2019 Lecture

David Aaronovitch

Columnist at the Times, and chairman of Index on Censorship

The 2019 Philip Geddes Memorial Lecture was delivered by David Aaronovitch on Friday, March 1. He spoke on the topic of “The culture wars – do liberals need to use the media tactics of their opponents to win?’

David started his career as a television researcher in the 1980s before moving into print journalism at the Independent in the mid-1990s. He began his long-running column in the Times in 2005, and has also written for the Guardian, the Observer, the Jewish Chronicle, and the New Statesman among many others. He is the author of a number of books and has appeared numerous times on television, including the BBC’s Have I Got News For You, and radio.
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In 2001 he won the prestigious Orwell Prize for journalism and in 2003 he was named What The Papers Say Columnist of the Year.

Since 2013 he has been the chairman of Index on Censorship, a non-profit organisation that campaigns for and defends freedom of expression around the world, a cause close to the heart of many journalists and one that has come increasingly under the spotlight in recent years.