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at burrough.com/ACAST. That's burrough.com/ACAST.

1:08

burrough.com slash ACAST. We'll

1:30

talk to one of them and to an academic who's been assessing the

1:32

media coverage of protest. We'll

1:41

also hear from Al Jazeera's managing

1:43

editor after Israel banned Al Jazeera

1:45

TV, accusing it of being a

1:47

mouthpiece for Hamas, something Al Jazeera

1:50

denies. We're also going to talk

1:52

about what it's like to cover the Met Gala,

1:54

the annual fashion fest in New York that

1:56

sparks front pages showcasing celebrities in

1:58

weird and weird. wonderful outfit. Plus,

2:01

we're going to look at how the

2:03

media strategies of the political parties are

2:05

revolving. And we got a test case

2:08

earlier today when the now former Conservative

2:10

MP Natalie Elphitt crossed the floor to

2:12

the Labour benches just before the start

2:14

of Prime Minister's questions. Let's bring in

2:17

Pippa Creer from the Guardian, Ben Riley-Smith

2:19

from The Telegraph. Welcome

2:21

to both of you. Ben, did you know it was coming? I

2:24

didn't know. The first giveaway was a

2:26

ping on my phone bang on noon

2:28

when Labour press released Natalie Elphitt's statement

2:30

explaining why in quite brutal terms she was crossing

2:32

the floor of the aisle for now I wasn't

2:34

sadly in the loop. Pippa, what about you?

2:37

Doesn't

2:40

sound like Pippa can hear us but... I can hear you. Oh

2:42

yeah, that's good news. Well,

2:45

if I'd been in the loop I

2:47

would definitely have tweeted or

2:49

broken the story immediately myself and not hung

2:51

back to wait for Prime Minister's questions. So

2:54

unfortunately we weren't but we were

2:56

all taken by surprise because she's probably the last person

2:59

on any of our lists that we'd have

3:01

expected to move over from the Tory party

3:03

to the Labour party because she's so right

3:05

wing. But the fact that Ben's phone went

3:07

off and I'm sure yours did too Pippa

3:09

perhaps suggests that this and most things

3:12

in Westminster are choreographed by the parties

3:14

or at least they are attempted

3:16

to be choreographed by the parties Pippa. I

3:19

think attempt is the key word. They

3:21

would very much like to be in control of

3:23

when we find things out and how we find

3:26

them out and how we present them but unfortunately

3:28

for them because it's our job

3:30

to find out what's really going

3:32

on and to write about it that isn't often the

3:34

case. So they'll be extra pleased with themselves I think

3:36

this time for managing to keep it quiet. It

3:39

would have been a very small circle of people that knew

3:41

about her defection. And just quickly Ben and Pippa

3:43

and Ben we're going to talk in more detail

3:45

later. Ben, when you said your phone went ping

3:47

is that a WhatsApp, a text message, an email,

3:49

it's Labour's preferred means of communication these days. Well

3:51

they sent this out both on WhatsApp and email

3:53

but I think I'm like a lot of political

3:55

journalists that WhatsApp is the first to go off

3:57

on their phones. It's one of these new phenomenons

3:59

in modern. political communications. A lot of

4:01

WhatsApp groups over election night

4:03

or doing their announcements. So I think we

4:05

were all sitting in Prime Minister's questions on

4:07

our WhatsApp ping and that's how we saw

4:09

it. Alright, well we're going to talk about

4:11

that a little bit later with you and

4:14

with our colleague Leyla Nastu from BBC News.

4:16

And it does sound quite a lot like the media

4:18

show WhatsApp group, doesn't it Rob? It does. Pinging all

4:20

the time. But we're going to

4:22

start today with the pro-Palestinian campus

4:24

protests. We've seen some in the UK

4:27

but they're on a much larger scale

4:29

in the US. They've posed challenges and

4:31

questions for American journalism and student journalists

4:34

have been central to the coverage of

4:36

the story. Before we meet our guests let's

4:38

just remind ourselves what's happened. So these protests

4:40

started at Columbia University in New York

4:42

in mid-April. According to a BBC tally

4:44

there have now been demonstrations at nearly

4:46

140 colleges across 45

4:49

states and Washington DC too. According to

4:51

the AP news agency around two and

4:53

a half thousand people have been arrested

4:56

at campuses across the US

4:59

and the protesters are demanding a number

5:01

of things including that their colleges financially

5:03

divest from Israel. Now in some locations

5:06

police have been sent in not least

5:08

at Columbia University in New York and

5:10

that was seen as being hugely significant

5:12

not least because it's the first time

5:14

there have been mass arrests on Columbia's

5:17

campus since the Vietnam War

5:19

protests more than 50 years ago.

5:21

Also in interviews with the BBC

5:24

Jewish students at several campuses have

5:26

spoken of incidents that made them

5:28

feel uncomfortable ranging from chants and

5:30

signs supporting Hamas which is a

5:32

prescribed terror group to physical altercations

5:35

and perceived threats. Okay well

5:37

let's understand the practicalities of covering

5:39

the story first with Richard Hall

5:41

who's the independent senior US correspondent

5:44

and not a student Richard welcome

5:47

to the media show. I know you

5:49

were at Columbia University's encampments in New

5:51

York what did you actually see? That's

5:55

right yeah I had an interesting experience actually because I

5:57

was I was sick in bed for the first few

5:59

days at the the protests. So I got

6:01

to experience it as both a news

6:03

consumer and then a reporter. So

6:06

I went down after several days of coverage of this

6:09

encampment is this kind of riotous, dangerous

6:13

event that was taking place. And when

6:15

I got there, what I found was quite an organized, polite

6:18

encampment. They were, they were people

6:20

that were designated to speak to the media. They

6:24

had a what was called a nut zone that was

6:26

where they kept all the nuts in the encampment to

6:28

stop people with allergies getting sick. And

6:30

it was it was interesting for me to see

6:32

both of those sides how the media portrayed it. And when

6:35

I got there as a reporter and experienced it myself. What

6:38

did you how did you reflect on that then? Well,

6:42

I could see what happened actually, even the first moments

6:44

I got down there, the access to the campus was

6:46

quite restricted. Most of the time press were allowed on

6:49

for a couple of hours a day to speak to

6:51

people. But outside of the campus, there

6:53

was there was essentially a ring of counter

6:56

protesters and people that come to protest

6:58

the protest. And if you

7:00

can imagine the kind of people that would give up

7:02

their Wednesday afternoon to go down there and shout some

7:05

students or shout out people who were shooting students, I

7:07

don't think it was very representative of what was

7:09

going on inside the encampment. So there was this

7:11

impression that these people causing trouble

7:13

outside were connected to the protest in some

7:16

way. And that wasn't the case. Okay,

7:18

and when it comes to the people you met inside,

7:20

is it right, you know, that

7:22

they've been studying the media tactics of the

7:24

Vietnam War protesters of the 60s? And were

7:26

you surprised by that? That's

7:29

right. I actually, I went down with the

7:31

with the intention of talking to them about

7:33

68 protests, because something I noticed, I studied

7:35

the 60 protests at the university. And

7:37

I wanted to ask them, you know, do you know this is their

7:40

echoes from 68 here and what you're doing? And everyone

7:43

I spoke to said, yes, we know it's

7:45

deliberate. We we actually went into the Columbia

7:48

archives, and we studied what the 68 protesters

7:50

did. We studied their tactics, we studied

7:52

how they dealt with the media, even the idea

7:54

of an encampment they borrowed from 68. So they

7:56

were very aware of it. It was a very

7:58

deliberate strategy. to copy what they did

8:00

and learn from them. And what kinds of, what

8:03

does that strategy involve then? How did you see

8:05

it? So

8:08

one of them was this very, I

8:11

would call it professional way that they dealt with the

8:13

media. The encampment was actually closed off and at the

8:15

entrance to the camp they had faculty

8:17

staff, so not students themselves. And

8:20

the students had designated a few people to

8:22

speak to the press and

8:25

they had some very light media training,

8:28

you know, just teaching them how not to get tripped up. And

8:30

if you can imagine the press are kept out outside

8:32

the campus in this huge line and they're let in

8:34

at a certain time, you have 100 journalists

8:37

swarming this encampment and you have six

8:40

or seven students just trying to

8:42

field all these requests, journalists fighting over them.

8:45

So that was one of the things that they'd learned

8:47

from 68 was just this discipline of message, making sure

8:49

they say the right things and their

8:51

words couldn't be twisted. I

8:54

saw that some high-privileged journalists in America

8:56

have been criticising the protesters for not

8:58

speaking to media outlets.

9:00

It sounds to me like it was easy for you

9:02

to speak to the people who'd been

9:04

designated, but you couldn't just go around asking

9:07

other students to talk to you or did you try that? I

9:09

wonder what your take is on what people are saying about that.

9:13

I was turned down a couple of times but it

9:15

was completely understandable, any sort of protest situation, not everyone

9:17

wants to talk to you and there were people there

9:19

that were available. I

9:21

did see complaints from people who couldn't

9:23

get people to talk to him and

9:25

that was interesting because this is part of

9:27

their media training. I think they were very wary, partly

9:30

because of that media coverage in the first week,

9:33

they were wary about who they were speaking to. So for

9:35

example, I went up to one student at one point and

9:37

said, hey, do you mind if I talk to you for

9:39

a few minutes? And he said, what's your name? And I

9:41

said, I told my name. He Googled me in two seconds

9:43

and he saw my, he was reading out my biography and

9:46

said, oh, you've covered Syria, you worked in the Middle East.

9:48

Okay, let's do this. So they were very

9:50

savvy and I think if someone had trouble with it.

9:52

Yeah. And I think

9:55

if someone had trouble getting interviews with them, it

9:57

was probably because the students didn't trust them. I

10:00

suppose, yeah, it's that wider question, isn't it?

10:03

I was interested by what the journalist said

10:05

about, you know, the protest, criticising the protesters

10:07

for not speaking. And actually, I suppose it's

10:09

that sense of should journalists expect that people

10:12

do speak to them? Is it a right

10:14

as a journalist to expect that people will give

10:16

you an interview? Absolutely

10:18

not. No, you have to build trust with people you

10:20

want to write about. That's one of the key lessons

10:23

you learn in journalism. You can't just demand that people speak

10:25

to you. And again,

10:27

these students have been pilloried in the press for the

10:30

previous four or five days. You

10:32

can understand why they were nervous about speaking to

10:34

people. And you've mentioned the media

10:36

training. What

10:38

did you observe in terms of

10:41

what that meant in terms of how they gave

10:43

interviews and what they said? I think

10:46

it was just a sense that they were being very

10:48

careful. They didn't want to get into these wide

10:51

ranging conversations that

10:54

deviated from their key demands. They were

10:56

very careful to point out what they were asking for, the

10:59

reasons they were there. So I

11:01

think it was essentially just a discipline,

11:04

message discipline, I think, what politicians call it.

11:06

And yeah, it was it was a kind

11:09

of wariness and a willingness

11:11

to stick to the message. And you mentioned,

11:13

you know, that you were only able to get in for

11:15

a couple of hours a day or journalists were let in

11:17

for a couple of hours a day. What did that involve?

11:19

You were sort of queuing up for that moment or you

11:22

were told the designated time. And did that mean, I mean,

11:24

I know, for example, the students occupied one of

11:26

the university buildings, Hamilton Hall last

11:28

Tuesday. Were you able to get

11:30

access to campus that night or was that

11:33

outside the designated two hours? Yeah,

11:36

so when the occupation happened, the

11:38

access to the campus was effectively

11:40

closed down completely, even to students.

11:42

It was only students who

11:44

lived on campus who could have access. And

11:48

yet the restrictions were kind of in place. It

11:50

was managed by the university. They obviously didn't want

11:52

to shut down. This is Columbia University. It's a

11:54

famous journalism school. So they didn't want to shut

11:56

down access to the press completely.

11:58

But it was very highly

12:00

managed and yeah, we had to queue up outside

12:03

among these counter protesters, I guess

12:05

you call them, but they were protesters on

12:07

both sides who were shouting at each other,

12:09

at the press, and getting in the

12:12

sights. And then on the night of the

12:14

occupation, the university

12:16

shut down complete access, the NYPD shut

12:18

down several city blocks, so

12:20

no journalists, unless they were already there, could get

12:22

access to the immediate area. You have to watch

12:24

from a distance as these NYPD

12:27

cops, they went into the building through this

12:30

machinery. Yeah, so we couldn't get close. And

12:32

I think you explained, you described it as a war

12:34

zone. What did you mean by that? Yeah,

12:37

I mean, aesthetically, obviously, there weren't people being

12:39

shot, but aesthetically, it looked

12:42

like some kind of military

12:44

operation. There were dozens and

12:46

dozens of NYPD vehicles, hundreds of cops

12:48

with zip ties swarming the area. And

12:51

I had to pinch myself because I

12:53

remember being on the campus a few

12:55

days earlier and seeing these students who

12:57

described themselves as essentially nerds doing homework

12:59

on the lawn, that's their description. And

13:02

to see this huge military and

13:04

police response was quite shocking. Obviously, the occupation of

13:06

the building came after that. But it

13:09

was still a couple of dozen students, and it just

13:11

seemed heavy handed to me. And

13:13

in hindsight, did you worry that that language

13:15

using the term war zone was inflammatory? Or

13:17

are you happy with it? I

13:20

was careful to say aesthetically, I mean, it's

13:23

a byway we use. I've covered wars, I

13:25

know not to use that word flippantly. So

13:28

aesthetically, it looked like a war zone. It

13:30

wasn't obviously a war zone, literally. Yeah, sure.

13:33

And I think, did you come across student

13:35

journalists who were also trying to get access?

13:37

Did you interact with student journalists at all

13:39

while you're covering it? They

13:42

were everywhere that night. Yeah, they

13:44

were every barricade in every side

13:46

street. They had special markers

13:48

on that back saying student journalists identified themselves,

13:51

deeply, deeply impressed by their commitment to

13:53

get out there and get involved. I

13:55

saw student protesters following the live stream

13:58

of the radio station. That was that

14:01

was their tool to keep up to date on everything that

14:03

was happening. So yeah, they were everywhere that night. Really

14:05

interesting. Richard Hall from The Independent, thank you. Well,

14:07

next let's talk about student journalists because

14:09

they've been commended by the Pulitzer Prize

14:12

board for covering protests and unrest in

14:14

the face of great personal and academic

14:16

risk. Julia Vargas-Jones is a master's student

14:18

at Columbia Journalism School and also a

14:20

freelance reporter. Julia, welcome to the media

14:23

show. I know that you were covering

14:25

some of these events for CNN. Just

14:27

tell us how that happened. Well,

14:31

thank you for having me. Well,

14:33

I had a connection with

14:35

CNN before. I've worked with them

14:37

for many years. And in the moment,

14:39

I got a call from another classmate,

14:42

Natasha Acarniano. She called me at around

14:44

3 a.m. and she said, you should

14:46

be here. You should be here right

14:48

now. So I live in Brooklyn. Took

14:51

me about an hour to get down

14:53

there by the time I got there at 6

14:55

a.m. The gates were still open and Richard just

14:57

described the closed access to everyone,

15:00

even students. I have my student ID,

15:02

but if I had arrived maybe 30

15:04

minutes later, I wouldn't have been allowed

15:06

on campus. And it was only because

15:08

of that community of students to just

15:11

let me know what was going on that

15:13

I got to campus. And honestly,

15:15

I didn't even ask CNN

15:18

if they really wanted me to go. I just said,

15:20

I'm here. You should take me live. And

15:23

we started coverage from the occupation. I

15:25

think when I got there, we were about

15:28

six, seven hours in. And

15:31

I did talk to people. I was able

15:33

to talk to people

15:35

who were not media trained and said, look, I'm

15:37

not media trained. I can't give an interview. I'm

15:39

like, look, I'm a fellow student. I want to

15:41

report for the entire world. We're about to go

15:44

live on CNN. I need to know

15:46

a little bit of what's going on. Help me out here. I

15:48

want to understand how did the night go? Was

15:51

it peaceful? What happened after

15:53

people went inside? And

15:55

I think obviously being a student,

15:58

being a student I was able

16:00

to build that trust with

16:03

some of the protesters. And

16:05

then I was outside there all day just

16:07

kind of observing and having a sense of

16:10

how they were operating, how people were bringing

16:12

supplies and how

16:14

they were kind of preparing for

16:16

the evening with like locking arms.

16:19

As the NYPD started encircling

16:21

the campus, more and more

16:23

people started arriving and joining

16:26

and chanting. And then

16:28

it's time to kind of block access to the

16:30

building. And Julie, I'm interested. So you call up

16:32

CNN and you say I'm here, I can

16:35

go on air as soon as you like. But

16:37

what are the practicalities of that? Because you've been

16:39

woken up at 3 AM in the morning, you've

16:41

rushed down to where the story is. What are

16:44

the practicalities of getting on air? I'm assuming you're

16:46

using your phone or am I wrong? Yes,

16:49

so you kind of need two

16:51

phones. And one of

16:54

them has a streaming app of some sort.

16:56

I think what we used was

16:58

WebX at first. I also there's

17:00

another app called Live

17:03

View. It's the Live View smart app. So I

17:05

think a lot of solo one

17:07

man band reporters use that, it's super popular. And

17:10

a tiny tripod with a ring

17:12

light and wireless

17:17

microphones and headset.

17:21

Very simple, bare

17:23

bones headset. Now, throughout the

17:25

day, we were able to

17:27

charge. I actually had to recruit some fellow master

17:30

students to help me be my camera

17:32

operators. But at

17:35

some point we lost access to

17:37

Pulitzer Hall, which is where the journalism school

17:40

is located. And so I couldn't go back into

17:42

charge. All of these are

17:44

battery operated devices. So it's not like you

17:46

can just stay up live for hours and

17:48

hours on end. The hardest,

17:50

the biggest challenge of the coverage was

17:53

eventually the phone started dying,

17:56

the battery started running out and we

17:58

just had to make do with whatever it was. had. So it's

18:00

switching phones, it's switching live message.

18:03

So every time they saw me come back up,

18:05

I was probably like trying to figure out

18:07

another logistical issue before I could, you know,

18:09

talk to the anchors at CNN. While

18:12

you were dealing with all of that, and

18:14

you were no doubt encountering lots of other

18:16

students who were reporting on it, you mentioned

18:18

Columbia's journalism school. I know a makeshift newsroom

18:21

was established to deal with the level of

18:23

interest in this story. Just tell

18:25

us what that was like. So

18:28

I think I have to commend the journalism

18:30

school for everything that they did to help

18:33

student journalists continue reporting.

18:36

A lot of people arrived there, students,

18:38

journalists arrived that after the gates were

18:41

closed, and, and the Dean and the

18:43

Vice Dean had to

18:45

physically escort people into the

18:47

building. In one of the

18:49

main halls of journalism school, there were coffee,

18:53

water, pizza, snacks, advice

18:56

from very established professors, people that

18:58

have been in the industry for 30,

19:00

40 years. So I think that this was pivotal

19:05

for the coverage that you all

19:08

saw happen on Monday and Tuesday.

19:10

Without that kind of support,

19:12

none of that would have been possible. Your

19:15

focus was on the processes they

19:17

were unfolding. It sounds like a lot of student

19:20

reporters were focused on that too. And

19:22

of course, that was the story that

19:24

everyone wanted to hear in that moment.

19:27

But were you also able to speak

19:29

to students who were perhaps being made

19:31

to feel uncomfortable by the protest, but

19:33

who weren't present at the scene? So

19:38

I personally did not speak to them

19:40

because I only came into this

19:42

coverage very late, unlike Rich actually,

19:44

who I think started covering it

19:46

before I did. I

19:49

kind of stepped away from it. I

19:51

had been working on other stories and

19:53

I thought, you know, this I want

19:56

to let other journalism students who

19:58

have less experience take this. And

20:00

when I came in, all I

20:02

knew was that there had been reports,

20:05

formal reports, right? So we have some sort

20:07

of evidence that these students had complained

20:10

about feeling unsafe on campus. I saw

20:12

that there was a rabbi

20:15

who told Columbia students to

20:17

leave if they felt uncomfortable. And

20:20

in that sentiment, I did hear from

20:22

some of my fellow journalism

20:25

students as well. Can

20:27

I ask? Sorry,

20:29

finish your point. Apologies. No,

20:32

I was just like, overall, it's a very

20:34

polarizing issue, of course. So people feel

20:36

strongly on both sides, but you have

20:38

one of them, you know, with a

20:40

large encampment on campus that like we said,

20:43

was mostly very peaceful. We got used to

20:45

their songs. Everything

20:48

changed with the escalation. And

20:51

I just wonder, finally, you and

20:54

lots of other students were keen to

20:56

cover this story, not least because you're

20:58

studying journalism in your enthusiasm

21:00

to cover it. Now, you've plenty

21:03

of experience of reporting, but I assume

21:05

some of the students at Columbia haven't

21:07

necessarily covered a story of this nature

21:09

before. Did the journalism school offer advice

21:12

on how to safely go about covering

21:14

the story? They

21:16

did. They did. And they did very punctually

21:18

every day talking to people. Imagine you have

21:21

this makeshift newsroom with like

21:23

30, 40 students in it

21:25

at any given point in time and

21:28

about eight to 10 different faculty members. So

21:30

people are going up and asking questions like,

21:32

who should I pitch this to? How should

21:34

I phrase this? You know, can

21:36

I can I tell my editor at

21:38

this point or that point? So this

21:40

I think it was probably

21:43

the best education in journalism that this cohort

21:45

is going to get. Julia,

21:47

thanks for speaking to us. That's Julia

21:49

Vargas Jones, a master's student at Columbia

21:51

Journalism School. Well, next, let's assess

21:54

how effective the protesters have been about

21:56

getting their message out via the media

21:58

and how media coverage, especially via the

22:00

mainstream has shaped Americans' perspective on the

22:03

protests, something that Richard was talking about

22:05

earlier. Doug McLeod is Professor

22:07

of Journalism at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

22:09

Doug, welcome to the Media Show. I

22:11

know you've been studying how the media

22:14

frames protest, and you use an interesting

22:16

term, you talk about the protest paradigm.

22:18

Just explain what you mean by

22:20

that. Yeah, well,

22:22

we've been studying social media coverage of social protests

22:24

for over 35 years. We've

22:26

studied it across a variety of

22:28

different protest contexts, both left and

22:31

right groups, abortion

22:33

groups, environmental groups, Black Lives Matter

22:35

anarchists, a whole host of different

22:38

types of protest topics. And

22:40

one of the things that emerged

22:42

when we looked at mainstream newspaper

22:44

and television coverage of these protests

22:47

was a certain common pattern of

22:49

covering social protests. The stories look pretty

22:51

similar in terms of structure and the

22:54

way the protest was covered, and that's

22:56

what we call the protest paradigm, a

22:58

way of covering social protest. So

23:00

what are the pitfalls that news organizations

23:03

can fall into in your view? So

23:06

one of the pitfalls is really

23:08

getting caught up and looking for

23:11

dramatic stories, dramatic images, looking

23:13

for, say, conflicts between protesters

23:15

and police, or

23:17

between protesters on one side of

23:20

the issue and protesters on the other. As

23:22

Rich talked about before, it

23:24

looks like a war scene, and it makes

23:26

great video images. But one of the real

23:28

problems is that the underlying issues

23:31

of the protests

23:34

sort of get lost in

23:36

the process. Are

23:39

you saying that the media isn't interested in peaceful

23:42

protest? I'm wondering. Well,

23:45

I would say calm, rational

23:47

protest that stands up to

23:49

have expressed an opinion, to

23:51

try to influence public

23:54

and policy on a given issue is unlikely

23:57

to get a lot of media attention unless

23:59

they can. create a certain amount

24:01

of drama that fits

24:04

what journalists are often looking

24:06

for. Presumably, I was

24:09

talking to Richard, obviously he's a written journalist,

24:12

photojournalism must play

24:14

a big role here. It's

24:18

hard to take a picture of

24:20

someone commonly sort of critiquing public

24:22

policy or stating the

24:24

goals of the protest. Journalists

24:28

naturally gravitate to interesting video

24:30

that's going to attract the

24:32

eyeballs of readers to

24:35

look at the story. You

24:38

often see clashes with the police, you

24:40

often see incidents of property damage, even

24:43

though in many of these protests,

24:45

the people who are actually engaged

24:47

with police or other

24:49

counter protesters is a small

24:52

fraction of the larger protest

24:54

group. So when it comes

24:56

to these protests that we've been seeing and they've

24:58

obviously been punching out across the media, certainly across

25:01

America and wider here in the

25:03

UK, some people have been saying

25:05

that the student protests have overshadowed

25:08

their cause. Has the message

25:10

cut through or how has the message cut

25:12

through do you think and how does that reflect

25:15

the coverage? Yeah, I think

25:17

it's a pretty good example of what we're

25:19

talking about with the protest paradigm. There

25:21

has been a ton of attention on our campus

25:23

at the University of Wisconsin on

25:26

the police removing the

25:28

encampments from campus and

25:31

arresting protesters. It's pretty similar to

25:33

the way the protest has been

25:35

covered across campuses. The

25:38

nod to what the protesters are looking

25:40

for in terms of things like divestment

25:43

are sort of briefly acknowledged

25:45

within these stories, but there's

25:47

little exploration of what divestment

25:50

means. What are

25:52

the investments of a university

25:54

in Israel or with companies

25:57

that supply the Israeli

26:01

What is it that is

26:03

problematic about what universities

26:05

are doing that have led to the

26:07

complaints that the protesters are

26:10

trying to allege against

26:12

the administration? It's very

26:14

hard as a member of the public to really divine

26:17

what it is that the protest

26:19

is all about. And so

26:21

if you don't have a lot of thorough discussion of

26:25

what the protest is about, the protest

26:27

looks very foreign to you, very disruptive,

26:30

particularly radical tactics of

26:32

the protesters tend to be focused on

26:34

and their issues kind of get lost

26:36

in the clutter. I suppose there's a chicken

26:38

and egg situation, isn't there, when it comes to the coverage?

26:42

And you could look at it from another perspective.

26:44

Is it that the protesters, whether it's the students

26:46

or other protesters that you've looked at, that they

26:48

know they need to deliver, I wouldn't

26:50

like to call the media stunts, but I will,

26:52

they need to deliver something for the media that's

26:54

going to make the media interested enough to cover

26:56

it. Is that something you've looked at? Absolutely.

26:59

We call that sort of the double bind

27:01

that protesters are in. They're damned if they

27:03

do, they're damned if they don't. If they

27:05

remain calm and rational, they

27:08

get ignored. They have to

27:10

engage often in dramatic civil disobedience,

27:12

conflicts with policing. That attracts the

27:15

cameras. But the problem

27:17

is the nature of the coverage

27:19

they receive fits this protest paradigm

27:21

that often serves to delegitimize the

27:23

protest itself. So when, have

27:25

you got media stunts, specifically media stunts that

27:27

you could point to, which you say did

27:30

work most effectively in terms of messaging? Sure.

27:33

If we look back at the civil rights movement in

27:35

the 1950s and 60s with lunch counter sit-ins, with

27:40

peaceful marches where the protesters were very

27:43

disciplined not to conflict with the police,

27:45

didn't mean that the police weren't going

27:47

to attack them with water cannons and

27:49

attack dogs. But they were

27:51

very disciplined in terms of making it clear

27:54

who the good guys and who

27:56

the bad guys were. Using

27:58

symbolic things, I think. things like the pride

28:01

flag has been

28:03

really, really effective in

28:05

the sense that the symbol itself

28:07

is very inclusive. It's a rainbow,

28:09

it's readily identifiable, it's a reminder

28:11

of the cause that

28:14

those groups are standing up

28:16

for. Another example, I think

28:19

in 2020 here in Madison, we had a lot

28:21

of protests

28:26

in the aftermath of the

28:28

George Floyd shooting, or a

28:30

murder, I should say, that

28:33

ended up causing a lot of violence

28:35

and broken windows. Got a lot of

28:37

delegitimizing protest paradigm

28:39

coverage. But I give a huge

28:41

credit to the Black Lives

28:43

Matter protesters who recovered from that.

28:46

The storefront windows were all boarded up,

28:49

and one of the things they did was

28:51

turn those storefront boarded up windows into canvases.

28:54

They created protest art that

28:56

got a lot of attention, that really effective

28:59

in getting their message across. And

29:01

even a local organization created a book

29:03

that they distributed for free that

29:06

featured the wonderful protest art that

29:08

accompanied that protest. And it was

29:10

a quick recovery from

29:13

some of the delegitimizing coverage that they got

29:15

early on. Professor McLeod, thank you. We've

29:17

heard three perspectives on these campus protests.

29:20

Let's hear one more. We're joined by

29:22

Shana Oppenheim from BBC Monitoring. Shana, you're

29:24

with us from Jerusalem, and we're going

29:26

to speak to you about a couple

29:28

of subjects on today's media show. But

29:31

I was interested to ask you, you

29:33

spend your time looking at media coverage

29:35

that you can view from Jerusalem. I

29:37

wonder how these campus protests have been

29:40

covered in Israel. Well, this

29:42

issue that you were just talking

29:44

about, you see very clearly in

29:46

Israeli media. I think it's important

29:48

to understand kind of as

29:51

a starting point of the Israeli

29:53

media does not really cover what

29:55

happens in Gaza from a humanitarian

29:57

standpoint. There are very little images.

30:00

of the civilian impact of

30:02

Israel's military actions there. So

30:04

then Israelis have a

30:06

really hard time comprehending or understanding

30:08

what the anger is and why

30:11

people are protesting on

30:13

college campuses in the US. So

30:16

the media kind of use interchangeable

30:18

terms like anti-Israel

30:20

protests and anti-Semitic protests

30:22

without ever mentioning Gaza,

30:25

without ever mentioning the cause and

30:27

the reason why students were protesting

30:30

they take these images that we were

30:32

talking about of the most extreme cases

30:34

of violence and they use

30:36

it to kind of question

30:39

perhaps de-legitimize some people would say

30:41

the protest movement at large without

30:44

contextualizing it at all. Would

30:46

the actions of American police have

30:48

been covered in Israel's media?

30:53

There was certainly a focus on

30:55

the violence. A

30:57

lot of that was put more on the nature of

30:59

the protest as opposed to the police

31:01

where you would get more of that

31:03

kind of critical commentary and coverage in

31:06

American media. I think for the Israeli

31:08

media, it was mostly kind of the

31:10

focus was to show how radical and

31:12

extreme these protests were, how

31:16

dangerous it was for the Jewish

31:18

students who go to these schools

31:20

and how kind of bad anti-Semitism

31:23

is in the US and

31:25

it kind of strengthens this war

31:28

narrative of Israel being a Jewish

31:30

state, Israel needing to protect itself

31:32

against rising anti-Semitism. Shayna,

31:35

you're gonna be staying with us just before we

31:37

carry on talking with you. Let me say thanks

31:39

to Richard Hall, Professor Doug McLeod and Julia Vargas-Jones

31:42

who've been with us as we've talked about those

31:44

campus protests in the US. But

31:46

Shayna, let's stick with what's happening in Israel because

31:49

Israel's government has shut down the operations of

31:51

the Al Jazeera television network in the country

31:53

for the duration of its war in Gaza.

31:55

Here's a clip of their correspondent Imran Khan

31:58

announcing the move to the US. to

32:00

viewers on Sunday. If you're

32:02

watching this pre-recorded report then Al

32:05

Jazeera has been banned in the

32:07

territory of Israel. On

32:09

April the 1st the Knesset, the Israeli

32:11

parliament passed a law that allowed the

32:13

Prime Minister to ban Al Jazeera. He's

32:16

now enacted that law. That was

32:18

Al Jazeera's Imran Khan. Prime Minister

32:20

Benjamin Netanyahu says the Israeli cabinet

32:22

agreed to the closure while

32:24

the war in Gaza is ongoing as

32:26

I said. Shane Oppenheimer from BBC

32:29

monitoring Jerusalem. You are still here. Just

32:31

tell us why. Why it's happened.

32:35

Well the Israeli government, I mean

32:37

in general Israelis do not view

32:39

Al Jazeera quite

32:41

favorably. As I mentioned there

32:44

isn't really a lot of

32:46

coverage of how Israeli policies

32:48

affect Palestinian civilians. So

32:50

there's an inability to understand where Al

32:52

Jazeera is coming from in that

32:55

sense now during the war and

32:57

at large and there's this longtime

32:59

accusation that Al

33:02

Jazeera works kind of in kudos

33:04

with Hamas. People in Israel

33:06

see it certainly as a mouthpiece. So

33:08

for a long time Israel

33:11

has not seen Al Jazeera favorably and

33:13

certainly when this war started this

33:15

idea of perhaps doing something to

33:18

shut its operations has kind of

33:20

been in the background and

33:23

the timing was quite sensitive because at

33:25

the end of the day Al Jazeera

33:27

is based in Qatar and Qatar is

33:30

quite a key player in negotiations with

33:32

Hamas and there are even ongoing

33:34

negotiations right now. Yes because that's what I was going

33:36

to ask you. I mean why why

33:38

now? We've known for a long time

33:40

that Israel has these views about Al

33:42

Jazeera. The war's been going on a

33:44

long time. It's had these views from since

33:47

way before then. Why now?

33:50

When it could have taken this decision anytime

33:52

before now? There's a few

33:54

different kind of theories. The first is

33:56

that Israel was perhaps looking to put

33:58

pressure on Qatar. to perhaps

34:00

put pressure on Hamas to reach

34:02

some kind of deal. And

34:05

the second is that Prime Minister

34:07

Benjamin Netanyahu is under a lot

34:10

of different kind of polling domestic

34:12

pressure. There's pressure from

34:14

the hostage families to agree to a

34:16

deal and from some of the more

34:19

centrist ministers in

34:21

his war cabinet to agree to

34:23

a deal. But there's also very

34:26

significant pressure from some of his

34:28

far-right cabinet ministers who are quite

34:30

key to his political survival to

34:33

take more hawkish stances like closing

34:35

Al Jazeera and like going

34:37

ahead with an invasion of Rafah, which

34:40

is the southernmost city of Gaza, which

34:42

Israel took steps to do this week.

34:45

So it's possible that Netanyahu has tried

34:47

to kind of pull some

34:49

moves that might keep his very

34:51

crucial base happy with the way

34:53

that the war is going. Shaina,

34:56

please stay with us here on the Media

34:58

Show. Let's bring in Mohammed Moad, who's managing

35:00

editor of Al Jazeera and with us live

35:02

from Doha. Mr.

35:05

Moad, thank you very much indeed for your

35:07

time. Following

35:09

this vote, Mr. Netanyahu claimed in

35:11

a statement that Al Jazeera reporters

35:13

had harmed Israel's security and incited

35:15

against soldiers and has called

35:17

your network a Hamas mouthpiece. How

35:20

would you respond to that? These

35:24

are unfounded baseless

35:27

allegations that the Israeli government

35:29

is unleashing against

35:32

us. And this is the

35:34

least dangerous action they have taken against

35:36

Al Jazeera with lost three colleagues

35:39

covering from the front lines this conflict.

35:42

And they were targeted by airstrikes. So

35:45

to be honest, this is the least

35:47

dangerous action by the Israeli government. And

35:51

this is something that we have heard before against

35:53

Al Jazeera from the authoritarian regimes

35:55

in the in the region in

35:58

the Middle East. the

36:00

shutdown offices for Al Jazeera with

36:02

the aftermath of the Arab Spring. This

36:05

is the same authoritarian

36:08

playbook. And

36:11

to be honest, we see

36:13

that as a way to

36:15

conceal what's happening in Sa'ib Al-Qazza.

36:18

We heard today from Ezra

36:20

Al-Hayoum that the Minister of

36:22

Justice in Israel just told

36:25

the hostages' family that he

36:28

is watching Al Jazeera because he knows

36:30

Arabic and he's watching Al Jazeera to

36:32

follow what's happening with the negotiations and

36:34

the war because Netanyahu is not

36:36

telling them much about what's going on. Let

36:39

me pick up on a couple of things.

36:41

First of all, Israel denies targeting Al Jazeera

36:43

journalists. Indeed, it denies targeting all

36:46

journalists. Also, the Israeli

36:49

intelligence accuses Al Jazeera

36:51

of revealing the locations of the

36:53

Israel army in some of your

36:55

coverage. Do you accept that perhaps

36:57

in some of your coverage you

37:00

have accidentally given away information that

37:02

could put Israel's military at risk?

37:05

I don't think covering from the front

37:07

line of the conflict, giving

37:09

voice to the voiceless, uncovering

37:12

the atrocities committed

37:14

in Gaza that was described by

37:16

the United Nations and other humanitarian

37:19

organizations as war crimes,

37:22

I don't think this is revealing

37:24

positions for Israeli forces or something

37:26

like that. This is a fine

37:28

journalism. This is the core

37:31

mission of journalism around the globe, and

37:33

that's our mission. We're giving voice to

37:36

the voiceless. We're reporting the Gaza inside,

37:38

and we're reporting the Israeli side. I

37:40

mean, we're airing statements by Israeli government

37:42

officials, and we are being criticized, by

37:45

the way, in the Middle East, that

37:47

we are airing them. People

37:49

are criticizing us and saying that

37:51

Al Jazeera is giving

37:53

a platform for the

37:56

Israeli government's lies and that

37:58

we are airing them. after them

38:00

what contradicts what they are saying because

38:03

they go on air and say we

38:05

we care about civilians and then we

38:07

report that hundreds are killed in the

38:09

air. Let me ask you about the

38:11

issue of quoting Israeli officials or

38:13

even speaking to them. As you

38:16

well know many pan-Arab networks don't

38:18

broadcast interviews with Israeli officials but

38:20

Al Jazeera always has done. Now

38:22

that you've been banned in Israel

38:24

will you continue to try and

38:27

speak to Israeli officials and continue

38:29

to broadcast their statements? We

38:32

continue to do that because this is

38:34

our mission to make sure that our

38:36

coverage is a partial that what the

38:38

Israeli government is trying to do is

38:40

delegitimize our coverage by saying that we

38:42

don't operate in Israel but no

38:44

we have yes we abide by the law

38:46

we moved our correspondence in Ramallah to be

38:49

based there we don't know if the Israeli

38:51

government is going to take action against

38:53

our office in Ramallah as well in

38:55

the Palestinian territories but we moved them

38:58

there and they are reporting what's happening

39:00

in Israel from there and we are making

39:02

sure that we live to stream all

39:04

the statements by the Israeli government because

39:06

that's our core ethics

39:09

the core ethics of Al Jazeera

39:11

from the beginning of this organization

39:13

26 years back. So this is

39:15

your immediate reaction to the ban

39:17

by Mr. Netanyahu and his

39:19

colleagues is there anything further that you

39:22

can do about this can you challenge

39:24

the ban legally? Of

39:26

course we've started the process we

39:29

are pursuing all legal actions to

39:31

make sure that we

39:33

you know counter these founded

39:35

allegations and we are sure

39:38

that you know that the

39:40

whole Israeli government and the

39:42

Israel is now is

39:45

being tested the democracy in Israel is

39:47

being tested because they are using the

39:49

same playbook of the authoritarian regime in

39:51

the Middle East but they're calling themselves

39:53

democracy so let's see if

39:57

the Israeli institutions are going to

39:59

defend freedom in the speech and

40:01

the freedom of journalists to operate

40:03

in Israel in front of

40:06

the court. Can I ask

40:08

you about a more long-term criticism of

40:10

Al Jazeera from Israel, that more broadly

40:12

your coverage is

40:14

anti-Israel. Do you accept that

40:16

you are offering a particular perspective to

40:18

your viewers across the region? We're

40:21

not in the business of pleasing anyone, as

40:23

you know. So sometimes

40:26

they say that we

40:28

are a Mossad asset because

40:31

we open the platform for

40:33

Israeli officials. And sometimes they

40:35

say that we are anti-Israel.

40:37

I mean, this is

40:39

when you believe that you're doing your

40:41

job, because you're not here to please

40:43

anyone. I remind you of what the

40:46

United Nations ambassador told the press

40:48

back then when the Ukraine war

40:50

broke, she said that Putin

40:59

isn't going to silence Al Jazeera.

41:01

Now we are receiving criticism from

41:03

an ally of the United States.

41:05

That's how it happened. I mean,

41:07

we, if you report both parties,

41:09

if you are committed to reporting

41:11

both narratives, you are going to

41:13

face this criticism from one side

41:15

or another. Can I ask

41:17

you one final practical question? All

41:19

big broadcasters around the world have

41:22

contacts, have connections with the governments

41:24

that they report on.

41:26

At the moment after this ban,

41:29

do you and your Al Jazeera colleagues

41:31

have an open channel of communication

41:33

with the Israeli government? It

41:36

is for them to decide not to speak

41:39

to us, but we keep asking

41:41

them to come on Al Jazeera.

41:43

Every day we propose that every

41:45

day we request an Israeli official

41:47

to come over and we are

41:49

airing all their statements, even the

41:52

IDF spokesperson statements. Just yesterday we

41:54

aired all the press conference that

41:56

was on air, so

41:58

we keep pushing. to have them

42:01

come on our screen to make

42:03

sure that we achieve the mission,

42:05

that we have two narratives of

42:07

the story. And that's our work,

42:09

that's our peace-building journalism that we

42:11

are committed to. Mohammed Moawad,

42:13

managing editor of Al Jazeera with us from

42:15

Doha. Thank you very much indeed for speaking

42:17

to the Media Show. And

42:20

Shayna Oppenheimer too from BBC Monitoring. Thank

42:22

you. But I want

42:24

to turn to something very, very different

42:26

now, but it would have been hard

42:29

to miss the photographs earlier in the

42:31

week, splashed across the media, as stars

42:33

took to the red carpet in sometimes

42:36

questionable and often entirely impractical outfits for

42:38

the annual Met Gala in New York.

42:40

But of course, practicality isn't the point, I

42:42

get that. I just want

42:44

to give you a taste of the jamboree for

42:46

the dozens of photographers at the event. Here

42:49

is the arrival of Ariana Grande and

42:51

Cynthia Areva. Mayday,

42:53

turn together, turn together. Together this

42:55

way. And look in here,

42:57

Ari. There

43:00

you go. It's a hugely profitable

43:02

co-mingling of celebrities, sponsors

43:04

and brands, overseen by

43:07

Vogue magazine Supremo Anna Winter. And

43:09

the Met Gala is the source of

43:11

seemingly endless coverage, fascinating

43:13

and baffling in equal measure. And we're

43:15

lucky enough to say that we've got

43:17

someone who was there to cover it

43:20

here on the Media Show. Jayda Yuen,

43:22

features reporter at the Washington Post. Some

43:24

people won't have seen the photos, others

43:26

will. Just to explain,

43:28

though, how big a media event

43:30

is the Met Ball? It's

43:34

huge. It

43:37

comprises not just of the

43:39

red carpet, which is kind

43:41

of famous along the steps

43:43

of the Metropolitan Museum of

43:45

Art, and this time with

43:47

not red, but actually green

43:49

and beige with hedges of real plants

43:52

along the side. It's a huge production.

43:54

The tent is up there for days.

43:57

And you have just

43:59

hundreds of a. reporters and

44:01

photographers inside this scrum,

44:04

but then you also have a sideshow

44:06

that has this sort of social media sideshow

44:08

that's been happening at nearby hotels where crowds

44:12

will gather to

44:15

just take photographs of stars that

44:17

get into vans to drive two

44:19

blocks over to the

44:22

museum. And yeah,

44:24

it's just, it's just insane. And

44:26

how do you get your spot? Where

44:29

do you stand as a reporter? Where were

44:31

you this time? We're,

44:33

we're way at the top where

44:35

it's a, I'm at the upper end

44:37

of the lower end of the food, of the food

44:39

chain. It's that good old van, I can't quite work it

44:41

out. It's not,

44:43

it's not great. I mean, the whole game

44:46

of being a reporter is a back gala,

44:49

other than just sort of taking in

44:51

the sights of these ridiculous outfits and

44:53

just the crush of celebrity that's coming

44:55

through is to try and get them

44:57

to come and talk to you. And

45:00

certain people, if you have a large

45:02

video camera, you're probably in a better

45:04

position to get someone than if you

45:06

have a cell phone video camera or,

45:08

but the TikTok people were there and

45:10

they were really able to grab people

45:14

pretty well. But I, I was at the top of the top. So

45:16

people would go to TikTok right over the Washington Post,

45:18

it's slightly, you're triggering me. It's reminded me of when

45:20

I was covering the Oscars on the red carpet and

45:22

I was back to Spotify. And even though lots of

45:24

people did come to the BBC, more people went to

45:27

Spotify I noticed because all he asked them was what

45:29

music have you been listening to while you put your

45:31

outfit on? Exactly. Well,

45:34

the variety reporters and the Hollywood reporter,

45:36

reporters seem to get more people than we

45:39

do. There's sort of on these

45:41

red carpets all the time. And I think that's,

45:43

that's a bit of the game, which

45:45

is that the Washington Post and the

45:47

New York Times aren't on every red

45:50

carpet that's out there. And so the

45:52

stars don't necessarily recognize us all the time. My

45:54

videographer found a box and

45:57

we just jumped up on top of this box. were

46:00

taller than everyone else and were able to

46:02

shout a little bit louder and that's how

46:05

we managed to get some folks over to us. And who

46:07

did you get to speak to you? Lana

46:11

Del Rey, Jeff Goldblum,

46:14

Nicole Kidman. There were

46:16

so many people who I wasn't. It was not bad

46:18

at all. We

46:20

probably had 20 or 30 people at least. And

46:24

I'm interested because I noticed there

46:26

was just no political statements at

46:28

all at the Met Gala. And

46:31

when I've covered other events, the BAFTAs, at

46:33

the beginning of the Ukraine War, people wearing

46:35

Ukraine pins. From time to time, politics punches

46:37

out. But not there. Were there

46:39

any political statements? Did I miss them or is there a

46:41

ban on them? You

46:43

didn't miss any political statements and I think it is weird

46:46

that it's an election year and there

46:48

wasn't anything. In

46:51

2021, we had Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez came

46:53

in a white dress that said

46:55

tax the rich on the back of it. There

46:59

were political statements happening outside the Met Gala.

47:02

A protest came down and people

47:04

got arrested at 80th and Madison.

47:07

And as I mentioned in my case, Donald

47:09

Trump was on trial elsewhere

47:12

in the city. So there's quite

47:14

a lot going on. The thing I'm always

47:16

fascinated by is what actually happens inside. Because

47:18

there they are parading in the most extreme,

47:20

rather uncomfortable looking outfits made of sand and

47:23

incredible headgear and whatever else. That's

47:26

obviously for the photographs. I know one of the

47:28

things about the Met Gala is the public has

47:30

very little idea what does happen inside simply because

47:32

they're not allowed to. There's no social media posting.

47:34

That's all banned. But do you know what they

47:36

do? Do they go in and change immediately into

47:38

something more comfortable or do they stick like that

47:40

for the whole evening? Yeah,

47:43

I know even though I've never been inside

47:45

myself, there's a few reporters

47:47

who've been able to get in, but it's

47:49

mostly close to the press. I

47:52

think that most of them take off their

47:54

giant trains and their huge hats and they're

47:56

like London already was wearing a crown of

47:59

thorns. for everyone's sake around her

48:01

that she didn't have those on still. And

48:04

then I think it's it's it's just a party.

48:06

It's a party inside the Met. I've been to

48:08

other parties of the Met. It's usually

48:10

really beautifully lit. And I

48:13

know there's usually a performance. And so you might be

48:15

sitting at the table and Beyonce

48:18

might get up on and sing

48:20

on stage and then and then everyone leaves

48:22

incredibly early. I mean, Rihanna is always an

48:24

hour late. She didn't come this year

48:26

because she had the flu. But but usually

48:29

as she's walking in, people are leaving and

48:31

they're going to the after party. OK, sounds

48:33

great. A party that not many journalists invited to.

48:35

But one day, Jada, one day, Jada, you and

48:38

from the Washington Post. Thanks so much. Right. We

48:40

started the hour by talking about politics and

48:42

the media. We're going to finish there, too,

48:44

because while we don't know when the general

48:46

election is going to be, we know it's

48:48

going to be sooner rather than later. Let's

48:50

bring back in Piffa Crear from The Guardian.

48:52

Ben Riley Smith of The Daily Telegraph. And

48:54

we're joined by my colleague from BBC News,

48:58

Laila Nathu, a political correspondent and Pippa,

49:00

Laila and Ben. I'm interested in the

49:02

few days that have followed the local

49:04

elections last year. What have you

49:06

noticed about how the parties

49:08

are trying to handle the media and

49:10

promote their message? Perhaps, Pippa, we could

49:12

start with you. Well,

49:15

it's almost been easier for Labour because the

49:17

results were better for them than it has

49:19

been for the Conservative Party. They've been quite

49:21

successfully able to make their argument that it

49:23

was about geography, that what the elections showed,

49:25

the mayoral and the local showed, was that

49:28

Labour was able to win back in different parts

49:30

of the country. So not just piling on seats

49:32

in the cities in London and Manchester and Liverpool,

49:34

where they took back the mayoral teams, but

49:36

also reaching into the south, the so-called sort

49:38

of blue wall, where they

49:41

took seats in places including Crawley, Swindon,

49:43

Thorek and Rushmore, which is just right

49:45

down the road from from

49:47

all the shots, obviously, the one of the the

49:50

basis of the British army. So

49:52

it was an easier sale for them, although they still

49:54

had questions to answer about losing some of

49:56

the vote in the Muslim communities and indeed

49:58

progressive votes in places. like Bristol that

50:00

went to the Greens. It was tougher

50:03

for Rishi Sinac, of course, because those

50:05

votes, those elections went much

50:07

worse for him and his party. And

50:10

when, and Ben, let's bring you in, when the

50:12

parties are trying to establish a narrative in the

50:14

media, will they just send you a message or

50:16

they sometimes pick up the phone and go, look,

50:19

Ben, the way you wrote that story just isn't

50:21

stacking up correctly? Will they try and make the

50:23

case to you personally? Yeah, absolutely

50:25

they do. In the locals, it's interesting

50:27

because there's a kind of before and

50:29

after before they are trying to frame

50:31

everybody's expectations. We always talk about expectation

50:33

management. And essentially, that's pretty simple. They

50:35

just want to try and

50:38

create a scenario for when the results drop. You

50:40

think, oh, they did a little bit better than

50:42

I thought or not. So that can be trying

50:44

to downplay the number of seats they think they

50:46

will gain. That can be downplaying the chances they

50:48

think they have in a particular mayor

50:50

winning. And they can do that over the phone

50:52

often, giving

50:55

them their spin. And then overnight and

50:57

afterwards, it's almost like drawing journalists' attentions

50:59

to different sets of facts. So the

51:01

results are there in black and white,

51:05

but they will try and put their own interpretations on them. So

51:07

some of it overnight, we're all on these WhatsApp

51:09

groups where they will be pinging different results. Like,

51:11

oh, look, Labour took this council that shows that

51:13

they were winning in the blue wall. Or have

51:15

you seen that actually this folkshare dropped over here

51:17

or reformed it particularly badly and they're not cutting

51:19

through. And then in the days

51:21

afterwards, they are trying to, in the Tories

51:23

case, kind of find silver linings

51:26

in clouds. So the one thing Rishi Sunak

51:28

zoomed in on was this analysis that suggested

51:30

possibly if the vote was replicated nationwide, there

51:32

could be a hung parliament. Now, there are

51:34

lots of reasons why it couldn't be that

51:36

that's what they're trying to do. And that

51:38

got a decent amount of coverage. Lélina Thieu

51:40

from BBC News, let's bring you in because

51:42

while Ben and Pippa are primarily writing their

51:44

stories, you're of course doing lots of broadcasting.

51:46

Much of it is live. And I

51:49

just wonder, as you're broadcasting, especially on a story

51:51

like the local elections, which plays out over a

51:53

number of days, so you're on air a lot.

51:55

Are you sometimes hearing from the parties as

51:57

you're broadcasting? There's

52:01

certainly a sense

52:03

of real time communication over

52:05

this course of days, but I think

52:07

what's different for us is that the expectation

52:10

management point that Ben was alluding to, we

52:12

can reflect some of that as

52:15

we get it in a way. So it's kind

52:17

of, we're getting a sense from one camp that

52:19

this is happening and you can kind of reflect

52:21

that in the coverage saying, well, look, we're hearing

52:23

this, but certainly we can provide the interpretation that

52:25

says, okay, well, this is them trying to manage

52:27

expectations in a certain way. So, yes, we're

52:30

getting stuff, but obviously it's our job to

52:32

then provide the context about sort of how

52:35

realistic that is or other bits of information

52:37

that we're getting. So yeah, there's a

52:39

sense of sort of analyzing what you're getting

52:41

from the parties at a different camp as

52:43

you receive it. Later,

52:46

I should also say you're speaking to

52:48

us from central lobby at the moment,

52:50

and I've spoken to you on air

52:52

on BBC news many a time when

52:54

you're there. In the middle of your

52:56

broadcasting, will politicians or their colleagues in

52:58

communications come up to you? Well,

53:02

I mean, certainly in parliament, you bump into people. I mean, that's

53:04

one of the virtues of being here is that you do bump

53:06

into people kind of right, left and centre. So yeah, I

53:08

mean, even over lunch, for example, you might bump

53:11

into somebody and somebody from labour might say, just

53:13

to wear off, apparently in a friendly way, but

53:15

obviously they're kind of keen to put

53:17

their lines forward at every

53:19

given opportunity. And yeah, having kind of off the

53:22

record chat to people. Yeah, so weaving in apologies,

53:24

the division bell is ringing if you can hear

53:26

that behind me. But yeah,

53:28

there is always a sense if you are somebody

53:30

who is a communicator of information, that anyone who

53:33

is speaking to you knows that. And

53:35

so therefore they're trying to get their lines

53:37

out. But I mean, I think WhatsApp is

53:39

in the kind of mode of choice, everyone

53:42

sending messages might not be sent out,

53:45

sometimes just more broadly in relation to

53:47

the, not just in relation to the

53:50

local election coverage, but you're getting kind

53:52

of real time dissection

53:54

of speeches from Labour,

53:57

for example, or the government minister doing

53:59

their fact-checking, doing their own well,

54:01

you said this before, and alerting you

54:03

to things, just as

54:06

people were saying, things to be aware

54:08

of. Okay, I'm sorry, I'm just going

54:10

to break, stop you there, because we

54:12

are about to, we've only got a

54:14

few minutes left. I just want to

54:16

turn with all three of you to

54:18

looking ahead to the election, get your

54:20

crystal balls out. Well, don't. But in

54:22

terms of how the media strategies are

54:24

evolving, Pippa, what would you say, which

54:26

platforms matter are going to matter

54:28

the most to parties in

54:30

this upcoming election, whenever it comes? Well,

54:33

I think what has happened is that over the

54:35

last five or 10 years, there's much less

54:37

of a focus on, you know,

54:39

traditional print media, and

54:42

much more focus on what happens digitally. But

54:44

then, you know, organizations like ours, like

54:46

The Guardian, we are, we have been digital first

54:48

for a very long time. So, you

54:50

know, we can be super quick, we can get onto everyone's

54:52

phones, and we can sort of be creative in

54:54

the way we present video and audio as well. Not

54:58

quite, you know, exactly the same as

55:00

broadcasters, but nevertheless, you know, in that

55:02

territory. And I think one thing that

55:04

we're all going to have to do, and all

55:06

three of us are at sort of what I'm

55:08

regarded as mainstream media organizations, is be

55:10

aware that a lot of the battleground in this election

55:12

coming up, as it started to be in 2019, is

55:15

going to be in the social media

55:17

space. And by that I mean YouTube, I mean, private

55:19

WhatsApp groups, I mean, Facebook, and

55:21

that we are going to have to be conscious

55:24

that there'll be like influencers out there who will

55:26

be trying to, you know, sort of put their

55:28

message across in very unconventional and new ways. And

55:30

if we vacate that space, then

55:33

some of the sort of the trust and the authority

55:35

that comes from organizations like ours won't be

55:37

there. So we're going to have to make sure that we're present

55:39

in those spaces as well. And Ben

55:41

Riley Smith, the old view on which platforms

55:43

matter and also I suppose who the politicians

55:45

are trying to court, you

55:47

know, are they still, you know, are people trying to

55:49

court labour, call the Murdoch's might,

55:52

you know, Murdoch's back labour this

55:54

time might I suppose might the telegraph your paper

55:56

back reform then. Well, I

55:58

think I agree with everything Pippa said. And I think

56:00

fundamentally still the most dominant medium

56:03

is broadcast. The number of people who are watching the

56:05

news at 10 or the news at 6 is

56:08

just higher than papers and other

56:10

things. And I think

56:12

Pippa's right in saying for younger

56:15

voters, TikTok, Instagram, Twitter, and how

56:17

quickly random memes such as Rishi

56:19

Sunakniss, Adidas trainers actually project a

56:22

particular perception of

56:24

him and whether he's in touch with people.

56:26

And yes, definitely the media barons are probably

56:28

much less influential now than they were 30 years

56:31

ago just because there are fewer people reading.

56:33

But you can see that Kiers Dahmer is

56:35

attending Rupert

56:38

Murdoch's garden parties and

56:40

May the Times or The Sun end

56:42

up backing Labour. Those will be moments,

56:44

albeit fewer moments than a couple of

56:46

decades ago. And I'm sure

56:48

that The Telegraph will keep on reporting

56:51

that division between reform and the Tories. I

56:53

expect us to end up backing the Tories,

56:55

but that is a decision far, far above

56:57

my pay grade. That makes

57:00

sense. Laila, briefly, if we asked

57:02

you, who would you say? Do you think that

57:05

the Murdochs are going to end up backing Labour

57:07

this time around in the last 20 seconds that

57:09

we've got? Well, I think it's, you

57:11

know, I mean, that certainly is one prize, but just to

57:13

kind of build on what both Pippa and Ben have

57:15

said, you know, I don't think any mainstream media is

57:17

at work getting left behind. I don't think it's the

57:19

case that the parties are going right when you focus

57:21

on social media exclusively. We all have

57:23

seen a bar and as with Pippa, you

57:25

know, the BBC is doing that as well. So it's important

57:28

to know and the parties know that as well. So they

57:30

reflect to us. And then we cascade

57:32

down our various different platforms, TV, radio, online,

57:34

all the social media outlets, too. So

57:36

I think it's kind of it's more work for

57:38

everybody all round to get the message out on

57:40

this kind of proliferation of platforms. Laila,

57:43

Ben and Pippa, thank you very much indeed.

57:45

I'm afraid we are just about out of time. I'd

57:47

also like to thank Richard Hall,

57:50

Julia Vargas-Jones, Professor Doug McLeod, Shayna

57:52

Oppenheimer, Jada Yuen and Mohammed Moad

57:54

from Al Jazeera. But that

57:56

is it for this hour. Thank you very much indeed

57:58

for listening. We'll be back. back the same time

58:00

next week from both of us. Bye bye. The

58:30

artificial human with me, Alex Kritosky and me, Kevin Foll.

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