hello i'm richard gere's burden you're at the listening post here are some of the media stories we're covering this week how one interview that was never even broadcast your. tax reform on the news agenda a news anchor in israel learns the hard way about what can or cannot be said about the occupation and israeli soldiers like father like mother like son nicaragua where journalism and politics can be a family affair and citizen journalists have had their crack at covering the unrest in sudan now the artists are doing their thing. this week we're leading with one of those topics that television news producers would rather leave to print journalists or better yet authors because it's complicated it's about tax rates and it's not a sexy topic not a visual story until a young dutch academic spoke at the recent world economic forum in davos and made

news by telling a roomful of billionaires want to fix the global economy then dig deeper pay up it's time to tax the rich then fox news is tucker carlson invited rutger bregman on to his program mistake bregman went right after crossing the channel that he works for and the media in general for almost never covering the fundamental issue of tax reform it's fair to say that carlson did not take it particularly well the interview would not go to air but bragman managed to have the entire exchange recorded on a phone camera and once he sent it to now this an online news site it was destined to go viral and get people talking our starting point this week is tax avoidance global inequality and the complicity of big media. format is what's known as a double ender or a d.t.l.

a down the line interview which means the host is in one place tucker carlson at fox news's headquarters in new york the guest in another rutger bregman in a studio in amsterdam and it was prerecorded it wasn't a lot. of help and. typically if that kind of interview goes wrong and the channel chooses not to parrot the video never sees the light of day because it exists on the broadcasters server and nowhere else. but this one went viral obtained and released by the online site now this because in addition to showing up with an agenda. bregman had a plan he brought along a friend to record the video from the amsterdam and on his phone and to capture the audio from go thinks.

he knew it was probably not against the protest because he was raising issues that hurt them or make them look pretty bad and part. of their dirty money he was criticizing the fact that they are paid to represent a particular kind of ideology your millionaire. or you're not talking about what you've got is the classic car crash t.v. interview and i think that made him uncomfortable as well but i think the thing that made the most uncomfortable was that he was accused of not being an independent journalist that he was accused of working to a great ideology that will show he's paying. higher taxes. he didn't like that he took umbrage with that they're all like oh i'm against to call this off. even twenty years ago you know this would have been unthinkable the very fact there

bregman was able to get out so quickly is itself a sign of the ability of different voices sometimes to break into the narrative and interrupt a dominant interpretations of issues like say taxing the wealthy i mean i want i don't i don't know. the down the line interview between new york and amsterdam actually got its start in switzerland rutger bregman made waves in davos telling the world economic forum's well heeled audience that the best way to fix the global economy was to hit them in the pocket and har. we got to be talking about texas that said that. however fox and carlson would have been more interested in something else bregman told his audience of billionaire an observation that happened to square with fox's own ideology fifteen hundred private yet to hear

sir david attenborough speak about you know how the planet perhaps crosses producers thought that would be a kindred spirit regarding the hypocrisy of billionaires flying halfway across the world but it doesn't come at this from that kind of position at all the kind of conservative populist position that maybe tucker carlson or fox news does but for me what really stood out from that interview was the moment when. tucker carlson of being a millionaire funded by building a house you're not part of this. part of the problem actually. went to the heart of this debate about the role that media and well paid people within the media potentially contribute to the debate all the lack thereof around tax banks. and the criticism he wants a new report says the u.s.

coverage of tax reform in mainstream news media is disproportionately luck while tax avoidance gets sporadic mentions when celebrities from the world of sports or entertainment are involved those advocating reform like rutger break members tend to blame corporate leaders and the ideology of their owners for the shortfall but the truth is the little. more complicated with a little less reductive some of the media's aversion to attack stories even corporate owned media isn't ideological it's commercial channels not wanting to lose viewers by testing their patients and burying them in numbers documents deductions credits and loopholes. you're right reporting on tax can be dry and it can be boring and ninety five percent of that work involves reading very complicated spreadsheets financial statements and e-mails that don't make much sense i do think that television has gotten so much better and they've been

a great example of reporting on things like the panel in the paradise papers if reporting on tax and financial crimes has taught me anything it's that patience is a virtue i think by and large economic stories run pretty well on television we have news walls we have discussion programs that remember that if you're talking about taxation you're talking about inequality you're talking about poverty you're talking about real people's lives all that can be represented on television i think what's happening at the moment is out ideas like radical taxation across the board taxing labor income less. accumulated when these were outlier ideas only a couple of years ago but they're starting to take root now and perhaps the media is having to rethink where allocates space and time to those kind of discussions. commercial considerations are not the only thing the tax reform story is up against corporate ideology preaches that mo tax rates are a good thing that if billionaires are spared taxes proportionate to their income

society will somehow benefit that's debatable but what does trickle down is the truth that starts on the executive floor and winds its way below to the newsroom where it becomes a journalistic truism whether it is true or false for example. if a government cuts taxes it will lead to increased economic growth there is no evidence of that and yet it's repeated as though it's true it's not a challenge the cut is a great thing because businesses small and large well left to the federal robber barrons and be able to do is they see fit with their newfound hard earned cash the problem with the media really is that there has to be an ideological capture and there is a kind of narrative that has become dominant and one of the successes of neo liberalism is it seem visibility in the fact that people are not aware including

journalists are not aware that they repeating beliefs how to know everything is there a cultural difference between mainstream media and the sort of voices without seeing in the general public and audiences that yes there probably is i think the media is only now coming to terms with the fact that people are challenging more bravely the status quo that even five years ago in a forum like that was would not have been mentioned it's not a coincidence that in every project that we have done the swiss wakes panama papers or paradise papers there is a pretty substantial number of media moguls television station owners newspaper owners magazine owners who appear surprise surprise as using tax havens as having secretive bank accounts so the question is significant. is there a way in which the economic pressure leads perhaps to the distortion of media coverage the better question may be is there any way if this is my first time at

rutgers bregman has recently made waves at two institutions one a gathering of the rich and powerful the other a news network i wanted. to speak truth to power and i'm doing exactly the same thing right now but your a millionaire food in the bud deal you know it's and that's the reason we're not talking about these issues bregman made news by stating the obvious that the rich should pay their fair share because sometimes it's not what you say that matters it's where you say it but the last word on this goes to the millionaire fox news anchor who went viral fifteen million views and counting. and. he didn't really mean that. hugh we're discussing other media stories that are on our radar this week with one of our producers tarek enough starting with another interview that did not go well

the u.s. based spanish language broadcaster only views you on lands a face to face with venezuelan president nicolas maduro what went wrong the interviewer jorge ramos did the interview at the presidential palace in caracas but it didn't last long barely fifteen minutes according to ramos moderate didn't like his line of questioning of the challenging him on electoral fraud human rights concerns and humanitarian issues ramos he showed me this video of three young venezuela and eating from a garbage truck. not only did my door then abruptly end the interview ramos and five of his colleagues were held by security we confiscated all of their equipment including the memory cards the six of them were deported from venezuela the next day seems like some of the best interviews these days aren't making it to air what arma duros people saying about this so the information minister jorge rodriguez tweeted that ramos was a stooge for the u.s.

state department he said the government has welcomed hundreds of john but that quote we don't lend ourselves to cheap shows and to be fair richard last week spanish journalist jordi alba away from the channel called left sexed up sat down with a mentor in an interview where he pulled no punches and nothing untoward occurred we know the history and geopolitics at play here come back and has reason to be suspicious of western news outlets many have largely uncritical supports for what some see as us regime change in venezuela the government has arrested or deported news crews from chile france and spain but jorge ramos is nobody stooge his reputation around moving on to israel now an anchorwoman there named or shot at. taking a lot of heat over comments that she made about the occupation what did she say and why are people so worked up about it caught her took aim at an institution that is seldom criticized on israeli airwaves the military. limited the minutes of our

lives to have a. lot of people wish she was referring to a segment they just run on channel thirteen a privately owned israeli channel about the beating of a palestinian man and his son by israeli soldiers last month the victims were hung coughed and blindfolded and the fifteen year old boy was made to watch of his father had his ribs and nose broken the soldiers reportedly started dancing afterwards so channel thirteen got thousands and of complaints over callers remarks she received death threats and the network has since find her a bodyguard israeli politicians currently in the middle of an election campaign feast on this incident prime minister benjamin netanyahu tweeted about it but his education minister naftali bennett went right after your confused idea of soldiers give their lives so that you can sleep soundly apologize caller did apologize and i

show you the next week but she added beth i mean it's there's no mclean's life but will that mean make him a villain in the. surely all the time i feel you're a cow shadow of the michelle mean there are still and then oh hey lynn no. only it's the old. ok thanks to our. last month we reported on one of nicaragua's most outspoken journalists fleeing the country carlos father nando chamorro said he feared for his life that he was facing extreme threats from the government when civil unrest erupted last year against the government of president daniel ortega motos news outlets all on and on the air reported on those demonstrations and the crackdown that followed more than five hundred protesters jailed more than three hundred killed this is not just a story of another crusading journalist there's a lot of history here to morrow comes from an influential family the chamorro his own media outlets his mother is

a former president and his late father paid for his journalism with his life that was back in the one nine hundred seventy s. when daniel ortega led the sandinista rebels the political roles were reversed and ortega was fighting to get the story out with one foot in journalism and the other in politics that your morals don't just speak truth to power they've held power the listening posts to sell a piece are now on a family that lives and works at the intersection of journalism and politics in nicaragua. this is a story that spans generations of family history of journalism including with politics a story about you get out of work that is now being told by knowing. what you know what you've learned. you haven't done little bit about it who. can look at number ten note in our heads up and present. this week one of his country's most

watched current affairs show is. not december police raided one of the other media outlets. a week later they targeted. another media house and arrested it. for tomorrow it was time to leave. they raided our. this is an occupied them the military spy unless the police have harassed us my home was surrounded by checkpoints or every time i had to leave or go back home i was interrogated but i was whether to wait or you're arrested on a trumped up criminal charge or continue to report from costa rica and we got our work that it was that we got got a fair number carlos fernando is the journalist with the most credibility and most impact in nicaragua his journalism is heavyweights and is focused on the political and economic issues a combative journalist that power finds uncomfortable and not just the current

government because he has been critical of all governments of different political stripes political more defined in the in the for the long haul what's happened to carlos fernando is an example of what's happening more generally i think in december and again in the water from c.n.n. . and his head of news you see it in asia but charged him basically kidnapped by the state and they're still in jail this is how the state cracks down on the media can. only imagine. more of the reporting the civil unrest in nicaragua since a wave of protests against the government of president daniel ortega destabilize the country last april. story and he got i walk in the input device that's one reason why tomorrow is considered by the president speech persona non-grata. all that is in the name mortal the country's most influential family faith in politics and in journalism five of tomorrow's forefathers and his mother have ruled

the country and today his cousin moral is one of the opposition movements leaders the family also was main print outlets including the oldest and most renowned these paper napkin suck papers critical coverage of the crackdown. let the government pound its ink and last month published the plan from pay in protest is up by an embargo that blank page really made an impression on all of us journalists to see that a newspaper with such a long history in nicaragua i would need to resort to that form of protest against censorship we really are experiencing a state of siege and persecution in the media. it's a newspaper which has always being in opposition to power and one which has always had very good journalists it is clearly aligned with an economic cost but that has

not prevented it from doing the important work of watchdog journalism watchdog journalism and many other. media outlets like la prensa have always behaved more like a political party than a newspaper has been able to determine who is allowed to be a presidential candidate who is allowed to be a politician the newspaper product that's what i call it. and has a dog in this fight. about he'll. i mean. he's a pro-government journalist a prominent voice on state t.v. but he also has a point for the past ninety years leptin.