hello, this is bbc news. the headlines... world cup frustration for england fans. a 0—0 draw with the usa, but both teams can still progress to the knockout stages in qatar. social media footage appears to show residents in china protesting against lockdown laws which they say hampered rescue attempts during a deadly fire. ukraine's president says six million households are still without power, after intense russian missile strikes hit the country this week. the london fire brigade is "institutionally misogynist and racist", according to a damning

review into its culture. now on bbc news, the media show. hello and welcome. in a moment, we're going to hearfrom gary lineker on the bbc�*s world cup coverage. the winner to organise the 2022 fifa world cup is qatar. - as you can see and hear, it had a quite different tone to world cups gone by, as did gary lineker�*s monologue. it's the most controversial world cup in history, and a ball hasn't even been kicked. ever since fifa chose qatar back in 2010, the smallest nation to have hosted football's greatest competition has faced some big questions. what followed was

an hour of build up. the football was discussed, but they also heard from bbc news international editor jeremy bowen. they had an explainer from me on the controversies around qatar, and the football pundits discussed these broader issues. as well as that, on bbc one, you didn't see the world cup opening ceremony — that was available on iplayer. cue an awful lot of discussion about if this was the right thing to do and about where news fits into sport. one daily mail headline read, "fans fury as bbc and itv fail to show world cup opening ceremony. there were also accusations of hypocrisy, inconsistency, sour grapes at the tournament being held in the arab world and requests for the bbc coverage to stick to football. in a minute, we'll hear from one person who's a former head of sport at the bbc and a former head of tv news for the bbc. and we'll talk to msnbc�*s

host ayman mohyeldin about his concerns about how the western media are covering qatar. but let's begin with the man in the middle of all of this, gary lineker. the opening ceremony has never been shown in a football tournament on bbc one. it's never been a thing, because then they're not like the olympic opening ceremonies, which are big things, where all the athletes are introduced. the opening ceremony is kind ofjust a little bit of an addition traditionally, it only happens, it only goes on for 15, 20 minutes. what happened with this one, though, was that it was actually moved in the timings a little bit earlier than it was going to be shown originally. they've changed many things in this world cup already, we've seen that. so it was always, so it was decided because they already had the wsl game planned to be scheduled on bbc one,

and we came on airjust at the very end of the opening ceremony, but it was available on bbc iplayer, that was made clear, it was available on the red button, it was available on the bbc website. it wasn't, it wasn't. it wasn't, we weren't blanking the opening ceremony. it's just a custom that we don't show it. we try and save people from opening ceremonies i think. but there was an editorial decision, wasn't there, to not just talk about the sport? you ran a report by me. you also featured my bbc news colleaguejeremy bowen. that presumably was a plan from some distance out to bring in a news dimension to the coverage. yes, very much so. we felt it was the right thing to do given the nature of the world cup. now, obviously, i'm very accustomed to doing world cups in countries where there are problems and you end up

talking about things that are away from the football quite frequently. i can remember obviously doing the same in russia prior to that tournament, they had invaded crimea a few years before. i think brazil, we were constantly talking about the riots there by the people on the streets because they were complaining that the money shouldn't have been spent on stadiums, it should have been spent on social care. i wasn't around in the 193a world cup, but that was used as a vehicle, really, to push fascism by mussolini when it was held in italy. so we are kind of accustomed to these sort of things. i think we were sportwashed four years ago and when it was in russia, i think we're all going how great it was and this, that and the other. and that's how sportwashing works, we didn't talk perhaps enough about the other issues. so it was deemed the right thing to do.

that's interesting. do you think that the approach the bbc took on sunday to talking about the broader issues around qatar was in some ways a reaction to how you covered it four years ago in russia? yes. i think we learned from what we probably felt was a mistake. i think it was, you know, the world cup there, the streets were sanitised. everything was different. we've seen what putin's done subsequently, but he'd done it before. and i think looking back now, in hindsight, i think we should probably have spoken out more. i don't have any feeling of mistake about this one at the moment, because what we've done. but i do look back four years and i'm still slightly uncomfortable. you were, though, presumably aware and i don'tjust mean you personally, but as a team, aware that with the monologue that you delivered, with the fact you had an explainerfrom me and my bbc news colleagues,

with the fact you had jeremy bowen too, that that would be seen as being a statement, that the bbc was doing something different to what it had done with previous sporting events. well, i think what we were trying to do was do a factual account, and i think that's very important. and we were laying it bare for what it was and how it is and why it was here. and the explanation of why it's in, you know, one of the smallest, certainly the smallest country ever to host the world cup, a tiny little country. so i think it was more an explainer of how it got here. but i think the principal motivation of it really was the fact that there was corruption involved in the bid, proven. you know, there was i think 11 of the committee members of fifa have either been fined, indicted or banned from football. well, we should also say that fifa's had its own investigation, which found

that the votes weren't bought and that qatar says it's done nothing wrong all the way through it. which you put into your report. so, yes, we did that factually. help me understand, though, how you as a football presenter and a sports presenter and bbc sport generally judge these things. so for example, when you're presenting match of the day on bbc one, you'll be introducing games, say, featuring newcastle. newcastle is backed by a lot of money from saudi arabia. there are big human rights questions about saudi arabia. should you be putting quick explainers into match of the day about that? how do you judge? we did, we did. we did, ros. we did that, obviously. and i remember speaking to alan shearer on air about these things and how the fact that he felt uncomfortable about who the owners are. but we don't get the choice in that. does he still support newcastle? yes, he does. obviously we've had it with manchester city. we have discussed these things and we've always tried to do that. i saw other people saying that, "why didn't the bbc" i wasn't

involved, i don't do the olympics apart from when it was in london, "why did the bbc not do the same thing around china?" well, yes, they did. so help me understand how this works, then, within bbc sport and within the match of the day set up, if you were covering a tournament or a match, would it be standard that you would have a discussion? "are there dimensions to this beyond the sport that we should cover?" would that happen wherever the game was? every game that we do? not necessarily every game that you do, but every country in different ways has human rights questions against it. there are debates about it. absolutely and that was sort of my point about the fact that i'm accustomed to this. and we've had these things going into every tournament. and i can remember on many occasions having discussions about the issues within countries like we did in brazil with the demonstrations on the streets. so it's not a first, it was probably done in a bit more depth.

but let's be honest, gary, i've never seen you deliver a monologue like that at the start of some coverage. you weren't smiling. the tone of it was much more serious than anything i've seen you do before. yeah, i think i was there in the room in 2010 and it stunk at the time. and i think i was, spoken out. it was a decision by obviously everyone in bbc sport. these things are thought through a lot. it wasn'tjust me. that's for sure. not at all. so, yes, it was a little bit different, because the difference is not necessarily the human rights. and i think, you know, every country has different things and there are different developments and there are different cultures and things are viewed in different ways. but the difference with this one was that, you know, that corruption side of it, that was the difference for me. and that's why i felt it was important to stress it.

and even, you clearly feel that very passionately, even though that fifa investigation has not found that the votes were sold, and even though that qatar says throughout it's not done anything wrong. well, i think you just said it there, didn't you? it was a fifa investigation. and finally, just one question about where the line is on a sporting event you would be willing to cover. i remember a few years ago a bbc cricket reporter, pat murphy, of course, you'll know very well from any number of shows you've hosted on five live. he said, "i'm not going to zimbabwe, the way that robert mugabe's government at the moment is behaving. i'm not going on a tour to cover that because ijust don't think it's appropriate." would there ever be a situation where a world cup was somewhere or where a football match was somewhere where you thought, "actually, the risk of sportwashing is too great here? i'm not going to be part of it"? no, we spoke a lot of it, spent a great deal of time talking to amnesty international

about coming here. and obviously, you think about those things. but they say and they said they had the same dilemmas, but they said we felt it's really important to come because sportwashing works when you don't address the issues, when you, when you go quiet. now, obviously, whether you're here or not really to us doesn't make any difference. and i keep saying i'm not here to support the world cup. i'm here to report it. i'm not here taking any qatari money any way, shape or form at all. and i'd feel hypocritical if i did. so, yeah, i think we're just doing ourjob. and sometimes yourjob sends you to places that perhaps you'd prefer not to go sometimes. i note that you said you're not taking any money from qatar to be out there. clearly some very high profile broadcasters from the uk have done, pundits, presenters and so on.

do you think that was a mistake for gary neville in particular to do that? i think that's his personal decision. it's very easy to be judgemental on everybody and we're all so judgemental these days. i wouldn't have done it, no, and i haven't done it. but, you know, it's his life and he has to live it how he wants to live it and make the decisions that he wants to do. and that was gary lineker speaking to me a little earlier. well, let's discuss some of the points that he's raised. ayman mohyeldin is host of ayman, an afternoon news show on msnbc. and ayman, it's great to have you on the media show. we invited you on because you've written about western coverage of the world cup and also you used to live in doha, is that right? that is correct. yeah. 0k. well, we'll hear more from you in a moment. let's also bring in roger mosey, former head of sport at the bbc, also former head of bbc tv news, now master of selwyn college at cambridge university. welcome back on the

media show, roger. good afternoon, ros. well, ayman, let me start with you. do you think the bbc made the right decisions around its approach to that first programme of its coverage? so the short answer to that is no. and in my opinion, having just heard gary lineker offer his explanation that the bbc generally does not broadcast the opening ceremonies of world cups, i respect that. i can't speak to that specifically. but i think to the point that you brought up with him, which was very valid, is the fact that they decided then to open the world cup with this hour long or however long monologue singularly focusing on the human rights abuses against migrants, the lgbtq issue, a whole host of other issues. and in making that editorial decision, they shifted the conversation away from it being about sports to a broader conversation. and i think when you open a programme with a conversation about politics and human

rights, great. you have to apply that consistently across the board. you must allow the conversation to go beyond just what the bbc at this particular point thinks is appropriate. and roger, let's bring you in on that. this is one critic we've heard a lot, that this was inconsistent from the bbc. yeah. i saw gary's interview as wise and sensible about the really difficult editorial choices. i think what he also said was that probably bbc sport was disproportionately light on russia and probably on china for the winter olympics, and therefore has come across maybe as disproportionately heavy on qatar. so to that extent, i agree with ayman. i think you have to be consistent. i think the other thing, it was also interesting to hear him say that the sports coverage of human rights issues and so on would dial down a bit during the tournament. i think that's right, because the point about the bbc is it has a news division and a sport division, and i take the rather old fashioned view that news is good at covering news, sport

is good at covering sport. it's actually rather better if they don't intermingle too much, though i think it's also appropriate, you can't start the tournament in qatar without at least some reference to the controversies that have gone on. but as someone who's worked for bbc news and bbc sport, you surely haven't. .. can you think of an example where it's gone about things like this at the beginning of a major international sporting event? i can't. well, i can a bit, actually. i think in beijing in 2008 for the summer olympics, we made a deliberate decision to put huw edwards onto the commentary and the presentation of the opening ceremony with carrie gracie, who was then a beijing correspondent as one of the expert commentators, precisely because china was controversial and difficult, probably not at that time quite as controversial as it has become. i think sometimes you do make a decision, and that was why, a bit like you being in the qatar opening ceremony, we use the news correspondents to give the proper context there. i think what was different

this time was they went more into the sport production with that. and as i say, i think that's ok to a limited degree, it shouldn't be taken too far because news is a better vehicle. ayman, before i bring you back in, i should say we did ask if the bbc would like to take part in this live discussion. it points to us towards a statement which reads, "just like previous tournaments, we haven't shown the opening ceremony on bbc one. full build up and coverage of the world cup has been available across the bbc, including the opening ceremony on iplayer. now, i'd like to, ayman, with you, explore the broader point that you're trying to make here, which is that you feel qatar is being covered in a way that other countries would not be covered. help me understand that a bit better. so i think there's three buckets of this conversation here. one is what i would call the prejudice that's in the language that is used to describe the sporting event. there is a whole sweeping narrative around it. and in fact, you kind of heard gary lineker talk about it a little bit.

the language that qatar is tiny and questioning whether it is deserving of hosting a global event. and i think those are... but, ayman, it has a population of three million. it is a small country by that measure. and in the measures of its physical size too. well, if you're talking purely geographically, of course, i think he is implying that its deservedness is connected to its size. and i think that's where people sometimes, again, question the language that is used in the way the west is describing this oil rich country. again, it is factual, but what is implicit in this statement is that simply because it has the oil and because it is tiny, and because it's using its natural resources for its own development, that it is undeserving of a global event of this venerable magnitude. and again, that's where language matters. i think as journalists, we all know the difference between implicit and explicit bias. there is performative moral outrage among some of the reporters. i saw a bbc reporter wearing a rainbow armband standing on the sidelines of the field in qatar. and i want to be clear,

i think that's ok that she is doing that. she has a right to express herself. i wonder if a bbc sports reporter would have expressed solidarity with the uyghur muslims in china. so that was alex scott, who's part of the bbc sport team in qatar. roger, what did you make of that decision for alex scott to wear that and presumably to wear it with the agreement of her editors and producers? well, i think alex is great, and i can understand why she wants to do it. i think it was an editorial mistake by the bbc, because as soon as you let a presenter or a reporter paid by the bbc wear some sort of campaigning insignia, however well intentioned, in that case, you open a whole set of precedents about people wearing charity logos or campaigning logos for a whole set of other things. so i think the editors and producers should not have allowed that. i suppose the counter to that is there are some issues on which there are no two sides, that this is something that someone on air should be able to express. yes.

but would you have armbands for iran or cancer research or a particular charity? her cause is great and i can entirely see why alex wanted to do it and i agree with her on a personal level. ijust think you can't have, i mean, you at the moment, ros, do not have an arm band supporting anything on this programme. and i think that's right. you are impartial and once you start wearing one armband you can wear any number. and it's not a great editorial idea. and finally to you, ayman, do you have a position on simply when you should fit into sport generally? do you think sport is escapism for all of us and regardless of where it's taking place, then you should stick to where the news belongs and leave the action alone for the fans to enjoy? no, i actually, to be clear, i actually think that sport is a reflection of life. and life is complicated, and life is nuanced, and life deserves context. and life is at the intersection of politics and decisions and controversies. what i have an issue with is when we cherry pick what is acceptable and when to use

sports as a platform. and i understand why people sometimes say, "let's just keep politics out of sports," but the truth is, you can't. so i actually come down from the perspective of i believe that colin kaepernick, who is an athlete here in the us who decided to take a knee during the national anthem, has a right to express himself. i also believe that soccer athletes in europe who want to express solidarity with palestinians and gaza have a right to express themselves. and i believe that athletes in europe who want to wear a rainbow armband in qatar have a right to express themselves. what i think is problematic, as roger was just explaining, when you are a public broadcaster and you start cherry picking which causes you want to support, you're opening yourself to criticism and inconsistency, which i think people in the rest of the world are saying, "hey, you're being hypocritical and this is a gross double standard." ayman and roger, thank you for your time today. that's ayman mohyeldin, host of ayman on msnbc, the cable news network in the us. thanks also to roger mosey, former head of sports at the bbc and former head of bbc tv news.

now, listening to all of that was the bbc news technology editor zoe kleinman, who's with us on the media show. hi, zoe. hi. well, i wanted to talk to you about twitter and about elon musk. and elon musk has been claiming, hasn't he, that the world cup is driving even greater traffic on twitter? yeah, he has. he's been very prolific on twitter as ever. he's saying, "come and watch the world cup on twitter. this is the place to see." some people were querying, actually, whether twitter would be able to cope not only with the extra traffic, but also with the extra hate speech, unfortunately, which always accompanies these events. he has cut down on moderation. he says, you know, he wants a lighter touch. he wants to free the platform up. and people were very concerned that that was going to mean that more hate speech would be around on twitter, especially during the time of the world cup. so far, i have to say, i don't think we've seen an enormous spike. but there was a study which followed 100 racially offensive tweets which were aimed at particular players, and it found that only one of them was taken down even though they'd all been

flagged to twitter. so content moderation is one dimension to this musk twitter story. another one is simply whether it might keel over. i keep seeing people on my twitterfeed kind of speculating about whether twitter will just hold up technically. and i don't really understand what that means. if twitter was to keel over because of a lack of engineers, how would that even happen? and do you think that's likely? people keep asking me about this. i think we kind of ought to enjoy it a bit if it did, wouldn't it? because, you know, it sort of feels like it's in such a state of flux and nobody�*s really got their eye on the ball. and half of the staff have left and the other half are clinging on and being told they've got to work long hours and nobody really wants to be there. i don't think it's going to fall over any time soon. i think it's a very robust platform. you've got to bear in mind, it's got around 300 million monthly users. you know, it's not held together by a bit of string. what is important, though, is that there's a lot of maintenance involved to keep that robustness going. and that is in terms of cybersecurity, you know, that platform will be

being attacked all the time. the defences have got to be up, that's got to be monitored constantly and there's also routine maintenance. you know, twitter basically exists on massive computers called servers and stuff gets migrated between them, they get maintained, they get switched on and off. those are all points of weakness if you're not supervising it properly. and as we do know, lots and lots of people have left twitter. but i think it's a bit naive to assume that musk isjust letting it all go. and i wanted to ask you about people leaving twitter, because it seems to me, looking at my feed, different people are going in different directions. and while i'm not suggesting everyone�*s going to leave twitter suddenly, are we looking at a situation where you may have a more decentralised social media setup where different types of people end up in different places? we see this a lot in social media. something happens that people don't like and everyone threatens to leave. it's rare that you get the footfall that you expect. and it does seem to be some kind of change going on i think within the platform, people are certainly hedging their bets, aren't they?

we're seeing some emerge, there's one called hive. there's one called mastodon. i kind of think this is the way social media is going generally, actually, if you look at things like facebook has become much more community focused, you know, it's encouraging people to set up smaller, more private groups. whatsapp groups has become a much more community focused thing. i think we're seeing a shift generally from a big public digital square, if you like, that elon musk would like for twitter to be into this kind of smaller, more local, more specific community led lands. and i think i'm not sure how long he's going to be able to fight that, but it will be interesting to see what frontrunners emerge, because i think when you go to these smaller sites that are much more home—grown and don't have the resources that a big firm like twitter has, you soon notice the difference as a user, they're just not as easy to use. yeah, i've seen a lot of people saying that. thanks, zoe, very, very interesting. that's zoe kleinman, the bbc�*s technology editor, you can read her analysis of the situation at twitter on the bbc news website, too. thanks to zoe, thanks to ayman mohyeldin. also roger mosey

and gary lineker. we'll be back next week at the usual time with another edition of the media show. goodbye. hello. for some central and eastern parts of the uk, the day did not get off to a bad start, but further west, we have more in the way of cloud, we have outbreaks of rain, and that rain will slowly shift eastwards through the rest of the weekend. it is going to stay mild. what is driving the weather at the moment is a big area of low pressure to the north—west of us, this swirl of cloud here and ahead of it, a pipeline of cloud, a frontal system which is going to bring some quite heavy rain in some places. so, as we go through this afternoon, that rain will tend to shift out of northern ireland, but setting in across scotland, northern england, wales, the midlands, down into the south—west, particularly heavy bursts of rain over some of the hills.

east anglia and the south—east tending to cloud over, there will be some rain here late in the day. it will be quite windy, particuarly windy for western coasts, gusts of a0 to 50 mph, but with that wind coming from the south, well, it is a mild wind direction, temperatures 11 to 1a degrees. now, through this evening and tonight, we will see these outbreaks of rain continuing to journey eastwards, in fact for a time that rain is likely to turn a little bit heavier and more widespread, but it will be clearing from western parts to be replaced by a mix of clear spells and hefty showers, gales for a time in the north—west of scotland. overnight temperatures — 7 degrees for glasgow, belfast, 11 for london. it is going to be another mild night. into sunday, this wriggle in this weather front here is going to hold some of the rain back across the south—east of england, so rather than clearing away, the wet weather will persist for a time across south—east england, maybe fringing into east anglia and actually, could well become a bit more widespread again during the afternoon. a lot of cloud hanging back

across the midlands, east wales, up into yorkshire and lincolnshire, but to the north—west of that, we will see some spells of sunshine, albeit with some scattered, heavy, thundery showers. it stays breezy, but not quite as windy as today. still mild, though — 10 to 13 degrees. now, a bit of a change into the new week, this ridge of high pressure builds its way in, toppling through, and the white lines, the isobars, they drop out as well. that shows that the winds will be quite light, so what this means is more in the way of dry weather, but some overnight mist and fog, some of which could be slow to clear given the light winds, and it is going to turn a little bit chillier as well.

this is bbc news — these are the latest headlines in the uk and around the world. the london fire brigade is "institutionally misogynist and racist", according to a damning review into its culture. i sat with a very senior female officer, who said to me, whenever she goes into a dangerous incident, she is always thinking, will the men around me protect me? it cannot be put down to just a few bad apples. we got to look at the systems and the leadership that have enabled those most terrible example to happen. rail services across the uk are disrupted as thousands of train staff take part in another large—scale strike over pay. world cup frustration for england fans — a 0—0 draw with the usa — but both teams can still progress