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Each autumn Polis invites a dozen media practitioners to discuss the latest trends as part of our yearly Media Agenda Talk series of public lectures.

Here are the highlights for this year’s talks which are all free and open to all. Contact us at polis@lse.ac.uk to reserve a seat if you wish.

Unless noted otherwise, each talk is on a Tuesday at 5pm in the New Theatre (E171), Houghton Street, LSE opposite the main LSE entrance in the Old Building.

The details of last year’s talks can be found here. Click on the ‘Podcasts’ tab on the Polis website to listen to audio recordings of the talks.

October 8th

Tom Standage, Digital Editor at the Economist and author of Writing it on the Wall

Chair: Charlie Beckett

Tom Standage is digital editor at The Economist and editor-in-chief of its website, Economist.com. He has been editor of the Technology Quarterly supplement, which covers emerging technology, since 2003. Tom is also the author of six history books, including the forthcoming “Writing on the Wall”, the New York Times bestseller “A History of the World in Six Glasses”, and “The Victorian Internet”, a history of the telegraph.

Follow Tom @tomstandage and the lecture at #polisStandage

October 15th

Tim Burt, Managing Partner, StockWell Group

Chair: Damian Tambini

Tim Burt is joint managing partner at StockWell Group, an international communications firm, and author of “Dark Art – The Changing Face of Public Relations”. Tim was previously a partner at Brunswick, an international advisory firm, where he oversaw sectors including media, technology and automotive. Tim was formerly an award-winning journalist at the Financial Times, where he spent 16 years in several senior editorial roles including Media Editor, Motor Industry Correspondent and Nordic Bureau Chief.

Follow the lecture at #polisStockwell

October 22nd

Amanda Farnsworth, Head of BBC Visual Journalism

Chair: Charlie Beckett

Amanda Farnsworth is the Head of BBC Visual Journalism. Prior to this, Amanda worked as Project Executive for BBC London 2012, leading the coverage of all major events including the Olympic Torch Relay and the Olympic Games. She previously was editor of the BBC’s one and six o’clock News, deputy editor of Newsnight and bureau chief in Washington DC.

Follow Amanda @farnsa and the lecture at #polisbbc

October 29th

Justine Roberts, Founder and CEO of Mumsnet

Chair: Damian Tambini

Justine Roberts is a co-founder and the CEO of Mumsnet, a website and network for parents which currently generates over 50 million page views per month. Before Mumsnet, Justine worked in the City for 10 years as an economist and market strategist before moving to a career in sports journalism.

Follow Justine @Justine_Roberts and the lecture at #polismumsnet

November 5th

David Mahoney, Director of Policy Development at Ofcom

Chair: Damian Tambini

David Mahoney is currently Director of Policy Development at Ofcom. Previously, David was Chief Advisor to the CEO of Ofcom and then Director of Content Policy.  In addition, David spent a year working in Government as a Director of the Digital Britain project, which set the Government’s UK strategy for the UK communications sector.

Before joining Ofcom, David was a lawyer at Richard Butler specializing in UK and EC Competition Law with a particular focus on the media sector, including a spell working in house for MTV Networks Europe.  Before that he was Administrator for the Government’s Football Task Force.

Follow the lecture at #polisofcom

November 12th – London Week

• Eve Harris, author of The Marrying of Chani Kaufman, longlisted for the 2013 Man Booker Prize

Eve Harris taught for 12 years at inner-city comprehensives and independent schools in London and also in Tel Aviv, after moving to Israel in 1999. She returned to London in 2002 to resume teaching at an all girls’ Catholic convent school. “The Marrying of Chani Kaufman” was inspired by her final year of teaching at an all girls’ ultra-Orthodox Jewish school in North West London.

• Lloyd Bradley, Music journalist and author of Sounds like London: 100 years of black music in the capital

Lloyd Bradley is considered to be one of the major British writers on black music from funk to reggae, Bradley began contributing to NME in the 1980s and then wrote for Q, MOJO and many other publications. He is the author of “Bass Culture”, a history of reggae, and “Sounds like London: 100 years of black music in the capital”.

• Fatima Manji, Reporter at Channel 4 News

Fatima Manji is a Reporter at Channel 4 News since January 2012. Before this, Fatima was a reporter, presenter and video journalist for the BBC in the East of England, where she investigated stories including exploitative landlords and hate crime against migrants.

Chair: Dr Myria Georgiou, LSE, Author of ‘Media and the City’

Follow Fatima @fatimamanji, and the lecture at #polisLondon

November 19th

Beeban Kidron, Film and documentary maker

Chair: Charlie Beckett

Baroness Kidron OBE has worked in feature film, television drama and documentary. Her work includes feature films “Bridget Jones: the Edge of Reason” and “Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit”, as well as documentaries, “Antony Gormley: Making Space”, “Hookers, Hustlers, Pimps and Their Johns” and “Sex, Death and the Gods”.  She was appointed as a crossbench Peer to the House of Lords in 2012.

“InRealLife”, Baroness Kidron’s latest project, is a documentary about young people and the Internet. Its release is scheduled for October 2013.

Follow the lecture at #polisKidron

MONDAY 25th November, 6.30pm – in Partnership with LSE IDEAS

Please note that this is not on the regular day – it’s Monday not Tuesday – and is in a different venue:

Old Theatre, Old Building, Houghton Street, LSE

Alec Ross, former Senior Advisor for Innovation to Hillary Clinton

Chair: Charlie Beckett

Alec Ross is the former Senior Advisor for Innovation to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.  Previously, Alec worked for Teach for America in Baltimore and founded the non-profit One Economy, which works globally to allow low-income individuals to have access to and benefit from technology. Ross also was a part of the Presidential Transition team for the Obama-Biden campaign as well as the Convener for Obama for America’s Technology, Media & Telecommunications Policy Committee.

Follow Alec @AlecJRoss and the lecture at #polisRoss

December 3rd

Brendan Paddy, Head of Communications at the Disasters Emergency Committee

Chair: Charlie Beckett

Brendan Paddy is the Head of Communications at the Disasters Emergency Committee which brings together 14 leading UK aid agencies to raise funds for major overseas crises.

He joined the DEC in 2009 and on his first day began to lead the communications work of the member agencies as they responded to two typhoons and an earthquake that had just hit South East Asia. He has since led the communications work of the DEC for appeals for the Haiti earthquake, Pakistan floods, East Africa crisis and the Syria crisis.

Follow Brendan @bjpaddy and the lecture at #polisaid

December 10th

Caroline Criado-Perez, feminist campaigner and freelance journalist, co-founder of The Women’s Room

Chair: Charlie Beckett

Caroline Criado-Perez is a freelance journalist, broadcaster and feminist campaigner. Co-founder of The Women’s Room, an organisation that campaigns for more women experts in the media, she also started and ran the Keep Women on Banknotes campaign. Caroline is currently completing an MSc in Gender at LSE, where her dissertation is on the representation of women experts in the media.

Caroline has appeared in international, national and local media (online, print and broadcast), both as an expert on feminist issues, and as a general media commentator. Caroline has also spoken at schools and conferences, and was featured in the Independent on Sunday’s Happy List 2013.

Follow the lecture @PolisLSE with #polisFem and Caroline @CCriadoPerez.

photo credit: Mal Booth