The second day at Future of Journalism 2023 conference in Cardiff begins with a pre-recorded keynote by my former QUT colleague John Hartley, and John is also standing by for the Q&A later. He begins with the story of Welsh journalist Gareth Jones, killed by bandits in Inner Mongolia in 1935 – after whom a memorial travelling scholarship at the University of Wales is named.
Is Jones the ideal type of the fearless truth warrior in journalism, though, or a pawn in the Great Game of imperialist powers? The existence of a scholarship and the rhetoric around it suggests the former; he was seen as a passionate seeker of the truth in foreign lands, who took risks under difficult circumstances to uncover atrocities, and there are various books, films, and TV series about his exploits. His father was a headmaster in Barry, Wales, while his mother spent time in the late 1800s as a tutor in Hughesovka or Yuzovka, now part of Donetsk, Ukraine.