s held in his 25 years as a print and broadcast journalist. Highlights of his time in Ottawa include: an in-depth series on the spiraling costs of Canada’s controversial gun registry; stories detailing how Canada’s poorest senior citizens were being deprived of access to income-support programs intended for them; and a series on Canada’s poor record in stopping the production and distribution of counterfeit products that won the 2006 RTNDA Award for investigative and in-depth reporting.
Chris began his career with the Ottawa Citizen… and was part of a team of reporters who won a National Newspaper Award in 1990 for coverage of the failed Meech Lake constitutional accord.
Daniel Henry is a senior legal counsel with CBC where he has worked since 1978. He regularly advises radio, television, and new media journalists at the national level and in all regions of the country. He has reviewed thousands of stories before broadcast, directed the defence of stories that have been legally challenged, including the defence of journalists wishing to protect their work product and confidential sources, appeared in a number of courts and tribunals in favour of greater public access to their proceedings, reviewed and revised CBC’s journalistic standards and practices from a legal perspective, and conducted seminars across the country. He has appeared on numerous radio and television programs in Canada on media law issues, as well as on CNN’s Larry King Live. He has also been a guest speaker at many Canadian universities.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a former Dutch politician, was born in Somalia, raised Muslim, and spent her childhood and young adulthood in Africa and Saudi Arabia. In 1992, Ayaan arrived in the Netherlands as a refugee, escaping a forced marriage to a distant cousin she had never met. She learned Dutch and worked as an interpreter in abortion clinics and shelters for battered women. After earning her college degree in political science, she worked for the Labor Party. She denounced Islam after the September 11 terrorist attacks and during her time as a Dutch parliamentarian she fought for the rights of Muslim women in Europe and the enlightenment of Islam. Ayaan first gained international attention after Theo van Gogh was murdered on an Amsterdam street because of the film they made together, Submission, which criticized Islam’s treatment of women. She remains under a death threat for her work on the film. In 2005 Ayaan was named one of Time Magazine's 100 Most Influential People, Reader's Digest's European of the Year. Ayaan now works at the Washington-based American Enterprise Institute. She has written two books about her life,The Caged Virgin, and most recently, Infidel.
Ruth Hopkins is a Dutch freelance investigative journalist who writes mainly on human rights issues. She has a degree in International Law, with a specialization in Human Rights. Ruth was co- researcher and author of a research report on trafficking in human beings in three member states of the EU. Hopkins regularly publishes articles on the subject, in mainly Dutch newspapers. In October 2005 she published a book on trafficking in women in/to the Netherlands (I will never let you go again). It is based on five years of research in Albania, Bulgaria, Ukraine and the Netherlands.
Brant Houston is executive director of Investigative Reporters and Editors, Inc., and a professor at the University of Missouri School of Journalism. He is also author of Computer-Assisted Reporting: A Practical Guide and co-author of the fourth edition of The Investigative Reporter's Handbook. Before becoming executive director, he was managing director of the National Institute for Computer Assisted Reporting for two years and before that, a daily journalist for 17 years. He worked as an award-winning investigative reporter and database editor at The Hartford Courant and The Kansas City Star where he also was part of its investigative team.
Carlos Eduardo Huertas is the publisher of investigations for the main news magazine in Colombia called Semana, and he is the organizer of the Consejo de Redacción, a network of investigation journalists in that country. He has had international and national recognition for his investigations related to corruption subjects, human rights and environmental. He frequently takes part as an panelist in forums in his country and Latin America, related to freedom of press and investigative journalism. He has been investigator for publications done in Argentina and the United States.
Several theories have emerged to explain the Ianiero’s murders, but today they remain unsolved. Anthony describes his experience with the media throughout the past year as a roller coaster ride. Immediately following the murders, the Canadian media was the only avenue for the Ianiero family to get information on the Canadian government’s response to the deaths. At other times, Anthony has been dismayed by what he says is the publication of false accusations and untruths about him and his family.
Paul Jay is the CEO and Senior Editor of Independent World Television, The Real News. 9-11 and the Iraq war were turning points in history and it had an irreversible effect in Paul Jay's life. Alarmed by the inability of major media to ask the underlying questions, Paul decided to combine his film and television experience and his quest to know the undercurrents of news to build an independent television network. Three years later IWT - The Real News is on it’s way. www.therealnews.com Paul is an internationally acclaimed, award winning filmmaker whose films include Return To Kandahar, Hitman Hart: Wrestling with Shadows, Lost in Las Vegas, and Never-Endum-Referendum. Paul was the Executive Producer of counterSpin - Canada's flagship debate show on CBC Newsworld, for a decade. He was also the Founding Chair of the Hot Docs International Festival (Toronto).
Dean Jobb, an assistant professor at the University of King’s College School of Journalism in Halifax, is author of Media Law for Canadian Journalists and co-author of Digging Deeper: A Canadian Reporter’s Research Guide. A reporter, editor and columnist during a twenty-year career at The Halifax Chronicle Herald, he is a three-time winner of the Atlantic Journalism Award and was nominated for a National Newspaper Award.
David Kaplan is chief investigative correspondent for U.S.News & World Report in Washington, D.C. Over a 30-year career, he has investigated organized crime, the banking industry, terrorist groups, rogue law enforcement agencies, and the intelligence community. His books include Yakuza, on Japanese organized crime, and he currently writes the popular Bad Guys blog on USNews.com www.usnews.com/badguys?
Over the years, he has won or shared more than fifteen awards, including honors from Investigative Reporters & Editors, the American Bar Association, Overseas Press Club, and World Affairs Council. Through his work with IRE, Kaplan has trained more than a thousand reporters worldwide in his workshops on investigative journalism.
Henrik Kaufholz, member of the board of Danish Association for Investigative Journalism, manager of Scoop. Journalist since 1967, with Politiken since 1974. Correspondent in Bonn 1981-85, covered the Balkans from Copenhagen 1990-1995, correspondent in Moscow 1995-97 and in Berlin 1997-2002. Now assisting foreign editor.
Kay Kimsong is a reporter for The Cambodia Daily newspaper in Phnom Penh-the country's only independent, daily English-language newspaper dedicated to strengthening a free press and training journalists. He joined The Cambodia Daily in February 1997, the year of the Asia financial crisis and the military coup that brought political and economic turmoil to Cambodia. Over the past 10 years he has faced a number of difficult moments including a lawsuit by a high-ranking and very powerful government official who was upset by an article exploring his former relationship with the Khmer Rouge.
Kay has also assisted in reporting for TIME Asia Magazine.
Peter Klein was the 2005-2006 CanWest Global Visiting Professor at the University of British Columbia's School of Journalism. He is also the creator of the new History Channel series, “Beyond Top Secret.” For seven years, he was a producer at CBS News 60 Minutes, where he won several awards including an Emmy. He previously worked as a producer with ABC News Law and Justice Unit, reporting primarily for Nightline and 20/20. Earlier, he helped launch New York Times Television and was a senior producer for I-Witness, a verité documentary series for CBS cable network. He was a print and radio reporter throughout Europe. Peter taught for several years at New York University before moving to the graduate program at Columbia University in New York and subsequently to UBC. He is a graduate of Columbia with a Master of Science in Journalism. He also holds a Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy and Honours in Economics from Pennsylvania State University.
Paul Knox has been chair of the School of Journalism at Ryerson University since July, 2005. He spent 27 years as a reporter and editor at The Globe and Mail, most of it covering international news. His last position was foreign editor. He was a staff correspondent based in Mexico (1985-88) and Brazil (1988-91), and wrote the Worldbeat column on international issues from 2001 to 2004. He supervised investigative work as national beats editor from 1993 to 1995. At Ryerson he has taught Media Ethics and Critical Issues in Journalism. Paul previously worked on the Vancouver Sun and the Belfast News Letter. He received a BA and MA in political science from the University of British Columbia and studied at Harvard University as a Nieman Fellow in 1983-84. In 2000 he received the Maria Moors Cabot prize from Columbia University for reporting on the Americas. He has written on Latin America, culture and media for several publications and has prepared numerous broadcasts for Radio Canada International. He is an active member of Canadian Journalists for Free Expression.
Alexa Kolbi-Molinas is an attorney with the National Security Program at the American Civil Liberties Union. Alexa was part of the litigation team for ACLU v. NSA, a challenge to the constitutionality of warrant-less surveillance conducted by the National Security Agency, and Doe v. Ashcroft, a case that resulted in the invalidation of the Patriot Act's "national security letter" provision. Currently, Alexa's docket also includes a wide range of cases challenging torture and excessive government secrecy.
Anton Koschany is the Senior Producer of W-FIVE – the longest-running newsmagazine- documentary program in North America (yes, longer than 60 Minutes) and the longest running television program in Canada. From local news to political coverage, from network correspondent to news manager, he believes in “telling stories that matter” to viewers (and readers). Comfortable working in print, radio and TV, Anton has produced more than 100 documentary-length stories. He has covered federal and provincial politics, was the first TV labour beat reporter in Canada, worked with the legendary Canadian reporter, Jack Webster, produced for the CBC’s the fifth estate and these days, besides his W-FIVE job, writes web pages, manages CTV’s election SWAT-team and produces the annual Conversation with the Prime Minister state-of-the-nation program. And he is looking for the next big story.
Murali Krishnan is currently a senior editor with Indo-Asian News Service, a New Delhi-based news agency where he investigates security issues and corruption. 18 years ago Murali began his career with The Statesman and on his way to IANS has worked in the country's two leading news magazines, India Today and Outlook and newspapers including the Indian Express, The Sunday Observer, The Telegraph and Gemini, a London-based news service. In addition, he is also a correspondent for Deutsche Welle, Germany's National broadcaster and a contributor for Radio Australia's Connect Asia. Murali has focused closely on corruption in Indian cricket which became 2000's biggest international sports story. It was at Outlook, where as part of an investigative team, Krishnan worked closely for four years on the nexus between bookies, cricketers, and administrators. Outlook named four Indian cricketers in the scandal and called for a formal investigation.
Stanimir Ivanov Kumurdjiev was a member of the team that produced, The Power Brokers – an examination of the problems with the transition from state to private electrical energy markets in the Balkans. Stanimir does journalistic investigations, analyses, commentaries, interviews, feature articles. In 1994 he went to work for the daily "Continent" as a reporter and editor in the Business department. In 1996 Stanimir was appointed as a special correspondent in "Continent" daily. Since that time he has written about larger range of themes - economy, social problems, politics, culture and there have been numerous verbal and written treats for trials from security firms, politics because his investigations. Since August 1997 he has worked in the "24 hours" daily as an editor with higher responsibilities. This year Stanimir became the founder and manager of Bulgarian Investigative Journalism Centre.
Jennifer LaFleur is the computer-assisted reporting editor for The Dallas Morning News. She works on the News' investigative team and directs newsroom CAR efforts. She has been the CAR editor at the San Jose (Calif.) Mercury News and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Before joining the News in 2003, she held a Media Law Fellowship with The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. She was the first national training director for Investigative Reporters and Editors and has won awards for her coverage of disability, legal and open government issues.
Astrid Lange has been working as a Library and Research Specialist at the Toronto Star for 7 years. In addition to providing research services to the Star's newsroom, Astrid trains the newsroom on due diligence research tools and maintains the library's intranet, the newsroom's information portal. Astrid has a Master of Information Studies, a Master of History and an Honours BA in International Relations, all from the University of Toronto. Before joining the Star, Astrid was an intern at a corporate law firm and worked as a researcher for the CBC Newsworld program Face-Off and the entertainment department at CTV.
Fredrik Laurin is an investigative reporter/producer for the current affairs show Uppdrag Granskning on Swedish Public Broadcasting, SVT. He works in a team which in 2005 was rewarded with a number of awards including Stora Journalistpriset (Swedish equivalent to the Pulitzer Prize) for a series on the deportation of two Egyptians. The two men, Ahmed Agiza and Muhammed Al Zery, were taken from Sweden to Egypt in a covert operation by US agents and handed over to Egyptian security services and were subsequently tortured. The story caused a major uproar in Sweden, drew international attention and was one of the first to shed light on what was to be known as "Extraordinary Rendition".
Guy Lawson is the author, with William Oldham, of The Brotherhoods: The True Story of Two Cops Who Murdered for the Mafia, published by Scribner in December of 2006. An award-winning investigative journalist, his work has appeared in GQ, The New York Times Magazine, Harper's, and many other publications, including two volumes of Best American Sports Writing. In the spring of 2006 Guy was subpoenaed to appear before a federal judge in Brooklyn, New York in the case of former NYPD detectives Stephen Caracappa and Louis Eppolito. The two former detectives were charged with seventy-two RICO offenses, including eight murder counts.
The case was described by the judge as the "most notorious allegations of police corruption in the history of Brooklyn.” Guy’s collaborator for The Brotherhoods was former NYPD detective and federal investigator William Oldham. Oldham had pursued the two "mafia cops" for more than seven years. Defense attorneys demanded access to all of the materials related to the book (and investigation) during pretrial discovery. The motion was denied. Caracappa and Eppolito were convicted on all counts.
Jim Lebans has been a producer at Quirks & Quarks, CBC Radio's science program, since 1995. Jim and the Quirks & Quarks crew have been covering climate change issues since they first emerged in the scientific press. His work has won many national and international awards, including most recently the inaugural Commonwealth Broadcasting Association-UNESCO award for Science Reporting for a piece on Biofuels technology. He's currently working on a space and astronomy book to be published in early 2008.
Charles Lewis is journalist-in-residence and professor at American University and president of the Fund for Independence in Journalism. Charles is co-author of five books, including the bestseller, The Buying of the President He founded and for 15 years was the executive director of the Center for Public Integrity, a nonprofit, nonpartisan investigative reporting organization (please link to www.publicintegrity.org). From l977 to l988 he did investigative reporting at ABC News and CBS News's 60 Minutes. In 1998, he was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship and in 2004 received the PEN USA First Amendment award.
James Loney is the Canada program coordinator for Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT). A member of CPT since 2000, James has served on CPT projects in the West Bank, Esgenoopetij (Burnt Church, NB), Asubpeeschoseewagong (Grassy Narrows, ON), Kenora and Iraq. James is a founding member of Zacchaeus House, a Catholic Worker house of hospitality for people who are homeless located in Toronto. Founded by Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin in 1933, the Catholic Worker movement calls for the transformation of the social order through the works of mercy, nonviolence, simple living, prayer and community. James became the centre of an international story in November 2005 when he was kidnapped by Iraqi insurgents and held for 118 days before being rescued by British soldiers. He currently lives in Toronto (around the corner from Zacchaeus House) with his partner Dan.
Gavin MacFadyen is the Director of the Centre for Investigative Journalism (www.tcij.org) and Visiting Professor, City University, London. Gavin has been the senior producer-director of more than 40 World in Action programmes, Channel 4 Dispatches, BBC Fine Cut, 24 Hours, Panorama, The Money Programme, Multi Cultural Birmingham, and PBS Frontline, from 1970 to the present. Gavin has been jailed in three countries, shot at in four, and filmed & video'd in about 30 countries.
Bruce MacFarlane, Q.C. is currently on secondment from Manitoba Justice as a Professional Affiliate, Faculty of Law at the University of Manitoba where he teaches about wrongful convictions and also researches and writes on criminal law subjects, acting as a general resource to faculty members and students. From 1993 to 2005 he was the Deputy Attorney General for the Province of Manitoba. During the last several years he has undertaken national and international initiatives designed to prevent wrongful convictions, and to raise awareness within the legal profession of the circumstances that can lead to wrongful convictions.
Linden MacIntyre is a host of the CBC Televison investigative documentary program, the fifth estate. For three decades, MacIntyre has reported on award-winning stories from all over the world. His courage and sensitivity in handling difficult subjects have earned him a reputation as one of Canada’s most distinguished journalists. Linden began his career in print and joined CBC Television in 1976. While hosting his program, “The MacIntyre File', in the 1970s, he launched a landmark legal challenge over access to documents relating to search warrants. Today The Attorney General of Nova Scotia vs MacIntyre is an important legal precedent in support of public and media access to information in Canada. In January 2007, in a co-production with PBS Frontline,MacIntyre reported on an alleged terror cell in Toronto that included 18 men who have been charged with plotting terrorist attacks in Canada.
Hamoud al Mahmoud is an investigative reporter at the daily Newspaper, Tishreen in Damascus. And he heads the investigative reporting section at the Syrian business magazine, Aliqtissad. He also teaches at the media institute in Damascus University. Hamoud won the top prize for Syrian journalists in the investigative reporting competition organized by the British embassy in Jordan in 2005. He is also a member of the ARIJ Network, which is the investigative journalism organization in the Middle East.
Hilary Mbobe specializes in social and economic investigative journalism. He recently launched his own business analysis magazine, Business Evolution. Hilary combines both print and broadcasting experience. His most recent award winning production was a radio report on the increased practice of 'daughter selling' among poor rural families in Malawi. The report won him the Media Institute of Southern Africa's Manyarara Investigative Journalism award, as well as an award from Gender Links. Hilary is currently the Malawi correspondent for Panos Features Section, Interworld Radio in London, and Radio Botswana. His vision, to see a professional independent media establishing itself in emerging democracies.
Marilyn McHarg is the General Director of Médecins Sans Frontières / Doctors Without Borders Canada. Trained as a critical care nurse, she was one of the founders of the Canadian section of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning movement in 1989. She spent nine years on mission in Uganda, Liberia and Sudan. For five years, she held MSF operational leadership positions in Amsterdam and Geneva. McHarg, a veteran of humanitarian aid work in war zones and neglected parts of the world, is a forthright advocate for transparency and accountability of NGOs.
Ron McCullagh is the Managing Director of Insight News Television, a multiple-award winning documentary production company that has reported from over 100 countries worldwide. Before founding Insight, Ron McCullagh worked as a reporter for the BBC for 10 years and was one of the first journalists to film his own material on a Hi8 camera. He has written for numerous publications including The Observer and The Sunday Telegraph. In 2000, Cry Freetown which he directed, with reporter Sorious Samura won 14 major awards - including an Emmy and a BAFTA.
Most recently Ron has been acting as Executive Producer for the “Living with…”series with Sorious Samura. He also co-directed “Blood on the Stone”, a documentary commissioned by Warner Brothers to accompany the recently released Hollywood film “Blood Diamond” starring Leonardo DiCaprio. In 2004 he won the Rory Peck “Freelancers Choice” award for the “important role he has played in supporting freelancers and enabling them to develop”.
Cheryl McKenzie is Anishinaabe, born to parents from the Peguis and Hollow Water First Nations in Manitoba. Cheryl began her new career in journalism in 1999 with CBC Radio Manitoba as a New Voices Intern. After completing the internship in June 2001, Cheryl moved over to the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network and began working as a correspondent for APTN National News (formerly InVision News). She is now a host and producer, since the launch of the network’s second live national daily newscast in October 2005. Cheryl was nominated for a Gemini Award in 2004 for her work in a series of stories on cancer causing asbestos contaminated vermiculite in on-reserve housing.
David McKie is an award-winning, Ottawa-based journalist with the Investigative Unit for CBC News. For the past several years, he has specialized in federal regulatory affairs such as health, food and air safety. And in researching these topics, he has become increasingly dependent on the federal Access to Information law and computer-assisted reporting techniques such as the use of spreadsheets and database managers to find and organize information. David teaches investigative techniques at Carleton University’s School of Journalism, edits the Canadian Association of Journalists’ Media magazine, and has co-written Digging Deeper - A Canadian Reporter’s Research Guide with Fred Vallance-Jones, Dean Jobb and Rob Cribb. David is also writing another book with Fred called Computer-Assisted Reporting: A Canadian Primer. It will be published next year.
Bernie McNamee has been a broadcast journalist for over 30 years. He's worked at CBC National Radio News for almost two decades. Currently, he's co-host of CBC Radio's, The World at Six, and has travelled extensively internationally and across Canada as host of special projects for the program. Bernie has also hosted Canada at Five and The World This Weekend. Prior to joining CBC, Bernieworked for several private radio and television stations including CTV's Toronto affiliate, CFRA Radio in Ottawa, CKNX Radio & TV in Wingham, Ontario and CKTB Radio in St. Catharines, Ontario. Bernie is a graduate of the Radio and Television Arts Program at Niagara College in Welland, Ontario where he returned to teach part-time for several years. He also taught part-time in the Journalism Program at Ryerson University in Toronto.
Andrew Mitrovica is a Toronto author and investigative journalist. He has spent close to twenty years trying to abide by Frederick Douglass's admonition to "Agitate. Agitate." He has taken that seminal attitude with him to his work for CTV, CBC, The Globe and Mail and The Walrus, where he is a contributing editor. He is the author of Covert Entry: Spies, Lies and Crimes Inside Canada's Secret Service. Andrew is working on a second book for Random House Canada. He also teaches in the ground-breaking Program for Internationally Trained Writers at Sheridan College. His work has won lots of awards and made him a lot of enemies.
Sat Nandlall is a camera operator and editor who joined the CBC in 1991. He joined the CBC’s London bureau in 1998. Sat has shot for news and current affairs in 78 countries. Over the past 10 years he has covered most of the major news stories from the Good Friday Accord in Northern Ireland to the Sydney Olympics and conflicts in the Balkans, East Timor, Afghanistan and Zimbabwe.
Peter Neufeld co‑founded and co‑directs The Innocence Project at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law. The Project currently represents hundreds of inmates seeking post‑conviction release through DNA testing. In its ten years of existence, The Innocence Project has been responsible in whole or in part for exonerating more than two thirds of the one‑hundred and seventy ‑ five men to be cleared through post‑conviction DNA testing. In the last two years, the Innocence Project has been transformed from a clinical program with the single focus of exonerating the wrongfully convicted into a leadership role in the burgeoning "civil rights" movement to identify and address the systemic causes of wrongful convictions. The Project's policy efforts have contributed to a significant shift in the national debate on the death penalty. The Project has also been instrumental in reforming police practices in eye witness identification , interrogation, and forensic science. The Innocence Project has spawned the National Innocence Network ‑ an alliance of more than two dozen projects in law schools, journalism schools, and defender offices throughout the country. In addition to his teaching responsibilities, Peter is a partner in the law firm Cochran Neufeld & Scheck, specializing in civil rights and constitutional litigation.
John Nicol has been a member of five different investigative teams, mainly at the CBC and Maclean’s magazine. He has twice been part of teams nominated for Michener Awards for Public Service journalism, is a National Newspaper Award nominee, and winner of several national and provincial awards for investigative and enterprise work. He’s the author of a book examining the impact of the automobile on Canadian life called The All Red Route, which retraces the first attempt to drive a car across Canada in 1912.
Carol Off became the host of the CBC Radio’s As it Happens, one of the Network’s flagship current affairs program in 2006. Carol has worked with CBC Radio and Television for 20 years covering important stories from Canada and abroad, ranging from the Meech Lake Accord and the U.S.-Canada Free Trade Agreement to Bosnian war criminals, Canadian peacekeeping missions and the fallout from the attacks on the United States in Sept. 11, 2001. Carol has produced award-winning reports and documentaries, including a groundbreaking series on refugee women that was considered instrumental in changing government policy to allow large numbers of women to stay in Canada. Carol is also the author of two books about Canadian peacekeeping missions: The Ghosts of Medak Pocket and The Lion, the Fox and the Eagle: A Story of Generals and Justice in Yugoslavia and Rwanda. In her third book, Bitter Chocolate, published in the fall of 2006, she explores the dark and unethical side of the cocoa business both past and present.
Hoda Osman is a former field producer at the investigative unit of ABC News in New York, which she joined in 2003. She covered terrorism-related issues and the Middle East. Prior to that, she worked in Egypt with the Associated Press Television News (APTN) and freelanced with several other news media. While in Egypt, she also wrote about political, social and business issues for a number of publications. Hoda is also the vice president of the Arab and Middle Eastern Journalist Association (AMEJA). She has a BA in journalism and an MA in Middle Eastern Studies.
Bridget O'Toole is a Senior Producer with CBC Radio News. She has covered ten Olympics, along with numerous other sporting events around the world and in Canada. She also supplies sport content for CBC Radio National news programs.
Samisoni Pareti is a Fijian journalist who began his career with then state radio, Fiji Broadcasting Commission in February 1986, and has since worked in the island’s major media operations across all mediums of radio, newspaper, television, news agency and magazine. As editor of the Fiji Sun newspaper in 2001, Samisoni oversaw a series of investigative pieces that generated wider readership. A subject of these stories whom the newspaper dubbed the “Mafia Queen” was later deported by Fijian authorities. An expose he wrote for Islands Business magazine on Fiji’s export of skilled labour to countries like Kuwait and Iraq won him the Island Journalist of the Year Award in 2006, as part the Developing Asia Journalism Award of the Asian Development Bank. Samisoni is now a freelance journalist who is the Fiji correspondent for ABC/ Radio Australia. He still writes for Islands Business magazine and strings for the AFP news agency.
Renée Pellerin is an award winning CBC producer who honed her investigative skills while producing documentaries at Market Place for ten years. She was the Visiting Chair in Journalism at the University of Regina in 1999-2000, is a sessional instructor at Ryerson University School of Journalism, and teaches a course in Critical Thinking for journalists at the CBC. She has also been a producer at The Fifth Estate, was the Executive Producer of Sports Journal, and is currently a documentary producer at CBC Newsworld.
André Picard is one of Canada's top public policy writers. He is currently the public health reporter at The Globe and Mail newspaper, where he has been a staff writer since 1987. He also serves as the paper's Quebec Bureau Chief. He is the author of the best-selling books CRITICAL CARE: Canadian Nurses Speak For Change and THE GIFT OF DEATH: Confronting Canada's Tainted Blood Tragedy. He is also the author of A CALL TO ALMS: The New Face of Charity in Canada. André has received much acclaim for his writing, including the Canadian Nurses' Association Award of Excellence in 2000 and 2001, the Michener Award for Meritorious Public Service Journalism, the Canadian Policy Research Award, the Science and Society Prize, and the Atkinson Fellowship for Public Policy Research.
Aron Pilhofer is projects editor for computer-assisted reporting at The New York Times, where he specializes in covering money, politics and influence in Washington, DC. He was previously database editor at The Center for Public Integrity, based in Washington. Prior to the Center, Aron worked on the national training staff of Investigative Reporters and Editors, where he co-authored "Unstacking the Deck: A Reporter's Guide To Campaign Finance." He also was a statehouse and projects reporter for Gannett newspapers in New Jersey. His work has been honored with a number of national awards, including the Polk, Investigative Reporters and Editors, Society of Professional Journalists and Online News Association awards.
Dr. Stephen Porter is an educator, researcher, and consultant in the area of psychology and law. Since becoming a professor of psychology at Dalhousie University, he has published numerous scholarly articles on deception detection and other forensic issues. He has also been qualified as an expert witness in various areas, including credibility assessment and dangerousness. Stephen has provided empirically-supported training in deception detection to law enforcement and hundreds of Canadian judges. In 2000, he was awarded the resident's Award from the Canadian Psychological Association. He is co-author of the popular text Forensic Psychology.
Paul Radu is the co-founder of the Romanian Center for Investigative Journalism. He is currently an investigative journalism trainer and investigative projects coordinator. In the past few years, Paul has uncovered the trafficking in human beings in the Balkans as well as the ties between various organized crime groups and the mining and energy sector in Romania. In 2001, Paul was an Alfred Friendly fellow as a member of the investigative projects team at the San Antonio Express-News. In 2002 he was a Milena Jesenska Press fellow at the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna, Austria where he researched transnational organized crime groups.
Susanne Reber is co-chair of the Toronto Global Investigative Journalism Conference 2007. Susanne is an investigative journalist with CBC News Investigative team. This past year, she’s led projects on Censorship, Workplace Safety and Canadian citizens losing their citizenship due to quirks of the law and government bureaucracy. Susanne also led the Prescribed to Death team, investigating adverse drug reactions among Canada’s seniors. She was instrumental in motivating her team over a period of more than five years to secure the CADRIS database through Canada’s Access to Information laws and then to make the database records public to all Canadians on cbc.ca as part of the Faint Warning series on drug reactions in children. Susanne co-authored the non-fiction book Starlight Tour, the last lonely night of Neil Stonechild”, (Random House) looking into the freezing death of an aboriginal teenager and the police practice of dropping off native men at the outskirts of town in frigid temperatures. The book was named a finalist for The Governor General’s award in Non-fiction, the Arthur Ellis Crime writer’s award and the Writers Trust Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for political writing. She also co-wrote and produced Faint Hope, a five-part CBC radio dramatization of an investigation into the life and suspicious death of prison activist Laurence Stocking.
Mabel Rehnfeldt is an Investigative reporter (diario ABC Color, since 1989), radio host (Radio Primero de Marzo, desde 1998) and TV anchor (Canal 13, since 2006). She speaks English, Portuguese, Spanish and some Guaraní. She is president of Foro de Periodistas Paraguayos (FOPEP) of recent creation. Awarded the Courage International Award of International Women Media Foundation (IWMF) in 2004; second prize from Transparency International and the Instituto Prensa y Sociedad to the best investigative report on corruption, year 2004; Awarded The Maria Moors Cabot Prize of Columbia University in 2005.
David Ridgen is an award-winning documentary filmmaker. His first major documentary collaboration, "Canadian Images of Vietnam", made in 1992 with brother Robert Ridgen, was acquired by the Canadian museum of Contemporary Photography being the only known production at the time to document Canadian involvement in the US war in Vietnam. In the summer of 2004, David co-produced, filmed and directed, "Return to Mississippi", the first major documentary to look back at the Mississippi Burning case and explore the climate and appetite of modern Mississippi for the potential trial of preacher Edgar Ray Killen. David is currently producing an investigative documentary about another civil rights case in Mississippi called, "Mississippi Cold Case". The production of this film has caused the case of two black 19 year olds murdered by the KKK in 1964 to be re-opened, a reputed Klansman to be indicted and charged, and a high profile, precedent setting trial to get underway on May 29, 2007. David currently works at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation as a documentary producer.
Luz Rimban is a print and broadcast journalist. She worked as reporter and producer for the Philippines' top television stations and was formerly the broadcast manager of the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ). Her investigative reports have been recognized by the Jaime V Ongpin Awards for Excellence in Journalism (JVOAEJ), a prestigious journalism awards body in Philippines. In 2006, she won the top prize in the JVOAEJ investigative category for the third time and was elevated to its Hall of Fame. Luz has written and produced award-winning documentaries and is a contributor to the Philippine Daily Inquirer, the Philippines' leading newspaper. She trains Filipino journalists on investigative reporting and teaches broadcast journalism at the Ateneo de Manila University and the University of the Philippines.
Alasdair Roberts is a professor in the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University. He is also an Honorary Senior Research Fellow of the Constitution Unit, School of Public Policy, University College London. His book Blacked Out: Government Secrecy in the Information Age, published by Cambridge University Press, received the 2006 Louis Brownlow Book Award from the US Academy of Public Administration, and a 2007 book award from the American Society of Public Administration. His next book, The Collapse of Fortress Bush: The Crisis of Authority in American Government, will be published by New York University Press in January 2008.
Carla Robinson anchors the First People's edition of Absolutely Canadian on CBC Newsworld, CBC's monthly educational program, News in Review, and CBC Newsworld's afternoon newscasts. Carla came to CBC Newsworld in 1998 from British Columbia where she was a reporter for CBC's Midday. She also produced and reported for CBC's native current affairs series All My Relations. Previously, Carla was a local reporter for BCTV News and the host of a weekly current affairs program on Rogers Cable called Pressure Point. Carla has written for national magazines such as Aboriginal Voices, The Rez and Dreamspeaker, a quarterly newsletter for First Nations communities. She has also worked for several government departments, including Indian and Northern Affairs Canada and has taught disadvantaged Native youth for Junior Achievement Stay In School. Raised in the northern coastal communities of Kitamaat and Bella Bella, British Columbia, Carla is a member of the Haisla and Heiltsuk First Nations.
Fernando Rodrigues has been a senior reporter for the São Paulo daily Folha de S.Paulo (www.folha.uol.com.br) since 1993. Prior to that, he served as the newspaper's correspondent in New York, Tokyo, and Washington, D.C. He has reported on numerous scandals, including a 1994 investigative series, "Managua Connection," exposing the relationship between the kidnappers of Brazilian millionaires and several guerrilla groups in Central America. Rodrigues' 1997 series, "Vote Market," revealed a vote-buying scheme in the Brazilian Congress in which certain congressmen sold their support for a re-election amendment to the constitution. Last year, when general elections were held in Brazil, Fernando launched an award winner book and website with information on some 25,000 local politicians, including their individual lists of personal properties (www.politicosdobrasil.com.br). Fernando is the executive director of Abraji (Brazilian Association of Investigative Journalism - www.abraji.org.br), being responsible for the national campaign in Brazil for a local Freedom of Information law.
Al Rosen is a forensic account and the founder of Rosen & Associates. He has been an instructor and professor of accounting at the University of British Columbia, the University of Washington, the University of Alberta, and York University, serving in many posts, including Area Coordinator and Director of the Master of Business Administration Program. Al has consulted or given independent opinions on over 750 litigation related engagements. He has provided expert testimony or affidavits in jurisdictions across Canada, including the Supreme Court of British Columbia and the Supreme Court of Canada. Al is the author or co-author of several texts on accounting and hundreds of articles in numerous publications.
Cecil Rosner has worked in print and broadcast journalism for more than 30 years, and currently is the Managing Editor for CBC Manitoba. He has trained CBC reporters and producers in investigative journalism techniques for more than a decade, and teaches an investigative journalism course at the University of Winnipeg. His work has won Michener and Gemini awards, and prizes at the Columbus, New York and other television festivals. He is co-author of When Justice Fails — the David Milgaard Story, published by McClelland and Stewart, and is currently working on a book detailing the history of investigative journalism in Canada for Oxford University Press.
Nevena Ršumović, Editor-in-chief and manager of the NetNovinar.org project – web portal for education and networking of journalists in South East Europe. She trains journalists for Mediacentar Sarajevo (Internet and reporting; Computer assisted reporting). Managed the first project in BiH educating journalists in the advanced use of internet and computer assisted reporting (IREX ProMedia Sarajevo). She has trained several hundred reporters in the use of internet and computers in journalism. Ms Rsumović had cooperated with numerous international media outlets as a researcher and assistant correspondent from the region and was a correspondent from Bosnia and Serbia for several.
Rana Samir Al-Sabbagh is a Jordanian journalist, columnist and media trainer with 23 years of experience in print journalism throughout the Arab world. A former chief editor of the Jordan Times (1999-2001), the first Arab female journalist in the history of the Levant to hold such a post, she was correspondent for Reuters International News Agency (1987-1997) and helped establish Jordan's newest newspaper, Al-Ghad (2003-2004). In addition to her post at ARIJ, she is the Jordan correspondent for The Times (of London), a regular columnist for the London-based Arabic newspaper Al-Hayat, and for Jordan's independent daily Al Arab Al-Yawm, and a consultant and trainer for Reuter Foundation. Rana also serves as an active member of various civil society and media advocacy groups, including, the International Women Forum and the Center for Defending Freedom of Journalists, and as advisory council member for IREX MENA-MEDIA project.
Sorious Samura is a renowned filmmaker whose documentaries have been recognised worldwide, both for the courage of their photographic journalism and the impact of their message. Sorious’s debut documentary ‘Cry Freetown’, is a gripping portrayal of atrocities committed during Sierra Leone’s civil war. Sorious shot the film at great risk to his own life, keenly aware of the fact that the strong images he recorded were the only thing that could shake the world from its indifference to the plight of his countrymen, women and children. Sorious’s most recent work is the ‘Living with…’ series, a ground-breaking project in which he sets out to live under the same conditions of those suffering terrible hardship. This is real ‘reality’ TV - an approach that offers unique insight into lives burdened by extraordinary adversity. He also recently acted as consultant on the Hollywood film “Blood Diamond” starring Leonardo DiCaprio, and was commissioned by Warner Brothers to make the documentary “Blood on the Stone” to accompany the feature film. Having made documentaries and programs for various media outlets, Sorious now resides in the UK and is a board member of Insight News Television.
Daniel Santoro is the national political editor at Clarín, Argentina's largest newspaper, and has conducted extensive investigations into government corruption, national security matters, and international drug trafficking. He has broken a number of scandals detailing arms smuggling, including one story linking former president Carlos Menem with the traffic of 6.500 tons of weapons to Croatia, which at the time was under a U.N. arms embargo, and Ecuador. In addition to his work at Clarin, Santoro teaches investigative journalism at the Universidad de Belgrano in Buenos Aires and has also conducted classes at the Fundacion para un Nuevo Periodismo Iberoamericano, run by Nobel Prize-winning author Gabriel Garcia-Marquez in Colombia. In 2000 and 2004, Santoro published Puro Periodismo (Pure Journalism) and Técnicas de Investigación (Investigation techniques), journalism textbooks.
Mark Schapiro is Editorial Director of the Center for Investigative Reporting. His award-winning stories appear in multiple media: in print, for publications such as Harper’s, The Nation and LA Times; on television, for PBS’s FRONTLINE/World; and on the public radio program, Emarketplace and American Radio Works. Recent stories include an investigation into the illicit trade in dual use nuclear technology; and a book investigating the U.S. corporate and government¹s response to the raising of environmental standards in Europe. The book, titled EXPOSED. Toxic Chemistry of Everyday Products: Who¹s at Risk and What¹s at Stake for American Power, will be published in September 2007.
Luuk Sengers is freelance reporter and board member of the Dutch-Flemish Association of Investigative Reporters (VVOJ). He wrote investigative stories about wage differences, unfairness in the tax system, diminishing social security, rising poverty, accidents in public transport, unsafe baby food and hormone disrupting chemicals in drinking water for national newspapers and magazines. He teaches advanced research techniques at journalism schools and universities in The Netherlands and Belgium. And he is co-founder of the first European investigative reporters network, IRENE. See: www.luuksengers.nl, www.vvoj.nl and www.irene-reporters.org.
Bruce Shapiro, a veteran reporter on human rights, criminal justice and American politics, is the executive director of the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma (www.dartcenter.org). He is a contributing editor at The Nation, and for the last decade has taught investigative journalism at Yale University. He also contributes a weekly report on American politics and culture to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's Late Night Live. Shapiro's most recent book is Shaking the Foundations: 200 Years of Investigative Journalism in America (Nation Books). He is co-author of Legal Lynching: The Death Penalty and America's Future, with Rev. Jesse Jackson and Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (New Press), a Washington Post Notable Book of 2001.
Michelle Shephard covers national security issues for the Toronto Star. Her reporting has taken her from New York's Ground Zero to Guantanamo Bay, Pakistan, Syria, Somalia and into an alleged Toronto terrorism cell that police claim they dismantled in 2005. Shephard is the recipient of a National Newspaper Award, Governor General's Michener and two-time winner of the Canadian Association of Journalists investigative awards. She is currently writing a book on Omar Khadr, Canada's detainee at Guantanamo Bay.
Julian Sher [www.juliansher.com] has written five investigative books including One Child at a Time: The Global fight to Rescue Children from Online Predators and the bestseller Until you are Dead: Steven Truscott’s Long Ride into History. He co-authored Angels of Death: Inside the Biker Gangs’ Crime Empire which has been translated into four languages and sold in seven countries. Also a TV producer with 15 years experience, he recently returned from Iraq to write and direct “The battle for Baghdad” for the New York Times and CBC. He directed a New York Times-CBC TV investigation called “Nuclear Jihad” which won the Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Award, the broadcast equivalent of the Pulitzer Prize. Julian’s web page, JournalismNet, [www.journalismnet.com] is ranked among the top ten journalism sites in the world by Google. He has trained in newsrooms for CNN, BBC and for most major broadcasters in Europe and Canada.
Steve Simon has been passionate about documenting life through photography since he began taking photographs at age 12 in his home city of Montreal. Steve is author of four critically acclaimed photography books with work in major museum collections around the world. His work ranges from the emotional impact of 9/11 to a dazzling road trip across America At The Edge, from the stark, stunning, often ruefully funny images in his Republican National Convention coverage; to the unexpected photographs of strength, joy and resilience under pressure in Heroines and Heroes: Hope, HIV and Africa. Steve’s work is in the permanent collections of The George Eastman House, Houston Museum of Fine Arts, and the Comune Di Verona. Recent work has been published in Mother Jones, The New York Times Magazine, Life, Colors, German Geo, Le Monde, Walrus and Harpers.
Margo Smit studied journalism in the United States. In 1989 she began working as a news and features reporter for a Dutch commercial TV station RTL4 and later as a political correspondent. In 1997, Margo transferred to KRO Reporter, an investigative television documentary series on Dutch public TV. She has investigated the Dutch monarchy, nuclear safety, accounting transparency at multinationals, Islam, and the tobacco industry. Margo Smit chairs the Dutch-Flemish association of investigative journalists VVOJ, and teaches investigative journalism on TV, with the emphasis on visualisation of investigative reporting at various journalism schools in the Netherlands and Flanders.
Martin Smith is a documentary producer with over 30 years experience in television. He has worked for PBS Frontline since the flagship public affairs series first aired back in 1983 and ABC News. He has won every major television award, including two Alfred I. duPont-Columbia Gold Batons. In 1998 he created RAIN Media, an independent production company, specializing in current affairs programs. Martin Smith has produced "Hunting bin Laden" -- first broadcast in 1999, then updated and rebroadcast immediately after Sept. 11. In November 2002, Smith produced "In Search of Al Qaeda," which follows the trail of the terrorist organization from the Afghanistan-Pakistan border to Pakistan's cities and into Saudi Arabia and Yemen, to find out what has happened to Osama bin Laden's network since September 11. In 2006, “Return of the Taliban” travels to a region long suspected of harboring Osama bin Laden and strictly off-limits to U.S. troops, Martin Smith explores the complex web of alliances among the Taliban, Al Qaeda fighters and the Pakistani military, and analyzes the consequences for U.S. policy.
Suzanne Smith is a broadcast journalist with 18 years experience in radio and television. She has worked in many senior positions throughout the ABC including covering politics for the A.M, P.M and The World Today programs from the Canberra bureau, Financial and Health reporter for ABC Radio News and Current Affairs, and National Industrial Correspondent for ABC Television. Currently Suzanne is a Senior Reporter for Lateline covering social and political issues. She has won two Walkley awards, one of the most prestigious awards in Australian journalism. In 2006 Lateline won the Human Rights Award for Television from Australia's Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission. Suzanne left journalism for three years to work with Indigenous Communities in Cape York.
Stephen “Sam” Sole has worked for the investigative magazine Noseweek, served as political editor of the Sunday Tribune, and joined the Mail & Guardian as investigative journalist in 2002. In 2003 he won the Vodacom Journalist of the Year award for first reporting the criminal investigation of then national deputy president Jacob Zuma. Together with colleague Stefaans Brummer, he also won the 2003 Mondi Award for investigative journalism for a story on the diversion of a Nigerian state oil allocation to a company linked to figures in South Africa’s ruling ANC. In 2006 Sam was co-winner of the Vodacom Journalist of the Year Award for the Oilgate series, which traced the involvement of another ANC-linked company in diverting money from a state contract to the coffers of the ruling party.
Randy Starkman is a veteran sports reporter with the Toronto Star. He has covered 10 Olympics. He is also a two-time National Newspaper Award winner for sports writing, including a win in 1993 for his world exclusive on Ben Johnson testing positive again for banned drugs.
Drew Sullivan has worked for the past seven years improving investigative reporting in Eastern Europe and Eurasia. He helped found the Centre for Investigative Reporting in Bosnia-Herzegovina, served as its first director and now advises management. He edits the centre's regional Crime and Corruption program in cooperation with other area centers. He co-founded the Journalism Development Group which does media development in the Middle East, Europe and Asia. He is an award-winning journalist who worked as an investigative reporter for the Tennessean newspaper in Nashville and the Associated Press. He has served on the board of Investigative Reporters and Editors.
Joan Sweeney Marsh is Manager of The Toronto Star's Library and Research Services Department. Besides providing research for several award winning Toronto Star stories, Joan herself has been nominated twice for the Canadian Association of Journalists Computer Assisted Reporting Award: in 2001, for a series examining a decade of homicides in Toronto and this year for a series of stories investigating low voter turnout. Joan has a Master of Library Science and an Honours BA in History and English from the University of Toronto. Before joining The Star, Joan was an electronic resources specialist at Toronto Reference Library. Her first position as a newspaper librarian was as an intern at The Globe and Mail.
Beverly Thomson is the co-host of Canada AM, a national morning show on the CTV Network. Beverly began her career in radio and moved into television as a reporter and anchor for CFTO-TV, now CTV Toronto. She then moved to Global Television as their supper hour news anchor. With more than fifteen years of news experience as a broadcast journalist in radio and television, Beverly is passionate about the media's role in society. She believes that her role as a broadcaster carries with it a responsibility to give back to the community. She made public her battle with breast cancer and became a spokesperson for the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation in Ontario. Beverly serves on the Seneca College Board of Advisors for Broadcast and Communications Curriculum.
Pia Thordsen, journalist at TV2 Syd, Denmark. Board Member of The Danish Association for investigative Journalism (FUJ) since 2000, Board Member of Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism (ARIJ), since 2005.
Anna Maria Tremonti has been the host of CBC Radio’s network morning current affairs program, The Current since its creation, in November of 2003. Prior to that, she was a host/correspondent for CBC Television’s flagship investigative documentary program, the fifth estate. From 1991 through 2000, Anna Maria was a foreign correspondent for CBC Television, based in Berlin, London, Jerusalem and Washington, filing news reports and documentaries on events and issues ranging from the breakup of the Soviet Union, to the wars in the former Yugoslav republics to the Arab-Israeli conflict. She has been a political reporter in Ottawa, and has covered local and political news in provinces across Canada for both radio and television.
Akhilesh Tripathi is the editor of the online publication Ekantipur.com, an English language website designed to target people living outside Nepal. Akhilesh has also worked for Nepalnews.com and Good Governance, an investigative magazine which focuses on anti-corruption and governance issues.
Fred Vallance-Jones is a reporter and weekend editor at The Hamilton Spectator. He has specialized in computer-assisted reporting for more than 10 years, and is the recipient of numerouous journalism awards including a National Newspaper Award and the CAJ's CAR award. Fred also teaches part-time in the school of journalism at Ryerson University in Toronto. Prior to joining the Spectator in 1999, Fred worked as a reporter with CBC Radio for 15 years. In the summer of 2007, he will take up an appointment as assistant professor of journalism at the University of King's College in Halifax.
André Verløy is a Norwegian freelance journalist. Before returning to Norway in 2005 he worked at the Washington-based Center for Public Integrity, where he focused on international investigative projects. He has covered issues such as arms trafficking, private military companies, global water privatization, and the reconstruction of Afghanistan and Iraq. The projects included extensive use of freedom of information acts. During the last year he has done work for a Norwegian weekly news magazine, the investigative unit of Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation and independent documentary producers. He also teaches research, archival and investigative techniques for the Norwegian Institute of Journalism. He is a board member of the Norwegian Investigative Journalism Foundation.
Lorenzo Vidino has been working for the Investigative Project since 2002. The Investigative Project is a Washington-based research institute that specializes in Islamic terrorism. In his capacities of terrorism analyst and deputy director Mr. Vidino studied the activities al Qaeda and affiliated groups worldwide, focusing mostly on Europe. Mr. Vidino is the author of the book “Al Qaeda in Europe: The New Battleground of Global Jihad,” published by Prometheus in 2005. He has published various articles on terrorism in publications such as The Wall Street Journal, The International Herald Tribune, Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, The Middle East Quarterly, and many others.
Tom Walkom is a political columnist for the Toronto Star. Winner of two national newspaper awards (foreign reporting and column writing), he was the Star’s Queen’s Park columnist for eight years during the David Peterson, Bob Rae and Mike Harris governments. Before that, he wrote for the Globe and Mail — first as an Ottawa parliamentary reporter specializing in economic policy, then Tokyo bureau chief and finally as provincial affairs columnist. He’s also worked for the Vancouver Sun and Calgary Herald. Walkom holds a PhD in economics from the University of Toronto. He has taught economics and economic history at the University of Guelph, and political science at the University of Toronto. He is author of Rae Days: the rise and follies of NDP, a book on Ontario’s first New Democratic Party government that managed to make the best sellers’ list for about five minutes.
Vivienne Walt is a seasoned foreign correspondent, reporting widely for Time Magazine since 2003, from Iraq, Europe, and most recently the embattled Niger Delta and the Democratic Republic of Congo. She spent nearly two years reporting from Iraq before and after the US invasion, twice narrowly avoiding rocket attacks in Baghdad, and once a bullet that lodged in her car seat. Her interviews have spanned the extremes of humanity: from heads of state, international diplomats, CEOs, and Hollywood stars; to street prostitutes in Asia, jailed criminals, Muslim insurgents, and guerrilla fighters. She has reported from Iran several times since 2000, focusing on internal cultural battles and the government's growing defiance against the West. This past year, she has written from Iran and Africa about China's mounting economic and military power, and its implications for Western interests. She has written widely in the Middle East, and in Asia, she has reported from China, Cambodia, Indonesia, and Thailand. She was twice nominated for the Pulitzer Prize for her reports from Africa.
Stephen Ward is Director and Associate Professor of Journalism Ethics at the graduate School of Journalism, University of British Columbia. His expertise includes the history of journalism ethics, news objectivity, and global journalism ethics, all areas in which he is an internationally recognized expert. Stephen has 15 years of journalism experience, including 10 years with the Canadian Press (CP) as a foreign correspondent and bureau chief. He spent five years with CP in Europe, where he covered the first Gulf War, the Bosnian conflict and the troubles in Northern Ireland. Stephen is the author of The Invention of Journalism Ethics: The Path to Objectivity and Beyond, published in 2005 by McGill-Queen’s University Press.
Maureen Webb is a Canadian human rights and labour lawyer. She is the author of Illusions of Security: Global Surveillance and Democracy in the Post 9-11 World (City Lights, San Francisco) published in February 2007 and available through City Lights and Amazon. Maureen is Co-Chair of the International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group and Coordinator for security and human rights issues for Lawyers’ Rights Watch Canada. She has written and spoken extensively on post-September 11 issues, testifying before Parliamentary Committees reviewing the Canadian Anti-terrorism Act, and most recently speaking at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs and on Democracy Now! with Amy Goodman in New York City.
Donovan Webster is a journalist and author. He has written investigative journalism for numerous publications, including The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, National Geographic, Outside, Rolling Stone, Wired, and Smithsonian. His most recent book, with Ray LeMoine and Jeff Neumann, is "Babylon by Bus" about Iraq under J. Paul Bremer's American-led coalition. In 1997, his book "Aftermath: The Remnants of War" received the prestigious Lionel Gelber Prize in Toronto, and was later turned into a documentary film produced by the National Film Board of Canada in association with History Television.
Margot Williams is the database research editor at The New York Times. She moved to the Times in 2004 after 14 years at The Washington Post and previous positions at the Poughkeepsie (NY) Journal and Time Warner. Williams is the co-author (with Nora Paul) of Great Scouts! Cyberguides for Subject Searching on the Web.
Donald Worme of the Kawacatoose First Nation, Treaty #4, received his Bachelor of Laws Degree at the University of Saskatchewan in 1985 and practices criminal law and Aboriginal rights litigation. Donald is a founding member and member in good standing with the Indigenous Bar Association in Canada, a national association of Aboriginal lawyers, where he served as President between 1989 and 1991. Don represented Sandra Paquachon in the 1995 Commission of Inquiry into Events at The Prison for Women in Kingston which was presided over by Madame Justice Louise Arbour. He has served as lead counsel to the family of Neil Stonechild in the Public Inquiry into the freezing death of the Aboriginal teenager in Saskatoon. More recently, Donald served as Commission Counsel to the Ipperwash Judicial Inquiry in Ontario which examined the death of Aboriginal protester Anthony (Dudley) George at the hands of a police sniper.
Nurit Wurgaft writes for the Israeli newspaper, Haaretz. She writes mainly about migrant workers and refugees from Sudan and other African countries (DC, Ivory Coast, Liberia). Nurit wrote on book on the plight of migrant workers called, Police! Open up! - Migrant Workers in Israel. She has also written for the Jerusalem weekly Kol Ha'ir and the daily Yediot Ahronot, where she covered education, welfare, and the immigration wave that brought to Israel in the 1990’s, more than a million new immigrants (Jews) from Russia and Ethiopia.

