Event and Ticketing Details
Dates & Times
Saturday 29 August
11:30 AM - 12:30 PM
As the reach of ISIS continues to unfurl, key strategic cities in Syria and Iraq have fallen to the group and a number of Australians (most often young or vulnerable) have been drawn into its networks. While media attention has focused primarily on the spectacle of ISIS – the beheadings and immolations – and the organisation’s sophisticated online recruitment strategies, true and measured insight has sometimes proven elusive. What are we failing to comprehend about the workings and the ambitions of the group? Not five years since the optimistic first stirrings of the Arab Spring, how did we get here – to talk of an apocalyptic showdown – so quickly?
Sally Warhaft is joined by award-winning journalist Sally Neighbour, author of two books on terrorism and Islamic extremism, and Jamie Tarabay, senior editor of national security and tech at Vocativ, to discuss the growing influence of ISIS and, more generally, the challenges of reporting on global conflict today.
Update: Sally Neighbour has replaced Roger Cohen in this event, as Roger Cohen is no longer appearing at Melbourne Writers Festival.
Featuring
Sally Warhaft
Sally Warhaft is a Melbourne broadcaster, anthropologist and writer. She is the host of The Fifth Estate, the Wheeler Centre’s live series focusing on journalism, politics, media, and international relations, and The Leap Year ...
Jamie Tarabay
Jamie Tarabay is a foreign correspondent and the author of A Crazy Occupation: Eyewitness to the Intifada. As Baghdad bureau chief for NPR News her reporting was awarded the Alfred I duPont-Columbia University Award. She has lived and reported from the Middle East, Southeast Asia, Northen Africa and the United States for over 15 years.
Tarabay's writing has appeared in Marie Claire, The Atlantic (online), and the quarterly Dispatches: Beyond Iraq. She was recently awarded a Gracie for her coverage of the Ferguson race riots, and is currently the senior editor for national security and tech at news website, Vocativ.
Sally Neighbour
Sally Neighbour is executive producer of Four Corners. She is a multiple award-winning journalist and author, best known for her work with Four Corners as well as her specialist writing with The Australian newspaper and her authorship of two books on terrorism and Islamic extremism.
Sally’s book The Mother of Mohammed (MUP 2009) was shortlisted for the Walkley non-fiction book award. In the Shadow of Swords: On the trail of terrorism from Afghanistan to Australia (Harper Collins 2004) won the 2005 NSW history prize and was named by the Economist as one of its best 25 books for 2005. Sally also edited the book marking Four Corners’ 50th anniversary.
Neighbour was a foreign correspondent in Hong Kong and China 1992-1996 and a senior reporter with Four Corners 1996- 2009. During that time she won three Walkley Awards. In 2000 she presented Lateline before returning to Four Corners in 2011 to present an investigative report on sex slavery. She has written extensively forThe Australian on terrorism and Islamic extremism and for The Monthly magazine on politics and international affairs.