we're also going to hear from a journalist who's received an apology from the hollywood star anne hathaway. it's all to do with an interview from 2012, which has now gone viral. we'll hear the full story. this year marks ten years since the so—called islamic state declared its caliphate. and now a group ofjournalists is seeking to preserve evidence of what the islamic state group did in order to hold it to account. as is deserted these sites, they left behind thousands of artefacts. the isis prisons museum project was created to collect and archive this evidence. to find out more, we spoke to the director of the museum, amer matar, and discovered his personal reason for setting up the project. in 2013, isis kidnapped my brother. his name mohammad nour matar, and he was a cameraman filming the city and the fight between the society and isis

and the different islamic groups in the city. when he was doing that, isis kidnapped him. the first time in the summer, and after one month they kidnapped him and we didn't have any information about him since then until now. and we start many different things to catch any...like, to have any information, any news about him. but we didn't. like, it was so hard. but in 2017, when the war against isis start, they start to leave the cities and we had this possibility to go to each building and check if there is any information, any document about him. in the process, we start to found thousands of document. information, some important

information about missing people. and so you were going in, you were searching for your brother who'd been taken by isis. you then start looking in... ..arriving in these prisons, these execution centres, these torture centres. what did you find? can you describe what you saw there? thousands of papers on the floor, clothes of prisoners, torture tools, names and stories in the walls. and when you say names on the walls, just describe that. what do you mean by names on walls? most of the prisoners, they try to write their names in the wall. because when you are in this type of prison, you want to write your name in the walljust to leave a message for your family, or anyone maybe can enter this prison after you. they will know you were there.

myself, when i was in the syrian regime prison in 2011, i did that in each new room, me and all the prisoners, because i didn't know at this time if i would survive or not. and that's technique people do a lot when they are really close to be killed, and they didn't know if they will return to their families. and what stories did you learn about from going into the prisons? are there particular stories you remember about people who died or people who survived? there is one guy, his name

abu madyan, in prison in al—tabqa area, next to raqqa. he was, like, writing stories for his little son. i think he was a few years old, his son, and many emotional, like, messages. and i was searching for his family because he write his details, his address and all the information. and then i saw the family, and they don't know any information about him until now. we just... we just know the messages he left in the walls. but you don't know what happened to that man? no, no. and what do you hope this project, the isis prisons museum, what do you hope it will achieve? we hope to help thousands of families to find information about their loved ones, and also to understand who was there leading this presence, which system they build, and to explain this to the world. i think that's so important. and also to save this important document, like, for the future to, like...because it's part of our dark history and we have

to know what happens and to learn from that. do you think one day you will find out what happened to your brother? i hope so. i'm working all the time. i'm fighting the situation, the reality, just to, uh, try to find any information. like, my mother all the time asked me if there is a new... if there is news about my brother, if we have any information or not. well, that was amer matar, the director of the isis prisons project. next, we heard from robin yassin—kassab, its chief english editor.

i was asked earlier how manyl journalists were taken by isis, and we don't have a precise figure, but we can say- certainly dozens. of course, we've all heard i about the western journalists that were taken and negotiatedl for, but there were many syrian and iraqi journalists, too. and of course, isis didn't- distinguish between an official journalist, a citizen l journalist, somebody who was uploading something to a facebook page, people . who were just taking - photographs in the street, and even people who, you know, accessed the internet from home rather than going through an| isis—controlled internet cafe. all of these people, _ they put them under the bracket of spies and treated them very badly. i and many were taken into is prisons orfacilities of some form. when you and your colleagues have gone into those prisons to try and document what happened there, help us understand the work

that that has involved. well, one thing that happens... firstly, it's gathering any evidence that we find. i so as amer said, - we've come up with... ..we've found over 70,000 documents, some of theml on paper, some of them typed, a lot of them on hard drives, i also on phones that were left behind. i they include internal- correspondence, directives, arrest reports, interrogation reports, audio recordings. of interrogations, - plus clothing, objects, torture tools. and then what the team did - was they filmed every room 360 degrees, so that if you go - to our website, you can go on, you know, virtual tours - of these buildings and you can zoom in on the names written on the walls and other bits i of forensic evidence. and you're mentioning there some technology you've

used involved in the 360—degree filming and the way that you're putting that online. have you used technology in other ways to find ways of documenting all of the different types of material that you've just described? yeah. well, we've got this huge archive, all of this - documentation and other stuff, photographs and drone footage and so on of mass i graves, for example. all of this information - is being added to our archive, and we've used a software called linkurious, - which is the same software that was actually used - for the panama papers - investigations, and that gives you a kind of graph system, i a visual representation of data which shows the connections between entities. _ so, for example, if you type into the system a name - like hamad abdullah, you will see a visual i representation of everywhere i where this guy's name has come up, every document that he's been mentioned in, | every prison or base i or other site that he's been connected to.

and finally, let me ask you about one investigation that you've been particularly involved in with relation to the stadium prison in raqqa in syria. tell us about that and the particular work you did there? well, the stadium in raqqa, as the name suggests, - it was a sports stadium i which was then taken over by various people as the syrian revolution progressed. - the first attempt after- the assad regime had been kicked out of raqqa, - the first attempt was actually media, civil society media people tried to set up - a media centre there. that only lasted for a couple of months, and they were i evicted by islamist - and jihadi militias who made a sharia court there. then isis kicked out those i militias, took over the whole of raqqa, and it used it- as its largest security prison, as it called it, in syria. and there were 46 rooms - in the basement of this stadium where they detained people. we've relied there specifically

on the documents and - the forensic evidence - that we found in the stadium. also 11 witness testimonies, i ex—prisoners, plus interviews with civil engineers - who knew about the building and its construction, | and the civil activists and a former jailer. and of course, we've got hoursl and hours of witness testimony, which is usually ex—prisoners standing in the rooms- in which they were detained and tortured, talking - about what happened to them. and we've produced four- different investigations based on that one prison. it's an extraordinary undertaking. robin, thank you very much indeed for describing it. that's robin yassin—kassab, who's chief english editor of this project. and as mentioned, one of the aims of the isis prisons

museum is to preserve evidence for future prosecutions. to understand this dimension of the project's work, i'm joined by yvonne mcdermott rees, professor of law at swansea university. just how useful are materials gathered byjournalists in international prosecutions for, say, war crimes or crimes against humanity? because there have been some pretty high—profile examples of journalists actually giving evidence. i mean, the bbc�*sjeremy bowen testified at the hague at the trial of a bosnian croat war criminal, for example. yes, the use ofjournalisticl content isn't really anything new. as you say, we've had some very high—profile examples _ of journalists testifying i before the international criminal tribunal for. the former yugoslavia and the international criminal tribunal for rwanda, - and more recently, then we've had journalists testified - before the international- criminal court in the hague in the number of cases. so the use ofjournalistic - content in this way is nothing new, but i do think it'sj something that's going to hasten with the adventj of open—source evidence, and courts around the world l are recognising how this kind of evidence, basically stuff that's freely available - on the internet, can be| used in the prosecution and proving - international crimes. and journalists play a big role in that because often it's- journalists who are verifying i this content, reporting on it, checking that it is-

what it purports to be. can ijust interrupt to ask you what standards would...you know, things like journalists' interviews or photos or videos, you know, what standards need to be met in orderfor them to be used in court, in terms of, i suppose, the verification? so i'm an evidence law- professor, and i often train investigators, lawyers, - judges from different legal systems, and one question i always get asked is, - what does the international criminal court require? - perhaps, unhelpfully, it's not like there's i a checklist that says, - "if you want your evidence to be "admissible, - you have to do a, b and c." so it's a typical lawyer'sj answer, but it depends. basically, the international criminal court has quite . a liberal approach to - the admission of evidence. they admit a wide range i of evidence, so long as it's seen to be relevant, i but also, importantly, reliable, and that it's not

prejudicial to the rights l of the accused to admit it. so how do we show that something's reliable? . that will come down to things like the chain of custody - of the evidence. so things that robin . was mentioning there, you know, making sure that it's very clearly documented — - this is where we found this, this is how we preserved it. i that's all going to be relevant in determining the reliability. of a piece of evidence. by today, there are actually dedicated camera phone... | ..smartphone apps that are out there designed specifically- to help people who are - documenting videos and images if they want them to i be admitted in court. so that does things - like capture the metadata, stores it securely to ensure that its chain of custody- can be preserved. and you were talking about robin. i mean, the isis prisons museum, when i first heard

about it, i found it so fascinating and so interesting, but also very optimistic, in a sense, because you think, you know, this isjournalism being used for the good, in the sense of notjust helping families, but also potentially helping future prosecutions. but are there other examples, other archives like that that have successfully led to prosecutions? absolutely. so when i was listening to robin speaking, - i was thinking about the caesar files, which was an initiative i to gather...basically- to smuggle photographs from prisons in syria, out. and they have been used... for example, there was a case| in koblenz in germany a couple of years ago which used - evidence from the caesar files. there's also, like, a rich seam of archival projects _ in the last decade or so.

perhaps one of the most well known is the syrian archive. i it's preserved something like 3.5 million videos i from the conflict in syria online. i and their archival material has been used in prosecutions- in germany, in france. i was mentioning jeremy bowen earlier, but is it fairly common or common for journalists to testify in international criminal courts? i would say it's not uncommon. so we've had... for example, there was a case in the mali situation _ in the international- criminal court recently, where a dutchjournalist hadj basically arrived in timbuktu and found a filing cabinet full . of documents that were passed to the prosecution, - and that journalist was then called to testify. so that'sjust one example... sorry to interrupt. what about the potential conflicts of interest for a journalist in this position? potentially, for example, one of the things a journalist does not want to do is reveal their sources. but how does that work when it comes to a court case? yeah. so i think there's a broader tension, maybe, in terms. of thinking about the role of the journalist. - are they an objective, impartial observer, i or are they someone who's there to bear witness? - and those two things are kind of different. |

there has been some really interesting case law, - again from the yugoslav tribunal, where - witnesses...journalists have been called to testify, - and sometimes they've noti wanted to come and testify. so the court, basically, in that tribunal found . that they can be compelled to come only where it's - directly relevant and _ important, and there's no other way of getting. the evidence out. the situation is slightly- different in the international criminal court because it doesn't have the same . powers to compel. but you mentioned a really interesting issue, - which is sources. so the confidentiality - of sources is really important tojournalists, and most legal systems do recognise a form i of kind of privilege - where journalists can't be forced to reveal their confidential sources. j i suppose the other side i of that, then, is how much weight can the court give - to evidence where an individual says, "somebody, "i won't tell you who, told me this"? - and then, you know, the defence will say, j "we can't cross—examine that. "we don't know who the original source is." - now to a journalist who's gone viral for her celebrity

interviews and for the apology she received from anne hathaway. kjersti flaa interviewed the hollywood star back in 2012 for the film les miserables. but we're talking about this now because a selection of clips from that interview, the most uncomfortable sections of that interview, to be honest, have gone viral. here's some of them. so i was going to ask you to do the first question in singing. i can i sing it to you? and you can sing| back the answer. well, i won't be doing that, but you're more than welcome to sing. kjersti flaa from tv2 norway. ok, i will try. so were there any awkward i moments like this on the set? because you had - to sing and not talk. do you feel that love was more passionate back then, - or people would sacrifice more for love than we do today? - no. no? no. do you rememberyour first crush? _ no. you don't? 0k. thank you very much. thank you.

well, joining us on the media show is kjersti flaa. thank you very much indeed for your time. i know you'll have seen this a few times, but when you hear it back, do you still wince? cringe? yes, i do still cringe. and there are going to be people thinking, "hold on. "this happened in 2012. "why are we talking about it on the media show in 2024?" what's the reason? well, the story began, actually, in august, when i posted an interview with blake lively that i did in 2016. and the reason why i posted it then was because it was a very uncomfortable interview that didn't go well at all. and after i posted it, it went viral. also, for the reason that blake lively was being criticised for her promo tour for her movie that was just released, it ends with us, so that kind of added to the tension around her. and then that kind of made me want to explain what had happened behind the scenes of that interview, because a lot of people on youtube were taking my interview and having

opinions about it, and there were allthese, like, weird conspiracy theories around it. so i decided that i wanted to go out and explain what had happened myself. and that's when i started these new videos on youtube showing when things are going great and when things are not going so great. and that's what happened with this anne hathaway interview. and you've received an apology from anne hathaway recently, but watching it back, did you think, "well, "maybe i put her in a difficult situation by singing the questions "and asking her to sing the answers back"? ah, not really. i think, you know, if you watch how the other actors reacted to it, i think sometimes, you know, you're in these situations and people sit there, like you're saying, for hours and do these, like, four— or five—minutes interview back to back to back to back. so most actors do appreciate when you try to do something different. but she didn't. and i totally respect

that she didn't want to sing back, but for me, it was the tone of everything, and i think that's why people reacted to it, that it wasn't very nice. i think that you can always say you don't want to answer a question, but you can do it in, you know, in a polite way and not kind of sabotage the rest of the interview because of that. i don't know if you saw this, but the journalist simon mills has been following the furore around your videos and has written in the times newspaper — "hathaway's act of contrition, "the apology, is a huge crossing—the—floor moment "for show—business media, the content—maker and "content—provider now on a similar billing and demanding equal respect. "it is the internet that has done this." so he's saying that this is a big, big moment for howjunkets work. do you agree? wow, i didn't see that at all. so i'm definitely going to read that. well, hmm, i'm not sure. the thing is, what's

happening right now, which is different from when i did these interviews. back then, you used to get a hard copy or you used to get a card with the interview on. now they will send you a link with the interview. and if there's anything in that interview that the studio or publicist or someone doesn't like, they will cut that out before you even receive the interview. so the censorship is much stronger. so i think this probably won't happen because it's going to get censored before the journalist even gets the interview. and just to explain, a junket is a way to promote a film, usually, where the actors and directors are lined up to do a series of interviews, often in front of a background advertising the film, with the journalists brought in one after the other in a long line to do a really often very short interview. they're usually in hotels. butjust in terms of anne hathaway's apology, what did she say and how did you receive it? how did it get to you? so her publicist contacted me and forwarded an email from her, and he said, you know, "this is a message from anne, "and i appreciate if you don't post this apology." so i read it.

it was a long, very personal email explaining that she was not in a good place when this interview be happened, and she would appreciate if i kept the email private. and then i replied to her and i said, "of course, "and i really appreciate that you're reaching out to me." and i asked her if it was ok that i published that she had apologised for it, because i think that was in her own interest as well. and she said that, yes, she would be happy for me to do that. and then she also invited me to interview her for her next movie. did you take her up on it or were you still full of trepidation? no, i mean, that's going to happen in may, so we'll see what happens. 0k. well, that's a pressjunket for you to look forward to. but let's just talk about them because, i mean, i've got colleagues here at the bbc who are absolutely brilliant at them. and i was talking to one of them today who was saying he really thinks about everything ahead of it, including what he's going to wear. he said he did a really successful interview years ago

withjulia roberts, when he'd read that she liked knitwear, and so he deliberately put on a knitted jumper and felt that that was really part of why she warmed to him and liked him. how do you prepare for them? because they can be incredibly short. i mean, four to five minutes, i think. you know, i think they can be very flat and boring and repetitive, these interviews. so i'm always doing a lot of research beforehand. i watched interviews where the same talent had been talking to press about other things in their lives, and i'm trying to make it a little personal. and as a freelancer, i've been working for a lot of different tv shows that are more celebrity—based than actually movie—focused. so i've always had the angle of a little more personal approach, and that sometimes is received well, and sometimes i get cut off and say, "you're here to talk about the movie!" and ijust have to say that i'm not really there to talk about the movie. i'm there as a journalist, and i'm not... quite often, they don't realise that, do they? or they don't accept that.

we go there as journalists. i come in news, i'm coming there from a news perspective. i'm not therejust to promote a movie. and yet quite often i'd say the publicists, and certainly perhaps the celebrities as well, don't expect that or accept that. and as i'm listening to the two of you, katie, i'm wondering, you know, we heard there from kjersti about the fact that some people, when they organise junkets, essentially reserve the right to not necessarily pass on all of the interview if they don't feel that it's gone that way. how does it work with the bbc or other british journalists? well, we certainly always shoot our own interviews. so we go and i insist, "i'm not going to do it in that room. "i'm going to do it in, you know, a different room." we're going to get our own interview, and we're in charge of all of that. and i would never do an interview in four minutes because i don't think... perhaps i'm not good enough, journalist enough, like kjersti, to be able to get something out of somebody in four minutes. but, equally, four minutes is too short for what we want. it's fine for sort of... i'm not saying you do this,

kjersti, but works for viral clips and that sort of thing. but in terms of wanting a longer interview, if i'm going along to interview a big film director or a big movie star, i'm going to run it on various outlets, including some that might want 25, 30 minutes. kjersti, just before you go, who's next? what's the nextjunket? we'll see about that. i don't know. no—one has invited me for anything right now. you think going viral has maybe put them off? yeah. do you think they've banned you? yeah. maybe. you know, that could happen. and, you know, it's ok. it's ok for me if i don't get invited to a lot of these in the future. they have changed a lot. also, you know, it's not happening that much as it used to. but, you know, i'm happy to interview anyone that's nice and polite, so... well, there we go. junkets — have you got any planned? i haven't, i confess. i try and avoid them, but there are some stars that i want to interview, including paul mescal from gladiator. you would go to a junket? i think i would. for paul mescal, i would go to a junket. yeah, absolutely. well, junkets is where we leave it. thank you very much indeed for watching. we'll see you soon. bye— bye. thanks, goodbye. and if you'd like to hear a longer version of today's show, search bbc "the media show" wherever you get

your bbc podcasts. hello. wednesday's shaping up to be a fine day across most of the uk with some pleasant sunshine. however, the morning could look like this, particularly across southern and central areas of england. mist and fog really quite thick in places, but the fog shouldn't last. it will clear later in the morning, and thanks to the position of this area of high pressure and our southerly winds, it'll feel pleasant in that sunshine. and i think the mild air is here to stay at least until thursday. beyond that, somewhat cooler air will arrive off the atlantic. so the short term then, that fog forming across southern and south—eastern parts of england into east anglia, lincolnshire and further north into the vale of york. but i think it's in

the south—east and east anglia, where the fog will be thickest, possibly visibilities as low as 100m or less, elsewhere, clearer skies. and this is the forecast for 8:00 in the morning, and the temperatures typically around nine or ten celsius. so once that fog eventually clears away and it may take time, it may first lift into low grey skies before that sunshine comes through, but once it does, it'll be a fine day. just the possibility of a few afternoon showers, so don't be surprised if there's some spots of rain for a time in the south. so here's the forecast then for thursday, we still have those southerly winds, that mild air is with us. can't miss this, a weather front is approaching, but it's just to the west of our neighbourhood. at this stage, at least through most of thursday, some sunshine from london, norwich all the way to aberdeen. hazy skies for belfast and then later in the day, the possibility of that rain arriving in northern ireland. and then eventually it will arrive come friday, because this weather front will be slap bang over the uk. if anything, an area of low pressure will form and very gusty winds will develop across southwestern parts of the country. it's still relatively mild air, so temperatures around 15 or 16, maybe even 17,

but that slightly fresher air starts to reach western parts of the uk. and how about the weekend and into next week? well, the jet stream will start spreading weather fronts our way, so that does mean somewhat more unsettled weather. but into next week it does look as though the jet stream may go further north once again with high pressure building. so here's the outlook then from thursday onwards, the weather does go downhill as we head into friday with some outbreaks of rain. similar weather for saturday and sunday. fingers crossed things should improve by the time we get to monday. bye— bye.

live from singapore, this is bbc news. the us�*s top diplomat, antony blinken, is back in the middle east, urging israeli leaders for a ceasefire. israel intensifies its aerial assault on lebanon — at least 18 people are killed and dozens injured in a strike near the country's largest hospital. with two weeks to go to the us presidential election, donald trump's campaign accuses the british labour party of making illegal contributions to his opponent, kamala harris. the former boss of the fashion giant abercrombie & fitch and his british partner are arrested on sex trafficking charges.

welcome to newsday.