Confirmed speakers for information, ethics and the public good.

Dr Christopher Longhurst is a theologian trained in the Roman system. He holds a doctorate in fundamental theology from the Angelicum, Rome (2009), and a Master of Arts in Moral Theology from the same. He served as Professor of Philosophy and Religious Studies at Al Akhawayn University in Ifrane, Morocco, from 2012 to 2014, and currently lectures in Victoria University of Wellington’s Continuing Education Program. He has been a board member of SATRS since April 2015.

Discussion on the human right to information for the common good revolves around issues such as what constitutes the common good, what is due to the common good, relationships between justice and rights in both individual and social contexts, private versus public rights and responsibilities, and most specifically, the natural object of knowing as conducive to human flourishing. This is a complex nexus of relationships and one worthy of exploring today given recent activity showing a new direction in national and intentional leadership which, arguably, encroaches upon ethical norms of human rights and human flourishing regarding freedom of information for the common good, especially in a free liberal democracy such as New Zealand.

Phil Stevens is a New Economics associate (and Chair of Living Economies) and will be discussing the poverty of economic information available to use as citizens.

Rev. Dr Susan Jones Minister at St Andrews. Susan will discuss the revolution in the way we find and access information and comment on some of the changes this is bringing about in society including information inequity.

Suzanne Snively is the Chair of Transparency International and was instrumental in leading NZ’s development of national integrity system measures in 2013

Laura O’Connell Rapira is the Campaign Director at Action Station and last year founded RockEnrol an initiative to encourage young people to vote.

Dr Peter Thompson  is a senior lecturer in media studies at Victoria University of Wellington and founding Chair of the Coalition for Better Broadcasting Trust. He is a long-standing proponent of a public service approach to media and has published extensively on changes in New Zealand media policy over the last 20 years.  He also chaired the working group which oversaw public submissions on the revised (but now repealed) TVNZ Charter. He is currently on the steering group of the Civics & Media project, a multi-stakeholder initiative exploring the future information needs of civil society.

Alex Clark has recently finished Masters level study on the willingness to pay for online news (the News renewed) and is currently trialling software to support payments for access to news and blogging sites.

Alastair Thompson is the editor at Scoop Media limited and after 16 years he is transitioning Scoop from a commercial to a community enterprise. In 2015 Operation Chrysalis published a number of in-depth articles on the state of NZ’s media and a crowd-funding exercise  provided the means to transition of Scoop Media to the Scoop Foundation which was completed in September. The transition continues with ‘Take Back the News”.

Alastair will describe the proposed direction for Scoop Media and the innovative funding mechanisms that it is developing to fund public interest journalism.

Oliver Lineham is an IT consultant who also helps run FYI.org.nz, a website for anyone to make Official Information Act requests.

The OIA is not just for news media anymore. Freedom of information laws are under attack around the world – can more widespread use help save this democratic right in New Zealand?

Caleb Tutty is a News Developer in the Data Journalism team at The New Zealand Herald. He works on civic technology projects, uses code to analyse open government data and interactive visualisations to tell stories.

Caleb will be speaking on Data Journalism and Civic Technologies.

Data journalism has built on traditions ranging from database journalism, computer assisted reporting and precision journalism to include a culture of interactive story telling through visualisations and nuanced, replicable analysis. Open-source and open data movements have made access to information more democratic, and technologically-savvy civic groups have sprung up to fill this space. Internationally these changes have seen the creation of new forms of media organisations as well as providing groups like anti-corruption activists new ways to campaign.

Valerie Morse is a Wellington-based activist and writer. She works in local grassroots campaigns focusing on opposing New Zealand’s involvement in the war on terrorism and opposing deep-sea oil exploration. Most recently, she has been working as part of What IF? a campaign raising awareness about the dangers of data collection, storage, analysis and sharing by both state and corporate power.

Valerie will address this issue and the campaigning and direct action to develop a people’s review  of our spying legislation. The official review has a limited remit which makes an honest assessment  of the legislation and a more democratic outcome next to impossible.

Cath Wallace is a member of the Eco board.  ECO is the peak organisation for the NZ environmental sector and will be talking about the work of the Democracy and Open government working party of ECO

Greg Rzesniowiecki  has travelled the country talking to councils about the problems with the secrecy of, and the possible impacts of the TPPA to councils. A dozen councils representing more than 60% of New Zealand’s population have now signed up to support a public interest TPP policy.

Jeff Kelly Lowenstein is a US based journalist who was in NZ recently as a Fullbright scholar. He is a lecturer in the Journalism Department at Columbia College Chicago, the former database and investigative editor at Hoy Chicago, the Chicago Tribune company’s Spanish-language newspaper, and immediate past president of the Ochberg Society for Trauma Journalism, an international organization of journalists who cover issues of trauma and violence with sensitivity and compassion. His work has been published in The New Yorker and the Center for Public Integrity, and he has earned local, regional, national and international recognition from organizations like the National Press Club, Investigative Reporters and Editors, the Society for News Design and the National Association of Black Journalists.

Esther Bukholt is an experienced Wellington based facilitator and will be designing a process to enable participants to have their say about information and ethics issues.

Helen Dew runs the Living Economies bookshop and the bookstall will be at the conference.

The St Andrews Trust (Satrs) will also be selling its books and DVDs of the  at the conference.

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