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tv   The Media Show  BBC News  May 11, 2024 4:30am-5:01am BST

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voice-over: this is bbc news. we will have the headlines for you at the top of the alba, which is freed after this programme. a warning — our next programme contains flashing images. hello and welcome. israel has banned the television network aljazeera. it says it's a mouthpiece for hamas. we'll hear from aljazeera's managing editor to get his response, and we'll explore the implications of the ban. the israel—gaza war reverberates around the world, and in the us, university campuses have been the scene of pro—palestinian demonstrations over the last month. we're assessing how they're being reported and why student journalists have been crucial to our understanding of the story. we're going to talk about the met gala.
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i imagine you may have seen the photos of the extraordinary outfits worn by many celebrities. we'll talk to one journalist about the challenges of covering it. let's start with the campus protests in the us. reporting them is creating a challenge for us journalism, and we're going to talk it through with journalists who've been on the ground. but before we meet them, let's remind ourselves what's been unfolding over the past month. so, these protests started at columbia university in new york in mid—april. according to a bbc tally, there have now been demonstrations at nearly 140 colleges across 45 states and washington, dc, too. according to the ap news agency, around 2,500 people have been arrested at campuses across the us. and the protesters are demanding a number of things, including that their colleges financially divest from israel. now, in some locations, police have been sent in, not least at columbia
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university in new york, and that was seen as being hugely significant, not least because it's the first time there have been mass arrests on columbia's campus since the vietnam war protests more than 50 years ago. also, in interviews with the bbc, jewish students at several campuses have spoken of incidents that made them feel uncomfortable, ranging from chants and signs supporting hamas, which is a proscribed terror group, to physical altercations and perceived threats. 0k, well, let's understand the practicalities of covering the story first with richard hall, who's the independent�*s senior us correspondent and not a student. richard, welcome to the media show. i know you were at columbia university's encampments in new york. what did you actually see? well, i could see what had happened, actually, from the first moments i got down there. the access to the campus was quite restricted most of the time. press were allowed on for a couple of hours a day to speak to people. but outside of the campus, there was essentially a ring of counterprotesters and people that had come
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to protest the protest. and if you can imagine the kind of people that would give up their wednesday afternoon to go down there and shout at some students or shout at people who are shouting at students, i don't think it was very representative of what was going on inside the encampment. so there was this impression that these people causing trouble outside were connected to the protests in some way, and that wasn't the case. and when it comes to the people you met inside, is it right, you know, that they've been studying the media tactics of the vietnam war protesters of the �*60s? and were you surprised by that? that's right. i actually went down with the intention of talking to them about the '68 protests, because it's something i'd noticed. i'd studied the '68 protests at university, and i wanted to ask them, you know, "do you know there are echoes from '68 here in "what you're doing?" and everyone i spoke to said, "yes, we know. "it's deliberate. "we actually went into the columbia archives "and we studied what the '68 protesters did. "we studied their tactics, "we studied how they dealt with "the media." even the idea of an encampment they borrowed from '68. so they were very aware of it.
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it was a very deliberate strategy to copy what they did and learn from them. and the students had designated a few people to speak to the press, and they had some very light media training, you know, just teaching them how not to get tripped up. and if you can imagine, the press are kept outside the campus in this huge line and are let in at a certain time. you have 100 journalists swarming this encampment, and you have six or seven students just trying to field all these requests, journalists fighting over them. so that was one of the things that they learned from '68, wasjust this discipline of message, making sure they say the right things and their words couldn't be twisted~ _ i saw that some high—profile journalists in america have been criticising the protesters for not speaking to media outlets. it sounds to me like it was easy for you to speak to the people who'd been designated, but you couldn't just go around asking other students to talk to you. or did you try that? i wonder what your take is on what people are saying about that. i was turned down a couple of times, _ but it's completely
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understandable. any sort of protest situation, not everyone wants to talk to you. and one example, i went up to one student at one point and said, "hey, do you mind if i talk to you a few minutes?" and he said, "what's your name?" and i told him my name. he googled me in two seconds and he was reading out my biography and said, "oh, you've covered syria. "you worked in the middle east. ok, let's do this." so they were very savvy. vetting you on the ground. yeah! i think if someone had trouble getting interviews with them, it was probably because the students didn't trust them. did you come across student journalists who were also trying to get access? did you interact with student journalists at all while you were covering it? they were everywhere that night. yeah, they were at every barricade, in every side street. they had special markers on their back saying "studentjournalist" to identify themselves. deeply, deeply impressed by their commitment to get out there and get involved. i saw student protesters following the live stream of the radio station. that was their tool to keep up—to—date on everything that was happening. so, yeah, they were everywhere that night. really interesting. richard hall from the
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independent, thank you. well, next let's talk about student journalists, because they've been commended by the pulitzer prize board for covering protests and unrest in the face of great personal and academic risk. julia vargas jones is a master's student at columbia journalism school and also a freelance reporter. julia, welcome to the media show. i know that you were covering some of these events for cnn. just tell us how that happened. well, thank you for having me. well, i had, you know, - i had a connection with cnn before — i'd worked - with them for many years. and in the moment, you know, i got a call from another- classmate, natasha caragnano. she called me at around 3am, and she said, _ "you should be here." and honestly, i didn't even ask cnn if they really - wanted me to go. ijust said, "i'm here, - you should take me live," and we started coverage from the occupation. - i think when i got there, we were about six, - seven hours in. and i did talk to people, - you know, i was able to talk to people who were notj
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media trained and said, "look, i'm not media trained. i can't give you an interview."j i'm like, "look, i'm a fellow student. i "i want to report - for the entire world. "we're about to go live on cnn. "i need to know a little bit of what's going on. | "help me out here. "i want to understand, how did the night go? | "was it peaceful? "like, what happened - after people went inside?" and i think, obviously- being a student, i was able to build that trust _ with some of the protesters. julia, i'm interested — so you call up cnn and you say, "i'm here, i can go on air as soon as you like." but what are the practicalities of that? because you've been woken up at 3am in the morning, you've rushed down to where the story is. what are the practicalities of getting on air? i'm assuming you're using your phone. or am i wrong? yes, so, you kind of need two phones and a tiny tripod - with a ring light and i microphones, wireless microphones, and a headset,
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a very simple, bare—bones headset _ now, throughout the day, we were able to charge. l i actually had to recruit some fellow master's students - to help me and be my camera operators. - the biggest challenge of the coverage was, i eventually, the phones started dying, batteries started - running out and we just had to. make do with whatever we had. so it's switching phones, . it's switching live methods. so every time that you saw me come back up, i was probablyl trying to figure out another logistical issue before - i could, you know, talk to the anchors at cnn. j while you were dealing with all of that, and you were no doubt encountering lots of other students who were reporting on it... you mentioned columbia's journalism school. i know a makeshift newsroom was established to deal with the level of interest in this story. just tell us what that was like. i have to commend . the journalism school for everything that they did to help student journalistsi continue reporting.
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a lot of people arrived there. student journalists arrived there after the gates - were closed, and the dean and the vice deans had - to physically escort - people into the building. in one of the main halls. of the journalism school, there was coffee, water, pizzas, snacks, advice i from very established - professors, people that have been in the industry for 30, 40 years. i so i think it was probably the best education in- journalism that this i cohort is going to get. julia, thanks for speaking to us. that's julia vargas jones, a master's student at columbia journalism school. well, next, let's assess how effective the protesters have been about getting their message out via the media and how media coverage, especially via the mainstream, has shaped americans' perspective on the protests. doug mcleod is professor ofjournalism at the university of wisconsin—madison. doug, welcome to the media show. i know you've been studying how the media frames protest. and you use an interesting
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term, you talk about the protest paradigm. just explain what you mean by that. yeah, well, we've been studying social media coverage of social protest for over 35 years. we've studied it across a variety of different protest contexts, both left and right groups, abortion groups, environmental groups, black lives matter anarchists, a whole host of different types of protest topics. and one of the things that emerged when we looked at mainstream newspaper and television coverage of these protests was a certain common pattern of covering social protests. the stories look pretty similar in terms of structure and the way the protest was covered. and that's what we call the protest paradigm, a way of covering social protest. so what are the pitfalls that news organisations can fall into, in your view? so, one of the pitfalls is really getting caught up in looking for dramatic stories, dramatic images, looking for, say, conflicts between protesters and police or between protesters
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on one side of the issue and protesters on the other. as rich talked about before, it looks like a war scene, and it makes great video images. but one of the real problems is that the issues, the underlying issues of the protest, sort of get lost in the process. are you saying that the media isn't interested in peaceful protest, i'm wondering. well, i would say calm, rational protest that stands up to have expressed an opinion to try to influence public and policy on a given issue is unlikely to get a lot of media attention unless they can create a certain amount of drama that fits what journalists are often looking for. uh, and so you often see clashes with the police. you often see incidents of property damage, even though in many of these protests, the people who are actually engaged with, uh, police
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or other counter protesters is a small fraction of the larger protest group. and so when it comes to these protests that we've been seeing and they've obviously been punching out across the media, you know, certainly across america and wider here in the uk. um, some people have been saying that the student protests have overshadowed their cause. has the message cut through, or how has the message cut through, do you think, and how does that, um, reflect the coverage? yeah, i think it's a pretty good example of what we're talking about with the protest paradigm. there has been a ton of attention on our campus at the university of wisconsin, on the police removing the encampments from campus, uh, and arresting protesters. it's pretty similar to the way, uh, the protest has been covered across campuses. um, the nod to what the protesters are looking for in terms of things like divestment are sort of briefly acknowledged within these stories, but there's little exploration
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of what divestment means. what are the investments of a university in israel or with companies that supply the israeli military? what is it that is problematic about what universities are doing that have led to the complaints that the protesters, um, are trying to allege against the administration? it's very hard, as a member of the public to really, um, divine what it is that the protest is all about. and so if you don't have a lot of thorough discussion, of what the protest is about — the protest looks very foreign to you, very disruptive, particularly radical tactics of the protesters tend to be focused on and their, their issues kind of get lost in the clutter. professor mcleod, thank you. we've heard three perspectives on these campus protests. let's hear one more. we'rejoined by shaina oppenheimerfrom bbc monitoring.
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shaina, you're with us from jerusalem, and we're going to speak to you about a couple of subjects on today's media show. but i was interested to ask you, you spend your time looking at media coverage that you can view from jerusalem. i wonder how these campus protests have been covered in israel. i think it's important to understand, kind of as a starting point, that the israeli media does not really cover what happens in gaza from a humanitarian standpoint. there are very little images of the civilian impact of israel's military actions there. so then israelis have a really hard time comprehending or understanding what the anger is and why people are protesting on college campuses in the us. so the media kind of use interchangeable terms like anti—israel protests and anti—semitic protests without ever mentioning gaza, without ever without ever mentioning the cause and the reason why students were protesting.
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and they take these images that we were talking about of the most extreme cases of violence, and they use it to kind of question and perhaps delegitimize, some people would say, the protest movement at large, without contextualising it at all. shaina, you are going to be staying with us. before we carry on talking, let me say thanks to richard hall, professor doug mcleod, and julia vargas jones, who've been with us, as we've talked about those campus protests in the us. shaina, let's stick with what's happening in israel. um, because israel's government has shut down the operations of the aljazeera television network in the country for the duration of its war in gaza. here's a clip of their correspondent, imran khan, announcing the move, to viewers on sunday.
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that was aljazeera's imran khan. prime minister benjamin netanyahu says the israeli cabinet agreed to the closure while the war in gaza is ongoing. as i said, shaina oppenheimer from bbc monitoring jerusalem, you are still here. just tell us why, why it's happened. well, the israeli government, i mean, in general, israelis do not view aljazeera quite favourably. as i mentioned, there isn't really a lot of coverage of how israeli policies affect palestinian civilians. so there's an inability to understand where aljazeera is coming from in that sense, now, during the war, and at large. and there's this long—time accusation that aljazeera works kind of in kudos with hamas. people in israel see it certainly as a mouthpiece. so for a long time, israel has not seen aljazeera favourably. and certainly when this war started, this idea of perhaps doing something to shut
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its operations has kind of been in the background. and the timing was quite sensitive, because at the end of the day, aljazeera is based in qatar, and qatar is quite a key player in negotiations with hamas. and there are even ongoing negotiations right now. let's bring in mohamed moawad, who's managing editor of aljazeera, and with us live from doha. uh, mr moawad, thank you very much indeed for your time. um, following this vote, mr netanyahu claimed in a statement that aljazeera reporters had harmed israel's security and incited against soldiers and has called your network a hamas mouthpiece. how would you respond to that? uh, these are unfounded, unfounded, baseless- allegations that the . israeli government is, is unleashing against us. and this is the least - dangerous action they have taken against al jazeera. we've lost three i
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colleagues covering from the front line of this conflict, and they were i targeted by air strikes. so to be honest, thisi is the least dangerous action by the israeli government. - and this is something - that we have heard before, against aljazeera from . the authoritarian regimes in the mena region, in the middle east. i when they shut down offices for al jazeera, with the aftermath| of the arab spring, this is same, uh, - authoritarian playbook. and to be honest, i we see that as a way to conceal what's - happening inside gaza. well... we heard today from israel hayom that the minister i ofjustice in israeljust told the hostages families - that he is watching - aljazeera because he knows arabic and he's watching i aljazeera to follow what's happening with the negotiationsl and the war, because netanyahu is not telling them much about what's going on. l let me pick up
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on a couple of things. first of all, israel denies targeting aljazeera journalists. indeed, it denies targeting alljournalists. also, the israeli, israeli intelligence, accuses aljazeera of revealing the locations of the israeli army in some of your coverage. do you accept that perhaps in some of your coverage, you have accidentally given away information that could put israel's military at risk? i don't think covering from the front line i of the conflict, giving i voice to the voiceless, uncovering the atrocities committed in gaza that. described by the united nations and other humanitarian- organisations as war crimes, i don't think this— is revealing positions for israeli forces - or something like that. this is a fine journalism. this is the core mission- ofjournalism around the globe. and that's our mission. we're giving voice to the voiceless. i we're reporting the gazan side, and we're reporting _ the israeli side.
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i mean, we're airing - the statements by israeli government officials, - and we are being criticised, by the way, in the middle east that we are airing them. - people are criticising, - criticising us and saying that aljazeera is givingj a platform for, uh, for the israeli government lies and that we are airing - after them what contradicts what they are saying, - because they go on air and say we care about civilians. - and then we report that - hundreds are killed in their... this is your immediate reaction to the ban by mr netanyahu and his colleagues. is there anything further that you can do about this? can you challenge the ban legally? of course — we've . started the process. we are pursuing all legal- actions to make sure that we, you know, counter these unfounded allegations. i and we are sure that, you know, that the whole israeli _ government and the israel. is now, uh, is being tested.
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the democracy in israel- is being tested because they are using the same playbook of the authoritarian regimesl in the middle east, but they'rej calling themselves democracy. so let's see if the | israeli institutions are going to defend - freedom of speech and, you know, the freedoml ofjournalists to operate in israel, in front of the court. - mohamed moawad, managing editor of aljazeera, with us from doha, thank you very much indeed for speaking to the media show. thanks to shaina oppenheimer, too, from bbc monitoring. thank you. i want to turn to something very, very different now, but it would have been hard to miss. the photographs earlier in the week, splashed across the media, as stars took to the red carpet in sometimes questionable and often entirely impractical outfits for the annual met gala in new york. but of course, practicality isn't the point, i get that. i just want to give you a taste of the jamboree for the dozens of photographers at the event. here is the arrival of ariana grande and cynthia erivo.
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ladies, turn together. turn together. together. - this way. cynthia. i and look in here, ari... there you go. it's a hugely profitable co—mingling of celebrities, sponsors and brands overseen by vogue magazine supremo anna wintour. and it's... the met gala is the source of seemingly endless coverage, fascinating and baffling in equal measure. and we're lucky enough to say we've got someone who was there to cover it, here on the media show, jada yuan, features reporter at the washington post. some people won't have seen the photos. others will. just explain, though, how big a media event is the met ball? it's, it's huge. it comprises notjust of the red carpet, which is kind of famous, along the steps of the, um, of the metropolitan museum of art, and this time was not red, but actually green
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and beige, with hedges of real plants along the side. it's a huge production. the tent is up there for days and you have, just hundreds of reporters and photographers inside this scrum. but then you also have a side show that has — this sort of social media side show that's been happening at nearby hotels where crowds will gather, tojust take photographs of stars as they get into vans to drive two blocks over to the museum, and yeah, it's just, it's just insane. and how do you get your spot? where do you stand as a reporter? where were you this time? we're way at the top. we're at the — i'm at the upper end of the lowerend of the food of the food chain. is that good or bad? i can't quite work it out. it's not, it's not great. i mean, the whole game of being a reporter at the met gala, other thanjust sort
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of taking in the sights of, of these ridiculous outfits and just the crush of celebrity that's coming through is to try and get them to come and talk to you. and my videographer found a box, and wejustjumped up on top of this box, so we were taller than everyone else and were able to sort of shout a little bit louder. and that's how we managed to get some folks over to us. and who did you get to speak to you? lana del rey, jeff goldblum, nicole kidman. there were some people... not bad at all. yeah. we probably had 20 or 30 people at least. the thing i'm always fascinated by is what actually happens inside. do you know what they do? do they go in and change immediately into something more comfortable, or do they stick like that for the whole evening? yeah, i know, even though i've never been inside myself, there's a few reporters who've been able to get in, but it's mostly closed to the press. i think that most of them take off their giant trains and their huge hats,
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and they're, like, lana del rey was wearing a crown of thorns. and i hope for everyone's sake around her that she didn't have those on still, and then i think it'sjust a party. it's a party inside the met. i've been to other parties at the met. it's usually really beautifully lit, and i know there's usually a performance. and so you might be sitting at a table and beyonce might get up on and sing onstage. and then... and then everyone leaves incredibly early. i mean, rihanna is always an hour late. she didn't come this year, cos she had the flu. but usually as she's walking in, people are leaving and they're going to the after parties. 0k. sounds great. a party that not many journalists are invited to, but one day, jada, one day. jada yuan from the washington post, thanks so much. i'm afraid that's it for today. thanks to all our guests. we'll be back at the same time next week. but it's goodbye from me, katie razzall. and from me, ros atkins. thanks for watching. we'll see you soon. bye—bye.
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and if you'd like to hear a longer version of today's show, search bbc the media show, wherever you get your bbc podcasts. hello there. settled and warm again on friday, with plenty of late spring sunshine around and temperatures rising across the four nations into the low 20s in celsius. the warmth is set to last as we head through the weekend. temperatures will remain above the seasonal average, warmest towards the east. and it's still dry for the vast majority of us on saturday. a scattering of showers, with the real breakdown happening on sunday. heavy, thundery showers out towards the western half of the uk. further east should stay largely dry. and here is the area of high pressure that's keeping these dry, settled conditions for the time being. it will eventually push further eastwards into scandinavia. but we've got a bit of an easterly breeze, and that's been dragging some mist and low cloud in from the north sea. but that will lift and clear across the south—east of england and east anglia through saturday morning. still maybe a hang—back
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of cloud towards parts of the yorkshire lincolnshire coast, though. lots of sunshine to start the day and we'll keep the sunny skies for most through the afternoon. but a scattering of showers across scotland pushing northwards, perhaps some heavy and thundery, but they'll be fairly isolated. it's still very warm — 2a degrees celsius in glasgow. chance of a shower, too, across northern areas of northern ireland and north wales. a little cooler towards these north sea—facing coasts, with some of the cloud possibly lapping onshore again at times. 25 or 26 degrees celsius in london and south—east england. so the high pressure starts to push further eastwards as we head through sunday. that allows for these low pressure systems to roll in from the west. and this weather front will bring us thickening cloud across the south—west of england, western wales, on sunday morning. some showers across the western isles and western scotland, pushing into northern ireland, and the chance of some thunderstorms developing all across the western half of the uk. but it should stay drier further east. again, there will be a lot of sunshine here, and once again we could see
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temperatures in the low to the mid—20s in celsius. but cooler out towards the west, of course, underneath the cloud and with the eventual rain. and here comes that low pressure system swinging in as we head through monday. it's going to give us quite widespread rain on monday, especially through the afternoon, so expect it to turn a lot more showery as we head through next week. and there'll be a drop in temperature, too, so unsettled and cooler as we head through next week. bye—bye for now.
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live from london, this is bbc news. israel may have used american—supplied weapons in breach of international humanitarian law "in some instances" in gaza — that's the findings of a long—awaited us government report. russian forces launch a surprise new ground offensive in ukraine, crossing the border into the north—eastern kharkiv region. this comes as president biden gives the go—ahead for more aid for ukraine. and earth is hit by the most powerful solar storm in 21 years, triggering spectacular celestial light shows in many parts of the world. hello, i'm lucy grey. a long—awaited us government report has criticised israel's use of american—supplied weapons in the gaza war,

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