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Gavin Hall MacFadyen (né Galter; January 1, 1940 – October 22, 2016) was an American investigative journalist and
documentary film A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education or maintaining a historical record". Bill Nichols has characterized the documentary in te ...
maker. He was the director of the
Centre for Investigative Journalism The Centre for Investigative Journalism (CIJ) is a British independent charity providing training to journalists, researchers, producers and students in the practice and methodology of investigative journalism. It was incorporated as a Company L ...
(CIJ) at Goldsmiths, University of London; Co-Founder with Eileen Chubb of the UK whistleblower support group, The Whistler; and a Trustee of the Courage Foundation. MacFadyen facilitated and protected whistleblowing activities and organized events at which whistleblowers and former intelligence personnel spoke publicly. He acted as an advocate for Julian Assange and
Chelsea Manning Chelsea Elizabeth Manning (born Bradley Edward Manning; December 17, 1987) is an American activist and whistleblower. She is a former United States Army soldier who was convicted by court-martial in July 2013 of violations of the Espionage A ...
, eventually becoming a director of the Centre for Investigative Journalism. Closely linked to Assange, he formed the official Julian Assange Defense Committee, which raises funds to pay the legal expenses of Assange and other WikiLeaks staff. MacFadyen has appeared in a number of documentaries about Wikileaks, including '' We Steal Secrets'' and ''Julian Assange: A Modern Day Hero?'' The Gavin MacFadyen Award has been presented annually since 2017, for which nominations are accepted from and voted on by whistleblowers only.


Early life

MacFadyen was born Gavin Hall Galter on January 1, 1940, in Greeley in
Colorado Colorado (, other variants) is a state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It encompasses most of the Southern Rocky Mountains, as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the wes ...
, and grew up in Chicago. His mother was a pianist. He adopted the surname of his stepfather, a medical researcher. He studied at
Shimer College Shimer Great Books School (pronounced ) is a Great Books college that is part of North Central College in Naperville, Illinois. Prior to 2017, Shimer was an independent, accredited college on the south side of Chicago, with a history of being ...
from 1958 to 1959, and later worked as a
union organizer A union organizer (or union organiser in Commonwealth spelling) is a specific type of trade union member (often elected) or an appointed union official. A majority of unions appoint rather than elect their organizers. In some unions, the orga ...
with
trade union A trade union (labor union in American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers intent on "maintaining or improving the conditions of their employment", ch. I such as attaining better wages and benefits ...
s. He was jailed for participating in civil rights demonstrations. He moved to England, joined the International Socialists (which later became the
Socialist Workers Party (UK) The Socialist Workers Party (SWP) is a far-left political party in the United Kingdom. Founded as the Socialist Review Group by supporters of Tony Cliff in 1950, it became the International Socialists in 1962 and the SWP in 1977. The party co ...
), and graduated from the
London School of Film Technique London Film School (LFS) is a film school in London and is situated in a converted brewery in Covent Garden, London, neighbouring Soho, a hub of the UK film industry. It is the oldest film school in the UK.
(now the London Film School). He founded a documentary film group to chronicle the political turmoil in the United States during the late 1960s for the
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
. He covered the
anti-Vietnam War protests Protests against the Vietnam War took place in the 1960s and 1970s. The protests were part of a movement in opposition to United States involvement in the Vietnam War. The majority of the protests were in the United States, but some took place ar ...
, race riots and the police clash with demonstrators at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in 1968, where tens of thousands of Vietnam War protesters battled police in the streets, while the Democratic Party fell apart over an internal disagreement concerning its stance on Vietnam. He went on to report from the Nicaraguan Revolution, a war between the right-wing Contras and the Marxist Sandinista National Liberation Front in the 1980s, and Iran-Contra, neo-Nazi violence, Watergate, the history of CIA.


Career


Filmmaking and investigative journalism

MacFadyen had produced and directed more than 50
documentaries A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education or maintaining a historical record". Bill Nichols has characterized the documentary in term ...
since the 1970s many for Granada Television’s World In Action, investigating a diverse range of topics that includes industrial accidents, neo-Nazi violence in the UK, Chinese criminal societies, the history of the CIA, Watergate, election fraud in Guyana, the Iraq arms trade, child labour, nuclear proliferation, and Frank Sinatra's connection to
organised crime Organized crime (or organised crime) is a category of transnational, national, or local groupings of highly centralized enterprises run by criminals to engage in illegal activity, most commonly for profit. While organized crime is generally th ...
. His programmes have been featured on
Channel 4 Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network operated by the state-owned Channel Four Television Corporation. It began its transmission on 2 November 1982 and was established to provide a fourth television service ...
,
the BBC ''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the m ...
, '' Panorama'', Granada Television, ABC, and PBS '' Frontline''. Collaborating with Chicago director Michael Mann, he played ''Boreksco'', a corrupt police officer, in Mann's 1981 debut feature film, ''
Thief Theft is the act of taking another person's property or services without that person's permission or consent with the intent to deprive the rightful owner of it. The word ''theft'' is also used as a synonym or informal shorthand term for some ...
'', and was a technical adviser to '' The Insider'', Mann's 1999 film about
Jeffrey Wigand Jeffrey Stephen Wigand (; born December 17, 1942) is an American biochemist and whistleblower. He is a former vice president of research and development at Brown & Williamson in Louisville, Kentucky, who worked on the development of reduced-har ...
, a researcher at the
tobacco company The tobacco industry comprises those persons and companies who are engaged in the growth, preparation for sale, shipment, advertisement, and distribution of tobacco and tobacco-related products. It is a global industry; tobacco can grow in any ...
Brown & Williamson in
Louisville, Kentucky Louisville ( , , ) is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Kentucky and the 28th most-populous city in the United States. Louisville is the historical seat and, since 2003, the nominal seat of Jefferson County, on the Indiana border ...
, owned by British American Tobacco, who became among the most famous corporate whistleblowers in the United States. Wigand revealed the industry deceptions and practices of Big Tobacco that got people hooked. Wigand's decision to become a whistleblower came at great cost to his personal life - Brown & Williamson unleashed a smear campaign against him - and brought risks to his personal safety. Wigand's disclosures played a crucial role in the case brought by the states' attorneys general against the major tobacco companies, which resulted in a $246 billion settlement to offset medical costs incurred treating smoking-related illnesses, and in the decision Justice Department to seek billions of dollars in additional damages from the tobacco makers (
Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement The Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement (MSA) was entered on November 23, 1998, originally between the four largest United States tobacco companies ( Philip Morris Inc., R. J. Reynolds, Brown & Williamson and Lorillard – the "original participati ...
). In April 2003 MacFadyen co-founded with Michael Gillard the Centre for Investigative Journalism (CIJ) as a non-profit organisation to address the worsening media climate for in-depth, sceptical and adversarial reporting. MacFadyen directed the organisation's International Journalism Summer Schools in 2003, 2004, and 2006. MacFadyen was a visiting professor at Goldsmiths, University of London, and acted as a visiting professor at City University from 2003 to 2014 when it acted as CIJ's base. He and Eileen Chubb co-founded The Whistler, which was intended to provide a legal, psychological and social support network for whistleblowers from any organization, public or private, in the UK and he was also a supporter of Edna's Law. At The Whistler's launch in February 2014 a number of international whistleblowers spoke: former MI5 intelligence officer Annie Machon, former CIA analyst Ray McGovern, NSA whistleblower
Thomas A. Drake Thomas Andrews Drake (born 1957) is a former senior executive of the National Security Agency (NSA), a decorated United States Air Force and United States Navy veteran, and a whistleblower. In 2010, the government alleged that Drake mishandled doc ...
, and Jesselyn Radack of the Government Accountability Project (GAP) (The Whistler's US counterpart). MacFadyen became an early mentor and defender of WikiLeaks and friend of Julian Assange, an Australian computer programmer, who founded WikiLeaks in 2006 and published millions of secret documents, many supplied by
Chelsea Manning Chelsea Elizabeth Manning (born Bradley Edward Manning; December 17, 1987) is an American activist and whistleblower. She is a former United States Army soldier who was convicted by court-martial in July 2013 of violations of the Espionage A ...
, a US Army intelligence analyst. MacFadyen helped form the Julian Assange Defense Committee along with his wife Susan Benn and the journalist
John Pilger John Richard Pilger (; born 9 October 1939) is an Australian journalist, writer, scholar, and documentary filmmaker. He has been mainly based in Britain since 1962. He was also once visiting professor at Cornell University in New York. Pilge ...
.


Grants and other professional interests

MacFadyen co-designed the South African Power Reporting Workshops from 2005 to 2007 at the
University of Witwatersrand The University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg (), is a multi-campus South African public research university situated in the northern areas of central Johannesburg. It is more commonly known as Wits University or Wits ( or ). The university ...
in Johannesburg. He directed the New York conference on Financial and Business Investigative Journalism in 2005 at
Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...
. He has also acted as a mentor at the Fact/Fiction Workshops run by Performing Arts Labs. He received a
European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been de ...
MEDIA Programme The MEDIA sub-programme of Creative Europe or simply Creative Europe MEDIA (formerly The MEDIA Programme of the European Union) is designed to support the European film and audiovisual industries. Budget The goal of programmers is to increase the ...
grant in 1998 for work on a Social History website project, and was a senior research fellow at Caledonian University in 2000 and at
Glasgow University , image = UofG Coat of Arms.png , image_size = 150px , caption = Coat of arms Flag , latin_name = Universitas Glasguensis , motto = la, Via, Veritas, Vita , ...
from 2002 to 2003.


Personal life

MacFadyen lived in the Pimlico district of London with his wife, Susan Benn. He died of
lung cancer Lung cancer, also known as lung carcinoma (since about 98–99% of all lung cancers are carcinomas), is a malignant lung tumor characterized by uncontrolled cell growth in tissues of the lung. Lung carcinomas derive from transformed, malign ...
in London on October 22, 2016 at the age of 76. In addition to Susan Benn, he was survived by a son, Michael, from his first marriage to Virginia Daum; three stepdaughters and six grandchildren. When MacFadyen died, Assange asked to be allowed to temporarily leave his
asylum Asylum may refer to: Types of asylum * Asylum (antiquity), places of refuge in ancient Greece and Rome * Benevolent Asylum, a 19th-century Australian institution for housing the destitute * Cities of Refuge, places of refuge in ancient Judea ...
in the Ecuadorian embassy to attend the funeral, but the request was denied by Sweden's Attorney General Anders Perklev.


Filmography


References


External links


The Whistler website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Macfadyen, Gavin 1940 births 2016 deaths American investigative journalists Alumni of the London Film School Shimer College alumni American expatriates in the United Kingdom