The Listening Post

Congolese journalists covering the anti-government protests that have rocked the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) for the past year and a half are telling vastly different stories, depending on the outlet they work for. In a media landscape that is heavily politicised, reporters are presenting conflicting narratives, too often based on political interests rather than facts. Many journalists have been arrested, beaten up, or had their material destroyed. It leads to self-censorship because journalists are afraid. It goes to show the government's desire to control the flow of information and essentially, to stop journalists from doing their job of informing the public. Tshivis Tshivuad, secretary-general, Journaliste en Danger Nearly 15 years since the end of the civil war, the majority of the DRC's media outlets - approximately 80 percent - are in the hands, or under direct control, of politicians. To explain why this is the case, you have to rewind a couple of decades, to the 1990s, when the 30-year rule of President Mobutu Sese Seko officially came to an end. "Before 1990, under the dictatorship, there were only two or three media outlets, all of which acted as the government's megaphone. But after 1990 we had a period of political openness and there was a media explosion - hundreds of radio stations, newspapers and TV channels were created: every politician wanted their own media outlet, not to disseminate information, but rather for political propaganda," explains Tshivis Tshivuad, secretary-general of Congolese press freedom organisation Journaliste en Danger. With funding tied to political interests, journalists in the DRC are restricted in the stories they can - and cannot - tell. Jennifer Bakody, a former journalist at UN-funded Radio Okapi, says that "the crux of the problems in the Congo is money. Congolese journalists need salaries. The work that they are doing serves a very important function in society but is rarely salaried in the way that we understand it to be. The money that a journalist receives is directly tied to the stories that he or she covers. The issue then very much becomes brown envelope journalism." Guy Muyembe, president of blogging conglomerate Habari DRC, explains that political ownership has serious consequences for journalists' ability to deliver objective information. "Owners intervene and define the editorial line, they force you to cover some topics and not others - for example, prioritising the coverage of political meetings or the companies funding their activities, rather than everyday life. Freedom of the press is completely restricted - there is no chance to be independent and this creates big problems." But political financing - and the brown envelope journalism and corruption that go hand in hand - are not the only problems journalists in the DRC are facing. Reporters who criticise the government or the country's numerous militia organisations - through stories of human rights abuses, mismanagement or corruption - face the threat of harassment, arrest, and even murder. Eliezer Tambwe, editor of Tokomo Wapi, an online outlet that calls for the resignation of President Joseph Kabila, was arrested by security forces in March. He believes his arrest was the result of his coverage of the nation-wide protests. "My reporting was upsetting the regime, and that's definitely why I was arrested. I was showing the public that it is not right that the government is spilling people's blood, that it is suppressing people who are just demanding their rights. Because I was doing that, they needed to find a reason to silence me." And it's not just Tambwe. "Many journalists have been arrested, beaten up, or had their material destroyed," says Tshivuad. "It leads to self-censorship because journalists are afraid. It goes to show the government's desire to control the flow of information and essentially, to stop journalists from doing their job of informing the public." Contributors: Tshivis Tshivuad, secretary-general, Journaliste en Danger Jennifer Bakody, author of Radio Okapi Kindu: The Station That Helped Bring Peace to The Congo, and former journalist at Radio Okapi Eliezer Tambwe, editor, Tokomo Wapi Fiston Kamanda, journalist, RTNC Guy Muyembe, president, Habari RDC 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: President Erdogan wins Turkey's elections with the media singing from the same hymn sheet. Plus, polarised media narratives in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Turkey's elections and the media When Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan delivered his re-election victory speech last week, he spoke of "one nation, one flag, one state". He could have taken it a step further and talked about one media and one voice - his own. Because that's the way the campaign was covered. The main state-owned TV channel, TRT, acted as if it was state-run and privately-owned broadcasters weren't much better. Since coming to power in 2003, Erdogan has overseen a restructuring of the country's media space. Hundreds of journalists have been jailed. And hundreds of media outlets have been shut down, accused of terrorism. A lot was riding on this election. As the victor, Erdogan is set to take up the sweeping new powers he says will help him put Turkey's economy back on track. His critics say he now has carte blanche to further silence dissent. Contributors: Yavuz Baydar, journalist, P24 Aydin Unal, columnist, Yeni Safak newspaper & MP, AK Party Jane Louise Kandur, columnist, Daily Sabah & Board Member, AK Party Mehvis Evin, journalist, Dinkin Online On our radar Richard Gizbert speaks to producer Will Yong about the previously unknown extent of US telecommunications company AT&T's role in surveillance. And they discuss Pakistani newspaper Dawn's distribution problems that have come after they published criticism of the military. Politicised narratives in DR Congo For the past year and a half, the Democratic Republic of the Congo has been in a state of political unrest. The country's president, Joseph Kabila, has refused to give up power - despite term limits stipulated in the constitution that meant he should have left office by December of 2016. Protests have occurred nationwide since then. Journalists trying to cover the demonstrations have been arrested, threatened and harassed by both the police and the intelligence service. But journalists in the DRC face more than threats and intimidation. Eighty percent of Congolese media outlets are in the hands of - or controlled by - politicians. That means all kinds of stories of corruption, mismanagement, and human rights abuses go untold. The Listening Post's Johanna Hoes reports on the state of journalism in the DRC, and a media space in which information has become as splintered as politics. Contributors: Tshivis Tshivuad, secretary general, Journaliste en Danger Jennifer Bakody, author of Radio Okapi Kindu: The Station That Helped Bring Peace to The Congo Eliezer Tambwe, editor, Tokomi Wapi Fiston Kamanda, journalist, RTNC Guy Muyembe, president, Habari RDC 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/

The recent Saudi and UAE-led coalition's assault on the strategic Yemeni port city of Hudaida has forced an estimated 30,000 Yemenis to flee their homes and puts at risk the lives of some 22 million Yemenis who depend on Hodeidah as the main gateway for imports of relief supplies and commercial goods. More than 10,000 people have died in the war in Yemen, which has entered its fourth year, and about 80 percent of the population is in need of humanitarian aid. Yet Yemen's conflict, which has been described as the "forgotten war" by Amnesty International, receives little media coverage. If covered, western news outlets consistently portray the conflict as a proxy war between Iranian-backed Houthi-led militias and Yemenis. But how much attention has been given to the US and the UK, whose billion-dollar weapons sales and military assistance have enabled wealthy Gulf states to wage war against the poorest country in the Middle East? "The conflict has been cast in ways that have been very misleading to a US or UK audience," says Shireen al-Adeimi, assistant professor at Michigan State University. "People don't realise how involved our governments are in creating this catastrophe in Yemen. It's construed as something that just is happening somewhere to people who are fighting each other - casting it as a sectarian war, and more often as a proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran which is completely misguided." Since the war began in 2015, the US and the UK have sold more than $12bn worth of weapons to Saudi Arabia alone - including some of the warplanes and the payloads they drop. The American military also provides midair refuelling for Saudi and UAE aircraft, and both British and US personnel assist the Saudis as they target their strikes - hundreds of which have killed civilians. "When you have coverage which doesn't really provide context or a proper understanding of the key actors in a conflict and also the role of our own governments, publics are left with a sense of a confused conflict where it's not clear who's right or wrong, it's not clear whether or not we're involved in it," says Piers Robinson, a professor at the University of Sheffield. "These are big political, economic and military relationships which would cause increasing degrees of public dissent if people were fully aware of what's going on. And you've got to remember, there is a close relationship between government officials and journalists." Last year, CBS newsmagazine 60 Minutes broadcast a 13-minute in-depth report on the war that openly criticised Saudi Arabia but made not a single mention of the US role in the conflict, the weapons sales or the military and logistical support. And MSNBC, the 24-hour news channel that Americans consider to be on the liberal side of the political spectrum, dedicated less than four minutes to coverage of the war. The trend is a "shocking failure of journalists to push back on the government's own narratives", says the Intercept's Alex Emmons. "The fact that journalists are not scrutinising it more just demonstrates that in American media culture it really is ok to devalue the lives of people in the Middle East, and the people that the United States tramples on to obtain its policy goals." 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/

Seen as one of the most contentious aspects of the Syrian war, the alleged use of chemical weapons has alternately shocked and confused media outlets and consumers alike. Chemical attacks, said to be conducted by the Bashar al-Assad regime against rebel forces since 2012, have elicited the most widely broadcast footage of the war. However, the legitimacy of footage procured, the motives of specific sources, news outlets and individuals, and the validity - and at times lack thereof - of the evidence put forward have all created an information war, with players battling to make sense of the "facts" at hand. "We should be sceptical of everything coming out of Syria, because, at the end of the day, there's not people on the ground to actually know what's happening," says journalist and co-presenter of podcast Unauthorized Disclosure, Rania Khalek. "Reporters can't go in, civilians can't go out. So, internet videos are the only evidence of their suffering. All we're hearing is from biased sources, whether it be the Syrian government, or whether it be Western governments or insurgents on the ground who have been pushing for regime change. We should be sceptical of all allegations coming out of this war." Writer at global news and current affairs publication Foreign Policy, Elias Groll, echoes Khalek's sentiment and cites the historical false claims of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq as a potentially equivocal comparison to what could be happening in Syria. "The Iraq War is exhibit-A for why it is so important to critically evaluate these types of statements by the government," says Groll. "It shattered trust in government, it shattered trust in media, there was not enough critical reporting." Max Blumenthal, journalist and editor of online news website the Grayzone Project, is of the opinion that regime change has taken precedence over the verity of the facts put forward. "I cannot think of one pundit on the national scene, in cable news or in any major newspaper who has questioned the drive for regime change in Syria," says Blumenthal. "And so, it's really left to a small group of journalists and online activists to really sift through what we believe is disinformation from our own governments aimed at stimulating a war of regime change." While the Syrian war remains one of the most-covered military conflicts in the history of the world, propaganda, misinformation and denialism continue to create a labyrinth of truths and falsities for journalists to decipher. And it appears whether a more satisfactory explanation is available or not, the average consumer will continue to imbibe whatever information is easiest to digest. "People generally have less time to read an 80-page report from the United Nations," says Kristyan Benedict, campaign manager at Amnesty International. "They're going to pick the tweet which says, Jaysh al-Islam were responsible for the attack in Douma. And they're going to go with that because they have a sense that that's some information that they can run with. It's easily digestible. It's like the McDonald's of information." - 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: As the assault on Hodeidah makes news, we examine flaws in coverage of the wider war in Yemen. Plus, the warring narratives around chemical attacks in Syria. How US and UK media report the war in Yemen A conflict described by Amnesty International as the "forgotten war", Yemen has found itself in the news this past week. The reason was an assault by the combined forces of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates on the port city of Hodeidah. While it's the Saudi-led coalition that has waged this war for the past three years, many media outlets describe Yemen as a proxy war, hence the term 'Iran-backed Houthi rebels'. But what about the US and the UK whose weapons sales and military assistance have enabled the Gulf states to carry on the war? For British and US journalists that should make Yemen a foreign war with plenty of domestic angles. But you wouldn't know it from the kind of coverage - and the overall lack of it. Contributors: Piers Robinson, chair in Politics, Society and Political Journalism, University of Sheffield Alex Emmons, reporter, The Intercept Shireen al-Adeimi, assistant professor, Michigan State University Hashem Ahelbarra, senior correspondent, Al Jazeera On our radar Richard Gizbert speaks to producer Flo Phillips about the brutal murder of a Kashmiri editor which has sent a chilling message to anyone trying to report from region. And, in the US - despite some access issues - media coverage of the thousands of children taken from their parents by border authorities has been almost non-stop. Syria's chemical attacks: Smoke and mirrors, truth and lies In seven years of fighting in Syria, it's the chemical weapons attacks - like the most recent suspected attack in the city of Douma - that have produced some of the most widely broadcast footage and the most heated debates. Arguments over authenticity of the footage, credibility of the analysis, motives and flaws in the reporting are intense and ongoing. To call this an information war is to sell it short, and attempting to navigate through it is far from easy. The Listening Post's Meenakshi Ravi reports on the seeming impossibility of understanding one of the most contentious aspects of the Syrian war, the use of chemical weapons. Contributors: Max Blumenthal, founder and editor, Grayzone Project Kristyan Benedict, campaign manager, Amnesty International Rania Khalek, co-host, Unauthorized Disclosure Podcast Elias Groll, writer, Foreign Policy 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/

In the television and internet age, international summits are often studded with dramatics, especially where diplomacy and summit meetings are concerned. But two indelible images from two very different summits over the past fortnight could not have told more contrasting stories. They first saw US President Donald Trump defying - and then walking out on - allies at the G7 meeting in Canada - an image posted on the Instagram account of German Chancellor Angela Merkel. In the second, the same US president got down to business with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, who Trump described as "talented". In both cases, journalists found themselves covering a president who, again, seemed to put more thought into the spectacle - and the Twitter feed at his disposal - than the political substance. The images also split consumers by political viewpoint, demonstrating how influential information and images produced from these landmark summits can be. Dan Nexon is an associate professor at Georgetown University, who says that these theatrics can translate into many different scenarios, depending on the viewer. "Critics of President Trump say this is President Trump isolated, and so it feeds into that pre-existing narrative. For his supporters, it looked [like] this is how America should be with every other leader gathered around him. So, a sign of American strength, status and position in the dominance hierarchy," explains Nexon of the image from the G7 meeting. In the case of the profound handshake imagery from the historic meeting between President Trump and Kim Jong-un, political science professor Bruce Miroff says this has provided a stark contrast with the G7 image from the same week. "The symbolic meaning of a 13-second handshake in this visual form is the establishment of a physical and therefore a personal bond between the two leaders. So the first image [from the G7 meeting] is one of alienation, opposition and even international condemnation of Trump. The second is Trump claiming that he has, in a sense, made peace in the very first gesture of the summit." This kind of orchestrated political performance is widely welcomed by many as the media spectacle is fed and Trump's modus operandi of providing vague to little detail is conveniently swept aside in favour of the imagery. "It's sort of reality TV. It's like the society of the spectacle. And he's very good at it. With Trump, we don't know what's going to happen next and that's what makes it a soap opera," says journalist and author Pepe Escobar. "And you, as a journalist, you should try to intersect and cross-reference the absolute craziness of the ongoing show ... is there any substance in all this?"

On The Listening Post this week: We examine Trump's theatrics at the G7 summit and his meeting with North Korea's Kim Jong-un in Singapore. Plus, the role fixers play in journalism. Trump on the international stage In the television and internet age, international summits always involve a hefty dose of stagecraft. But two indelible images from two different summits over the past fortnight could not have told more contrasting stories. They first saw US President Donald Trump defying - and then walking out on - allies at the G7 meeting in Canada. In the second, the same US president got down to business with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, who Trump described as 'talented'. In both cases, journalists found themselves covering a president who, again, seemed to put more thought into the spectacle - and the Twitter feed at his disposal - than the political substance. Contributors: Daniel Nexon, associate professor, Georgetown University Pepe Escobar, journalist and author Sabrina Siddiqui, political reporter, The Guardian US Bruce Miroff, professor of Political Science, University at Albany On our radar Richard Gizbert speaks to producer Flo Phillips about a new cyber security law in Vietnam; and the false rumours circulating on WhatsApp that have had deadly consequences in India. Fixers: The unsung heroes in the news business? When an article gets published from a foreign country, the byline tells us who wrote it. The television equivalent of that is the on-air sign-off. But few news organisations credit the fixer, the local hire who secures that critical interview, gets access to that all-important location, or helps navigate a story rife with regional complexities. Fixers know the local news terrain and open doors few foreign correspondents can hope to open on their own. They're expected to play a double role: part editorial consultant, part security specialist. But while many risk their lives in the process, seldom do they get the credit their work deserves. The Listening Post's Will Yong on fixers, so often the unsung, uncredited story behind the stories. Contributors: Shayna Plaut, research manager, Global Reporting Centre Zeina Khodr, senior correspondent, Al Jazeera Khaled Abu Ghali, Gaza-based fixer Inky Nakpil, cofounder, Fixer Ink 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/

Earlier this month, news spread of the murder of a Russian dissident journalist Arkady Babchenko - shot and killed outside his apartment in Kiev, Ukraine. Except, as we all now know, it never happened. The killing had been staged, his "resurrection" broadcast live at a press conference the following day. Babchenko said he faked his own death as part of an operation led by the Ukrainian security services to thwart a plot by Moscow to kill him. He said it was about survival. It's that relationship - a journalist working with a spy agency - with which organisations like the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), based in New York, take issue. "CPJ takes quite a dim view of law enforcement impersonating journalists," explains Nina Ognianova of CPJ. "Now, with Arkady Babchenko basically acting as a police asset, one clear damage is to public trust for the media and for journalists." For Mark Galeotti at the Institute of International Relations, Prague, "The point this is not a does Babchenko live or die binary. What's become the story is not the threat to journalists. It has become the whole fake threat to journalists." Babchenko's story is also part of an ongoing media battle, and a larger geopolitical conflict between the Western-backed government in Ukraine and Russia, which says the initial breathless coverage of the Babchenko story is yet another example of how much of the international media are intent on smearing the Kremlin. "This whole thing initially contained all the perfect ingredients for a great anti-Russian story and the Ukrainian authorities and the Ukrainian media have been very successful sellers of 'Russophobia' over a number of years," says Alexei Kuznetsov, deputy news editor at RT. In both the Babchenko case in Ukraine and the recent Skripal case in the UK, in which former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter were poisoned, fingers were quickly pointed at Moscow. The problem in both cases has been evidence, the lack of it, and the tendency of news organisations in Ukraine, the UK and elsewhere to accept the word of local authorities and publish accordingly. That's not journalism, it's stenography - and it plays right into the hands of the Kremlin and the media apparatus it has at its disposal. "On one level, this is a conventional conflict being fought out with guns and missiles," explains Galeotti. "On the other hand, it's also an information conflict and the Russians have sort of blown out this great cloud of conspiracy theories and outright nonsense really just almost giving a sense of, 'Look, we'll never know what's going on.' That's been one of the Russian strengths, is actually a capacity to create this sense where truth is unknowable. The information war is every bit as important as the one of the ground." Contributors: Ayder Muzhdabaev, deputy director general, ATR Television Network Nina Ognianova, Committee to Protect Journalists Alexei Kuznetsov, deputy news editor, RT Mark Galeotti, Institute of International Relations, Prague - 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/

When TV producer Mostafa Azizi returned to visit Iran six years ago, he was surprised to find that almost everyone he knew was watching the then relatively new TV channel, Manoto. "What guaranteed the channel's success was their access to Iranian archive footage from the period before the revolution," he said in an interview with The Listening Post. These images take viewers back in time and paint a glorious picture of pre-revolutionary Iran - women are walking unveiled, Iran's royal family are dining with world leaders, arts and culture are celebrated, men and women dance together. If Iran was so great back then, you might wonder, why did the 1979 revolution and the overthrow of the Shah ever happen? "Just as the Iranian government selectively choses footage to create a very negative image of that time, Manoto cherrypicks glorious and beautiful archives that do not provide a true picture of historical reality to viewers," said Azizi, who used to produce films for Iran's state broadcaster but has not been back to the country since he was arrested in 2015 for "insulting the supreme leader" on social media. Nearly four decades ago in Iran, protesters pulled down statues of the Pahlavi family and called for the then-Shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, to step down. He was seen as a "Westoxicated" leader, disconnected from the masses and kept in power by a coup in 1953, which was backed by the CIA and British agents. By the end of his reign, he had become a despot, obsessed with controlling newspapers, the parliament and cinema - using a brutal secret police force, the Savak, to intimidate those who crossed the line. Those mass protests became the Islamic Revolution and in 1979 a new government was formed. The regime changed but the Iranian obsession with controlling the media remains. Today, in the Islamic Republic of Iran, all broadcasters are state-controlled and satellite dishes are officially banned. Unofficially, however, satellite dishes dot the skyline, meaning Iranians have more access than ever before to uncensored entertainment, for the most part, produced and published abroad. Diaspora channels popped up in the immediate aftermath of the revolution, first in Los Angeles and then in Dubai, Toronto, London and other places. Manoto, which started broadcasting out of London in 2010, has become one of the most popular. "Manoto started its broadcast for audiences inside Iran to provide them with entertainment and news that they would otherwise not receive," said Nazenin Ansari, managing editor of diaspora news outlet Kayhan London. "Certainly, all the channels inside Iran are censored, certain topics are taboo. Manoto provided those topics such as monarchy, which has been the biggest taboo." Manoto's stock in trade is entertainment laced with nostalgia. Politics isn't absent from its programming - it's just less hamfisted and glossier. The channel showcases Iran's rich pre-revolutionary culture, the social freedoms enjoyed by Iranians, and the achievements of the Pahlavi monarchy, while skirting past the oppression, censorship, inequality and human rights abuses during the regime. "I believe that they are targeting the middle class inside of Iran, [who] at this point in time are feeling nostalgic towards those social freedoms which were taken from them," says Azizi. "[Manoto's] programmes have caused the new generation, who haven't experienced life in the Iran of the 1970s, to now own the nostalgia that once belonged to their parents and to view that time as a lost paradise." 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: Russian journalist Arkady Babchenko faked his death to escape his killers but his stunt could cause problems for the media. Plus, nostalgia producers in Iranian diaspora media. Playing dead: Arkady Babchenko and post-truth conflict Last week, news spread of the murder of a Russian dissident journalist Arkahdy Babchenko, shot and killed outside his apartment in Kiev, Ukraine. Except as we all now know, it never happened. Babchenko said he faked his own death as part of an operation alongside Ukrainian security services to thwart a plot to kill him. He said it was about survival, but media freedom advocates have been critical saying the stunt undermined Ukraine's credibility and could have serious consequences for other journalists down the road. Contributors: Ayder Muzhdabaev, deputy director general, ATR Television Network Nina Ognianova, Committee to Protect Journalists Alexei Kuznetsov, deputy news editor, RT Mark Galeotti, Institute of International Relations, Prague On our radar Richard Gizbert speaks to producer Will Yong about the British government's decision to allow Rupert Murdoch's 21st Century Fox to buy the rest of the European satellite broadcaster Sky, but there are strings attached; and in Uganda, new legislation could soon see a special tax imposed on social media users. Producing nostalgia: Iranian Diaspora TV's rebranding of the Shah All broadcasters in the Islamic Republic of Iran are state owned and operated, which means much of the programming can be a bit dull. Despite a ban on satellite receivers tuned into broadcasts from overseas, foreign channels, many of them run by members of Iran's widespread diaspora are watched illegally, within the country. Some of these satellite channels, like UK-based Manoto TV, have pioneered a genre of television you could call 'nostalgia TV' - documentaries and entertainment programmes that harken back more than three decades to when Iran was ruled by the Pahlavi monarchy. The Listening Post's Meenakshi Ravi looks at the Iranian diaspora media and the rose-tinting of Iran's pre-revolutionary history. Contributors: Niki Akhavan, assistant professor of media, Catholic University of America Ali Ansari, history professor, University of St Andrews Nazenin Ansari, managing editor, Kayhan London Mostafa Azizi, TV producer 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/

In India last week, newspapers and television channels were conspicuously silent on a story that should have been major news. Cobrapost, an investigative news site with a penchant for undercover exposes, posted videos from a secret camera sting operation targeting 27 Indian media outlets, including some of the country's biggest. "The story's not just about paid news, it is something beyond, they are getting to defame the political rivals of the client, they agreed to take compensation in cash," said Aniruddha Bahal, Cobrapost's editor-in-chief. "They even agreed to not only peddle an ideology, but also in many ways a lot of them agreed to polarise Indian society. So, in those terms, this is beyond paid news, this is criminal behaviour," he told Al Jazeera. Cobrapost called its expose Operation 136. That number refers to India's ranking in the media watchdog Reporter's Without Borders' 2017 world press freedom index. It's well down the list – and has since slipped in the 2018 rankings, to 138. Operation 136 was met with silence from most of India's mainstream outlets. They hardly covered it. Of the outlets targeted, four took legal steps by obtaining injunctions or issuing legal notices to Cobrapost, forcing the site to take down some of its videos. India's largest media conglomerate, The Times Group, took a different tack. After its Managing Director Vineet Jain appeared on tape, the company announced the video had been "doctored" and that in fact The Times Group had been conducting its own "reverse sting" on Cobrapost when the undercover filming took place. "The idea of a reverse sting is laughable simply because it's like, being caught speeding by a police officer and telling him, "I was testing your cameras" said Raju Narisetti, founder, Mint newspaper. "... It's a very poor defence of what was on tape and other media companies have said the tapes are doctored, it doesn't show the full picture. But what it shows is quite damning." Polarisation across the media However, not everyone is a fan of Cobrapost or sting operations. Instead, sting operations should be used as "a very last resort," according to Chitra Subramaniam, co-founder, The News Minute and editorial advisor, Republic TV. "And by that, I mean, when you have exhausted all the options, which includes giving the opposite party as many options to respond, instead of just exposing them suddenly for all the world to see, that would be to me, tantamount to like a policing operation, or raiding somebody without giving them adequate space," she said. The suspicion that Indian media outlets can be bought is not new. So for many, the Cobrapost sting simply confirmed what they had long suspected and did so at an already problematic time for Indian journalism. In the four years of the Narendra Modi government, polarisation across the media has grown more extreme; the voices more shrill. The hounding of journalists by online mobs, self-censorship in newsrooms, the killings of journalists - especially in smaller cities away from the spotlight of Delhi and Mumbai, most of the news about India's media has not been good. 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/

Last November, the Russian government-sponsored news outlets, RT and Sputnik News, registered as foreign agents in the US at the orders of the Department of Justice. Soon after, a congressional committee stripped them of their accreditation to report from the US Congress. These moves followed allegations by US intelligence agencies that the organisations formed part of the Kremlin "propaganda machine" alleged to have interfered in the 2016 presidential election. As debates about the influence of foreign-funded media on the American public spilled from the halls of Congress into TV studios and newsrooms, a fact commonly overlooked was that the US government itself is hardly a stranger when it comes to broadcasting into other countries. Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty are the flagships in a network of TV and radio stations that spans 100 countries. Today, the operation is overseen by the Broadcasting Board of Governors, a federal agency whose budget - which, at $685m dwarfs the Kremlin's estimated annual spend on foreign media - comes from the Department of State after approval from Congress. US international broadcasting began with Voice of America, which was started during World War II by the Office of War Information as a vehicle to counter Nazi propaganda. Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty began life during the early years of the Cold War as products of "psychological warfare" projects run by the CIA, which provided their funding and even senior staff into the 1970s. According to Arch Puddington, a historian of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, and a former journalist there, "the idea behind Radio Free Europe was that this would be like an opposition broadcasting station in the Communist world. When you look back at the broad history of the Cold War, RFE and RL played an important role, and the evidence is that when these countries got their independence, their leaders and their freedom fighters, if you will, gave great credit to RFE and RL journalists." The CIA's involvement in funding Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty was exposed and swiftly terminated in the early 1970s. Likewise, an official charter was signed into law in 1976 that brought an end to the close relationship between the United States Information Agency - the body within the Department of State that oversaw Voice of America - and the CIA by introducing a barrier, a kind of firewall, to prevent government interference. US foreign-funded media undoubtedly do provide public-interest journalism in countries with limited press freedom. Yet the umbilical relationship between VOA and RFE/RL and the US government has led many to dispute their claims to be providing objective news to their audiences around the world. "Their budget comes from the state. There is no independence," maintains Hamid Dabashi, a professor of Iranian Studies at Columbia University. "Yes, news is being communicated. But in a way that pushes forward a mobilisation of support, solidarity, ideological conformity with American foreign policy." That notion, that US state-sponsored broadcasters are merely a soft facade for the Department of State's often more brutish behaviour, is one that Amanda Bennett, the current VOA director, rejects out of hand. "We are journalists, and we believe that we promulgate American values by promulgating the basic things that are important to America ...The legal charter under which we operate specifically addresses the fact that we're to operate independently of the US government," she says. Yet Dan Robinson, VOA's former chief Washington correspondent, insists that in his experience such a separation, between journalism and government influence, was sometimes more theory than reality. "For example, in the run-up to the 2003 invasion [of Iraq] … one of the discussion shows received a very specific message that we didn't want to go into too much of the information regarding developments in Iraq at the time, and in fact, one of the main correspondents … was kind of taken off doing these shows because of this kind of pressure," says Robinson. In response to US actions against RT and Sputnik, Moscow has since forced Voice of America and Radio Free Europe to register as foreign agents in Russia. Whether one considers their output journalism or propaganda, the US's attack on Kremlin-funded media may well have ended up jeopardising their own state-sponsored media operation. Contributors: Amanda Bennet, director, Voice of America Arch Puddington, author, Broadcasting Freedom: The Cold War Triumph of Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty Dan Robinson, former chief Washington correspondent, Voice of America Hamid Dabashi, professor of Iranian Studies, Columbia University - 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: An undercover sting exposes the Indian media giants willing to peddle propaganda dressed up as news, for a fee. Plus, the US government's global media operation. Caught on camera: Indian media outlets and paid news In India this week, newspapers and television channels were conspicuously silent on a story that should have been major news. Twenty-seven news outlets were the target of a sting operation - a reporter from Cobrapost, an investigative news site, posed as a Hindu nationalist, offering to pay media executives to publish some polarising, religious propaganda ahead of next year's general election. The media executives seemingly accepted the offer. The Listening Post's Meenakshi Ravi reports on the ethical debates in India around both paid content disguised as news and hidden camera operations. Contributors: Aniruddha Bahal, editor-in-chief, Cobrapost Chitra Subramaniam, co-founder, The News Minute and editorial advisor, Republic TV Angshukanta Chakraboty, editor, The Leaflet Raju Narisetti, founder, Mint newspaper On our radar Richard Gizbert speaks to producer Johanna Hoes about the continuing trend of journalists found dead in Mexico; and the real case of fake news, the resurrection of Russian reporter, Arkady Babchenko, who was reportedly killed. Journalism or propaganda? US state-sponsored media Last November, the Russian-sponsored media outlets, RT and Sputnik News were forced to register as foreign agents in the US at the orders of the Department of Justice. This came after allegations that the organisations formed part of the Kremlin's alleged interference in the 2016 presidential election. But what about the flip side of that: namely, the US government's own state-funded media operations? It is undeniable that outlets like Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty do provide reliable reporting in countries with limited press freedom. However, like RT and Sputnik, they have also been accused of producing propaganda dressed up as news at the service of their sponsors in the State Department. The Listening Post's Flo Phillips reports on whether US state-sponsored media are producing journalism or propaganda. Contributors: Amanda Bennet, director, Voice of America Arch Puddington, author Broadcasting Freedom: The Cold War Triumph of Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty Dan Robinson, former chief Washington correspondent, Voice of America Hamid Dabashi, professor of Iranian Studies, Columbia University 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/

Not every picture tells a story and not every image is worth a thousand words. But the right one - in the right place, at the right political time - can pack a bigger punch than a hundred soundbites or a million tweets. An image like the one of athletes from two countries still officially at war - North and South Korea - taking the Olympic stage under one flag at the opening ceremonies of the 2018 Winter Olympics. "It's a great photo op. It makes for some good pictures. It does sort of bring the sense of potential and the sense of optimism at least briefly for that sports event. But it doesn't necessarily mean unification is around the corner," says Jenny Town, managing editor of 38 North. How about the sight of Kim Yo-jong, the North Korean leader's sister shaking hands with South Korean president Moon Jae-in, right under the nose of US Vice President Mike Pence? If stealing the show was Pyongyang's intention, the media played right into its hands, offering extensive coverage of the delegation from the north. Wherever they light the Olympic flame, there are going to be geopolitics in the mix. But these games, given where they are, and the governments involved, have taken Olympic politics to another level. There is no denying the significance of Kim Yo-jong's presence at the Games, given that she is the first member of North Korea's ruling family to ever visit the south. But western news outlets should not forget that propaganda is Kim Yo-jong's day job. "As the head of North Korea's Department of Propaganda and Agitation, she does run a very important department," explains Sung Yoon Lee, professor of Korean Studies at Tufts University. "That department makes sure that North Koreans have few if any real access to outside information, that they remain in the dark. That department also does its best to restrict the flow of information out of North Korea. None of that was broached in reporting on Kim Yo-jong, only the fact that she exuded the softer image, that she smiled for the cameras, that she looked modest and sincere." In Pyeongchang, Kim Yo-jong became the temporary face of an authoritarian country that is politically dominated by men. Kim Jong-un represents the third generation in a family dynasty, a patriarchy, that has lasted for 70 years. But when North Korea ventures onto the world stage and in front of the news media, women do a disproportionate amount of the PR work. In addition to Kim Yo-jong, the government sent more than 200 cheerleaders to the games. It's not the first time they have been sent out, but journalists can't seem to resist them. "The media, again a male-dominated media, is just all over them, desperate to try to get a response from them. You see, it's sort of a game in the South Korean media. Can you get one of them to answer a question? Because they are really quite tight-lipped other than when they're cheering," says Andray Abrahamian, visiting fellow, Pacific Forum CSIS. "In a way, it's almost a propaganda failure because of how regimented and organised they appear, it can look a little bit weird sometimes, a little bit stiff," he adds. While the international news media treat North Korea as a potential geopolitical flashpoint, media in South Korea see the north differently - as an existential threat. News outlets based in Seoul are typically split along liberal and conservative lines. Liberal outlets are more open to accommodating Pyongyang, conservative ones are usually much more hard line. But on this story and the bilateral meeting between Kim Yo-jong and South Korean president Moon Jae-in, the ideological gap in the South seems to have shrunk. Because of the stakes, the arsenals and the players involved, not all of whom are Korean. "The gap between left and right is relatively narrow, I think because South Koreans generally are very worried about the United States right now," says Abrahamian. "President Trump is way too willing to risk war on the Korean Peninsula. So, there's sort of a unity of opinion across the board, left and right, looking for a way to diffuse tensions and move on." The wall to wall coverage of this story comes with significant gaps in understanding. The South Korean media know very little about what goes on in Pyongyang. The international media doesn't know its way around either country, either story. And the vast majority of journalists parachuted into the Olympics are sports reporters - unschooled in the world of geopolitics. For the Kims of North Korea, this was more than a photo opportunity. It was a propaganda opportunity. And they took it. Contributors: Jung Woo Lee, lecturer in sports diplomacy, University of Edinburgh Andray Abrahamian, visiting fellow, Pacific Forum CSIS Jenny Town, managing editor, 38 No - 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: How the media get caught up in North Korea's diplomatic games at the Winter Olympics. Plus, July 15, 2016 - the date Turkey got a new national narrative. Pyeongchang 2018: Sport, politics and the media games At the opening ceremonies of the 2018 Winter Olympics, athletes from two countries still officially at war - North and South Korea - marched into the stadium together, under one flag. Those images of a momentarily unified Korea were beamed around the world and will have registered in Washington. Wherever they light the Olympic flame, there are going to be geopolitics in the mix. But these games, given where they are, and the governments involved - have taken Olympic politics to another level. Contributors: Jung Woo Lee, lecturer in sports diplomacy, University of Edinburgh Andray Abrahamian, visiting fellow, Pacific Forum CSIS Jenny Town, managing editor, 38 North Sung Yoon Lee, professor of Korean Studies, Tufts University On our radar Richard Gizbert speaks to Listening Post producer Tariq Nafi about: Unilever's threat to pull its ads from Facebook and Google the Indian journalist fired over a tweet criticising the country's media The day Turkey got a new national narrative Sometimes a date on the calendar becomes synonymous with an event, a seminal moment for a new media narrative. September 11, 2001, is the most obvious. But for Turks it's July 15, 2016, the day when a botched coup attempt left hundreds dead and thousands injured. Since then, Turkey's media - increasingly intimidated by a government that has arrested hundreds of critical journalists - have played a vital role in framing July 15, 2016, as an ongoing explanation for the challenges facing the country, and as a way of crushing dissent. Contributors: Nihal Bengisu Karaca, columnist Ali Saydam, columnist, Yeni Safak; honorary chairman, Bersay Communications Group Ragip Duran, columnist Arti Gercek; Broadcasting Council, Arti TV Bilge Yesil, assistant professor, City University of New York 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/