prized by that or who feigned surprise with a little outrage thrown in was britain's pro bracks it tabloid press what a great headline that was that yes language is a motive but this is a tarp lloyd paper it is a red blooded tabloid designed for red blooded readers who have strong views on where we are going with the breaks in negotiation i think some readers look for that fools for coverage the sun is not a newspaper that is on the one hand on the other the sun is a newspaper that takes its position and goes for it to see that such an important. fragile delicate moment can be used by the media to. really what is essentially eight or sixty three million three million dangerous today in the current situation and noid show we have a country profoundly divided to you is the kind of rhetoric is completely

responsible the sort of language that talks about two bit more of the union reflects a discourse that's been going on around coverage of the for the last two decades it's always been about the contest between the u.k. and the e.u. rather than a more collaborative relationship so that's been based on a lot of conflict will understand things and sometimes downright lies but it fits a discourse around this idea of being a very bullying and nannying construct that is taking away powers from the u.k. . but who is really bullying whom the european union takes issue with the kind of coverage it gets in many of its member states brussels has become kind of a journalistic shorthand for a political body many european media outlets depict as remote out of touch and.

overly bureaucratic which is why this past week when the e.u.'s justice commissioner spoke of news outlets that are divisive exclusionary and dealing in misinformation she made it clear she wasn't just talking about the media in the u.k. in those daily we could find examples of stories what she did say was that the british press has produced some of the most divisive e.u. coverage sadly i don't think that it would have any kind of effect in britain because it seems that that the anything that comes from europe at the moment is mostly distorted and turned on its had this is a consequence of the transformation of the media because there is no incentive especially now landscape which is extremely competitive in being the ones who force their dialogue and harmonious dialogue and harmony doesn't. click clicks on the net well i don't think anyone in the british media is going to take lessons from anyone

in brussels over the rhetoric and the kind of demeanor of the debate it's hardly as if the e.u. and its officials are entirely guilt free in this dialogue clearly we don't want it to become more hateful or hate filled but it's not a problem for it because the full for it to be passionate because you know what people all really fired up about this. which begs the following questions if the british really are that fired up about the e.u. and brax it how did they get that way and are the newspapers the tabloids going particular reporting on the public mood or are they producing the referendum result in two thousand and sixteen was close fifty two percent in favor of leaving to forty eight at the time prolife papers were far more numerous and more widely read seventy three percent of the newspapers sold in the u.k. favored bracks only twenty seven percent of the paper sold opposed the country was evenly split. the newspapers were not reflecting the views of their owners who are

mostly conservative as opposed to their readers media analysts describe those papers as euro skeptical what they really are is euro hostile a term that also applies to boris johnson a politician who has seen the e.u. story from both sides the conservative m.p. and former cabinet minister campaigned hard for bracks it making dubious claims to journalists about simple solutions that have since proven untrue why we said ten pounds a year debts to brussels some of which is spent all this and it's likely johnson used to be a journalist although not a very good one in the late one nine hundred eighty s. he was fired by the times of london for making up quotes then hired by the daily telegraph and assigned to brussels to cover the e.u. it was there the johnson honed his anti e.u. messaging developing a style of coverage that was later emulated by other british journalists boris

johnson did not invent the current form of coverage of the european union that we see in the british media but he is a good symbol of it in the way that as a journalist he had a keen eye for the sort of quite engaging often funny and occasionally misleading was right false story about seemingly quirky forms of european legislation or regulation around food you know curved bananas and the like but it's only partly about the media so it's a very much about politics and of course boris johnson made the journey from being a journalist to being a commentator and to being very prominent conservative politician and he was a very well known for not showing up at the press conferences and then going to the office and making it up whatever he thought was funny to read to kill someone or has been responsible for that kind of. disinformation and a responsible journalism and then handed it to benefit. from it politically.

the pro brax the press in the u.k. does not limit its antagonism to the e.u. two years ago when a british court ruled that parliament had the constitutional right to have the last say on bricks in the daily mail declared the judges involved enemies of the people and reported that one of them was openly gay the daily mail is one of the country's biggest selling newspapers it's a good deal more popular than it is trustworthy which is not as contradictory as it may appear popularity and trust is not the same thing and this is really clear when you look at the trust scores of individual tabloids around a lot of people really like the daily mail or really like the sun for lots of reasons they find it funny they find it something that sort of you know gets their blood pressure up but it's not necessarily something they consider particularly trustworthy source information trust in all news organizations is dropping its dropping most for the tabloid press that straight people no longer know who to

trust and it's largely to do with media really and political elites and the entanglement of power between media elites and political elites make them even more distrusted because people know that they work together and that's where pound. we're discussing other media stories that are on our radar today with one of our producers johannah who's joe we've been keeping an eye on the media story in hungary for a few years now and this past week yet another news outlet was taken over it has new owners what are the details well richard the website in question is in that h.q. hungary's largest independent news outlets one of the new owners is joseph a media investor and a member of the political party currently in coalition with prime minister viktor orban sparty feed us now whilst the new owners. insisted that the publications

independence's guaranteed staff there are warning of a doomsday scenario in which the website could be made to parrot the fish party's ideological agenda eighty eight employees have signed a statement saying that if there are any changes we will notify the world as loud as we possibly can but we've seen this kind of thing before pro orbán business tycoons taking over news outlets critical of the orbán government promising not to tamper with the editorial policies and then reneging there's a pattern here isn't there yes there is over the past four years dozens of newspapers radio and television channels critical of orbán have changed hands some of subsequently shut down others have drastically changed the editorial line just last month we've reported on the takeover of here t.v. one of its new owners jill neaera guess insisted he would not get involved in the channel's work but that same nights he cancelled one of her t.v.'s political talk shows and in its place broadcast a speech by or band on a new pope so there is good reasons for concerns that will go to same way moving on

now to the panama papers investigations first published in two thousand and sixteen that made news in so many countries in the movie it was just one of them but now a lawsuit has resulted what can you tell us about hender dyckman the lawyer who's filed the suit and the paper he's suing the namibia well the namibian is the country's largest newspaper and it published two stories in two thousand and sixteen and in two thousand and seventeen linking deep meant to companies used by alleged mafia kingpin zola and i maybe i was an important port of call for the sicilian mafia drug trade in the one nine hundred ninety s. and early two thousand and pilot solo reportedly had multiple bank accounts there according to the namibians reports dyckman was the lawyer of choice for anyone wanting to invest in companies related to pilot solo dignan denies the allegations and demands that the newspaper attracts the articles apologizes or pays him twenty thousand dollars in damages and how is the paper responding well done gainey. and

there may be an editor who's also named as a defendant in the case called the lawsuit and tend to intimidate and stop us and the rest of the news media from writing about people who clearly have a lot of resources to keep their activities secret we have followed the best journalistic practices and standard twin publishing these articles and we stand by our reporting he also said that the lawsuit would be a killer for his paper as potential defeat would mean legal costs five times greater than the damages salt ok for extra. a muzzle the media corruption in the government and a silenced opposition many malaysians are hoping that those things are now behind them with the ousting of najib razak from the prime minister's office four months ago however the country's new leader might have fear muhammad is no stranger to media censorship or corruption mahathir has already spent twenty two years as prime minister and was known for locking up political opponents shutting down newspapers and remolding media legislation but that was the old math here allegedly this new

one has pulled a u. turn in his approach to the media news sites shut down by energy are now back online and not have fear has repealed one of the more contentious laws passed by his predecessor the anti fake news act but many onlookers still wonder understandably if this new mahathir won't turn out the same as the old one given that much of the system he's talking about dismantling was built by him listening post flo phillips now on what mahathir mohamad change of tune might mean for the malaysian media. matin mohammed the seventh prime minister of malaysia was in the senate. and his first stint from one thousand and two one to two thousand and three he came to reputation as an autocrat.

this time around as he vowed in his campaign video things will be different in my view sure that he's not the old and i think he's constantly reminded of the fact that he had this twenty two years. he is the man of the moment he's very popular he is not someone who can do no wrong he's clean and predictable. what is important is that we would judge him by his action. not many people start a new job or change their politics at age ninety three had to but he left his own party to leave the opposition partnering with a man that he'd put in prison. and made freedom of expression a big part of his election campaign this is the same man that the committee to protect journalists branded and me of the press back in one thousand not. the most

notorious thing that he did was operation. which happened in eighty seven so these hundred people were taken in and detained without trial on top of that three newspapers were suspended it instilled in society. the culture of fear. over two decades in power introduced in tightened legislation to keep news outlets in check there was the printing presses and publication which kept news outlets on their best behavior by requiring them to reapply for their license every year the official secrets act was broadened in scope and used to prosecute dissidents and journalists. also introduced the communications a multimedia act which was later used to target the media and activists for content published online. journalist stephen galland set up an independent news outlet in

one thousand nine hundred nine he remembers the legal hoops and requirements he had to go through when he thought of setting up an alternative media in malaysia it was the goal for us actually. there's no way that we could get a license so the internet was a last resort we would call for it just like mark did. by the police almost two. doesn't the computers were taken away and they were not returned to us two years later it was really an attempt to shut us down i believe that the prime minister has changed he has reformed he has transformed and we have we are going to do all we. can feel him he read being pressed. him being the freedom of expression so we are not looking back we are looking

at. the rehabilitation of manhood his image is the accidental legacy of the previous prime minister not to present a form approach if. in twenty fifteen knots it was found to have been at the center of a global corruption scandal involving the state development fund one malaysia development known as one m. to be under not just watch the fund lost four point five billion dollars through shell companies and they take transactions that spread across ten countries six hundred eighty one million of them according to u.s. prosecutors was found in a personal bank account. once the one m. d.b. scandal hit the headlines not to have made use of the repressive laws that he did heritage and he came up with one of his own the anti fake news act that all fake news is connected to the when m.t.v. scandal or any other corruption cases that involves the government so basically what they're trying to say is that i don't believe anything that you see on the

internet unless we say so unless we sanction so this whole fake news thing was basically the last act that put out there just before the elections to try to scare people the government tried to you know to use and to free this law against during the election campaign it was claiming that there was an attempt to stop him from actually putting his nomination papers in time for people this. that shows that there is that in the step in the right direction. did away with the fake news act last month but there are other laws the sedition act introduced under british colonial rule back in one thousand nine hundred eighty eight it still remains in effect the definition of should.