this is bbc news. the headlines... the authorities in pakistan have issued emergency warnings of severe flooding in the north—west of the country — as the heaviest monsoon rains in decades continue. near the city of quetta, homes, railway tracks and road bridges have been washed away. the us justice department has released the legal evidence used to justify the unprecedented search of donald trump's florida home. large parts of the affidavit were blacked out to protect witnesses and the integrity of the ongoing investigation. mr trump has called the operation a witch—hunt. energy bills in britian are set to soar by 80% in october — causing real hardship for millions of people,

who are already coping with a steep rise in the cost of living. the increase is the result of the regulator increasing its price cap. now on bbc news, the media show. hello. today, ukrainians should be celebrating 31 years of independence from soviet rule. instead, there's a grimmer anniversary. it's exactly six months since the start of the war. i want to look back at the journalism over those months. what does the reporting taught us about the war? and what has the war taught us about the media? i'm joined byjournalists who've been in ukraine and are there now and some who were also in russia. deborah haynes is sky news defence and security editor. nic robertson is international diplomatic editor at cnn, we have a freelance journalist and so too is olga tokarczuk. and francis scarr is here from bbc monitoring.

welcome to you all and thank you so much for coming on the media show. olga, if we just start with you, where are you and what is the atmosphere like in ukraine today? you've been tweeting about our prime minister, boris johnson's visit to kyiv. i know that. yeah, well, hi, everyone. and thank you for having me on this show. i'm currently in western ukraine in the town of chertsey. and i apologise for the background because i'm speaking to you from a basement because we've had already four raid alerts today. and since i'm working from home, ijust decided to stay in the basement for the show so that, you know, i don't get interrupted by another air raid alert. radio viewers won't see that, but our tv viewers will. so thank you for explaining that. it's a it's a gray background, but at least you're safe. yeah. you know, everyone expected a lot of russian missile strikes today. and it's early evening here in ukraine now. and we've already heard the reports of several targets hit by russian missiles

in western ukrainian region. it's about 200 kilometres from where i am now, and also in poltava, a region in central ukraine. and some of the missiles were intercepted in other parts of the country. yes. and then at the same time, borisjohnson is again in kyiv with a surprise visit. and i think most ukrainians react to that very positively because they see it as a sign of solidarity from the uk day for our people. as i said, yourfree lance, what would you say in general about how the western media has reported this war? well, there was a huge amount of interest and so many reporters from all over the world in ukraine in the first weeks and months. and then over time, i think this interest has faded in a way. now, maybe some are returning because of ukraine's independence day and also because of this six month mark since the full scale invasion started. and that, i think, is something that kind of worries people in ukraine because they are really afraid

of the world getting tired of this war and from ukraine disappearing from the tv screens and from the newspapers pages. and in terms of the work you've specifically been doing, what have editors wanted from you? what sorts of stories have you been doing? well in the first weeks and months, those were mostly breaking news stories. i was reporting, you know, mostly for broadcast media, giving a lot of interviews and also writing something for online media like time magazine and also for some other online media in the us. i have been collaborating on a regular basis with the uk magazine and radio monaco. and while, you know, as i said in the initial weeks and months, there was this focus on breaking news. what is happening now? i think this focus has been shifting in the recent weeks and months more towards describing the trends and the analysis, what is happening. and also me personally, i think i kind of reshaped what i wanted to talk

about from breaking news on reporting more on human rights violations and russian war crimes in ukraine and pitching this kind of stories. 0k. i'm going to bring in deborah haynes here. you were in ukraine as the war started for sky news. you're back there now. just tell us where you are and how you approach a mission like this one. yes. so i'm in odesa at the moment in the south of ukraine i've literally just arrived, actually. we flew into moldova and then drove across the border. and, yes, it's very surreal being here six months on to the beginning of this all out invasion, because we were coming into ukraine from december when there was this sudden sort of belief, unfortunately, that russian forces that were massing around the border were actually going to launch some all out offensive. and while it was actually really hard to conceive that a war like that would again be

launched on european soil, the reality, when we saw the build—up of russian forces, when we heard what the western officials were saying at the time, it felt as though it was unfortunately inevitable. but even though you had that feeling that it was coming. and remember, back in in the beginning ofjanuary, even into early february, the ukrainian officials up to the president were really sort of playing down the — in public — the thought that there could be that russia really would launch a full scale invasion of their country. this is a country that's been at war for eight years now, while, of course, social media, obviously, we could see the tanks building up and people were documenting exactly what was happening on social media. exactly. and then to be there on that day when it actually started was so surreal. like i remember being in kyiv on the the on the 23rd, walking around the city.

it's a beautiful european city with people out there having coffee in coffee shops and obviously very aware of what could be coming and becoming ever more aware in those final days. but then that overnight when the, you know, in the early hours of the morning when the missile strikes started and the first time you heard that eerie sound of the air raid siren, it was, really, it felt seismic. and and as though the world would never be the same, it was a real moment when suddenly you'd had all these warnings for so long about the threat posed by president putin and his intentions and and the west's failure to respond. back in 2014, when russia annexed crimea and back that invasion in the east of the country, suddenly it all came home to roost with this full scale invasion, with the west's warnings failing to deter. 0k. let me just bring

in oscar secretary. hello. because, you know, you two were there at the beginning, unlike deborah, unlike nic, you went there as a freelancer without the backing of a big media operation. how did you do it? how did you afford it? affordding it.. sorry. affording it wasn't wasn't easy. - i crowdfunded to help me gather some of the costs| because as a freelancer, in this day and age, - the amount that i sell- an article for doesn't cover the amount that i'd pay for my fixer and driverl and whatever i'd need for the day. _ so i used a crowdfunding model so people could support- my work if they wanted to. and i made enough to be able to pay fixers and drivers - and be able to go out every day and kind of get coverage - during the first few. weeks of the invasion. and how much did it cost, if you don't mind my asking? well, let's say that it costs up to like £1,000 a day- for a decent day's worth of work that's just - in outgoings.

so, you know, to try— and recoup some of that costs. obviously, doing radio hits and tv hits and selling - articles help cover some of the costs. _ but the day to day, especially invoicing and waiting severall months for payments, i needed cash - quicker than that. were there are others there like you funding it in similarways? yeah, there were a few others out there that l were funding in similar ways. i think because of the model that i was doing for like - writing articles and so on, it is kind of a bit - of a new model, but i think- people have been crowdfunding film—makers have been crowdfunding their- documentaries for years using this model. - so ijust tried to combine that with my film work. and my tv and radio work. and i'm interested in how easy it was to report the story. i mean, what were you coming up against? what were the hardest things? access was a real, real problem. - you know, being able to get to where the l stories were happening. obviously, the ukrainian -

military were trying their best to fight off an invasion, - and the last thing they wanted to deal with was civiliansl running around the place. so getting access to to things as a freelancer was harder. than it would be if you've got a company with a full force . behind you. because you've got to get accreditation and that sort of thing to get places. getting accreditation- wasn't hard, but i mean, just having the accreditation . and also getting access, that's a lot harder, particularly for front line work. - you know, it's really, i really dangerous stuff. so getting close to that kind of area is not easy, and it. requires money, requires effort, requires _ the right knowing, the right people. i and that stuff takes i a while to get going. nic robinson from cnn, you know, you've been in and out of ukraine throughout the last six months and very recently were reporting from there. you know, you're reporting mainly for an american audience. has the war been covered differently in the us than the uk, do you think? i don't think so.

imean, i think we're all charged. journalists on the ground are charged with the same thing and share the same passion, which is to find a story that you think is going to be most interesting to the audience on that day. i was very keen going in recently to to get a sense of how the war was being fought at the front lines, because i think that gives an understanding as to how the war is going to be fought over the coming months and insight, perhaps, into how long this war is going to go on. and the likely, as the cases at the moment, the less less than likely sort of significant shifts in terrain territory. so i think that the driving force is still to find that story that really helps the audience understand what's happening. and i kind of think back a little bit here to covering bosnia back in in the early �*90s. this was a conflict that went on for three years. and it was it was on the fringes of europe. and it seemed for so long

that europejust didn't care, didn't notice. yet yourjob as a reporter is to find what it is that helps make the audience care. so i think that's what drives us. so i think, you know, for whether i'm working for a, you know, a us/international organisation or a purely british one, i think we're all driven by the same thing. yeah, i mean, president biden today announced $3 billion for ukraine to invest in air defence systems, other weapons, equipment. do you see that as in part because the media has kept this story in the spotlight? look, there are huge political imperatives right now for leaders all around the world that are supporting ukraine, not least the rising cost of fuel, not least coming out of the covid pandemic. you know, rising costs of living. these are political realities. you have to bring your nations with you in support of something like the war in ukraine, supporting ukraine. so i do think that the coverage helps keep it

alive in people's minds. what's actually happening, what's at stake, what's it cost the lives that are being laid down and the atrocities that are being committed. and i think that does help political leaders to to a degree. but again, that's i don't think that's our role. our role is to get out there and report what's happening. absolutely. olga, you know, it is an appi’ogch, you know, well, tried and tested that, you know, the big news companies send their reporters in when there is a big story in whatever country it's in, it is disparagingly called parachute journalism. i wonder what you make of it as a journalist in the country where there is a war right now? well, on the one hand, it's, of course, good that there are journalists coming to ukraine. you know, they are continuing to to cover this war six months into it. but, of course, i think the journalists who have been covering ukraine before this full scale invasion, they can contribute more and present a broader picture of what is

actually happening. and i think also ukrainian journalists who are here on the ground, who have been collaborating with international media, like me, and like other my colleagues, they are also doing a very important part of the job because they understand the local context. they have contacts on the ground. they have a lot of so—called warm contacts when you might not have to send official letters to get an interview from the ministry. but maybe you have a colleague that you worked a couple of years ago together, and now that colleague's working at the ministry and can organise things easier. and also a lot like what matters a lot is that people in ukraine and journalists in ukraine, they are living this war. so they are not just reporting it, they are living it. and they have been themselves affected by it. their families, their loved ones, their friends have been affected by it. i think on the one hand, of course, it's kind of maybe more difficult to stay emotionally detached from what is happening. and you have to kind of take a deep breath before reporting, before writing something down, before saying something on air,

like to kind of to stay neutral, to stay objective as a journalist, but also the fact that you are inside, that you are living it. this war, it kind of gives you more in depth, i think, understanding and the information also coming from your sources can be like more... you can get this information quicker. it can be more first—hand than for foreign journalists. as president zelensky has been the face of the war in the west. the narrative centred around this brave former comedian standing up for his country. how do you think the ukrainian government shaped the west's understanding of the war? well, i think the ukrainian government and president zelensky is doing a very good job on the communication front. they have been able to really reach the hearts and minds of people across across the world, also appealing to different audiences with different messages that what president zelensky did in his addresses to various parliaments. tailoring his message to a different audience,

referencing some historical events in the history of this or that country, and comparing it to the present situation in russia's war in ukraine. so i think they are doing quite, quite a good job. and i think part of the success is also that they are genuine. they are not... this communication is not fake, it's not staged. it's genuine. it comes from... i'm just going to interrupt you. sorry. just as i was looking at a book that in fact, deborah, you write the afterword for, it is edited byjohn mair. it's called reporting the war in ukraine. it includes articles from various people, including my old colleague from channel 4 news, alex thomson, who's chief correspondent there. he says the ukrainians have some profoundly effective controls over the media in this war and their message remarkably well stitched up. deborah, what do you think of that? i mean, how tightly controlled has the freedom to report in ukraine been? i think the thing you have to remember is it's a war. this is a country at war. and so the rules of a peacetime nation can't apply. information is as much of a weapon as any bomb

or bullet, especially given the internet and given the ability to influence. you're seeing both sides are obviously fully aware of that and have got sophisticated information operations. they need, the ukrainians need that in order to push back at the vast swathes of disinformation that has been pumped out by the kremlin machine. i was going to say, nic, you know, you quoted president zelensky in an article you wrote on cnn's website in which he said, you know, this is what we're interested in — maximum access forjournalists, complete truth and full accountability. nic, do you see that as the full picture? you know, i've covered a lot of wars over the years, - and in any war situation, i governments tend to stop you putting out information. that's operationally sensitive. they don't want video that - could be used as sort of bomb damage assessment video. so getting up close to damaged buildings, particularly- government buildings, - they're not going to want that kind of video getting out. and there is that pressure -

from the ukrainian government on their own citizens as well not to put out that - kind of video. also the ukrainian government doesn't want strikes _ reported until it has officially reported . them, again, for the same reasons. this is very similar, - i would say, to many other conflicts i've covered. but, you know, you can get to this point. - you know, we were there i a few weeks ago. - it suffered the night - of the heaviest bombardment since the war began. we went out to some buildings that have been hit. _ we said in our reporting there are buildings - here that we can't show i because they're connected to the to the military. so i think there are ways... ways of being open about that. so i wasjust going to yeah, | i wasjust let me just finish, what the mayor had to say, you know, the mayor spoke about collaborators going . around, passing information about where they'd seen - troops staying, where i they'd seen, you know, military vehicles parked.

so i think the mayor himself admitted to the fact - that this sort. of information is being directly used - against the government. so, you know, therel are ways to report it. you were nodding earlier on or about, you know, whether we're being shown the full picture. yeah, i was agreeing with everything my colleagues were saying. no ukrainian force authority ever tried to stop me from doing myjournalism or stop me from reporting things that might be inconvenient to ukraine. the one thing that they didn't want me to do is film active positions or buildings that were being used for military. they didn't want to give away information to the enemy. and i think that there's a difference between that and some sort of like state censorship on, you know, there's no one tailing you around like you go to china and try to report on the concentration camps in xinjiang. there's no minder, ukrainian minder with you. they're just like, please don't film this. we've got soldiers here. we don't want it to be bombed. and i think that that's a very reasonable thing for a country

that's at war to ask journalists to do. and i don't think that it's a violation of our ethical conduct to adhere to those principles, because, you know, this is an operational security matter, both for the journalists involved on the ground and for the military and ukrainian authorities. 0k. i'm going to bring in francis scarr here from bbc monitoring because, you know, there's a sense, isn't that we don't really get access to russian controlled areas. we're less clear what's happening behind russian lines at the start of the war, francis, you came on the media show and you told us how the russians were reporting this as a battle to deny de—nazify of our ukraine. like nic, early on, you were advised to leave russia, but you are still watching what's happening there. how is the narrative changed over these six months, do you think? well, there are two sides to this, really, katie, because there are no signs that russians are being prepared by state tv for some kind of scaling down of the kremlin's overall

objectives in ukraine. the dominant message on state tv is that russia is certain to prevail, although the nature of this victory is never really spelled out. on the talk shows that i spend a lot of time watching, the hosts will often introduce war correspondents by saying, "what successes do you have "to report today on the front?" as if that is the only possible thing they could talk about, success, that it's kind of victory after victory being chalked up. on the other hand, the way the war is being framed has changed in that before it was described as this kind of limited, special military operation aimed at sort of clipping ukraine's wings. they always said that they were never hitting civilian targets, although, of course, we knew that not to be true. as it became clear that ukraine was putting up stiff resistance and was gaining significant support from the west, the messaging changed in that russian state tv then started to depict this as a kind of civilisational battle with the west. so the word "war" started being used that used. so is it still illegal to call it a war or not? well, they differentiate between what they're doing in ukraine, which they still call the special

military operation. but they then talk about this kind of global standoff with the west, and they describe that as a war. some presenters have referred to the conflict as world war three. and this morning, actually, a prominent russian opposition figure was arrested on charges of discrediting the armed forces. and as he was being arrested, he was asked by a journalist, what are they arresting you for? and he said for a single phrase, i called it an invasion of ukraine. 0k. i mean, i was interested in a report, actually, that i saw that russian state tv channels have seen their audiences drop by a quarter through this war. do you think president putin's grip on the narrative is as strong as it was when we. had you on? well, i think on the one hand, yes, because people these people who, if this survey is reliable, these people, they're not turning to opposition media, they're not switching western media, and they're not putting vpns on their phone. they're simply becoming apolitical. they're not following the news.

a lot of people in russia at their dachas, their summer houses, where they're doing a lot of gardening, tending to their vegetables, and they're simply not watching the news. and you have to remember that since the war started, it's been wall to wall coverage, and people probably can't simply stand it any more because there's very little entertainment programming little sport, no cookery shows, no light entertainment at all, as far as i can tell. deborah from sky news, let me just bring you back in. do you think the russian perspective has actually been lacking in reporting of this conflict in the western media? i don't think it's been lacking. . i think well, i can only talk. from what i've seen and how we report the story. it's obviously important - to ensure that the arguments being put forward by president putin are i included in reports. but then it's all it's also about truth. . and you have to as well call out the falsehoods i and the lies that are coming from the russian side -

when they are talking about i the reasons for this invasion. and i think failure to do thatj means that you're not giving the audience the correct story. it's really interesting to see, if you look back to 2014 - and the annexation of crimea and how the language - that the media uses now, - talking back to what happened back then, is so much clearer. whereas back in 2014 it was a bit of a sort i of a grey area, you know, in some of the reporting i of what was going on. i think because maybe it was, you know, - governments couldn't believe what was happening right at the beginning and nato was very- slow to respond. so i think yeah, i think i do- think that the west the russian perspective is portrayed, but in context. _ 0k. and nic, i mean, we talk a lot about impartiality in journalism. i mean, what does impartiality even mean when it comes to this war? i thinkjournalism is about speaking truth to power. and if power is lying, then you're telling power that it's lying.

and i think this happens in greater heaps with the russian government because they are more egregiously lying. but their message does get traction. their message gets traction in the middle east. their message gets traction in china. traction in parts of africa. you know, there are parts of the world that are that are less enamoured with western democracy. and these countries, russia, china, have been, you know, at hard efforts over recent years to unpick the message of democracies as being a sort of a safe and successful way forward. so i think russia is getting its message heard in some parts of the world without being called out for the falsehoods that it perpetrates. it's very difficult to believe much that comes directly from the kremlin because their own track record, this is something that they created. their own track record is at such a variance with the truth. and the obvious point here is them saying to almost the day before the invasion

of ukraine, they weren't going to invade when the evidence was there. yeah. and just briefly, i mean, when it comes to you as a ukrainianjournalist reporting in ukraine, is impartiality even something you aim for in your reporting? well, definitely, you know, as journalists who have to stick to the facts and, as i said, separate our emotions and know our feelings and the way that we are as citizens of ukraine affected by this war. from our reporting, i mean, of course, in the opinion pieces, we can say that. but if this is this is a report, we have to stick to the facts and try to present the objective, you know, what is actually happening and also give the voice to people to speak. that's what i always try to do in my report. you know, it's not me who is the protagonist. it's the people, the witnesses who are there on the scene, who are living it, who are the protagonists of the story. i'm afraid that is all we've got time for today. thank you so much to all my guests, deborah haynes from sky news, nic robertson from cnn, oskar chatterjee and olga tokarczuk, who are both freelance

journalist and francis scarr from bbc monitoring the media show, will be back at the same time next week. but for now, thanks for watching. goodbye. hello. the weather is quiet out there right now. not looking bad at all for this weekend. of course, for many of us, it is the august bank holiday weekend. perhaps a few showers here and there, but that is pretty much it. let's have a look at the forecast. early hours of saturday, plenty of clear weather. just a few showers here and there, perhaps across northern parts of england, and the temperatures will range from around 15 celsius in london to a fresh 8 degrees there in glasgow. lots of sunshine right from the word go. not absolutely everywhere, but for the vast majority of us.

through the course of the morning and into the afternoon from the clouds will bubble up. there will be showers developing almost anywhere across england and wales, also the chance of thicker cloud and some coastal rain in the north of northern ireland and also the western isles of scotland. best temperatures around 25 in london. not bad at all for the start of the notting hill carnival. into monday, it will turn into a little cloudier and a little cooler with a stronger wind.

this is bbc news. i'm rich preston. our top stories: millions forced from their homes and warnings of more severe flooding in pakistan — a national emergency is declared. it's been more than ten days of heavy rains and yet the streets of sukkur are still flooded. this is one of the main roads linking this community to the outside world. the court document used to justify a search of donald trump's florida home is released by the usjustice department, but it's heavily redacted. combatting the fastest rise in prices in nearly four decades, the us central bank promises to fight inflation, but warns it will be painful. # hold me closer tiny