(Bulletin No 125, 22 September 2006)
Journeys into Journalism with MediaWise on the SS Robin
Wednesday 11 October 2006, 6.30pm
Journey No.2 – ‘Conversation with a Child Trafficker?’
Sinisa Nadazdin, from Montenegro, with freelance journalist Rich Cookson and Mike Jempson, Director, The MediaWise Trust
In January 2004 Sinisa Nadazdin, a young Christian humanitarian worker in Montenegro, was accused of being a child trafficker in a sensational Sunday Mirror ‘Exclusive’ headlined FOR SALE AGE 3 above a doctored photograph of three children with price tags. He was immediately arrested in Podgorica, but released by the police when they realised that the story was not true. His only ‘crime’ had been to provide assistance to a British journalist investigating the trade international trade in children. For that both he and the journalist faced charges of defaming the state, and Sinisa was interrogated in jail by the security services.
A year later he won substantial damages from the newspaper. Now he is coming to London to tell his side of the story for the second ‘Journey into Journalism’, a series of events organised by The MediaWise Trust and the SS Robin Gallery that gets under the skin of contemporary journalism. He will be talking with Rich Cookson and Mike Jempson, who helped to clear his name.
Sinisa was one of the few people working among impoverished Roma refugees families in Montenegro. He thought publicity about their plight would help, but found himself caught up in a diplomatic incident instead, when the story raced around the world on the information super highway. How could things have gone so wrong?
Come and find out more about the risks and pitfalls of investigative journalism and trying to set the record straight.
Tickets: £6 in advance, £8 on the door. You can order online, or by calling the SS Robin on 020 7538 0652