Society & Culture

In the 2019 Kenneth Myer lecture, Professor Peter Greste drew on his own experience of imprisonment in Egypt to examine the global political forces that have undermined press freedom both abroad and here in Australia. He considered how we got the laws that created the problem, the media’s own role in getting us there and how we might be able to fix it. Professor Peter Greste is UNESCO Chair in Journalism and Communication at the University of Queensland. He came to academia after a 30-year career as a foreign correspondent for the BBC, Reuters, CNN and Al Jazeera. He is best known for being charged with terrorism offences in Cairo while he worked for Al Jazeera. Their case became a fight for press freedom and since his release in 2015, he has become an advocate for journalists worldwide. His campaigning earned him numerous human rights awards and in 2017, with two colleagues, he established the advocacy group, the Alliance for Journalists’ Freedom. This event was generously supported by The Myer Foundation.