Events taking place to mark 200 years of The Guardian newspaper

The University of Manchester's John Rylands Research Institute and Library holds the entire archive of the Manchester Guardian. In a series of livestreamed talks to mark the paper's bicentenary, panels of special guests and experts have been invited to discuss an item from the archive, its relevance to today's news and media, and how it may influence our future. The first event will discuss how media reporting on humanitarian issues has changed over the past 20 years, how it could become more progressive, and how the Western media can utilise its power to better the lives of the vulnerable people it reports on. Annie Kelly, an award-winning human rights journalist for the Guardian and Observer, will chair a panel including Lindsey Hilsum, international editor for Channel 4 News and Waad Al-Kateab, Syrian journalist, and creator of the BAFTA-winning documentary For Sama and Professor of Cultural History and executive director of The University of Manchester's Humanitarian and Conflict Response Institute, Bertrand Taithe. For the second event , the attendees will take a closer look at how we navigate misinformation in today's complex, internationally-connected media landscape. In 1977 the Guardian created an elaborate April Fool's Day hoax - a seven-page travel supplement about a fictional island called San Serriffe - which fooled the nation. Forty years later, in a very different world, the Collins Dictionary 2017 word of the year was "fake news".