hello. as the war in ukraine continues to escalate, what role does journalism play in peacemaking, in dialling down the rhetoric? the bbc�*sjohn simpson was in kyiv last week to interview president zelensky. in a moment, we will hear his take. and with me in the studio is another giant ofjournalism. emma tucker is the editor of the sunday times, only the second woman to have done thatjob in more than 100 years. emma, welcome to the media show. hello, katie. hello, presumably the fact that you are able to come in here on a wednesday means that wednesday isn't the day when you have to decide what the front page is? wednesday is definitely not the day when we decide on the front page, but it is a day when we are thinking very hard about it. because there is this intense pressure when you are editing a sunday paper all week because you are expected to break exclusives. so if you haven't got anything in the bag by wednesday,

you are beginning to panicjust a little. and are you panicking this week, how are you feeling? actually, iam not, we have got two crackers. great, and then, of course, there's the supplements as well. do you sign off all the supplements on the magazines, too? so you've presumably done them much earlier? yes, i make a point of signing off all the supplements, so this morning i should have signed off culture, but i was actually late in and my deputy signed it off for me. and then tomorrow i will sign off the magazine and style. on friday i sign off travel and money and at some point along the way, i also sign off property. so, it's pretty busy. it is a busy time. it is a busy week, yeah. and we will get very excited about your two scoops coming up. i am assuming you are not going to tell me anything about them now? no, i'm not. 0k, more from you, emma, in a bit, but first let's turn to ukraine and the bbc�*s world affairs editor, john simpson. he went to kyiv to interview president zelensky, but found himself back on our screens reporting on monday's bombardment by the russians. john simpson was, of course, a fixture of bbc coverage

from the world's hotspots for decades. earlier today, he crossed the border into poland and i asked him what it's like to be back. a bit like the old days, really. to us, too! i mean, i do miss these kind of things, not because i have... people always say "oh, it is the adrenaline kick" and all that kind of slightly boring stuff. actually, it's really interesting to be in a place where important things are happening and to see them for yourself and to know what is really going on, as opposed to, you know, what everybody thinks or what you read, or whatever. that is why it is so interesting and that's what takes you back to these places again and again. of course. in a bit, i'd like to come back to your assessment of what is happening in ukraine and the wider continent, but let's first go back

to your interview with president zelensky, which went out on friday, and was the point of your visit as i understand it. talk us through the circumstances of it. give us a sense of where it was recorded, the security around him? well, we did it in the presidential palace, but it was very much kind of wartime conditions. there were little sandbag emplacements along the corridors and up the main staircases and so on. we weren't even able to take a watch in with us. our watches were banned. i suppose for some sort of security reason. and, you know, frankly, it was a real wartime interview. no natural light because the windows were all sandbagged up. and it felt very, it really... ..very tense and very,

very exciting and interesting. and it was noticeable at the start of the interview, president zelensky answered in english before switching to ukrainian. why was that? he made a bit of a mistake a few days earlier. the beginning of last week, something like that, when he seemed to say at some strange australian press conference, again, not quite clear why he would have done that, but he seemed to say that the west should stage pre—emptive strikes against russia to stop it using nuclear weapons. of course, everybody immediately assumed that meant he was calling for pre—emptive nuclear strikes on russia. he said to me in english, i think, to make absolutely certain that everybody got the point and we would definitely use it, that wasn't his purpose, he wasn't

talking about anything to do with nuclear strikes. he wanted a pre—emptive kind of, uh, sort of more sanctions and that kind of thing. do you think he was mistranslated or do you think he misspoke? i think he misspoke, i think that's why he did it. i think it came tumbling out. he works incredible hours. his life is very, very stressful. and i think he just wasn't absolutely in command of what he was saying at that particular moment. i am sure he didn't mean he wanted pre—emptive nuclear strikes against russia. that would be pretty crazy. of course, nobody would do it anyway. of course, and i noticed during the interview he was wearing an earpiece. was that simultaneous translation or something? yes, i mean, usually on these things, you get a translator

with you and they kind of whisper in your ear or let you know in some way or another what has been said after the question has been answered. we tried a new thing, which i think is far, far better, more advantageous, which is just a translation that is going on all the time from a couple of translators in the next—door room. so you run the wires out through the doors and into your ear. he had, i think it was rather a large earpiece, a lot larger than mine. yours was very discreet, i didn't notice your one. did you feel a responsibility, i mean, of course, you always feel a responsibility to get the interview right, but you must have been aware of how high the stakes were, but given the escalation,

you have seen what it was? there were two or three really important issues that you couldn't walk away from an interview with president zelensky without asking him. the first one was, did he think that there was going to be a nuclear attack? no question more important than that, really. and for his own reasons, of course, he has got to really keep our attention on the russian threat. so he wasn't going to say, "no, i don't think there will be one," but at the same time, i think he doesn't seem to feel that is imminent in any way. so what he tended to do was to say that president putin was saying this, because he knows how unpopular the war is becoming in russia and he wants to make these kind of aggressive claims to keep the far right—wingers —

if we can call them that — or conservatives, whatever, in his own organisation and his own government, to keep them, you know, on side. so those were the kind of questions, so obviously, you want to ask the kind of questions which will provide important answers in one way or another. and though that was one of the key things... and how careful — sorry to interrupt — but how careful did you feel you have to be? did you feel there was a sense in which you were the journalist or peacemaker, if you like? no, i don't...| am not really very happy with that notion that you go there with a purpose. i mean, the only purpose you go there for is to simply find out what they think about what is going on. was there anything off the table, or could you ask anything? oh, i am sure i could have asked anything.

i don't think there was anything off the table, no. you know, that is another thing, i always have a bee in my bonnet about not to tell the interviewee beforehand, what you are going to ask, except in the most general terms. you know, not to let them get away with saying that some subjects are off the table. yeah, because how do you assess the control the ukrainian government has over how this conflict is reported, because clearly president zelensky is a key part of their media strategy. on monday, during the air raids, he was outside taking a video on his phone and he is very adept at bypassing journalists to get the message out? he is, and you have to know that. you have to know that he wants to manipulate you. it so happens that probably quite a large proportion of the audience that the interview was being watched and listened to by agree with him and think he is right, on the right side.

but you have got to know as the interviewer, he wants to make himself, his country, and his side and his purposes look good, and you are the instrument that he is using to do that. you know, you have got to make it absolutely clear that you are not on his side because that's not what we are paid to do. and that i think that is really, really important. and as somebody... let mejust say, i have heard quite a lot of interviews with president zelensky where people are rather inclined to say, you know, we are on your side, we think you are a great guy. you know, regardless of what you might think privately, that isn't the right approach, i don't think. yes, because we have talked on this programme before about impartiality and whether journalists are being or can be impartial in a war like this.

and as somebody who has covered endless conflicts over the years, do you think this conflict is different of previous wars you've covered in terms of the role of journalists? i don't think i have been at a conflict like this where there was so much support in my own country for one side. that is pretty unusual. i don't know, maybe back in the falklands time it was different. it probably was. but since then, so many wars have been so divisive, things that i have covered. i mean, you know, the invasion of iraq in particular, but also a variety of other things where large numbers of people back home din�*t agree with, with the whole idea. in this case, it is different. ithink, you know, there are people very

strongly against what zelensky stands for and what ukraine stands for, but there aren't that many of them. i think it really is important not to go along with that feeling, you know, kind of, "we are all on your side, mr zelensky." that doesn't feel good to me. that was the bbc�*s world affairs editor, john simpson, talking to me earlier from the polish ukrainian border. you can see the full interview with president zelensky on the bbc iplayer. we are fortunate to have emma with us today, the editor of the sunday times. i wonder what you make of whatjohn simpson was saying at the end, that some journalists in the west have been too keen to pick a side? it is really interesting, and i think it is very easy forjournalists to get caught up in the righteousness of a war. obviously, the job of our journalists out there is to act as trusted eyewitnesses. it makes me think of

a particular story we had with one of ourjournalists over there, louise callaghan, she was reporting from an area that had been under russian occupation and the ukrainians had liberated it. the interesting story that she reported was that not everyone in the villages that she went to were happy to see the russians leave. yes, because there are of course some who support the russians being there. yes, but that is the value of having somebody on the ground acting as an eyewitness and sending back reports that people can really trust. and have you at the sunday times had somebody there all the time, have you got someone there now? how have you covered this conflict? we haven't had someone there the whole time, because fielding war correspondents is very expensive and risky business. we sent louise callaghan over pretty much as soon as the war broke out. she was there for a while and then eventually she came out

and christina lamb took over. both of them did some fantastic reports. our former moscow correspondent mark bennett was on that up until last week. as it happens, we haven't got anybody over there this week, but we have got a dispatch coming from ukraine because we have built up a good network of trusted stringers and local reporters. you mention christina lamb, who, in fact, chief foreign correspondent on the sunday times, was on the show in 2021 and she talked back then, she was grounded because of the pandemic, and like otherforeign reporters, she was speculating that covid would be used as an excuse for permanent cutbacks when it comes to foreign travel, as foreign travel and foreign coverage is very expensive? yes, poor christina. it was a tough time for foreign correspondence. she wrote these brilliant pieces about a hotel in shrewsbury.

she turned it into a book, which opened its doors to the homeless. we are not going to cut back on ourforeign coverage. we are very committed in investing in properforeign reporting but it is a dying business these days because, as i say, it is very expensive. is it important for a paper like the sunday times to have a network of staff in capitals all over the world or in bureaus, or is that a relic of a bygone age? it is a bit of a relic. we share our correspondents now with the times, we have a pool of correspondents at the times which the sunday times can draw on. but having said that, we have a handful of foreign reporters who are dedicated to the sunday times, because that is how we get the good exclusives or the distinctive content for sunday. �*s �*s it makes sense. ok, let's take a step back and look at you and what you want to do with the sunday times. let's start with your own career, when did you decide you wanted to be a journalist, was it early on? i think it was.

i sometimes think i fell into it by default. but then i look back and think, well, it can't really be default because i was proactively doing journalism. i think my first foray into journalism was while i was at university. i was caught up in an incident, i was sitting in my room and happily minding my own business as a first—year student. suddenly my door flew open and the captain of the rugby team was thrown into my room completely naked. there was a marauding mob outside my window making a noise and i was pretty put out by this. especially as they carried him upstairs and threw him into another room, still naked. i went to see the dean of my college and i said, i don't think this is on. and he said, "emma, boys will be boys." that must have got your goat? it would me. i decided to write an article for the guardian's women's page and they lapped it up. fantastic! presumably you were paid? yes, but i used a pseudonym because i didn't want to get in trouble. it taught me early on, the power, if you need to speak

truth to power, in this case, the college authorities, there is a way of doing it. you were foreign correspondent at the ft, joined the times and then became the only second female editor of the sunday times, so does being a woman make any difference? these days, no, not really. i imagine my management style is different to some of my predecessors. it may not be a gender thing? it may not be a gender thing. it may be in an era thing. when i was younger, i was asked to cover the soft stories, health stories, the social affairs stories, stories seen as female. it is not like that now. genuinely, my entire newsdesk is run by women. although we have just admitted a man onto it and he starts in november. i have an all women newsdesk, a lot of senior women working

at the newsdesk. we have last week's edition of the sunday times. it does feel so familiar, the paper version is huge, and familiar and full of magazines. something to sit down with over breakfast on a sunday into lunch. how long do you think the print edition can exist? i think it will be around for a lot longer yet. i mean, listen, the future is entirely digital, but there is still a place for the print edition. i suspect it will be around for quite a lot longer. i often think that even though all our effort and energy now is focused very much on digital and how we do journalism for the digital audience, in a way, that means the print product has to become even better, it has to be more beautiful, better laid out and it is already a thing of beauty, we have an excellent art director. but i think in a way, it needs to be a boutique product, something maybe we charge a bit more for. but you think it is going to be all—digital? yes, completely. i wonder if the sundays will be the last to go as a print version, because there is a way of sitting around with them on a sunday?

i think that is absolutely right. yes, in britain there is a strong tradition of sunday papers. i suspect you are more likely to see the newspapers going digital only monday to friday. not yet, but i think it will happen, and maybe there is still a place on a sunday when people want to share the sections and enjoy the physical product. people talk to me about the physical product of the sunday times, although my main focus is on digital. do you have a strategy which is trying to make it feel like sunday? yes and no. yes, in the sense that i think the core value of the sunday times, which is it produces great investigations and exclusives, that is still something that

resonates in digital. the core mission of what we are doing is investing in this high quality investigative journalism. that is the same, but what we are doing differently in digital is we are thinking about how we tell the stories, which audiences we are targeting and we think more closely about that, because we can and because we know so much more about the audiences than we used to. do you still see it as the job of the sunday times to set the news agenda in britain? yes, i do. if a sunday paper isn't doing that, it is not doing itsjob. by the time people get to us on a sunday, they know what the news is, they are looking for something different from us, looking for something truly distinctive. they either want us to give them the news, by coming up with our own exclusives, or they want us to really properly explain the news they are already aware of. i think our role is, in that sense, whether it is print or digital, that business of explaining the news but also breaking the news is the same.

but is there any discomfort for you, do you feel uncomfortable with the amount of power the british press still holds? i think it is healthy, i think it is good. i suppose it is good if it is truth to power? exactly. yes, if we weren't here... people complain about the press a lot, but if we were not here, they would miss us. because really and truly, no one else is holding power to account and it is something the sunday times has been doing for the last 200 years. obviously, notjust the sunday times. i wonder, it is about how you hold that power to account, i suppose, some people say, rupert murdoch, if they all got together, they could bring down the government. do you think they could? they could bring down the

government if the government deserved to be brought down. if you look at the kind of campaigns we do and the kind of stories we have done, they are, going back over time, you can look to some of the famous campaigns the sunday times has run, including uncovering thalidomide, uncovering corruption at the heart of fifa, uncovering david walsh, the journalist, sorry, david walsh uncovering lance armstrong as a drug cheat. more recently, we did a series of articles about how the government mishandled the beginning of the outbreak of the covid pandemic. if we didn't tell the stories, nobody else would do it, and i see ourjob is letting people know what decisions are being made on their behalf by the people who run our lives. i do remember those extraordinary series of articles, 38 days when great britain walked into disaster.

do you think in hindsight that this marked the beginning of the end for borisjohnson? there was a period every sunday you had a scoop about what was going on inside number ten? i suspect that had we not done the covid story, things wouldn't necessarily have been that different now. i think the important thing about that story, what took me by surprise was the extent to which it resonated with people and also i was taken aback by the government's somewhat dishonest response to it. what was that? on the day that story came out, on the very evening that story came out, they issued a 2000 word rebuttal to the story. because they were... i think it had one minor correction it, but it was just words to try and stop at the people running the story. we then rebutted their rebuttal, and now when you look at what the government inquiries have said about what the government's response was in those early days, it pretty much backs up everything that we reported on. have you had an audience with the new prime minister? i have, i have. did she call you into downing street? how does that work?

no, at the conservative party conference in birmingham, and i went along for a coffee with my chief political editor. does that feel healthy in a democracy, is that right? it was very much a half an hour chat. i mean, obviously, there was quite a lot to talk about. i actually make a point of not going to meet members of the government too often. i mean, it is very useful as background, but i don't think it is healthy at all as an editor to cultivate to close a relationship with any of them. that is not what myjob is, myjob is to help them to account. absolutely. i guess a lot of what we are talking about in terms ofjournalism these days is about the loss of trust or whatever. do you think the public, first of all when it comes to scoops, appreciate old school, investigative journalism in the way you and i probably did when we were children? do you thinkjournalism as a trade is less appreciated now as a trade than it was? it is really, i think in some

ways it is less appreciated. i often think that as a society we don't talk enough about the value of a free press and the importance of free speech, but also a press that is able to operate freely and shine a light on what governments and people in power are getting up to. so i think on the one hand, it is not as appreciated as it was, but on the other hand, the advent of fake news, social media and the noise that is out there means that people do still come to the trusted brands. whenever there is a big new story, whether it's the pandemic, ukraine and recently the mini budget, people come to us and in a moment of big, big news, they do still come to us. there is still a value, i know there is still value in the masthead. a lot of trust wrapped up

in that sunday times masthead. it is a well worn path, from the sunday times editor, to editor of the times, would you want thatjob? yeah, well, why wouldn't i? there is a new editor of the times, tony gallagher, he will do a fantasticjob. some people tell me you are too left wing to be allowed by rupert murdoch to be editor of the times? that is annoying trope, i am just a journalist, i like good stories and that is what we get on with. fantastic and many good stories to come, i am sure. that is all we have got time for today, thank you so much tojohn simpson the bbc�*s world affairs editor and emma tucker, editor of the sunday times he was here in the studio. all editions of the show are on bbc sounds and the iplayer, but for now, thank you so much for watching. goodbye. hello. although there's some

wet and windy weather sweeping its way northwards, a lot of that is gone for monday, leaving for many areas a largely dry day with sunny spells. here's the area of low pressure. it will pull away northwards. in its wake, it'll be blustery, it'll be bright. still with a few showers around, though, particularly in scotland. this is how we're starting the day, milder air moving northwards overnight and into the morning, the rain still in the far north of scotland that will then move across the northern isles. and in east anglia, in the southeast of england, rain clearing, then a hang back of cloud probably, gradually brightening up during the day. northern ireland, northwest england, perhaps north wales will see a few showers but become mainly dry in the afternoon. showers will continue in scotland, north of the central belt. some quite lengthy downpours around here. and it'll be windy again in all areas. the strongest winds will be in the central belt, southern scotland, northern ireland, northern england, north wales. these are average speeds.

we could well see some gusts around a0 to 50 miles per hour. and as for temperatures, well, if you get that sunshine, as many will, especially in england and wales, in the afternoon and out of the breeze, there'll be some warmth in that still. now, as we go on into monday evening and night, as that low pressure system continues to pull away, there'll still be a few showers around northern scotland. for many, the wind will ease, it'll be dry, skies are clearing, and it will turn chillier than this in more rural spots. so there will be a touch of frost in places as tuesday begins and a day which will offer a lot of dry and sunny weather. more cloud around parts of eastern scotland, northeast england, slight chance of a shower. more cloud towards the far south and south west of england. again, a slight chance of a shower here. the vast majority, though, a dry day. 13 degrees in glasgow, up to around 18 degrees in cardiff. there is another area of low pressure coming our way and, in fact, unlike the others which have swept right the way through, this willjust linger towards the southwest or west of us as the week goes on, starting to bring some showers in. now, wednesday will begin with some cloud around scotland, northeast england. maybe a bit drizzly in places. that's reluctant to clear. it'll make for a rather

chilly—feeling day, whereas from that low pressure towards south, southwest england, wales, into northern ireland in particular, there'll be some showers moving in and some of those could be heavy, perhaps thundery as well. and as the low pressure exerts more of an influence across the uk, from thursday onwards, more places will see some wet weather at times spreading its way northwards.

welcome to bbc news. i'm simon pusey. our top stories: somalia's sorrow. we have a special report from the african nation suffering its worst drought in a0 years. we are headed for a catastrophe. this is a serious. it is really going to get worse if nothing more comes in other than what is already there. britain's new chancellor defends the prime minister, saying voters don't need the turmoil of a fresh leadership election. more than 600 dead due to severe flooding in nigeria, with weeks of torrential rain still to come. china's president stresses the need for continued economic development but defends his covid policy, as the communist party gathers in beijing. and a bbc investigation finds that sexual harassment and bullying went unchecked

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