The Listening Post

Last October, the Harvey Weinstein scandal shook the US media industry into a moment of reckoning. Outlets that had previously shied away from, and in some cases covered up, abuses by the Hollywood producer began harassment investigations that saw a host of household media names pushed from their pedestals. Italy, home to two of Harvey Weinstein's accusers, also felt the shockwaves. But Italians hoping for a similar impact on their fourth estate, where victim-blaming and objectification are notoriously common – were to be disappointed. Instead, two features marked the fallout: the near absence of names named, and the ferocious reaction faced not by the accused, but the accusers. Italy, it would seem, had missed its 'Weinstein moment'. Six months on from the scandal, LP went to Rome and Milan to ask journalists and media experts why the scandal played out so differently in Italy, and to discuss the problematic representation of women in Italy's media more generally. One of Weinstein's Italian accusers is the actress Asia Argento, whose testimony of sexual assault met a media response that – with some exceptions – ranged from scepticism to open abuse. "First they go along with it, then they whine and pretend to repent", goaded a headline in the conservative newspaper, Libero. Libero's editor, Vittorio Feltri, was one of several prominent journalists to label Argento's story as one of "prostitution" - comments that his deputy, Pietro Senaldi, happily defended in his interview with us. "You have to know the man," Senaldi insisted. "It is well known that his journalistic career and his reputation are based on how direct and how blunt he his…" For Elisa Giomi, a sociologist specialising in gender and media at Rome 3 University, it was a feature she told us, that is typical of media coverage of such cases in Italy: "a tendency to split the victims of sexual harassment into two categories: the innocent ones and the women who asked for it." We asked all our contributors why so few cases of harassment, including in the media industry itself, had been uncovered by Italian journalists. Pietro Senaldi's explanation was simple: "What I think is that in Italy, this phenomenon has not exploded because it is less dramatic than it is in the States. Definitely less dramatic." It's a notion each of our female interviewees strongly disputed, pointing out that such cases are not hard to find – if you are looking for them. "Just because there have been no denunciations to date doesn't mean it isn't happening in the media as well," said Claudia Torrisi, a contributor to VICE Italy. "The problem is, it's difficult to expose such cases, especially when they happen in the industry that is supposed to be doing the exposing! And that's an industry whose leaders tend to be, on the whole, men." The predominance of men in the upper echelons of Italian media is something many believe bears a significant responsibility for another persistent feature of Italian media: the objectification of women on Italian television. Since the advent of Silvio Berlusconi's MediaSet network in the 1980s, scantily-clad showgirls – known as 'veline' – have become an almost standard fixture across the TV landscape. For Gianmaria Tammaro, a journalist and TV critic for a number of publications including La Stampa newspaper, it's a concept that belongs in another era. "It was a particular idea of what the average Italian viewer wants - a viewer that paradoxically is always assumed to be male." Pietro Senaldi apart, on the whole, the people we spoke with viewed the Weinstein scandal as a missed opportunity for Italy's media to re-examine how it treats and portrays women. However, they also felt the industry was moving, slowly, in the right direction. It's a trend they saw as being largely driven from below – by a new generation of readers and viewers increasingly unwilling to tolerate the ways of old. Contributors: Elisa Giomi, professor of sociology, Universita Roma Tre Pietro Senaldi, director, Libero newspaper Gianmaria Tammaro, columnist, La Stampa newspaper Claudia Torrisi, columnist, Valigia Blu Solen De Luca, presenter, TV2000 - 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: We map the politics and the aesthetics of news coverage on Syria. Plus, the enduring sexism in Italian media. Red lines and military strikes: Media coverage of the Syrian war When footage of an alleged chemical weapons attack was beamed out of Douma, the narrative from many in the western mainstream media echoed their own governments' - a red line had been crossed - it was a transgression that could not go unpunished. A big part of the geo-political showdown that has ensued is being fought out over the airwaves – and when it comes to state propaganda, you've got to hand it to the Russians. If only their media could bring the same scrutiny to the Kremlin that they do with the White House. Contributors: Omar Al-Ghazzi, professor of media and communications, LSE Tara McCormack, academic, University of Leicester Adam Johnson, contributing analyst, FAIR.org Marianna Belenkaya, journalist, Kommersant newspaper On our radar Richard Gizbert speaks with producer Meenakshi Ravi about Russia's decision to block access to the messaging service Telegram and the backlash Facebook's fact-checking initiative is facing in the Philippines. Victim-blaming & objectification: Sexim in Italy's media It's been more than six months since Harvey Weinstein's sexual harassment story gave birth to the hashtag #MeToo. The Italian version of that hashtag - #QuellaVoltaChe - translates to 'That time when…' But that's where the similarities end. In the US, prominent figures in the news media were pushed from their televised pedestals. In Italy, there have been very few names named, and much of the scrutiny has been directed at the accusers rather than the accused. And by bringing out some of the worst tendencies in Italy's male-dominated media, the story and the way it's been covered have enabled activists and certain journalists to draw attention to the deeper, institutional issue: systemic sexism. Contributors: Elisa Giomi, professor of sociology, Universita Roma Tre Pietro Senaldi, director, Libero newspaper Gianmaria Tammaro, columnist, La Stampa newspaper Claudia Torrisi, columnist, Valigia Blu Solen De Luca, presenter, TV2000 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/

Early last month, Pakistan's Geo TV went black and remains off the air across much of the country and no one in a position of authority is saying why. Government ministers and the broadcasting regulator have denied any involvement. The cable companies that pulled the plug on Geo are staying silent. As is the Pakistani military, which has butted heads with Geo before and is suspected by numerous political and media observers as having ordered the blackout. While Geo TV used to follow the government line, it has in the last decade began to grow in another direction, according to observers. "What we see now is actually Geo trying to not completely follow the state narrative on politics and that is largely considered to be the source of current friction between the channel and the military, according to Ayesha Siddiqa, research associate at SOAS University and author of Military Inc. "Geo was offering a bit of an alternative and even that was not tolerated." Authorities in various countries tend to grow less tolerant of critical journalism as elections approach - and Pakistan has one coming up later this year. Among the election-related topics Geo has covered that may have landed it in trouble is the 18th amendment, a constitutional change made in 2010 that forbids the military from getting involved in political areas outside its own remit of defence. The army chief of staff wants that amendment abolished. Geo has taken a contrary - and, therefore, politically contentious view. There is also the corruption trial of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, who was permanently banned from politics by the Supreme Court this past week. His visibility has been much higher on Geo than on other news channels. "Recently, New York Times wrote an article and they claimed that Geo is supporting Nawaz Sharif, so that's why some powerful people in Pakistan are not happy with the Geo TV," says Hamid Mir, senior anchor at Geo News. "But even if Geo is supporting Nawaz Sharif, it is not a legal excuse to shut down a TV channel." The Pakistani media's almost complete silence on the side-lining of their journalistic colleagues at Geo tells its own story. One that could, in the not too distant future, come back to haunt them. "Geo's story has not been reported anywhere except for the social media, and this is extremely unfortunate," explains Asad Baig, executive director at Media Matters for Pakistan. "Naturally, we don't expect any of these rivals to be reporting the shutdown of Geo. Why would they? It's good for their business. It's as plain and simple as that." Contributors: Hamid Mir, senior anchor, Geo News Marvi Sirmed, journalist, Daily Times Asad Baig, executive director, Media Matters for Pakistan Ayesha Siddiqa, research associate, SOAS University and author of Military Inc. 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 January 2018, a local paper in the western Indian state of Punjab, The Tribune, published an article revealing that the private details of millions of Indians - gathered under the Aadhaar scheme - could be bought, cheap. Aadhaar, a nationwide identity programme that is run by the Indian government, is the world's largest biometric identification system. The programme is the keystone in an ambitious plan to digitise India's economy and to make the distribution of state welfare more efficient. It took over a decade to design and roll out, and more than 1.2 billion Indians have already signed up to it. But it's been dogged by legal challenges and questions over privacy. Despite news reports raising legitimate questions about data privacy and identity theft, the government body in charge of it, the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), insists that Aadhaar is secure. Just days after The Tribune correspondent Rachna Khaira's data breach report was published, UIDAI filed a police complaint against her. "I have been accused of hatching a conspiracy, I have been charged under Section 419, 420, 468, and 471, that pertains to cheating, impersonation, dishonesty, forgery, Section 36 and 37 of the Aadhaar Act, that is having unauthorised access to the database I have been accused, and now I am on the fugitive list of the Delhi Police," says Rachna Khaira. "All I wanted was to highlight these concerns. I am depressed to see how officials instead of, paying concerns to the issues which I have raised in my story - they have made me a story," Khaira says. The UIDAI's official line on data security has been that the reporting is inaccurate, overblown and misleading. However, many journalists say that dealing with the UIDAI is problematic, that officials there are elusive and often unavailable for comment. "I would say that Aadhaar is more dangerous [than Facebook], because it's essentially a disproportionate amount of data in the hands of the state," explains Nikhil Pahwa, founding and editor of Medianama. "They're connecting things like traffic violations, property records, and land-holding size, religion and caste, which is data which should not be linked to and collected and used by the state. So, I think the risks are substantially greater in terms of misuse of this data." But Zoheb Hossain, the lawyer representing UIDAI, says, "I think the two domains are extremely different and disparate. Facebook has far more personally sensitive information about you and me than Aadhaar. Aadhaar has very little information about you. Aadhaar is only a tool to match your identity and say that 'yes, you are who you claim to be.'" Journalists covering the Aadhaar story are having to tread carefully. Two months after that Tribune report was published, the editor of the paper resigned. He gave no reason, but sources at the paper said the pressure on him after the Aadhaar expose was huge. Contributors: Rachna Khaira, reporter, The Tribune Zoheb Hossain, lawyer for UIDAI Nikhil Pahwa, founder and editor, MediaNama Srinivas Kodali, cyber security specialist 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: Media mystery in Pakistan - who ordered Geo News off the air and why? Plus, the challenges of covering the world's largest biometric database. Why did Pakistan's Geo TV go dark? Pakistan's most-watched broadcast network Geo TV has been off the air for more than a month across much of the country and no one in a position of authority is saying why. Government ministers and the broadcasting regulator have denied any involvement and the cable companies that pulled the plug on Geo are staying silent. As is the Pakistani military, which has butted heads with Geo before and is suspected by numerous political and media observers as having ordered the blackout. With no explanation offered, former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on trial for corruption, and elections coming - it would seem that Geo's dominance of the media landscape has once again put it on a collision course with the military. Contributors: Hamid Mir, senior anchor, Geo News Marvi Sirmed, journalist, Daily Times Asad Baig, executive director, Media Matters for Pakistan Ayesha Siddiqa, research associate, SOAS University and author of Military Inc. On our radar Richard Gizbert speaks to producer Johanna Hoes about the shooting of Palestinian journalists by the Israeli army while covering protests at the border, and the crackdown on dissenting voices in Azerbaijan in the run-up to the election. India's 'Aadhaar' database and the challenges of reporting it In India, there is a debate taking place over a nationwide identity programme that is run by the government. It's called Aadhaar and is the world's largest biometric ID system, with more than 1.2 billion Indians already signed up. Aadhaar has been dogged by legal challenges, questions over privacy and identity theft, which the media are investigating. But the government body in charge of it - the Unique Identification Authority of India - is sticking to its line that the service is secure and is trying to fend off journalists asking legitimate questions with legal threats, police complaints and even cutting off their access. Contributors: Rachna Khaira, reporter, The Tribune Zoheb Hossain, lawyer for UIDAI Nikhil Pahwa, founder and editor, MediaNama Srinivas Kodali, cyber security specialis - 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: A viral video raises concerns about America's biggest TV news network - which might become bigger. Plus, Britain's poverty porn industry. The monopolisation of local news in the US It may not be a household name, but the Sinclair Broadcast Group is the biggest local TV news network in the US, with 173 stations. Sinclair stumbled somewhat clumsily into the limelight this week after it ordered its local TV anchors across the United States to read from a script accusing other news outlets of trying to control "what people think". The irony, it seems, was lost on the company, which is now trying to expand its reach to 70 percent of Americans. Getting that deal past the regulator, the Federal Communications Commission, probably won't be an issue. Sinclair has a friend in the White House in Donald Trump, whose administration is currently binging on deregulation. Contributors: Timothy Burke, video director, Deadspin Dana Floberg, policy analyst, Free Press John Nichols, national correspondent, The Nation Helaine Olen, journalist On our radar Richard Gizbert speaks to producer Will Yong about Malaysia's fake news law and the kidnapping of two Ecuadorian journalists by a Colombian militia. Myths and money in Britain's poverty porn industry "Poverty porn" is a British TV genre that follows a simple formula: Take what Brits call a benefits scrounger - someone who's milking the state's welfare system for all it's worth - throw in a dash of stereotyping, a little demonisation, add a pinch of reality TV and presto: you have a television show. British tabloids and TV channels have long been hooked on stories about people claiming money from the state. But it's a dependency that comes at a cost. Among the problems associated with poverty porn TV: the shows might entertain audiences, but they often also mislead them about the reality of the welfare system - and that can have implications for the people who depend on it. Contributors: Rossalyn Warren, freelance journalist Rachel Broady, lecturer, Liverpool John Moores Univ. Bob Jefford, co-executive producer, Benefits Britain Barry Tomes, PR agent Ruth Patrick, researcher, Liverpool 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/

A Brit buying the Daily Mirror in 1976 would have come across an article entitled 'Cheated by the dole queue fiddlers'. Now, in 2018, a recent headline in The Sun screamed 'Hod a Liar: Benefits cheat who swindled $67,612'. In 40 years, little has changed and, as the headlines suggest, the coverage of welfare is and was designed to outrage. The 'benefits cheat' is one of a few cliche characters that the British media rely on when covering the state welfare system. There is the 'single mum with lots of kids' trope - especially popular around Christmas; and the immigrant moving to England, just for free money. There is also the alcoholic wasting his or her money on drink or, as the media would put it, wasting your money on drink. These characters are recycled over and over. "Those narratives and those kinds of images create and sustain divisions between deserving and undeserving populations, between workers and shirkers, between welfare dependents and hardworking families," says Ruth Patrick, a researcher at the University of Liverpool. The rise of reality TV has given these stereotypes new life and has also turned some benefits recipients into celebrities. The BBC's 'We All Pay Your Benefits' started the trend in 2013, and similar offerings followed on other channels. Along with millions of viewers, the programmes attracted plenty of criticism for the exploitation of people's hardship for entertainment - which has come to be known as 'poverty porn'. "The whole set up of these programmes is around there being like a 'them' and 'us'," Patrick adds, "The reality is that we're all welfare dependant in different ways, so we all interact with and use the welfare state at certain times in our life." Bob Jefford, the co-executive producer of Benefits Britain told The Listening Post that "casting" is a very important part of putting a TV show together and that the characters they choose need to be interesting. However, the most "interesting" characters may end up skewing reality. Rosalynn Warren, a freelance journalist, knows this from having reported on the subject and from personal experience. "I grew up on benefits in the UK with a single mother and she supported myself and seven other siblings," said Warren. "How the media depict people like myself growing up is not the reality that I saw. The characters they follow will say, 'Oh, I spend it all on presents or I go to the tanning salon'. They give these outrageous comments that [are] great sound bites but not reality." Barry Tomes, a PR agent, saw an opportunity in the poverty porn industry and took it. He has a book of clients who are on benefits and he says that when journalists and TV producers need help with some kind of benefits story - they call him. He knows that being outrageous is the way to make the news. And if it doesn't quite reflect reality? He says that's just a part of the game. "Any story that looks like a benefit recipient is spending big money, that's the key," says Tomes. "So just take one of our clients, Marie Buchan, as a good example. Marie Buchan hadn't been in the press for a while, and she wanted a horse. I said, well, people are going to go nuclear about you having a horse." They did go nuclear. Buchan was invited on talk shows, and she and her horse were given page spreads in newspapers. The horse was reported to cost $98 in some papers, $5,634 in others. "Everybody comes to the conclusion the horse must cost thousands of pounds. The facts that were printed were nothing like the truth, but I was happy to run with that because that's what we do. I don't decide if it's fact or fiction, that's for the publisher to decide." Contributors: Rosalynn Warren, freelance journalist Rachel Broady, lecturer, Liverpool John Moores Univ. Bob Jefford, co-executive producer, 'Benefits Britain' Barry Tomes, PR agent Ruth Patrick, researcher, Liverpool 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/

The Sinclair Broadcast Group has come under fire following the spread of a video showing anchors at its stations across the United States reading a script criticising "fake" news stories. Typically, the Sinclair editorials do not make much of an impact. But when Timothy Burke, a video editor in Tampa, Florida, collected 44 versions of that editorial - from 44 local news markets, and lay them side by side, allowing Americans to play them back, word for word, the effect was chilling. The reaction was: just what is Sinclair? Unlike Fox News, CNN and MSNBC, Sinclair does not own a national news network so its brand is not that well known. But it does own 173 local TV stations, covering 40 percent of American households. Since those channels are affiliated with national broadcasting brands, ABC, NBC and CBS - they display those logos rather than their parent company's. Up until now, Sinclair sent editorials from the company's headquarters in Maryland that their channels were required to broadcast. Typically, the so-called "must runs" are fronted by a Sinclair executive, Boris Epshteyn, who worked on Donald Trump's election team. According to Dana Floberg, a policy analyst at Free Press, "There's something particularly treacherous about taking these words from Sinclair's corporate headquarters and putting them in the mouths of journalists who are trusted to the point that now audiences can't tell whether or not the information they're consuming actually comes from these local journalists that they trust, or if there's a giant conservative corporate Goliath pulling the strings." And the Goliath wants to grow. Sinclair has a $3.9bn merger deal in place with Tribune Media which would land Sinclair another 42 local TV stations - including in major markets like New York, Chicago and Washington - boosting its reach from 40 percent of American homes to more than 70 percent. According to John Nichols, national correspondent for The Nation, "What's happened with Sinclair is actually really good. It's great that we have seen this thing happen with all the anchors reading the same lines across the country. Because we've had a real-life example of what we should be afraid of." Contributors: Timothy Burke, video director, Deadspin Dana Floberg, policy analyst, Free Press John Nichols, national correspondent, The Nation Helaine Olen, journalist

A Brit buying the Daily Mirror in 1976 would have come across an article entitled 'Cheated by the dole queue fiddlers'. Now, in 2018, a recent headline in The Sun screamed 'Hod a Liar: Benefits cheat who swindled $67,612'. In 40 years, little has changed and, as the headlines suggest, the coverage of welfare is and was designed to outrage. The 'benefits cheat' is one of a few cliche characters that the British media rely on when covering the state welfare system. There is the 'single mum with lots of kids' trope - especially popular around Christmas; and the immigrant moving to England, just for free money. There is also the alcoholic wasting his or her money on drink or, as the media would put it, wasting your money on drink. These characters are recycled over and over. "Those narratives and those kinds of images create and sustain divisions between deserving and undeserving populations, between workers and shirkers, between welfare dependents and hardworking families," says Ruth Patrick, a researcher at the University of Liverpool. The rise of reality TV has given these stereotypes new life and has also turned some benefits recipients into celebrities. The BBC's 'We All Pay Your Benefits' started the trend in 2013, and similar offerings followed on other channels. Along with millions of viewers, the programmes attracted plenty of criticism for the exploitation of people's hardship for entertainment - which has come to be known as 'poverty porn'. "The whole set up of these programmes is around there being like a 'them' and 'us'," Patrick adds, "The reality is that we're all welfare dependant in different ways, so we all interact with and use the welfare state at certain times in our life." Bob Jefford, the co-executive producer of Benefits Britain told The Listening Post that "casting" is a very important part of putting a TV show together and that the characters they choose need to be interesting. However, the most "interesting" characters may end up skewing reality. Rosalynn Warren, a freelance journalist, knows this from having reported on the subject and from personal experience. "I grew up on benefits in the UK with a single mother and she supported myself and seven other siblings," said Warren. "How the media depict people like myself growing up is not the reality that I saw. The characters they follow will say, 'Oh, I spend it all on presents or I go to the tanning salon'. They give these outrageous comments that [are] great sound bites but not reality." Barry Tomes, a PR agent, saw an opportunity in the poverty porn industry and took it. He has a book of clients who are on benefits and he says that when journalists and TV producers need help with some kind of benefits story - they call him. He knows that being outrageous is the way to make the news. And if it doesn't quite reflect reality? He says that's just a part of the game. "Any story that looks like a benefit recipient is spending big money, that's the key," says Tomes. "So just take one of our clients, Marie Buchan, as a good example. Marie Buchan hadn't been in the press for a while, and she wanted a horse. I said, well, people are going to go nuclear about you having a horse." They did go nuclear. Buchan was invited on talk shows, and she and her horse were given page spreads in newspapers. The horse was reported to cost $98 in some papers, $5,634 in others. "Everybody comes to the conclusion the horse must cost thousands of pounds. The facts that were printed were nothing like the truth, but I was happy to run with that because that's what we do. I don't decide if it's fact or fiction, that's for the publisher to decide." Contributors: Rosalynn Warren, freelance journalist Rachel Broady, lecturer, Liverpool John Moores Univ. Bob Jefford, co-executive producer, 'Benefits Britain' Barry Tomes, PR agent Ruth Patrick, researcher, Liverpool 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/

On The Listening Post this week: A viral video raises concerns about America's biggest TV news network - which might become bigger. Plus, Britain's poverty porn industry. The monopolisation of local news in the US It may not be a household name, but the Sinclair Broadcast Group is the biggest local TV news network in the US, with 173 stations. Sinclair stumbled somewhat clumsily into the limelight this week after it ordered its local TV anchors across the United States to read from a script accusing other news outlets of trying to control "what people think". The irony, it seems, was lost on the company, which is now trying to expand its reach to 70 percent of Americans. Getting that deal past the regulator, the Federal Communications Commission, probably won't be an issue. Sinclair has a friend in the White House in Donald Trump, whose administration is currently binging on deregulation. Contributors: Timothy Burke, video director, Deadspin Dana Floberg, policy analyst, Free Press John Nichols, national correspondent, The Nation Helaine Olen, journalist On our radar Richard Gizbert speaks to producer Will Yong about Malaysia's fake news law and the kidnapping of two Ecuadorian journalists by a Colombian militia. Myths and money in Britain's poverty porn industry "Poverty porn" is a British TV genre that follows a simple formula: Take what Brits call a benefits scrounger - someone who's milking the state's welfare system for all it's worth - throw in a dash of stereotyping, a little demonisation, add a pinch of reality TV and presto: you have a television show. British tabloids and TV channels have long been hooked on stories about people claiming money from the state. But it's a dependency that comes at a cost. Among the problems associated with poverty porn TV: the shows might entertain audiences, but they often also mislead them about the reality of the welfare system - and that can have implications for the people who depend on it. Contributors: Rosalynn Warren, freelance journalist Rachel Broady, lecturer, Liverpool John Moores Univ. Bob Jefford, co-executive producer, Benefits Britain Barry Tomes, PR agent Ruth Patrick, researcher, Liverpool 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/

Even in her death, Marielle Franco drew attention to the causes she had fought for. The city councillor and rights activist opposed the creeping militarisation of police forces into Brazilian favelas, or urban slums, particularly in her home city of Rio de Janeiro. It may have cost her her life. "It was clear from the beginning that this was a political crime," says Clovis Saint-Clair, city editor of Jornal do Brasil. "The first political murder in Rio in decades. And this murder was of a black woman from the favelas, who stood up for those who are poor, black and live in the favelas. It was impossible for this not to make a huge impact in the news." Some news outlets have used Franco's murder to argue in favour of President Michel Temer's militarisation of police powers. Just over a month ago, Temer changed the way some of those favelas are policed, adding a military component in what's known as a federal intervention. An army general was put in charge of Rio's police force. Commando teams and other troops have been sent in on security operations. Those raids are often captured by news cameras so the media coverage has been extensive. And in a cruel piece of irony, the murder of Marielle Franco has been followed by calls for even more troops being sent into the favelas. Franco strongly opposed sending the military into those areas - saying it was a mistake. "The [police] intervention is like a TV spectacle, it's a political power play," says Leandro Demori, executive editor at The Intercept. "It's the central government trying to draw the public's attention away from other issues, to raise the president's popularity." Analysis of news coverage in Brazil starts with right-wing media outlet Globo, the country's biggest broadcaster and by far its most influential media company. So when Globo's flagship newsmagazine, Fantastico, produced a two-hour long special on the killing of Marielle Franco, Franco's supporters were watching carefully. "After Fantastico did the whole story with the family, at the end of the day, it presented the intervention as a necessity, as justified after Marielle's assassination, when in fact, she questioned and she criticised it," says Renata Souza, chief of staff for Marielle Franco. But whether the people in the favelas like it or not, trust them or not, journalists are the ones telling their story to the rest of Brazil. Marielle Franco saw it another way and put it another way, in an op-ed she wrote for the Journal do Brasil: "The so-called sense of security is nothing more than a political and media narrative." The editors say she submitted that article just hours before she was killed. It was published posthumously, two days later. The piece was headlined Ultimas Palavras: Last Words. Contributors: Clovis Saint-Clair, city editor, Jornal do Brasil Leandro Demori, executive editor, The Intercept Renata Souza, chief of staff for Marielle Franco Jorge Melo, executive editor, Mare de Noticias 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 Central American country of Honduras, a political story has been unfolding which deserves more coverage than it has been getting. Close to 40 people have been killed and more than 2,000 arrested, following the contested re-election of President Juan Orlando Hernandez to a second term in office. With 54 percent of the votes counted, the trend was a clear win for left-wing opposition candidate, Salvador Nasralla. But then the computer system mysteriously broke down. When it finally came back online a full day later, the vote count had been turned upside down: the right-wing incumbent, Juan Orlando Hernandez, was suddenly ahead. If not for the rather obedient Honduran media, allegations of electoral fraud would have got more attention. But Honduran mainstream outlets, owned by powerful economic groups, have been echoing the right-wing ruling party's narrative of "nothing to see here". They are also accusing left-wing politicians and journalists of trying to steal the election and turn Honduras into another socialist Venezuela. Alternative narratives are hard to come by, but one radio station has proved an exception to that rule. Based in the north of Honduras, Radio Progreso is run by the Catholic Order of Jesuits - an organisation that does extensive work with some of Honduras' most neglected and least heard communities. The independent station reports on human rights violations, police and military abuses and election fraud. "I will not call him president because he [Hernandez] has seized power and he is illegitimate," says Father Ismael Moreno, director of Radio Progreso. "But the media keep insisting that there is nothing important going on here in Honduras. Their narrative is deeply ideological and reflects the interests of the winners." "When the mainstream media talk about the election, they argue that there was no electoral fraud but a successful campaign by Juan Orlando Hernandez. This narrative conceals the real dynamics of the repression, the constitutional breach and the control of the state by an alliance between the oligarchy, political power and multinationals," says Moreno. Four months since the November election, Radio Progreso has not stopped demanding answers, and its persistence has put it in the crosshairs of opponents. In December, the station's broadcast antenna in the capital, Tegucigalpa, was knocked down. In the digital space, dangerous and defamatory material online has been circulated about the station and director Moreno, known as Padre Melo. But this is not the first time Radio Progreso's work has meant serious challenges, and at times deadly consequences, for its staff. In 2011, correspondent Nery Jeremias was gunned down; three years later, marketing manager Carlos Mejia was stabbed to death. Then, in 2016, indigenous rights activist Berta Caceres was murdered. Caceres and director Moreno were close friends and had worked together to set up a network of community radio stations called COPINH. By offering a perspective Hondurans won't find in the mainstream media, Radio Progreso is an anomaly. And with three people already having paid with their lives for their work, the station is playing a dangerous game - alternative narratives, alternative journalism in Honduras. The Listening Post's Cristina Martinez reports on the kind of journalism that, in Honduras, comes with risks. Contributors: Ismael Moreno, director, Radio Progreso Tirza Ulloa, head of news, TNH8 Andres Molina, media analyst, C-Libre Thelma Mejia, investigative journalist 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: The murder of a champion of the poor puts the spotlight on Brazilian media's treatment of the slums. Plus, Honduras' Radio Progreso. Murder in Brazil: Covering the assassination of Marielle Franco The assassination of a city councillor in Rio de Janeiro was a hit job clearly intended to send a message. Marielle Franco embodied a new kind of politics, on behalf of the country's poor. She campaigned against the violent policing of the favelas, urban slums, which are mostly populated by Brazilians who share Franco's African heritage. The coverage of her story has revealed the Brazilian media's own attitudes to the poor. Contributors: Clovis Saint-Clair, city editor, Jornal do Brasil Leandro Demori, executive editor, The Intercept Renata Souza, chief of staff for Marielle Franco Jorge Melo, executive editor, Mare de Noticias On our radar Richard Gizbert speaks to Flo Phillips about the fallout from the Cambridge Analytica data abuse scandal and the sale of Turkey's largest media conglomerate. Radio Progreso: Representing voices on the margins in Honduras In the Central American country of Honduras, close to 40 people have been killed and more than 2,000 arrested, following the bitterly contested re-election of President Juan Orlando Hernandez. However, Honduran mainstream media outlets have been echoing the right-wing ruling party's narrative of "nothing to see here". Radio Progreso has been putting voices on the air Hondurans don't hear elsewhere, but working there is a job that comes with risks. Contributors: Ismael Moreno, director, Radio Progreso Tirza Ulloa, head of news, TNH8 Andres Molina, media analyst, C-Libre Thelma Mejia, investigative journalist - 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/

2018 was going to be the year Facebook would do things differently. Under intense scrutiny from governments and their regulators over fake news, hate speech and political manipulation on his platform, Mark Zuckerberg vowed to fix things. Then, last weekend, The New York Times along with the Guardian and Observer and Channel 4 in the UK broke a story that shattered Zuckerberg's PR campaign: Cambridge Analytica, a data analysis firm employed by US President Donald Trump's election campaign, harvested the personal information of more than 50 million American Facebook users. The goal was to create targeted political advertising to influence voter behaviour. This story sheds light on Facebook's business model of mass surveillance in order to make a profit off of users' information. Contributors: Hannah Kuchler, Silicon Valley correspondent, FT Siva Vaidhyanathan, director, Center for Media and Citizenship, the University of Virginia Ben Tarnoff, Tech columnist, Guardian and cofounder of Logic Magazine Silkie Carlo, director, Big Brother Watch - 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: Chris Wylie blew the lid off of one of social media's dirtiest secrets. The whistleblower has alerted the world to the way Facebook enabled politicians to exploit personal data. Plus, why WhatsApp rumours can be fatal in India. The Cambridge Analytica story 2018 was going to be the year Facebook would do things differently. Under intense scrutiny from governments and their regulators over fake news, hate speech and political manipulation on his platform, Mark Zuckerberg vowed to fix things. Then, last weekend, The New York Times along with the Guardian and Observer and Channel 4 in the UK broke a story that shattered Zuckerberg's PR campaign: Cambridge Analytica, a data analysis firm employed by US President Donald Trump's election campaign, harvested the personal information of more than 50 million American Facebook users. The goal was to create targeted political advertising to influence voter behaviour. This story sheds light on Facebook's business model of mass surveillance in order to make profit off of users' information. Contributors: Hannah Kuchler, Silicon Valley correspondent, FT Siva Vaidhyanathan, director, Center for Media and Citizenship, the University of Virginia Ben Tarnoff, Tech columnist, Guardian / co-founder, Logic Magazine Silkie Carlo, director, Big Brother Watch On Our Radar Google is investing $300m on an initiative aimed at spreading media literacy and fighting fake news. Al Jazeera is put under the microscope in the United States as lawmakers seek to have it registered under the Foreign Agent Registration Act, a law originally used to combat Nazi propaganda. Deadly Rumours: India's WhatsApp dilemma India's most widely used messaging service WhatsApp has become the platform of choice for activists, politicians and marketers alike. However, the country's WhatsApp habit has a dark side, too. Misinformation, disinformation, rumours, and false messages can go viral, which in at least two cases, had deadly consequences. Contributors: Kalyani Chadha, professor of media, University of Maryland Mohammad Ali, journalist, The Hindu Vaid Nagar, national director, Gau Raksha Hindu Dal Pratik Sinha, cofounder, Alt News 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/