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21 October 2024

For the penultimate lecture of the first half term, we were lucky to hear about Journalism in the “Year of Democracy”, as well as the challenges in the current media surrounding fake news and deepfakes.
 

By Jack V, Lower Sixth student

Old Birkonian, Mr Martin Wilson, began by documenting how it was only 25 days until the US Election, before moving on to the first piece of propaganda, documenting how “Taylor Swift votes Trump”. Mr Wilson documented how this was an example of a deepfake, an image created using technology to alter a message, or person, to use as propaganda. This gave us all a deeper understanding on how to trust the media, as we then saw the actual Swift post, endorsing Kamala Harris.
 
Mr Wilson then spoke to us about his career in journalism, starting in 1980, when he joined BBC Newsnight, as well as joining the Panorama team, researching around the globe to get the detailed facts for one of Britain’s ever popular shows. However, Mr Wilson documented how his passion was in classics and documentary making, showing us 3 clips from hour-long documentaries he had produced and presented. These were: “The Art of Persuasion”, “The Lost Pyramids of Caral” and “The Dark Lords of Hattusha”, all 3 clips were incredibly interesting and well produced, however “The Lost Pyramids of Caral” was the most popular among students, due to the use of detailed CGI. Before departing, Mr Wilson gave us his top tips for journalism and academic study. His top tip, develop you AI skills.
 
I would like to thank Mr Wilson for giving up his time to speak to us, and for documenting his vast and interesting career in the world of journalism. It was inspiring, and gave us useful pieces of advice for the future