Seminar: Journalism in the age of far-right populism – Resisting hostility, surveillance, and censorship

ICSJ FSV UK invites you to the seminar Journalism in the Age of Far-Right Populism – Resisting Hostility, Surveillance and Censorship. The seminar is hosted by Alice Němcová Tejkalová, introduction by Carlo Berti.

Speakers:

• Renate Schroeder: Director of the European Federation of Journalists
• Francesco Cancellato: Investigative journalist and Editor-in-Chief of Fanpage.it
• Eva Simon: The Civil Liberties Union for Europe (Liberties)

The seminar will explore the present and future of journalism in a political context in which far-right populist forces are gaining increasing support and political power. It will examine the challenges facing journalism, and the tools available to journalists and newsrooms to tackle an increasingly hostile political climate, a rise in threats and violence, and increasingly explicit attempts at legal intimidation, censorship and surveillance. The focus will be particularly on the European dimension, reflecting also on EU regulations for the defence of press freedom, and on case studies such as Italy and Hungary.

Three guests will engage in dialogue with one another and with the audience: Renate Schroeder, Director of the European Federation of Journalists; Francesco Cancellato, an investigative Italian journalist and author of two recent books on the European far right and digital surveillance; and Eva Simon, a member of Liberties, a human rights lawyer, and expert on media freedom and Hungary.

Time and venue: April 21, 2026 – 9.30 to 11 am – Hollar Building Room 215 - Faculty of Social Sciences - Smetanovo nábřeží 6, 110 00, Prague 1

Other information: The seminar will be held in English. For organizational reasons, we kindly ask you to register via this link.

More about the speakers:

Francesco Cancellato is an investigative Italian journalist and Editor-in-Chief of Fanpage.it. From December 2014 to September 2019, he was editor-in-chief of the online newspaper Linkiesta.it.

He is the author of numerous books, including one on the far-right in Europe. In 2024, he was targeted by the spyware Graphite. In his latest book, “Il nemico dentro. Caso Paragon, spie e metodi da regime nell'Italia di Giorgia Meloni”, he recounts the story of how his phone was hacked and reflects on the surveillance of journalists and the risks to democracy. He is a member of the board of directors of the European Journalism Centre.

Renate Schroeder is the Director of the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ). In 1993, she joined the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), and since 2003 she has worked for the EFJ. Among other things, she has been working on advocacy at the EU and Council of Europe levels, fact-finding media freedom missions, and lectures. Additionally, she has been leading the Federation’s debate on the European Media Freedom Act.

Renate studied International Relations and Political Science at Boston University (Bachelor’s Degree in 1988) and in Berlin at the Free University (Master's in 1992). She worked at the Friedrich-Ebert Foundation in Brussels before she joined the EFJ. 

Eva Simon is a human rights lawyer with a special focus on digital rights, currently working as a senior advocacy officer at Liberties. She is responsible for freedom of expression and privacy. Besides her EU-level advocacy work, Eva works on strategic litigation across EU member states, most recently on the enforcement of the General Data Protection Regulation, which was reported by the New York Times, Reuters and Bloomberg.

She has been active in the human rights field for more than ten years. Prior to joining the NGO scene, Eva worked as a media lawyer and a researcher. She was a research fellow at Central European University (2006), the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, Yeshiva University, New York, USA (2005), and at the Technical University of Budapest, Hungary (2001-2005). She has authored several expert studies, book chapters and articles on privacy and media freedom.

This seminar is part of the Project “MSCA Fellowships CZ – UK2”, Reg. nu. CZ.02.01.01/00/22_010/0008115, funded through the OPJAK program.