Judges 2022

Madhav Chinnappa

Director of News Ecosystem Development, Google

“The Trust supports a part of the news ecosystem that often gets overlooked – freelancers.”

Madhav is Google’s Director of News Ecosystem Development, working on partnerships and collaborations between Google and the news industry. In 2015, he launched the Digital News Initiative, which is Google’s overarching framework for engagement with the European news ecosystem. He joined Google in 2010 to focus on Google News & Magazines in the EMEA regions. He has worked in the news industry since 1994 – first in the launch team of Associated Press Television, a year in M&A at United News & Media, and spent over 9 years at BBC News, latterly as Head of Development & Rights.

“I have known, and been impressed and humbled by, the work the Rory Peck Trust has done from the early days of my career at APTV. The Trust supports a part of the news ecosystem that often gets overlooked – freelancers – and yet it is these self same freelancers who play an invaluable role in the news that we all consume. I am honoured to be on the Board.”

Ben de Pear

TV Journalist and Executive Producer, founder at Basement Films

“Freelancers cover the stories we can’t or don’t – but often should.”

Ben has been on the Board of the Rory Peck Trust since 2009. He became Editor of Channel 4 News in August 2012. Before that, he was Head of Foreign News at Channel 4 News, following a decade working mostly in hostile environments as a foreign producer for ITN and Sky News. Ben was based in Johannesburg for Sky from 2000-2005 and worked all over Africa, as well as across the Middle East, Asia and Europe. In 1999, he produced Sky’s RTS Award-winning coverage of Kosovo, and was their Producer in Baghdad for the US-led invasion in 2003. In 2004, he obtained the only British TV interview with President Robert Mugabe this century. At Channel 4 News, he has helped win over a dozen RTS Awards, a BAFTA and 4 Amnesty International Awards for Television. Since stepping down from his role at Channel 4, one he held for nearly 10 years, Ben founded Basement Films, a production company dedicated to producing impactful and extraordinary stories with the world’s best story tellers and film makers.

“The Rory Peck Trust is a vital organisation helping those who want to find out the truth, but who don’t have the protection and support of a big organisation. There is no other organisation out there doing this vital work.”

William Reeve

Independent consultant
Former BBC correspondent

“Since the advent of the coronavirus pandemic, freelance journalists around the world face increasing challenges which need addressing on many levels.”

William Reeve is a former BBC foreign correspondent, editor and producer, who now works as an independent consultant advising governments and other organisations on how to optimise their strategic communications, especially at challenging times.  This has included setting up and managing training programmes for journalists and for officials and others who need to work with the media.  

William has more than 30 years of broad experience within Afghanistan, where freelance journalists continue to face considerable danger, but where the Afghan media in particular persist in defiantly guarding their independence and holding the authorities to account. 

Sandhiya Sophie Argent

Media Lawyer

“I am committed to ensuring that freelancers, in particular, have recourse to the support that they and their families need, which is very much in alignment with the Rory Peck Trust.”

Sandhiya Sophie Argent is a Media Lawyer and a passionate advocate for freedom of expression. She routinely advises journalists and programme-makers working on the News and current affairs investigations, which often involve challenging legal, regulatory and ethical issues.  

She has come into contact with many journalists and programme-makers who work tirelessly in pursuit of stories of public interest and often put themselves at great personal risk and stress in the process. She has been heavily involved in considering risk assessments for travel to hostile environments and this has further highlighted the importance of creating a safer environment for those involved in newsgathering.

Clive Myrie

Chief Correspondent & Presenter, BBC News

“Rory’s lasting legacy through the Trust has been to allow so many people to continue to work in a precarious business where there are no guarantees for safety or income. I’ve come across so many men and women in the field from Afghanistan to Mexico, Libya to East Timor, who are able to pursue their love and desire to try to help better inform the world of what’s going on, and by doing so perhaps even help make the world a better place, because of the work of the Rory Peck Trust.”

Tira Shubart

Chair of the Trust

Freelance Producer and Writer

Tira has been on the Board of The Rory Peck Trust since 2000. She first met Rory Peck in Bucharest during the Romanian Revolution in 1989.

Tira has worked as a news and documentary producer for British, Canadian and American television networks, and for Frontline News Television, covering stories in over 50 countries. Recently, Tira has worked extensively in East Africa. She co-authored the book Lifting the Veil: Life in Revolutionary Iran and has written for the UK and US press. Tira also wrote and produced a BBC comedy series about journalists, Taking the Flak.

“Within a few hours of first meeting Rory, we were caught in several street battles, had commandeered the car of a fleeing Securitate officer after we fed our video to London, and then watched the National Library burn to the ground. By the end of that memorable week, Rory seemed to know everyone in Bucharest and all doors opened for him. His career ended in Moscow in 1993, leaving a large Rory-shaped hole in our lives.”

Sally Fitton

Director TV and Film projects at Secret Compass

Richard Tolkien

Richard Tolkien has a long-standing interest in journalism and joins the Board of Trustees bringing great expertise in corporate financial services and as an independent legal advisor. Richard started his career at HM Treasury, including 2.5 years as Assistant Private Secretary to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Geoffrey Howe. Richard went onto corporate finance where he worked as a Director with Morgan Grenfell, before moving to HSBC where he was Managing Director and later an Executive Director of Macquarie Bank. Richard was also senior non-executive director of the Parkwood Group plc and of Share plc until 2020. After 25 very full-time years of investment banking, Richard became an independent expert witness in arbitrations and litigation and has advised on numerous cases in the UK and internationally. Richard also serves as a Trustee and the Chairman of Stoke Mandeville Spinal Research and as the Treasurer of St John’s Church, Boldre.

Jess Search

Co-founder and Chief Executive of Doc Society, supporting the social, political and cultural impact of independent documentary filmmakers around the world.  Doc Society works with many high risk films (CITIZENFOUR, Welcome to Chechnya, Dirty Wars, Softie) and created the independent documentary filmmakers resource Safe+Secure.film.   

She is also chair of IPPR, the leading progressive think tank in the UK working on economic and climate justice policy.  Board member of Kickstarter, Public Benefit Corporation and crowdfunding leader.  Trustee of MSI Reproductive Choices, the world’s largest abortion and family planning provider. MBA from Cass Business School. Once a Commissioning Editor at Channel 4.

Natasha Doff

Natasha is a Senior Editor at Bloomberg News in London, responsible for commissioning and editing features and working with reporters across Europe to cover the biggest news stories of the day. Her experience includes a decade of reporting on the ground from Russia, most recently in Bloomberg’s Moscow bureau until 2021. During that time she covered the deepening economic tensions between Russia and the West and the Kremlin’s moves to safeguard itself from the threat of sanctions as it prepared for war. 

James Leach

James has been at Sony for over 15 years and is now responsible as Category Head for Camcorders and Professional Audio within the News & Broadcast area, focusing heavily on Professional content acquisition & solutions. James works with hero products such as the Sony FX9, Z280 and Z750 which are predominantly used by a large number of journalists to capture News content from all over the world.

Federico Escher

Federico is an Italian Journalist who is the Head of Foreign News at Channel 4 News. He has worked there for over a decade as a Programme Editor, a Foreign Affairs producer and as Series Producer of The Fourcast, Channel 4 News Podcast.   

In his time at Channel 4 News he produced the award winning series of reports “Inside Aleppo” with the Syrian Film-Maker Waad Al-Kateab, led the Bafta winning coverage of the Bataclan attack in 2015 and produced coverage from Europe, the Middle-East and the Americas. He was previously a Senior Producer based in Buenos Aires and in his hometown Rome for Associated Press Television News. 

Peter Murimi

Peter is a multiple award-winning Kenyan documentary director/producer focusing on hard-hitting social issues. His feature-length documentary I Am Samuel (2020) tells the story of a gay Kenyan man’s struggle for acceptance and has been shown at more than a dozen film festivals, including Hot Docs, BFI and Human Rights Watch.

Murimi has led numerous investigations for BBC Africa Eye including The Baby Stealers (2020), which exposed a child trafficking syndicate and led to multiple arrests, and Suicide Stories (2019), for which he won the Rory Peck News Features Award. He has made films in 30 African countries for major media outlets including Al Jazeera and Channel 4 News. His first major win was the CNN Africa Journalist of the Year Award for his intimate film about Female Genital Mutilation among his Kuria community, Walk to Womanhood (2004).

Christina Marker

Christina is a Senior Foreign News Editor at Sky News, the Royal Television Society News Channel of the Year. In 2022, her main focus has been managing the extraordinary content from the teams in Ukraine.

A Danish-Filipino journalist, she has mainly been based in London for over twenty years.

Before joining Sky, Christina helped set up and restructure newsgathering operations at NBC News, Vice News and Euronews. She also worked as a news editor and producer at Al Jazeera English in London and Doha.

Christina helped produce the award-winning documentary 10 DAYS AT SEA: The Real Story of the Aquarius. The film tells the story of the rescue vessel the Aquarius, which became unexpectedly caught up in Europe’s bitter dispute over migration in 2018.

Juliette Hollier-Larousse, Global Video Director AFP.

A graduate of France’s CFJ Journalism School and with a Bachelor’s degree in history, Juliette Hollier-Larousse joined Agence France Presse in 1988. She began as a reporter in Marseille, then Nice, shifted to the Audio Service, and subsequently worked on the General News Desk and on the Africa Desk, covering stories like the aftermath of the Dayton agreement in Bosnia, the DR Congo crisis or the Greenpeace campaign against French nuclear tests in Mururoa.

Moving to Nairobi in 1998, she was first a reporter and then News Editor in charge of covering East Africa and the Great Lakes region, covering among other breaking news the terror attack on the American embassy in Nairobi. Later she was appointed as news editor of the Europe Desk, head of Infographics and International Multimedia Coordinator, before becoming deputy to the Global News Director in June 2009. She was Director of the Latin American region from July 2012 to April 2017, overseeing the coverage of the World Cup in Brazil and the Rio Olympics, the Venezuela crisis, the death of Fidel Castro and the corruption scandal in Brazil, as well as the development of a high quality video coverage of Latin America.

She is currently the Global Video Director.

Alix Kroeger, Freelance Journalist

Alix is a freelance journalist and former international managing editor of the New Statesman. Previously she was at the BBC, where she was on the world desk of the news website. She has reported for the BBC from across Europe, including as a reporter in Brussels and a stringer in post-war Bosnia. She was the launch editor for the BBC’s Serbian-language news website and was also part of the launch team for BBC Persian TV, working with correspondents in Kabul, Washington DC and Dushanbe.

Yann Tessier, Global Head of Output, Video News Reuters

A former print and television correspondent, Yann Tessier is currently Global Head of Output at Reuters where he helps direct the international news agency’s video coverage and content.

During his career, Yann has worked in Brussels, Paris, Italy, the Mideast and Tokyo and travelled extensively covering the major news stories that have defined the last couple of decades.