Jeremy Tunstall Lecture: In Conversation with Polly Toynbee and David Walker

We are delighted to welcome Polly Toynbee and David Walker to give this year’s Jeremy Tunstall Lecture in memory of Professor Jeremy Tunstall, one of the founding fathers of British sociology, media and journalism studies and Professor at City St George's.

In conversation with David Walker, her partner and co-author, Polly Toynbee explores the historic right-wing bias of British journalists and deconstructs professional myths around impartiality and closet progressivism. They present joint reflections on parallel careers in newspapers, broadcasting, social media and social research.

Jeremy Tunstall

Jeremy was highly respected across the University for his interdisciplinary literature that spanned many areas and eras in public culture. His publications include the seminal Journalists at Work in 1971 and latterly Media Occupations and Professions (2001), The Media Were American: Mass Media in Decline (2007), and BBC and Television Genres in Jeopardy (2015).

Polly Toynbee

Polly is an award-winning columnist for the Guardian, a regular broadcaster and formerly Social Affairs Editor at the BBC. She began her career in journalism on The Observer; she edited the Washington Monthly and was a columnist at the Independent. She was a member of the Williams Committee on censorship, the National Screening Committee and Xenotransplantation Committee and chaired the Brighton Dome and Festival. Her books include Hospital and An Uneasy Inheritance, my Family and other Radicals and, with David Walker, The Verdict – did Labour deliver; The Lost Decade, Unjust Rewards and most recently The Only Way is Up.

David Walker

David was research assistant to Jeremy Tunstall on The Media are American and worked for The Times, the London Daily News, the Independent and was founding editor of Guardian Public. He was managing director, public reporting at the Audit Commission. Other board roles include NatCen and the Economic & Social Research Council, and he now chairs Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust. His books include Media Made in California (with Jeremy Tunstall), Sources Close to the Prime Minister (with Peter Hennessy), Municipal Empire, Exaggerated Claims, the ESRC 50 years on and, with Polly Toynbee, Better or Worse, Cameron’s Coup and Dismembered.