Gabriel Gatehouse delivers the 2025 Philip Geddes Memorial Lecture

19 Mar 2025

Gabriel Gatehouse at the 2025 Geddes Lecture

On Friday 7 March, the Geddes Trust and St Edmund Hall held the annual Philip Geddes Memorial Lecture and prize-giving, with the lecture delivered by award-winning journalist and podcaster Gabriel Gatehouse.

Gabriel has reported from almost every recent conflict around the world, winning numerous awards for his journalism, including the 2023 Broadcasting Press Guild Award for Best Podcast (The Coming Storm) and a 2020 Foreign Press Association award for his coverage of the Hong Kong protests. He has also reported extensively from the USA on Donald Trump’s presidency.

The thought-provoking lecture entitled “Trump 2.0. What America’s rabbit holes tell us about the future” examined how cultural, societal and political changes in America over the past four years will shape the future. Gabriel asked what constitutes “a fact” and examined the role “alternative facts” have in news coverage and politics. Journalists should not, he warned, “ignore the weird guy” – they will have stories to tell that are “pearls of truth”. Chris Wilson, the founder of the Geddes Trust and a colleague of Philip Geddes (1977, English Language & Literature) who was killed by an IRA bomb in 1983, described the evening as “spectacularly successful, brilliant, heartwarming”.

Catch up on the lecture on YouTube

Geddes Student Journalism Prizes 2025

Shortly before the lecture, a prize-giving reception was held for this year’s recipients of the Geddes Student Journalism Prizes. The prizes recognise and support emerging journalistic talent, with the awards contributing towards a media project or expenses needed to support an internship in the media. In the past, prize-winners have gone on to work for eminent publications such as The Economist, The Times and The Guardian.

The prizes awarded include the Philip Geddes Memorial Prize, the Ronnie Payne Prize for Foreign Reporting and the Clive Taylor Prize for Sports Journalism. For the first time, the Paddy Coulter Prize for Opinion Journalism was also awarded in memory of Paddy Coulter, a highly committed board member of the Trust and trail-blazing journalist turned activist who sadly died last year. The Chair of the Geddes Trust, John Ryley, commented that the standard of entries was very high this year and that the winners should be proud of their achievements. The other judges were Wes Williams, Professor of French Literature and a Hall Fellow; Iain Martin, a Times columnist; and Shingi Mararike, a Sky News correspondent.

Many congratulations to this year’s winners!

Attendees at the Geddes Trust prize-giving reception 2025
Professor Baroness Willis, Gabriel Gatehouse and Anuj Mishra

Philip Geddes Memorial Prize: Anuj Mishra, a final-year English Literature student at Exeter College

Anuj has already notched up significant journalistic experience with stints as Editor-in-Chief, Culture Deputy Editor-in-Chief and Stage Section Editor at the Cherwell. His internships have included the Manchester Evening News, MyLondon, and The Bolton News. His winning project is to travel to America to explore the influence Indian Americans are having on politics in the United States and the links between India’s BJP party and the Republican party.

Attendees at the Geddes Trust prize-giving reception 2025
Professor Baroness Willis, Gabriel Gatehouse, Simar Bajaj and Celia Haddon

Ronnie Payne Prize: Simar Bajaj, a first-year Master’s in Health Science student at St Anne’s

Simar has substantial freelance experience that includes writing for The Washington Post, Scientific American, TIME, The Atlantic and STAT News, the medical arm of The Boston Globe newspaper. He will report on the issue of stigma in contemporary society. He plans to spend two weeks travelling across rural America, investigating stigma in healthcare and speaking to patients whose stories have gone untold.

Attendees at the Geddes Trust prize-giving reception 2025
Professor Baroness Willis, Gabriel Gatehouse and Samantha Martin

Clive Taylor Prize: Samantha Martin, a second-year History student at Somerville

Samatha, a horse racing fan, wrote a couple of hard-hitting pieces for The Times last year that captured the chaos of the Cheltenham Festival. She will spend the Geddes prize money reporting from France on the sporting and cultural differences between France’s top race, the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe in Paris, and Britain’s Grand National at Aintree. She hopes to place the report in The Times in October.

Attendees at the Geddes Trust prize-giving reception 2025
Professor Baroness Willis, Gabriel Gatehouse, Flora Prideaux and Dr Angela Coulter

Paddy Coulter Prize: Flora Prideaux, a third-year History student at Somerville

Flora has already chaired the Oxford Student Publishing company and The Oxford Blue along with work experience at the Daily Mail. Flora will travel to the next UN Climate Change Conference – COP 30 in Brazil – to report on how the proceedings can be made more relevant to people experiencing the climate crisis around the planet.

Image Gallery

Attendees at the Geddes Trust prize-giving reception 2025
Attendees at the Geddes Trust prize-giving reception 2025
Attendees at the Geddes Trust Lecture 2025
Professor Baroness Willis at the 2025 Geddes Lecture
John Ryder at the 2025 Geddes Lecture
Attendees at the Geddes Trust Lecture 2025
Gabriel Gatehouse at the 2025 Geddes Lecture
The q and a session at the 2025 Geddes Lecture

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