The Listening Post

On The Listening Post this week: The UK's left-wing Labour Party is facing down a right-leaning British media with just weeks until the election. Plus, the media black hole in Sinai, Egypt. Balanced or biased? British media coverage of Corbyn With just over two weeks until Britain heads to the polls, the opposition Labour Party and its leader, Jeremy Corbyn, have been savaged by newspapers that lean heavily to the right. Even in broadcast media, critics argue, the ruling Conservatives have journalists fighting their corner. Contributors: Andrew Pierce, journalist, Daily Mail Aaron Bastani, co-founder, Novara Media Peter Catterall, professor of history and policy, University of Westminster Annabelle Sreberny, professor of Global Media and Communications, Director of the Centre for Media Studies, SOAS University of London On Our Radar: The cycle of murder and impunity against journalists continues in Mexico, as yet another prominent reporter pays with his life. Chelsea Manning walks free from US prison, while Sweden drops rape charges against WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange. At least six people are killed and a further twenty four injured after ISIL attack Afghanistan's state-owned broadcaster. The silence in Sinai For the past three years Egyptian forces have been fighting an ISIL offshoot in the Sinai peninsula and all the while, the government of Abdel Fattah el-Sisi has kept a tight lid on the story. Having already jailed dozens of journalists, Sinai has become a black hole for news. Reporting that deviates from official government information has been criminalized under an anti-terror law leaving the sole remaining narrative one of military success and heroism trumpeted across all forms of pro-government media. The Listening Post’s Tariq Nafi reports on the stories going untold in Sinai. Contributors: Joe Stork, deputy director for MENA, Human Rights Watch Sherine Tadros, Head of UN office in New York, Amnesty International Maged Mandour, Egyptian writer & researcher Nancy Okail, executive director, Tahrir Institute for Middle Eastern 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

For much of the last month, the Venezuelan streets have been awash with demonstrators. The economy there shows signs of collapsing. Inflation is at a record high. Many are going hungry, lacking access to the basics - like clean water and medicine. With almost 40 protesters killed in the past few weeks, a lot of the news coverage comes down to the laying of blame. The official government narrative goes that right wing media are trying to force a foreign intervention while demonstrators are accusing the president, Nicolas Maduro, of trying to subvert democracy, by suppressing the media. Maduro's predecessor Hugo Chavez spent much of his presidency at war with conservative news outlets. He blamed some of them for backing an attempted coup against him in 2002, which they did, on air. Chavez made changes on the broadcast side - both regulatory and related to ownership - Maduro has continued that trend with print outlets. But even formerly friendly voices in the news media are starting to turn on the Maduro government. More and more journalists say they cannot report freely for mainstream news outlets and have ended up working online using new platforms, like the messaging app Telegram, to get the story out. However, the emergence of something like 300 new, digital news sources over the past few years has done little to bridge the political gap. It turns out that Venezuelans are just as divided online as they are on the streets. 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

Between 1960-1990, Cuba's film institute produced a weekly news program called El Noticiero ICAIC. It would be shown before film screenings in the capital Havana and in towns and villages around the island. During those 30 years, the news bulletin covered history – both local and global: the Cuban Missile Crisis; the Big of Pigs invasion, coups around Latin America; the Vietnam War, independence wars in Africa - leaving a celluloid record of major events viewed through Cuban eyes. In all, there were 1493 newscasts produced, many of could just be derided as propaganda – but which pushed the limits of news, of visual storytelling, that have left a legacy we think is worth a revisit. The Listening Post went to Cuba and talked to one of the producers behind the newscasts, Manuel Perez Paredes. Cinema newsreels are anachronisms now – but back then, Cubans were covering the news their way. And we haven't seen anything like what they produced, since. More from The Listening Post on: YouTube - http://aje.io/listeningpostYT Facebook - http://facebook.com/AJListeningPost Twitter - http://twitter.com/AJListeningPost Website - http://aljazeera.com/listeningpost

On The Listening Post this week: Four weeks of protest in Venezuela, and the competing media narratives around them. Plus, a look back at the days when Cuban movie theatres delivered the news. Venezuela: Protests, propaganda and self-censorship With Venezuela's economy poised on the brink of collapse the government's few remaining allies in the news media are replaying the familiar blame game, pointing the finger at foreign enemies. But Nicolas Maduro's hold on the narrative is slipping as journalists turn to Telegram to get the story out. Contributors: Maryclen Stelling, director, Global Observatory of Media of Venezuela Vladimir Villegas, host, Globovision Cesar Batiz, editor-in-chief, El Pitazo Odell Lopez, journalist, Servicio de Infomacion Publica On our radar: US news channels refuse to air a Trump campaign ad which accused them of being 'fake news'. In Gambia, the new government is making promising noises about the importance of press freedom. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu finally wins his long battle to shut down Israel's public broadcaster, IBA. Revolutionising news - Cuba's 'Noticiero ICAIC' Cinema newsreels may be anachronisms now but between 1960-1990, Cuba's film institute produced a weekly news programme screened in cinemas all around the country. El Noticiero ICAIC ran across a total of 1493 newscasts, many of which could be dismissed as propaganda. However, the films often pushed the limits of news and visual storytelling and remain a document of a key period in world history. The Listening Post went to Cuba to talk to one of the producers behind the long-running cinema newscasts, Manuel Perez Paredes. 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

Last week, hundreds of thousands of Brazilians took to the streets and millions more stayed home in a general strike. Airports, factories, schools, public services were all shut down. Last year, a different set of protests brought down a different government - that of former President Dilma Rousseff. But last year's demonstrations got wall-to-wall coverage in Brazil's privately-owned news outlets - including Globo, which is as dominant a TV presence as you will find in any country. The subsequent impeachment of Rousseff paved the way for the current president, Michel Temer, whose austerity-based response to an economic recession led to the general strike last week. But this time around Globo and other media outlets don't seem to find the protest story quite so compelling. "The gulf in coverage is vast. The protests calling for impeachment against the Dilma government had huge visibility, with Globo's helicopter capturing the protest from the air and covering it all day long. With protests against Michel Temer, this doesn't exist," says journalist Joao Filho of The Intercept Brasil. "When it came to the general strike the word 'strike' was avoided - they talk only about demonstrations, protests and vandalism," Filho says. So why did the media treat the two strikes differently? More from The Listening Post on: YouTube - http://aje.io/listeningpostYT Facebook - http://facebook.com/AJListeningPost Twitter - http://twitter.com/AJListeningPost Website - http://aljazeera.com/listeningpost

On The Listening Post this week: Brazil's general strike was largely ignored by the country's big media outlets. We make sense of the silence. Plus, the challenges of reporting Chechnya. Brazil: An inconvenient protest for the media Though a general strike brought much of Brazil to a standstill, the movement protesting President Temer's economic reforms received little sympathy from the dominant media players. With big business interests behind pro-market policies, Brazil's media leave little room for popular dissent. Contributors: Vladimir Goitia, financial journalist Joao Filho, journalist, The Intercept Brasil Adriana Magalhaes, press officer, United Workers' Central Joao Feres, media analyst On our radar: •It's been less than a month since we reported on the war against journalism in Mexico. Since then, two more journalists have been killed, making it a total of five this year. •Iranian TV executive Saeed Karimian, whose entertainment channel was based outside the country is shot and killed in Turkey. •The power struggle between Pakistan's military and the civilian-led government has been exposed over a story that started with a leak six months ago, and continues to make news. Reporting in Ramzan Kadyrov's Chechnya Journalism in the Russian republic of Chechnya is in a dire state. The news media has been crushed and the few Russian journalists still daring to report face threats, harassment or worse. Chechnya's leader, Ramzan Kadyrov, keeps turning the screws tighter. Contributors: Oleg Orlov, chairman, Memorial Human Rights Organisation Oliver Bullough, journalist Elena Milashina, caucasus correspondent, Novaya Gazeta 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

The race to become France's next president is down to two candidates, Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen. This is the first time since 2002 that the French media have had a candidate from the far right Front National to cover in the run off, Marine Le Pen. Back in 2002, her father, Jean-Marie was the candidate. But the prospect of an Elysee Palace occupied by the far right figure led the French establishment - including the media - to close ranks. That Le Pen was crushed at the polls. A lot has changed since then, in politics and media, and this Le Pen's hoping the French establishment, media included, is no longer the force it once was. Le Pen is running as an anti-establishment candidate but then that's what her opponent, Emmanuel Macron, calls himself too. Macron's not fooling anyone in the media with that line - he is, after all, a former cabinet minister and an ex-investment banker. The proof of that lies in the fact the French media are clearly siding with him. For a skilled media practitioner, though, like Marine Le Pen, that could work in her favour. 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

Over the past few months, The Listening Post has examined the populist, right wing political movements on the rise - like the Front National in France - and the kind of news coverage they've attracted. This week, LP looks at left-wing political party Podemos' issues with the mainstream media there. Podemos is Spanish for 'We can'. The party is barely three years old and it's already Spain's third largest. Its leader, Pablo Iglesias, doesn't look like your typical Spanish politician. And Podemos' anti-austerity/anti-establishment platform was destined to get a hostile reception from mainstream media outlets, most of which lean to the right. What Podemos did not see coming was the treatment it gets from El Pais, a centre-left paper that is the most-widely circulated in Spain. 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

France votes: The media effect The far-right Marine Le Pen is within striking distance of the French presidency. Did the French media help get her this far and how do they cover her now? Contributors: Scott Sayare, Paris-based journalist Nadia Henni-Moulai, journalist and founder of MeltingBook Wallerand de Saint-Just, member, National Front Daniel Schneidermann, journalist and media analyst On our radar • A new constitution, but the same old problems for journalists in Turkey. At least nine arrests since the referendum vote. • Difficulties of covering Boko Haram; a journalist in Cameroon gets 10 years in jail for alleged collaboration with the armed group. • Ecuador's media regulator fines several news outlets for not publishing a story. Podemos vs the Spanish media The left-wing party Podemos may be popular in Spain, but it's no thanks to the media there. We take a look at the party's communications strategy and what it's up against in the Spanish media. Contributors: Juan Carlos Monedero, cofounder of Podemos Enric Marin, Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona Bieito Rubido, editor-in-chief, ABC David Alandete, managing editor, El Pais 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

Turkey's constitutional referendum - if implemented - will grant President Erdogan sweeping powers. What role did the media play in the "Yes" campaign - and what does the vote mean for Turkey's democracy? Contributors: Gulseren Adakli, media scholar Fatih Polat, editor-in-chief, Evrensel. Borzou Daragahi, Middle East correspondent, Buzzfeed News Mustafa Karoglu, columnist, Star Daily More from The Listening Post on: YouTube - http://aje.io/listeningpostYT Facebook - http://facebook.com/AJListeningPost Twitter - http://twitter.com/AJListeningPost Website - http://aljazeera.com/listeningpost

On The Listening Post this week: Turks vote "Yes" to expand presidential powers: we assess the role the media played in the outcome. Plus, the dilemma of inclusion: covering the far-right. Turkey's referendum: Did voters receive balanced coverage? Of Presidents, Plebiscites and Populism. Turkey’s constitutional referendum - if implemented - will grant President Erdogan sweeping powers. What role did the media play in the "Yes" campaign - and what does the vote mean for Turkey's democracy? Contributors: Gulseren Adakli, media scholar Fatih Polat, editor-in-chief, Evrensel. Borzou Daragahi, Middle East correspondent, Buzzfeed News Mustafa Karoglu, columnist, Star Daily 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

Iranian writer and media analyst Hossein Derakhshan talks about the demise of the blogosphere and what social media has done to the web. 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

The Listening Post begins with those disturbing images from Syria, the aftermath of that chemical weapons attack, that led to the US missile strike. The video went to air, showing the dead or dying victims, many of them children - and 50 hours later American missiles were hitting their targets. The US strike came 77 days into Donald Trump's presidency, two and a half months marked by unprecedented hostility between the US media and a new administration. But nothing changes the narrative quite like pictures of a few Tomahawk missiles being launched into the night sky. And the tone shifted. Journalists praised Trump's decisiveness, his morality, and the might of the US military. He was described as something he'd seldom been accused of - being 'presidential.' There are plenty of media angles in this story: from the haunting images of victims of chemical weapons, the impact the pictures are said to have had on Trump, to the video supplied by the Pentagon from those warships that is now driving the story. 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

This week, the Listening Post's Tariq Nafi takes a look at a kind of journalism that is a close cousin of 'fake news' - the sort of reporting that tells people what they want to hear, as opposed to what they need to know; reporting that reinforces partisan opinions rather than challenging them. As a recent Buzzfeed investigation revealed, it's the kind of output that a Miami-based company called American News LLC specialises in. It does so not for ideological reasons, but for commercial ones. So it often covers the same story two different ways, sending a liberal, lefty version of it into one side of the blogosphere, while conservatives get a different take, dotted with right wing arguments and buzzwords that push their buttons. Sometimes it isn't just ideologically filtered, it's also flat out fake. Companies like American News LLC get plenty of clicks because according to a study, it takes just a few believers to set off a news item on the social web. Consumers are often much less concerned about the outlet doing the reporting - where the story originated - than they are about who does the actual sharing, whose Facebook feed you find it on, whose tweet takes you to the article or which friend sends it your way. Contributors: Craig Silverman, media editor, Buzzfeed Sara Fischer, media reporter, Axios Brooke Binkowski, manging editor and freelance journalist, Snopes Matthew Levendusky, associate professor of political science, UPenn 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

Drug cartels, corrupt officials and a climate of impunity make Mexico the most dangerous place for journalists in the Western hemisphere. After journalist Miroslava Breach became the third reporter to be killed in a month, one newspaper has now stopped printing altogether. The reason given had nothing to do with digital technology or slumping ad revenues - the things with which newspapers around the world are struggling. Its owner said he was closing his paper after 27 years because continuing to report the news in Mexico is just too dangerous. Contributors: Daniela Pastrana, director, Periodistas de a Pie Oscar Cantu Murguia, former editor, El Norte Sandra Patargo, spokeswoman, Article 19 Javier Garza Ramos, former editor, Siglo de Torreon 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