The Listening Post

Sealed in Israel's archives and libraries are troves of Palestinian books, documents, photographs and films that were looted from Palestinian institutions and personal archives by Jewish militias and later, the Israeli military. "This confiscation is a kind of daily struggle that Palestinians face," says Sherene Seikaly, a scholar of Middle Eastern history. "One of the reasons, that these archives are a target, that they're threatening, is because they're really a record of Palestinian social life, and Palestine more broadly." Israeli historian Rona Sela has spent 20 years uncovering Palestinian visual history that has been kept in the dark in Israel's state and military archives. She says the methodical plunder of Palestinians' cultural assets predates the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948, what Palestinians call the 'Nakba' or 'catastrophe.' "The looting and seizure, as far as I found, started in the 1930s in a systematic and organised manner ... by Haganah forces [Zionist paramilitary group]. The seizure intensified, of course, with the Nakba in 1948. I found materials taken in 1967, 1982, 1991 and ... in the last few years." What begins with looting and appropriation, continues with a system of censorship and historical revisionism in the archives. The origin of Palestinian material is often erased and replaced with terminology that fits the archivist's world view. "I saw photos with comments and notes written on them by the censors and archivists. For example, Palestinians are described as 'terrorists', as 'gangs'. Seeing all of that taught me about how the materials go through a process of rewriting to aid or benefit the Zionist narrative," says Sela. "You see a place where the materials are being censored and erased from the public sphere." The suppression of history doesn't only extend to Palestinian material. The Israeli archives also guard state secrets that could reveal details about Israel's treatment of Palestinians. Historians and journalists say the policy of censoring incriminating material in the archives exposes the deep insecurity Israel has about its past, with archivists employed as the 'gatekeepers' of history. "Israel is terrified of the contents of its own archives, and doesn't want its history to be exposed," says Mahmoud Yazbak, a professor at the University of Haifa. "The government's ... aim is to hide the past from researchers in order to prevent it from being part of the present and the future." Palestinians see the censorship as part of a wider trend of physical and cultural erasure that began in 1948 and has continued ever since. Concealing the archival record denies them the tools to communicate their own history, what the Palestinian intellectual and literary theorist Edward Said called "permission to narrate." "The fact that these documents have been taken away from Palestinian hands is a sign of contempt for Palestinian history," says Yazbak. "It's an attempt to suggest Palestinians have no history, no documents, no belongings." The Listening Post's Tariq Nafi looks at the silencing of Palestinian history in Israel's archives. Contributors Sherene Seikaly - associate professor, UC Santa Barbara Rona Sela - Israeli researcher on visual history and lecturer Mahmoud Yazbak - professor, University of Haifa - Subscribe to our channel: http://aje.io/AJSubscribe - Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/AJEnglish - Find us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aljazeera - Check our website: https://www.aljazeera.com/ More from The Listening Post on: YouTube - http://aje.io/listeningpostYT Facebook - http://facebook.com/AJListeningPost Twitter - http://twitter.com/AJListeningPost Website - http://aljazeera.com/listeningpost

On this week's The Listening Post: After months of ratcheting rhetoric, the US re-imposes sanctions on Iran. Plus, historical revisionism in Israel's archives. 'Sanctions are coming': Trump, Iran and the messaging battle President Donald Trump dropped the word on Twitter with a Game of Thrones-inspired tagline: 'Sanctions Are Coming, November 5th'. The retaliatory tweet from Iran's Ayatollah Khamenei was no less confrontational, declaring that Trump's 'every decision is opposed by the world’. Back in 2015, when former President Barack Obama signed the multilateral deal designed to monitor and limit Iran's nuclear programme, few would have predicted that his successor would not only pull out of the agreement, but elect to re-impose sanctions. Tehran has put on a brave face, trying to convince Iranians it can weather the storm and making its own case, moral and political, to a global audience. We examine the messaging battle being waged by both countries. Contributors Mohammad Ali Shabani - Iran Pulse Editor at Al-Monitor Trita Parsi - Founder, National American Iranian Council Narges Bajoghli - Assistant Professor, Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies Barbara Slavin - Director, Future of Iran Initiative, Atlantic Council History suppressed: Censorship in Israel’s archives Historical documents that would shed further light on Israel's treatment of Palestinians have, for years, sat under lock and key inside the Israel's State and Military Archives. Under the pretext of 'security' or 'privacy', more than 98 percent of those files are classified under a form of censorship that even the former chief archivist of Israel has criticised. For Palestinians, it's part of a wider trend of cultural erasure and historical denial that has gone hand-in-hand with the decades-long theft not just of their land, but of their story. The Listening Post's Tariq Nafi reports on the silencing of Palestinian history in Israel's archives. Contributors Sherene Seikaly - Associate Professor, UC Santa Barbara Rona Sela - Researcher on visual history and lecturer Mahmoud Yazbak - Professor, University of Haifa - Subscribe to our channel: http://aje.io/AJSubscribe - Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/AJEnglish - Find us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aljazeera - Check our website: https://www.aljazeera.com/

As Americans prepare to vote in midterm elections this week, it is worth considering the stories monopolising the US airwaves recently: the coverage of the migrant caravan from Central America; the pipe bombs sent to CNN among others, and President Donald Trump's incessant tweets - all developments with significant media angles to them. Jay Rosen, journalism professor at New York University, is an academic who's been studying the US media for more than 30 years. He spoke to The Listening Post's Richard Gizbert about Trump's attacks on the mainstream media, why they work, how CNN became a hate object and the larger crisis of credibility American journalism faces today. Al Jazeera: How has Donald Trump, two years into his presidency, turned the media into such a useful enemy - perhaps the most useful political enemy of them all? Jay Rosen: Let's start with some basic facts about Donald Trump as president of the United States. One is he doesn't know anything about the issues that he must deal with. He isn't good at the job. Nothing he says can be trusted, and when you have a president like that, what's going to happen is he generates a lot of bad news for himself. He has managed to convince his supporters that this happens because the news media hates him ... And he's gone one step further to say to them "When they criticise me, it's because they hate you." So, he's not only turned the press into a hate object, but he's made it the foundation of his support. Al Jazeera: On the recent migrant caravan story, Fox has plenty to answer for, but there were some other news organisations that also bought into the narrative that Trump and the Republicans were trying to push. To what extent do you think news outlets from the centre, even from the left, or near-left, are also giving this particular story outsized attention, once again allowing Trump to be the media's assignment editor? Rosen: It's very difficult for TV producers to resist that. Even something as simple as showing us on the map where those people were and how close, in fact, they were to the US border, which was one time hundreds of miles away. Even something as simple as that was too difficult for cable news producers. So, that was a case where Trump and his propaganda outmanoeuvred TV news and simply capitalised on some of its weaknesses. Al Jazeera: There's this ongoing battle between Trump and the likes of CNN. Trump screams "fake news", and CNN responds with a robust defence of its journalism. For those of us on the outside, this would seem to be an easy argument for CNN to win - it seems like a slam dunk. Why hasn't that been the case? Rosen: I think what you have to understand is that for this portion of the public, Trump is the major source of news about Trump, which is to say that for that part of the country, an authoritarian news system is already up and running. And in that sense, nothing CNN could say would make a bit of difference to the core of Trump's supporters who have now assimilated CNN as a symbol of everything they hate - it's a symbol of cultural elites; of the people who are in control of the system. And the paranoid style of politics that Trump practises and the conspiracy thinking that it often produces are all bound up with this mistrust of CNN. Al Jazeera: In the pieces that you posted back in 2016 after Trump won his election, you made all kinds of observations about the American media. You issued a few warnings, you offered a few bromides. But I went through the comments under the piece and one reader left one saying: "Good luck getting the genie back in the bottle". Does he have a point? Can what ails the US media be fixed? Rosen: Yes, he had a point. I think we're in a cycle where it's not obvious how we change it, except through political change. The fusing of the media system and the political system has proceeded to such a degree that it's very hard to imagine how just by changing practices, our press changes its status. After all, Fox News and the White House are, in a way, the same operation right now. So, I think this cycle that we're in is going to have to run its course, somehow. It's either going to have to burn out or meet with massive political change before we see any real change between the dynamic between the press and the president. This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity. More from The Listening Post on: YouTube - http://aje.io/listeningpostYT Facebook - http://facebook.com/AJListeningPost Twitter - http://twitter.com/AJListeningPost Website - http://aljazeera.com/listeningpost - Subscribe to our channel: http://aje.io/AJSubscribe - Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/AJEnglish - Find us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aljazeera - Check our website: https://www.aljazeera.com/

US President Donald Trump has repeatedly labelled much of mainstream American media "fake news" and the "enemy of the people". But there are a few outlets that are in Trump's good books. It's common knowledge that Fox News is a soft landing spot for the president, but what's less well known is the wide-ranging access he, and many members of his administration, offer to the much smaller Christian Broadcasting Network, or CBN. Nicole Hemmer, the author of Conservative Media and the Transformation of American Politics, explains why Trump has so much time for CBN: "They're working on a different playing field; they're appealing in terms of faith, not necessarily in terms of facts. So, while Donald Trump dismisses journalists as "fake news", this kind of "faith news" is something that really resonates with him - not because he's a member of the faithful, but because he sees these people as being on his side." CBN's stated mission is 'to prepare the United States of America for the coming of Jesus Christ'; its method, the 'strategic use of mass communication; a global ministry relying on TV, internet and social media to spread good news'. The network has been spreading good news since 1961 when its founder, Pat Robertson, first took to the airwaves. At age 88, he remains a hugely influential figure in the evangelical community, still hosting the flagship show, The 700 Club. "CBN is the most influential evangelical Christian organisation in the world - without a doubt," says Terry Heaton, the executive producer of The 700 Club for much of the 1980s. "It's not so due to the size of their audience though. It's due to the fact that all of the other leaders in white, evangelical Christianity pay attention to what Pat says. And, and so it's a matter of not only influencing masses but it's influencing the influencers. And that's what CBN does so well." Evangelicals were central to Trump's election victory in 2016, where more than 8 in 10 voted for him. More than 6 in 10 still think he's got the country headed in the right direction. Trump needs to keep conservative Christians on his side, and CBN's influence and reach provide the perfect platform for that. "Trump and CBN have developed a relationship over the years. Long before most people thought he was running for president, he did an interview with CBN, with David Brody, that seemed like perhaps he was thinking about it" says Sarah Posner, author of God's Profits: Faith, Fraud, and the Republican Crusade for Values Voters. "I think he's interviewed Trump at least a dozen times, one on one. So that has enabled CBN to position itself as the inside baseball network." But the tight relationship between a seemingly ungodly president and his evangelical base appears incongruous; Trump doesn't exhibit the traditional Christian principles that CBN promotes. The Listening Post's Flo Phillips went to CBN's headquarters in Virginia Beach to ask Gordon Robertson, CBN's CEO, if it's just an alliance of political convenience. "He's an unlikely president and it's unlikely for him to be of such appeal to evangelical voters. That said, I think President Trump is an absolute master of media, master of promotion and as a master politician he made very specific promises to the evangelical community about Supreme Court justices, about the Johnson Amendment, about Christian persecution," says Gordon. "Unlike other politicians who make promises in the campaign and then do something different in office, he's fulfilled his promises. He's come through." Contributors Gordon Robertson - CEO, Christian Broadcasting Network Terry Heaton - Former executive producer, The 700 Club and author of The Gospel of Self: How Jesus Joined the GOP Sarah Posner - Reporting fellow, The Investigative Fund and author of God's Profits: Faith, Fraud, and the Republican Crusade for Values Voters Nicole Hemmer - Assistant professor in presidential studies, University of Virginia and author of Messengers of the Right More from The Listening Post on: YouTube - http://aje.io/listeningpostYT Facebook - http://facebook.com/AJListeningPost Twitter - http://twitter.com/AJListeningPost Website - http://aljazeera.com/listeningpost

On this week's The Listening Post: As Americans prepare for the 2018 US midterm elections, how has President Donald Trump managed to turn the media into a useful political enemy? Plus, an unholy alliance: Trump and the Christian Broadcasting Network. On November 6, Americans will vote in midterm elections which will be seen as a referendum on Donald Trump's presidency. So, it's fitting that one of the major issues before voters is the institution President Trump can't stop talking and tweeting about - the news media. The stories monopolising the US airwaves as Americans head to the polls are: the coverage of the migrant caravan from Central America and the pipe bombs sent to CNN, among others - developments with significant media angles to them. In the first part of this special Listening Post episode focusing on the US, we speak to Jay Rosen, an academic who's been studying the US media for more than 30 years. We discuss Trump's attacks on the mainstream media, why they work, how CNN became an object of hate, and the larger crisis of credibility US journalism faces today. The chosen one: The Christian Broadcasting Network and Trump There are a select few broadcasting networks that are in President Trump's good books. Fox News is one of them, but the president also has time for the Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN). Over the past two years, CBN has had exclusive interviews with the president, as have many of his officials and advisers. It's a relationship built on joint interests. Evangelicals, especially white evangelicals, are a big part of the Republican Party's core vote and CBN provides the perfect go-between to keep them on-side. Then, there's the fact that CBN's executives have a religious vision for the US that depends on a president willing to champion their beliefs, even if he himself is not exactly pious. The Listening Post's Flo Phillips reports on Trump and CBN, a political match made in heaven. Contributors Gordon Robertson - CEO, Christian Broadcasting Network Terry Heaton - Former executive producer, The 700 Club and author of The Gospel of Self: How Jesus Joined the GOP Sarah Posner - Reporting fellow, The Investigative Fund and author of God's Profits: Faith, Fraud, and the Republican Crusade for Values Voters Nicole Hemmer - Assistant professor in presidential studies, University of Virginia and author of Messengers of the Right More from The Listening Post on: YouTube - http://aje.io/listeningpostYT Facebook - http://facebook.com/AJListeningPost Twitter - http://twitter.com/AJListeningPost Website - http://aljazeera.com/listeningpost - Subscribe to our channel: http://aje.io/AJSubscribe - Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/AJEnglish - Find us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aljazeera - Check our website: https://www.aljazeera.com/

If you live in the UK, you may have followed the story of Jeremy Corbyn's unexpected rise. Corbyn is the leader of the UK Labour Party - the party whose membership has grown to the biggest in Western Europe after long-time socialist Corbyn shocked the political establishment and won the leadership vote in 2015. For many of the bigger media organisations, initial incredulity quickly turned into a series of criticisms organised around Corbyn's ideas of leadership - qualities he was perceived to lack; of murky political associations (including Hamas, the Palestinian government of the Gaza Strip and Lebanon's Hezbollah Party - both framed as terrorist organisations across much of the British media) and of naive economic policies that would, many journalists said, take the country back into the dark ages. However, the most persistent story, one that has resisted news cycles' attention deficits, has been around accusations of anti-semitism in the Labour Party and against Corbyn himself. Some have argued that the story points to an endemic problem in the party, others have dismissed the scandal as a red herring: a weaponisation of the subject in order to undermine an anti-establishment leader, with the help of the media "establishment". What is at stake is not just an internal fight within the opposition party: it is the future of the country. Amid political instability surrounding the Conservative government's handling of Brexit, a general election could be on the horizon and judging from the tight election result last year, it is not beyond the realms of possibility that Corbyn could win the next one. Should he take power, the media story will not just be centred around how he is being covered, but the ideas he himself has about media reform in the UK. Recently, Corbyn opened up a wider discussion on the political economy of the media; how to deal with the increasing power of tech giants; the future of public broadcasting; resuscitating local journalism; financing investigative journalism - and the cultural make-up of newsrooms themselves, in a country where diversity in the media continues to influence the way stories are covered and often fail to be understood. Corbyn's ideas have been derided by some as attempts to make of the mainstream media a useful enemy - an electorally popular story of David and Goliath. And certainly, for a politician like Corbyn who has long criticised the power of big conglomerates, the media is partly political. But Corbyn's opposition to the corporate media comes within the wider political context in the UK. In 2011, a phone-hacking scandal hit the headlines and brought down a Rupert Murdoch newspaper: the News of the World, after it was revealed that journalists had hacked into a murdered schoolgirl's phone. The scandal spotlighted unholy alliances between political parties, the police and journalists - and raised questions about corruption and the unchecked power of big media conglomerates. This is a story that moves away from the immediacy of mudslinging in the daily news cycle around Corbyn. That, as we say, is "inside baseball". Instead, we explore the proposals he has put forward on the media - their concrete viability, their rhetorical power and their resonance beyond the increasingly tight borders of the country from which they emanate. More from The Listening Post on: YouTube - http://aje.io/listeningpostYT Facebook - http://facebook.com/AJListeningPost Twitter - http://twitter.com/AJListeningPost Website - http://aljazeera.com/listeningpost - Subscribe to our channel: http://aje.io/AJSubscribe - Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/AJEnglish - Find us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aljazeera - Check our website: https://www.aljazeera.com/

A Jair Bolsonaro victory seems all but sealed as Brazil's second and final round of presidential elections takes place on October 28. Bolsonaro has a far-right agenda, a penchant for rhetoric that's misogynistic, racist and threatening, and a campaign that's been powered by social media, mainly the country's pre-eminent messaging platform WhatsApp. According to an investigation published in Brazil's most widely read newspaper, Folha De Sao Paulo – Bolsonaro's WhatsApp offensive has been secretly boosted by several unnamed corporations. Those paid digital marketing firms, experts at some of the dark arts of the web, a total of $3.2m to push pro-Bolsonaro messaging - attacking his opponent Fernando Haddad with stories, many of which were made up. Under Brazilian electoral law, such undisclosed corporate donations to a political campaign are illegal. But Bolsonaro called Folha de Sao Paulo's investigation "fake news". "We ran a full fact check on this story, with sources who deal directly with the agencies responsible for sending these messages," explains Folha de Sao Paulo's assistant managing editor, Uira Machado. "This has been subverting the campaign. Bolsonaro has denied all accusations. After all, if he admitted any wrongdoing, he would be admitting to an electoral crime." Bolsonaro is not a fan of the mainstream media. But he's got some news outlets on his side, too - most notably Record TV, a network owned by billionaire bishop Edir Macedo, head of one of Brazil's biggest evangelical churches. Journalists at Record have been ordered to keep their coverage of Bolsonaro positive and to report on his leftist opponent, Fernando Haddad, either negatively or neutrally. Fact checkers are working overtime, according to Sergio Ludtke, executive director of Comprova. "It's been brutal. The volume is huge. We have 24 media outlets reproducing our fact-checking work. TV channels, radio stations, newspapers and websites. We've managed to draw attention to the problem, but we're under no illusions that we can stop it and make the truth overcome all the lies that are being told." In a campaign rife with misinformation, social media companies have been slow to react. Over the past three months, Facebook has taken down hundreds of accounts and pages in what it called "a coordinated network" built for "sowing division and spreading misinformation." These are measures that appear to be too little and, in the case this election, too late. "Fake news appeals to people's emotions," points out Marina Atoji, executive manager of Abraji. "So, if the content you receive is reinforcing your existing beliefs, if it makes you feel confident that you are right, you are more inclined to believe it than something that contests or challenges your beliefs." Contributors Leandro Demori - Executive editor, The Intercept Brasil Sergio Ludtke - Executive director, Comprova Marina Atoji - Executive manager, Abraji Uira Machado - Assistant managing editor, Folha de Sao Paulo More from The Listening Post on: YouTube - http://aje.io/listeningpostYT Facebook - http://facebook.com/AJListeningPost Twitter - http://twitter.com/AJListeningPost Website - http://aljazeera.com/listeningpost - Subscribe to our channel: http://aje.io/AJSubscribe - Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/AJEnglish - Find us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aljazeera - Check our website: https://www.aljazeera.com/

On this week's The Listening Post: Hate speech, misinformation and violence swirl around Jair Bolsonaro's campaign in the run-up to Brazil's election. Plus, Jeremy Corbyn's tussle with the UK media. Jair Bolsonaro and the future of Brazil's media? The second and final round of Brazil's presidential elections take place on Sunday, October 28 and a Jair Bolsonaro victory seems all but sealed. Bolsonaro has a far-right agenda, a penchant for rhetoric that's misogynistic, racist and threatening, and a campaign that's been powered by WhatsApp. Bolsonaro is not a fan of the mainstream media. Last weekend, he hurled accusations of 'fake news' at a newspaper that alleged corporate spending on misinformation campaigns in Bolsonaro's favour. But he's got some news outlets on his side, too - most notably Record TV, a network owned by a billionaire evangelical bishop. If the media activity in the lead up to this election is anything to go by, a Bolsonaro victory could spell trouble for the country's media. Contributors Leandro Demori - Executive editor, The Intercept Brasil Sergio Ludtke - Executive director, Comprova Marina Atoji - Executive manager, Abraji Uira Machado - assistant managing editor, Folha de Sao Paulo On our radar Richard Gizbert speaks to Johanna Hoes about threats against a reporter at Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta and the news channels that are reluctant to criticise Saudi Arabia over the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Jeremy Corbyn's tussle with the UK media Jeremy Corbyn shocked the political establishment when he was elected leader of the Labour Party in the United Kingdom in 2015. The result shocked the media establishment too. Initial incredulity quickly turned into a series of criticism organised around ideas of leadership, of murky political associations, of naive economic policies and accusations of anti-semitism. Amid political instability surrounding the Conservative government's handling of Brexit, a general election could be on the horizon. Should Corbyn take power, the media story will not just be centred around how he is being covered, but the ideas he himself has about media reform in the UK. Contributors Ash Sarkar - Senior Editor, Novara Media Will Gore - Executive Editor, The Independent Justin Schlosberg - Chair of the Media Reform Coalition More from The Listening Post on: YouTube - http://aje.io/listeningpostYT Facebook - http://facebook.com/AJListeningPost Twitter - http://twitter.com/AJListeningPost Website - http://aljazeera.com/listeningpost - Subscribe to our channel: http://aje.io/AJSubscribe - Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/AJEnglish - Find us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aljazeera - Check our website: https://www.aljazeera.com/

Climate change is the world's most significant existential challenge and those who want to cover it are still wondering how to convey its size and scale. Only a small proportion of news consumers will have heard about the report released earlier this month by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the IPCC. Not because the report was dull or inconsequential, but because the global media is still proving unable or unwilling to grapple adequately with the story of our warming planet. The IPCC report says "rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented changes" are needed "in all aspects of society" if humanity is to contain the average global temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius. The timeframe the IPCC has set for this is just over a decade - 12 years. "The report is something of a call to arms telling us that the survival of our species depends on a political revolution," says Martin Lukacs, environment writer at The Guardian. But climate change isn't the most-covered ongoing news story in the world. In the US alone, freak weather incidents over the past few years would have justified it being in the headlines every day. However, the link between climate change and weather incidents - that are increasing in intensity and frequency is often never made. A 2017 study by the DC-based Media Matters group into the coverage of Hurricane Harvey found that over a span of two crucial weeks, two main cable news outlets, ABC and NBC, didn't air a single segment mentioning climate change and its link to such weather events. This study isn't the only one of its kind by Media Matters. In July this year, it found that coverage of the heatwave across the US followed a similar pattern. "We looked at reporting on that on the three big TV broadcast networks, their news programmes, and found that those programmes mentioned the heatwave 127 times and only one of those mentioned climate change," explains Lisa Hymas, director of climate and energy programme at Media Matters for America. "This is a real problem and a missed opportunity. Climate change can seem like a really distant or theoretical problem. But when there's extreme weather, that's a real opportunity for the media to talk about climate change and how it affects extreme weather and exacerbates extreme weather." While the media's emphasis on individual awareness is vital, it is, however, out of proportion. The real action needs to come from industry. In 2017, a UK-based non-profit the CDP group (formerly known as the Carbon Disclosure Project) published a report correlating specific volumes of greenhouse gas, GHG, emissions to the actual corporations and industries responsible for them. It found that since 1988, just 100 companies have produced more than 70 percent of the world's GHG emissions. The close ties between media networks and the companies who own them often leave very wiggle room for scrutiny, according to Chandra Bhushan, deputy director of the Centre for Science and Environment. "Many countries who are polluting the climate ... also have a huge influence on media in terms of their contributions to advertisements and support to media. So, media is very quick to talk about what governments need to do, or what people need to do, but they will rarely talk about what corporations need to do." Contributors Lisa Hymas - Director, Climate & Energy Program, Media Matters for America Chandra Bhushan - Deputy director, Centre for Science and Environment; Consulting editor, Down to Earth Alyssa Battistoni - Editorial Board member, Jacobin Martin Lukacs - Environment writer, The Guardian More from The Listening Post on: YouTube - http://aje.io/listeningpostYT Facebook - http://facebook.com/AJListeningPost Twitter - http://twitter.com/AJListeningPost Website - http://aljazeera.com/listeningpost - Subscribe to our channel: http://aje.io/AJSubscribe - Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/AJEnglish - Find us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aljazeera - Check our website: https://www.aljazeera.com/

After a third successive landslide election victory this past April, Prime Minister Viktor Orban's dominance over Hungarian politics is clear. And with allies taking over previously critical news outlets, his influence over the Hungarian media seems equally unassailable. Last month, a member of Orban's ruling coalition took a 50 percent stake in the company that controls advertising revenues for Index.hu, one of Hungary's last news outlets to maintain credibility on both sides of the political spectrum. "The most important question is how the ownership change will affect our independence," says Gabor Miklosi, editor-in-chief of Index.hu. "We set up a an 'independence barometer' on a separate web domain from Index. If we feel that someone is influencing our work then we will change the barometer from 'independent' to either 'at risk' or 'not free'." Following the election, Hungarian media consumers saw the shutdown of the 80-year-old daily newspaper, Magyar Nemzet, and its sister radio station, Lanchid Radio. Under the ownership of Orban-opponent Lajos Simicska, these outlets had maintained a critical stance but suffered big losses after being cut off from state advertising. The sale of Simicska's popular cable news channel, Hir TV, was followed by a shift in editorial line. In 2015, the previously critical news portal Origo was sold to pro-Orban investors. "Origo used to be a competitor of Index and it used to be independent," Miklosi says. "By now, it has been completely degraded and [has become] a propaganda mouthpiece of the government. These tabloids do not function as media, but rather as subsidiaries of the ministry of information." Tabloids such as Ripost serve the sensationalist bottom end of the Hungarian media market. Coverage tends to be dominated by outrage against the EU, migrants and Orban's political enemies. According to some, it's an imported media model that Orban's allies are now promoting in countries outside Hungary's borders. "Ripost is a copycat version of Informer in Serbia," says Zselyke Csaky from Freedom House. "Orban essentially imported something from another country and now, he's exporting it to other countries in the Balkans." Ripost's Hungarian co-owner, Peter Schatz, has been linked with investments in media outlets in both Slovenia and Macedonia. In both cases, Hungarian money effectively bailed out loss-making concerns in the run-up to important national plebiscites. According to Akos Keller-Alant, a journalist at Magyar Narancs, "In Slovenia, they bought media co-owned by the right-wing, nationalist, populist party, the SDS. Viktor Orban personally campaigned for SDS leader Janez Jansa during the recent election campaign. In Macedonia, Hungarian-owned media outlets called for a boycott of a referendum on changing of the country's official name to enable it to join the European Union. Both there and in Slovenia, Hungarian-owned media disseminates far-right, populist messages." On September 12, the European Parliament voted to trigger Article 7 of the EU's treaties against Hungary over the rollback of human rights and civil liberties in the country, including freedom and plurality in the media. The Article 7 process could lead to Hungary having its EU voting rights suspended. In this context, and with the 2019 elections for the European Parliament approaching, Hungarian investments in the media of other EU and prospective EU member states fit with Orban's ambition to form an alliance in central and southeastern Europe around anti-integration and anti-migrant politics. "On the one hand, they provide know-how. How to rule the media landscape, how to set the public agenda, how to run a propaganda media network," explains Agnes Urban of Mertek Media Monitor. "On the other hand, we see 'shopping trip' acquisitions with no genuine business motivations. As in Hungary, it is not lucrative to run a propaganda machine, however, it does pay off in politics." Contributors Agnes Urban - Economist, Mertek Media Monitor Gabor Miklosi - Editor-in-chief, Index.hu Zselyke Csaky - Senior researcher, Freedom House Akos Keller-Alant - Journalist, Magyar Narancs Sandra Basic-Hrvatin - Head of Media Studies, University of Primorska - Subscribe to our channel: http://aje.io/AJSubscribe - Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/AJEnglish - Find us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aljazeera - Check our website: https://www.aljazeera.com/

On this week's The Listening Post: The UN's new climate report says "unprecedented changes" are needed now, so how should the media change? Plus, Viktor Orban's media allies eye outlets outside Hungary. Climate change: Do we need a total media overhaul? Only a small proportion of news consumers will have heard about the report released earlier this month by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the IPCC. Not because the report was dull or inconsequential but because the global media is still proving unable - or unwilling - to grapple adequately with the story of our warming planet. With scientists agreed that the world has just 12 years left to limit the global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius, coverage of the IPCC report was a flash in the pan - an initial wave of headlines receding as quickly as they emerged. Climate change is the world's most significant existential challenge and those who want to cover it are still wondering how to convey its size and scale. The Listening Post's Meenakshi Ravi reports on the coverage of the IPCC report and what it reveals about the state of climate reporting today. Contributors: Lisa Hymas - Director, Climate & Energy Program, Media Matters for America Chandra Bhushan - Deputy director, Centre for Science and Environment; Consulting editor, Down to Earth Alyssa Battistoni - Editorial Board member, Jacobin Martin Lukacs - Environment writer, The Guardian On our radar Barbara Serra speaks to producer Flo Phillips about how the disappearance of Jamal Khashoggi is putting Washington Post contributors under the spotlight; as well as three more journalists arrested in Myanmar under another colonial-era law. Exporting Hungary's media model After two consecutive terms in power, and another landslide election victory this past April, there seems to be little that can threaten the rule of Viktor Orban in Hungary. However, the project to consolidate his power over the media is still in progress. In the eight years since Orban's Fidesz party swept to victory in 2010, numerous media outlets have been shut down or seen drastic changes in their editorial line, often after changes in ownership. This is why alarm bells rang last month when Orban allies closed in on Index.hu, the last remaining outlet read and respected on both sides of Hungary's political divide. Hungary watchers are also observing how the Orban media model is gaining a foothold in countries such as Macedonia and Slovenia where Orban allies are promoting the Hungarian Prime Minister's pan-European agenda through media investments. The Listening Post's Will Yong reports. Contributors: Agnes Urban - Economist, Mertek Media Monitor Gabor Miklosi - Editor-in-chief, Index.hu Zselyke Csaky - Senior researcher, Freedom House Akos Keller-Alant - Journalist, Magyar Narancs Sandra Basic-Hrvatin - Head of Media Studies, University of Primorska More from The Listening Post on: YouTube - http://aje.io/listeningpostYT Facebook - http://facebook.com/AJListeningPost Twitter - http://twitter.com/AJListeningPost Website - http://aljazeera.com/listeningpost - Subscribe to our channel: http://aje.io/AJSubscribe - Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/AJEnglish - Find us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aljazeera - Check our website: https://www.aljazeera.com/

It has been one week since Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a insider-turned-critic of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), has disappeared after walking into the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. The Khashoggi story not only sends a chilling message to independent Saudi voices everywhere, it takes Mohammed bin Salman's well-known intolerance for internal criticism, and the House of Saud's utter ambivalence to the disapproval of outsiders to a new level. And it provides yet more evidence of the folly of some in the western media commentariat who have bought into the image of MBS as an enlightened prince and reformer. "There's different dimensions to this," explains Rami Khouri, professor of journalism at the American University of Beirut. "But they all come together in the fact that the current Saudi government has clamped down really hard on ... any kind of independent opinion that is not completely echoing the government line. They don't like it. And they're trying to stop it." News of Khashoggi's disappearance was initially greeted by silence from the Saudi Arabian government and the media outlets it controls. The story was being driven from Turkey, but not at the political level. The anonymous sources quoted in the Turkish media, the ones who reportedly described an "assassination squad" of 15 Saudis landing on two private jets that same day, were from Turkish police and intelligence. It was not until day five that the first real signs of a counter-narrative emerged in the Saudi media space - offering a number of possible culprits, none of whom happened to be Saudi. While Saudi attempts to hijack the online narrative on this story have proven ineffective, past charm offensives aimed at the Western mainstream media have not. MBS effectively took power fewer than 18 months ago with promises of reform, including his decision to finally allow Saudi women to drive, along with a carefully choreographed media tour in the US. News outlets that are usually sceptical of Saudi propaganda, including The BBC, the Guardian, The Washington Post and the NYT, bought in, producing positive stories and editorials. "You really have to believe that some of it was a willful ignorance," says journalist Sarah Aziza. "Thomas Friedman calling MBS the 'embodiment' of Saudi Arabia's Arab Spring, deliberately ignoring the obvious violations of these principles in the arrests of journalists and the crackdown on women activists and other illiberal policies that MBS oversaw." According to Khouri, "The lesson of this is don't fall for these propaganda campaigns when they are presented by Arab governments or any government. Demand facts, demand proof and judge people on their actions and not just their nice words. This is a lesson for journalists everywhere." The disappearance of Jamal Khashoggi will resonate with journalists and all kinds of other voices - from activists to dissidents to would-be revolutionaries - and not just in the Middle East. "Authoritarian governments the world over and even democratic countries as well make these choices. The silencing of voices, the silencing of journalists seems to be a top priority for many governments around the world from the US to Russia to the Arab world," says Omar al-Ghazzi, assistant professor of media at the London School of Economics. Contributors Rami Khouri - Professor of journalism, American University, Beirut Omar al-Ghazzi - Assistant professor of media, London School of Economics Sarah Aziza - Journalist Ahmad bin Said - Media scholar and columnist - Subscribe to our channel: http://aje.io/AJSubscribe - Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/AJEnglish - Find us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aljazeera - Check our website: https://www.aljazeera.com/

With the rise of online players, the old advertising model of supporting news media is largely a thing of the past. As a consequence, more and more media outlets are now boosting their balance sheets by selling a new kind of service to corporate customers, their ability to tell stories and connect with audiences. "In a very short period of time, money which predominantly went to magazines, newspapers, now goes to online platforms," Angela Phillips, professor of journalism at Goldsmiths, University of London, told The Listening Post. "Against that background, news publishers started looking for a new way of sucking advertising back in and what they said to advertisers was, 'Why don't you let us design your ads for you'?" In recent years, a growing number of news outlets have established in-house teams for the production of what many in the industry have termed native advertising - branded content on behalf of corporate clients that often looks and feels like journalistic content. A 2017 survey by the Native Advertising Institute found that 50 percent of the media organisations it questioned considered native advertising to be "very important" to their business. According to Ava Sirrah, PhD candidate at CUNY Graduate School of Journalism and former creative strategist for the New York Times' T-Brand Studio, "There's always been a relationship between industry, companies, PR firms, ad agencies and reporters. However, native advertising is very different because a reporter can hang up on a public relations call, right? Well, what happens when the native advertising agency exists one floor above you? When both of you work at the same publication." Respected names in the news business, such as the New York Times, stress the strict separation between "church" - the personnel responsible for editorial content, and "state" - the business side of the organisation. "Something that is never to be tampered with is the utter independence of our newsroom from the commercial interest of an individual advertiser," said Meredith Kopit Levien, EVP and chief operating officer of the New York Times. "We had to create a group of people who could go out and make stories for brands that were entirely separate from the newsroom operation of the New York Times. We would share the storytelling tools. But we would never share the storytellers." However, the church-state distinction is one which London's large circulation free newspaper, the Evening Standard, appears to have blurred to the point of erasure. Back in May, an expose by Open Democracy revealed that the Standard was offering not just branded content but "money can't buy" positive news and "favourable" comment pieces that would appear to readers as journalism. "What you're actually saying is, we're going to hoodwink our audience so that our audience doesn't realise that you've paid us. And your name will just slip into the news coverage," said Phillips. "Now, this really does blur the line between what is permissible as advertising, as paid for content, and what is not." For Janine Jackson of Freedom and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), that gets to the heart of the problem with native advertising. "With native advertising, your ad seems to be a little bit more under the aegis of this respectable news organisation. Native advertising is just an effort to confuse readers to think that they're getting something other than an ad." Contributors Meredith Kopit Levien - EVP & chief operating officer, The New York Times Angela Phillips - Professor, Goldsmiths University of London Ava Sirrah - PhD candidate, CUNY Graduate School of Journalism and former T-Brand Creative Strategist Janine Jackson - Programme director, FAIR More from The Listening Post on: YouTube - http://aje.io/listeningpostYT Facebook - http://facebook.com/AJListeningPost Twitter - http://twitter.com/AJListeningPost Website - http://aljazeera.com/listeningpost - Subscribe to our channel: http://aje.io/AJSubscribe - Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/AJEnglish - Find us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aljazeera - Check our website: https://www.aljazeera.com/

On The Listening Post this week: Conflicting narratives and the mystery of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi's disappearance. Plus, native advertising and the shifting economics of the news. The disappearance of Jamal Khashoggi The disappearance of Jamal Khashoggi, the Saudi Arabian journalist in exile who walked into the Saudi consulate in Istanbul last week and never came out, is the subject of intense, international media speculation. Turkish officials are theorising Khashoggi was killed in the consulate, and the Saudis insist that he came and left. And it has produced a level of news coverage seldom afforded Arab dissidents who just disappear. That's because Khashoggi was not just a dissident, he was a former insider-turned-critic of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, and he had a platform at his disposal - The Washington Post. His disappearance not only sends a chilling message to independent Saudi voices everywhere, it takes Mohammed bin Salman's well-known intolerance for internal criticism, and the House of Saud's utter ambivalence to the disapproval of outsiders, to a new level. Contributors Rami Khouri - Professor of journalism, American University, Beirut Omar al-Ghazzi - Assistant professor of media, London School of Economics Sarah Aziza - Journalist Ahmad bin Said - Media scholar and columnist On our radar Richard Gizbert speaks to producer Flo Phillips about the murder of Bulgarian investigative journalist Viktoria Marinova, and the #MeToo movement finally hitting the Indian news and entertainment world. Native advertising: The new business behind the news business Of all the industries disrupted and upended by the internet, the news business is right up there on the list. Newsrooms have shrunk. Many papers have simply stopped printing, since ad space is no longer the valued commodity it was. Responding to this new reality, many of the biggest names in news have started to sell a new kind of service based on their ability to connect with readers. It's now available to corporate clients to burnish their image. And it's the kind of content a reader might see on that site anyway, even mistake for journalism, which is why this expanding industry is known as "native advertising". In their defence, news executives stress the separation of church - the editorial staff, and state - the business side. But consumers are understandably confused about content that got its start in business meetings rather than editorial ones. The Listening Post's Will Yong looks at some of the big names in print that have already starting blurring that boundary. Contributors Meredith Kopit Levien - EVP & chief operating officer, The New York Times Angela Phillips - Professor, Goldsmiths University of London Ava Sirrah - PhD candidate, CUNY Graduate School of Journalism and former T-Brand Creative Strategist Janine Jackson - Programme director, FAIR More from The Listening Post on: YouTube - http://aje.io/listeningpostYT Facebook - http://facebook.com/AJListeningPost Twitter - http://twitter.com/AJListeningPost Website - http://aljazeera.com/listeningpost

Brazil's far-right presidential candidate Jair Bolsonaro has been described by some as Donald Trump meets Filipino President Rodrigo Duterte - and like them, he has turned the mainstream media into his useful enemies. Bolsonaro has a 10-point lead in the polls in a country whose traditional parties have been stained by scandal. A populist outsider has moved into the political vacuum. "It's no accident that he (Bolsonaro) is leading in the polls," according to Gisele Federicce, editor of Brasil 247. "He's not the frontrunner by chance. He's a candidate who's very strong on Whatsapp, on social media. People get a lot of feeds, lots of videos from Bolsonaro." Brazilians aren't merely on social media. They are, to an unusual degree, involved. The Facebook numbers there are through the roof. And when polled recently on whether they had used social media as a source of news over the past week, two out of three Brazilians - 66 percent - said yes. That's more than twice as high as Germany, almost 50 percent higher than the US. TV is still important to Brazilians but the flow of information about the election is much greater on Whatsapp. Ygor Salles, social media editor, Folha de Sao Paulo Brazil is Facebook's third-largest market and more than half of the population there is on Whatsapp, where Bolsonaro has an edge over other candidates. "TV is still important to Brazilians but the flow of information about the election is much greater on Whatsapp," says Ygor Salles, social media editor at Folha de Sao Paulo. When Brazilians talk about the media establishment, they're talking about Globo TV. It's the biggest media company in Latin America, hugely influential and the bane of the Brazilian left, because it's conservative and has traditionally played the role of political kingmaker. Right-wing candidates have always courted Globo, but Jair Bolsonaro didn't bother, knowing he was too far right for the network's taste and betting he didn't need the network. He hasn't taken part in any televised debates since last month's stabbing, saying he couldn't because he's still recovering. Not everyone believes that. "He preferred not to appear on the debate aired on Globo ... because he knows that he could make mistakes and expose himself to attack from his opponents, especially given his controversial proposals," says Salles. The final debate of Round 1 took place this past Thursday - three days before voting day. And again, Bolsonaro was a no-show. While his opponents were debating each other on Globo, he did an interview on a rival network, which then revealed it was backing him. Before calling it a night, though, he spent a little time on Facebook Live talking to his supporters on the device that has driven his campaign, changed Brazilian politics and the way it is covered. His phone. Lead contributors Cesar Jimenez Martinez - Media scholar, Loughborough University Gisele Federicce - Editor, Brasil 247 Ygor Salles - Social media editor, Folha de Sao Paulo Douglas Garcia - Founder, Direita Sao Paulo - Subscribe to our channel: http://aje.io/AJSubscribe - Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/AJEnglish - Find us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aljazeera - Check our website: https://www.aljazeera.com/