The Listening Post

The talk in the Middle East these days is of "normalisation" - between Gulf states and Israel. However, the media push to normalise normalisation started before the deals were signed and is likely to go on for a while. Contributors: Maryam al-Khawaja - Bahraini human rights activist Iyad el-Baghdadi - Founder, Arab Tyrant Manual; President, Kawaakibi Foundation Ayala Panievsky, Media researcher; University of Cambridge Hussein Ibish - Arab Gulf States Institute On our radar In the United States, an affiliate of the Al Jazeera Network - AJ+ - is ordered to register as a foreign agent. Meenakshi Ravi speaks to producer Nic Muirhead about the impact. Life after the blast: Beirut through the eyes of journalists They have reported on mounting crises, a chronically corrupt government, a collapsing state - and then came the explosion. What is it like to be a journalist in Lebanon today? Contributors: Ramzi Haidar - Photojournalist Diana Moukalled - Managing editor, Daraj Jad Ghosn - Reporter, al-Jadeed - Subscribe to our channel: http://aje.io/AJSubscribe - Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/AJEnglish - Find us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aljazeera - Check our website: https://www.aljazeera.com/

It has been just over a month since the biggest demonstrations in Belarus's history began to sweep the country, and the protests have persisted despite disproportionate state violence. The engine driving those protests can be found online - on the messaging app, Telegram. Contributors: Hanna Liubakova - Minsk-based journalist Katia Patin - Multimedia editor, Coda Story Sadakat Kadri - Human rights lawyer and writer Boris Goretsky - Spokesperson, Belarusian Association of Journalists On our radar Producer Flo Phillips discusses how another book of bombshell revelations about Donald Trump puts the ethics of the president - and the book's author - under the spotlight. Qassem Soleimani: The man, the myth and the message In death as in life, Iranian general Qassem Soleimani remains a powerful public relations symbol for Tehran. Contributors: Narges Bajoghli - Assistant Professor, Middle East Studies, Johns Hopkins University Hamid Dabashi - Professor of Iranian Studies and Comparative Literature, Columbia University Christiane Gruber - Professor in History of Art, University of Michigan - Subscribe to our channel: http://aje.io/AJSubscribe - Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/AJEnglish - Find us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aljazeera - Check our website: https://www.aljazeera.com/

After 26 years on the run, Felicien Kabuga was finally arrested in France on May 16, 2020. Kabuga stands accused of being a primary instigator of the Rwandan genocide. He was one of the biggest shareholders of Radio Television Libre des Mille Collines (RTLM), the infamous radio station that coordinated much of the killing, and sat at the top of the channel's steering committee. This is the story of the role that he and his hate media, played in the genocide and the death and destruction that he left in his trail after the genocide. Contributors: Jean-Pierre Sagahutu - Genocide survivor Valerie Bemeriki - Former presenter, RTLM Catherine Bond - Former journalist Tom Ndahiro - Genocide scholar John-Allan Namu - Investigative journalist Pierre-Richard Prosper - Former United States ambassador, War Crimes Issues Josephat Gichuki - William Munuhe's brother - 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/

From the United States to Australia, Rupert Murdoch's media empire regularly courts controversy. Its coverage of COVID-19, however, is on another level. The Listening Post's Flo Phillips reports on the Murdoch factor in COVID-19 coverage. Contributors: Anne Davies - investigative reporter, The Guardian Australia Carl Cameron - former political correspondent, Fox News and founder, Front Page Live Anthony Klan - former investigative reporter, The Australian and founder, The Klaxon Todd Gitlin - professor of journalism and sociology, Columbia University and Chair of Communications, Columbia University David Folkenflik - media correspondent, NPR and author, Murdoch's World: The Last of the Old Media Empires Malcolm Turnbull on the Murdoch monopoly The Listening Post's Richard Gizbert speaks to someone who has known Rupert Murdoch for decades and is now one of his most outspoken critics: The former prime minister of Australia, Malcolm Turnbull. Contributor Malcolm Turnbull - former Australian prime minister and author, A Bigger Picture - 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 police killing of George Floyd - a Black man - in Minnesota did more than dominate the news agenda. It filled streets with protests against racism and has started to change things. All kinds of institutions have been affected. On this front, the American media have a vast range of issues to address, from the lack of diversity in newsrooms to the problems with how Black people are reported on. What has changed so far? A single letter - the letter "B" - from lowercase to uppercase. The change sounds small yet it has been a long-standing demand for Black journalists and activists in the United States. Meenakshi Ravi asks scholars and journalists in the US what the debate is about and what led to this change today. Contributors Matthew Hughey - associate professor of sociology, University of Connecticut Lori Tharps - associate professor of journalism, Temple University Erica Britt - sociolinguist and discourse analyst Erin Logan - reporter, LA Times

Index.hu, Hungary's last big independent outlet, is one step closer to being under the control of Prime Minister Viktor Orban. Contributors: Veronika Munk - former deputy editor-in-chief, Index.hu Agnes Urban - economist, Mertek Media Monitor Justin Spike - Budapest-based journalist Daniel Renyi - journalist, 444.hu On our radar Richard Gizbert speaks to producer Tariq Nafi about a COVID-19 conspiracy video that has gone viral in the United States, with a little help from President Donald Trump. 'black' to 'Black': Rewriting the race style guide Numerous US news outlets say they will now capitalise the "B" in "Black" when referring to race. Is this really the change in race reporting campaigners have been asking for? Contributors: Matthew Hughey - associate professor of sociology, University of Connecticut Lori Tharps - associate professor of journalism, Temple University Erica Britt - sociolinguist and discourse analyst Erin Logan - reporter, LA Times - 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 Mammy, Jezebel and Sapphire are three stereotypes of Black women that have been around in Western culture for centuries. These simplistic depictions are rooted in the slave trade and live on today. Faced with an entertainment industry that is dominated by men - mostly white - Black women have gone online to tell their stories. And all the clicks and likes mean that media executives are finally starting to take notice. The Listening Post's Johanna Hoes reports on the media's stereotyping of Black women and the push for change in an industry where diversity has been too long in coming. Contributors: Kovie Biakolo - Culture writer and multiculturalism scholar Francesca Sobande - Lecturer of Digital Media Studies, Cardiff University Naeemah Clark - Professor of Cinema and Television Arts, Elon University and author, Diversity in US Mass Media Babirye Bukilwa - Actor and playwright

When Beijing wants to take its message to the world, it has a state-funded, multilanguage television news channel at its disposal. CGTN broadcasts in more than 100 countries - reaching 30 million homes in the US alone - with the stated aim of bringing "a Chinese perspective to global news". But going global has made the network subject to various local rules and regulations. Early last year, for instance, Washington compelled CGTN to register as a foreign agent in the US. To hear the CGTN side of the story, The Listening Post's Richard Gizbert spoke to Zou Yue, anchor of the network's flagship talk show, Dialogue. Contributor: Zou Yue - Anchor, CGTN

COVID-19 has the world's two most powerful countries, the United States and China, staring each other down. So far, it has, for the most part, been a war of words and soundbites - a blame game over the origins of the pandemic and each side's response to it, with the news media serving as the primary battleground. The Chinese and American media industries are ideological opposites - one operating under the watch of Communist Party censors, the other under a capitalist free market dominated by a handful of conglomerates. News outlets in both countries have, however, found their own ways to bolster the talking points of their respective governments. The Listening Post's Meenakshi Ravi on how the geopolitical reverberations of COVID-19 have been covered on each side of the Sino-American media divide. Contributors: Chris Buckley - chief China correspondent, The New York Times Wang Wen - executive director, China-US People-to-People Exchange Research Center and former opinion editor, Global Times Vijay Prashad - director, Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research and Author, The Poorer Nations: A Possible History of the Global South Bingchun Meng - associate professor of media and communications, LSE and author, The Politics of Chinese Media Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian - China reporter, Axios Talking to CGTN When Beijing wants to take its message to the world it has a state-funded, multilanguage television news channel at its disposal. CGTN broadcasts in more than 100 countries - reaching 30 million homes in the US alone - with the stated aim of bringing "a Chinese perspective to global news". But going global has made the network subject to various local rules and regulations. Early last year, for instance, Washington compelled CGTN to register as a foreign agent in the US. To hear the CGTN side of the story, The Listening Post's Richard Gizbert spoke to Zou Yue, the anchor of the network's flagship talk show, Dialogue. Contributor: Zou Yue - anchor, CGTN - Subscribe to our channel: http://aje.io/AJSubscribe - Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/AJEnglish - Find us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aljazeera - Check our website: https://www.aljazeera.com/

As the coronavirus has caused TV channels to cut back on in-studio interviews, pundits and politicians - and the rest - have been left to their own devices on how best to frame themselves in their "natural environments". Enter the bookshelf - seemingly the perfect solution. Not only does it texturise the background behind a talking head, but it gives off the impression that the person is full of bookish knowledge. "A lot of people actually work in studies and have home studies - often they're situated in environments that actually are full of books," says Tamar Garb, professor of art history at University College London. "But at the same time, you can also see when a background has been really contrived." After all, selecting your bookshelf backdrop is an exercise in self-branding - presenting selective aspects of yourself before you have said a word. "There are all kinds of pundits who want to signal their authority by displaying very big historical books," says Hussein Kesvani, a journalist who writes about online culture, adding that French economist Thomas Piketty's tome Capital and the Russian novel War and Peace are two intellectual heavyweights that he has frequently noticed in backgrounds. Bookshelves as backgrounds - and as a marker of authority - date back to the late 19th century when European portrait artists started to paint their subjects engulfed by books, says Professor Garb. "This was the moment of the emergence of the writer and critic as an independent professional in the context of the growth of [the] publishing [industry]." In 1879, French impressionist Edgar Degas painted the critic Edmund Duranty completely engulfed by books and in 1868, Edouard Manet, another French painter, did a portrait of the writer Emile Zola sat beside a table piled with books. Jim al-Khalili, British physics professor and broadcaster, has been doing all of his work from his home study and conducts his Zoom webinars and TV interviews in front of his bookshelf. Almost all of the books behind him are his own, which, he says, was unintentional. "These books behind me are the hidden away books in my study" as opposed to the library downstairs, al-Khalili said. "It just so happens that now that I'm doing interviews they're even more public than the ones downstairs so I've made a mistake there." Whether contrived or not, intentional or unintentional, the proliferation of book-flaunting has led to a new genre of media critique: bookshelf analysis. As media guests let us into their personal spaces, audiences - many who have more time on their hands and need some light-hearted distraction - are weighing in. Twitter accounts set up during lockdown have amassed thousands of followers and are wryly analysing bookshelves and their owners based on the mess, the organisation, the colour schemes and the books themselves. As Kesvani told us, "It's an immediately relatable concept and it's a concept that is quite fun, considering that the reasons we are currently all indoors is very grim." The Listening Post's Flo Philips reports on how the bookshelf became the ideal backdrop, for producers, presenters and pundits alike. Contributors: Tamar Garb - professor of art history, UCL Bernie Hogan - senior research fellow, Oxford Internet Institute Hussein Kesvani - culture and technology journalist Alex Christofi - editorial director, Transworld Books

On The Listening Post this week: Big brands are part of an advertising boycott against Facebook over racist content and hate speech. Plus, lockdown TV puts bookshelves in the spotlight. The Great Facebook Boycott: Will it make any difference? The two biggest news stories of 2020 - the coronavirus pandemic and the racial inequality protests - have triggered what the United Nations calls a "tsunami" of hate speech - a surge in xenophobia online. The social media platforms involved now find themselves the focus of an advertising boycott - a campaign called "Stop Hate for Profit" - that is designed to get them to clean up their act, by hitting them where it hurts. The primary target has been Facebook. For years, Mark Zuckerberg and company have resisted demands to take a more active approach - a harder line - to moderating hateful content. Ninety-nine percent of Facebook's revenue - $70bn last year - reportedly comes from advertising. However, given Facebook's size, the boycott is unlikely to seriously damage its bottom line, at least in the short term. Contributors: Shoshana Wodinsky - enterprise reporter, Gizmodo Nadine Strossen - professor, New York Law School and former president, ACLU Jessica Gonzalez - Stop Hate for Profit campaign and co-CEO, Free Press Sarah Roberts - Center for Critical Inquiry, UCLA and author, Behind the Screen On our radar Richard Gizbert speaks to producer Johanna Hoes about China's new national security law for Hong Kong and its implications for the media; plus, the Iranian journalist sentenced to death simply for doing his job. Framing the self: The rise of the bookshelf aesthetic With the pandemic forcing so many of us to work from home, all kinds of talking heads - news anchors, interviewees, pundits and politicians - have had to redefine their "natural environments". So you have been seeing a lot of bookshelves. They are the perfect solution. They provide a little visual texture - they do not distract - and they create the impression, true or not, that the talking head has actually read the books, maybe even written some of them. Creating a backdrop is an exercise in self-branding - it sends a message and speaks to your alleged credibility before you say a word. And this book-flaunting has led to a new genre of media critique: bookshelf analysis. The Listening Post's Flo Phillips reports on judging a person by their bookish backdrop. Contributors: Tamar Garb - professor of art history, UCL Bernie Hogan - senior research fellow, Oxford Internet Institute Hussein Kesvani - culture and technology journalist Alex Christofi - editorial director, Transworld Books - 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/

Every nation has a trove of stories - alluring, magnetic narratives that are retold time and again. In Turkey, over the past decade or so, Ottoman history - the opulence, conquests and power - has been one of the most popular storylines across media, especially on TV. "The recent interest in Ottoman stories and Ottoman narratives is not something out of air or without context - it has a historical background," Burak Ozcetin, Associate Professor at Istanbul Bilgi University told The Listening Post's Meenakshi Ravi. "Turkey is a society in constant change, constant flux. In times of crisis especially, history plays a significant role in creation of identities. The rising interest in the Ottoman past in terms of TV dramas has been a really, really important phenomenon." The demand for Ottoman stories on TV has gone far beyond Turkey. With five seasons, more than 400 episodes and hundreds of millions of viewers worldwide, Dirilis: Ertugrul, or Resurrection: Ertugrul, is one of Turkey's biggest television exports yet, and has helped put Turkey among the top exporters of TV content in the world. Set in the 13th century during the founding of the Ottoman empire, the show has helped launch a wave of nostalgia and fascination for the era that has become known as "Neo-Ottoman Cool". "'Neo-Ottoman Cool' is a term that I and my colleague Marwan Kraidy coined to reflect that new image of Turkey that started perhaps around 15 years ago," says Omar Al-Ghazzi, Assistant Professor at London School of Economics and co-author of the academic article Neo-Ottoman Cool: Turkish Popular Culture in the Arab Public Sphere. "It demonstrated that shift of perception from Turkey as an enemy to Turkey as a model ... Turkish soft power was perhaps at its height with the rise of President Erdogan - this went hand-in-hand with the popularity of Turkish popular culture, particularly Turkish TV series." "Dirilis: Ertugrul being popular specifically in the Middle East and the Muslim world is fascinating," says Senem Cevik, Lecturer in International Studies at UC Irvine. "A show that is produced by a Muslim country, a Muslim regional power is very important, and having those characters in the shows that are powerful, strong, defenders of their nations and their tribes is something I think I would say the Muslim world is looking for." For President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the AK Party, reconnecting with the Ottoman era has been central to their messaging. Erdogan has pushed a notion of continuity from the Ottoman sultans through to himself and TV dramas such as Dirilis: Ertugrul and Payitaht: Abdulhamid - both commissioned by Turkey's state broadcaster TRT - have aligned nicely with the AK Party's communications strategy. "They are, in a way, rewriting the Ottoman history for the current Turkish public. They're trying to showcase a type of history that is continuous from the Ottoman Empire to the current Turkish republic in a way that it elevates the Ottoman history," says Ozcetin. "'Neo-Ottoman Cool' is directly related with the Turkish Republic's quest for enlarging its sphere of influence in the region, both politically, economically and culturally." Contributors: Burak Ozcetin - Associate Professor, Istanbul Bilgi University Senem Cevik - Lecturer in International Studies, UC Irvine Omar Al-Ghazzi - Assistant Professor, LSE and Co-author, Neo-Ottoman Cool: Turkish Popular Culture in the Arab Public Sphere - 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: Chinese and Indian media take opposite tacks to reporting the deadly clash between troops along the border. Plus, Turkish TV dramas and "neo-Ottoman cool". Sino-Indian clash: Disputed border, divided media The two most populous countries in the world, China and India, are dealing with the fallout of their first deadly border clash in almost half a century. Twenty Indian soldiers were reportedly killed, some clubbed to death, by Chinese forces. We know practically nothing else about the story - that is because the confrontation took place in the middle of nowhere at an altitude of 14,000 feet (about 4,300 metres), on a Himalayan mountain that journalists cannot get to, and because the two governments are saying very little. Indian media are speculating, calling for boycotts, and urging their politicians to wage an economic war against China. On the other side, the coverage is almost non-existent. This is a story about narratives - two governments that, in their own ways, are out to keep a lid on this conflict before it gets out of hand. Contributors: Natasha Badhwar - Author, filmmaker and contributing writer, Tribune India Aadil Brar - Journalist Kapil Komireddi - Journalist and author, Malevolent Republic: A Short History of the New India Steve Tsang - Director, SOAS China Institute On our radar Richard Gizbert speaks to producer Flo Phillips about Stop Hate for Profit - a new campaign encouraging big-name brands to pull their ads from Facebook over the company's failure to remove hate speech from its platform. Ertugrul: Turkish TV's Ottoman phenomenon goes global Dirilis: Ertugrul (or Resurrection: Ertugrul) is one of Turkey's biggest television exports yet, and has helped cement Turkey among the top exporters of TV content in the world. It is an historical epic set in the 13th century during the founding of the Ottoman empire; with five seasons, more than 400 episodes, and hundreds of millions of viewers worldwide, Dirilis: Ertugrul cashes in on a wave of nostalgia and fascination for an era that has become known as "Neo-Ottoman Cool". But given the topic, the time period and current geo-political events, there is a propagandistic feel to the show and others like it - one that plays right into the hands of Turkey's governing party, the AK Party, and President Erdogan's own brand of Turkish nationalism. The Listening Post's Meenakshi Ravi reports on how history, politics and entertainment collide in Turkey's Ottoman TV epics. Feature contributors: Burak Ozcetin - Associate Professor, Istanbul Bilgi University Senem Cevik - Lecturer in International Studies, UC Irvine Omar Al-Ghazzi - Assistant Professor, London School of Economics and Co-author, Neo-Ottoman Cool: Turkish Popular Culture in the Arab Public Sphere - 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/

While governments across the globe were ordering citizens to stay home in the fight against COVID-19, Belarus's longtime leader, Alexander Lukashenko, was telling Belarusians to get on with life as normal. As one of Europe's last leaders to recognise that the virus exists - let alone kills - the strongman has ignored calls for lockdown measures, suggesting vodka, sauna treatments or tractor rides instead. But Belarusians know that infection rates keep rising, and that the death toll continues to climb. Not because they have heard it from their mainstream media - which was brought to heel long ago - but because they have found a new source of information: a group of bloggers that are telling the COVID-19 story the way it really is. "Due to censorship, Belarusians are extremely limited when it comes to accessing accurate information, especially from state institutions. During this pandemic, they are providing statistics that don't accurately reflect the number of deaths and infections. In this context, it's extremely important to have access to alternative sources of news, and that's why bloggers are so popular," Katerina Andreeva, a reporter for Belsat TV, told The Listening Post. Stepan Svyatlou - better known as NEXTA - is Belarus's most famous blogger. Videos and posts on his YouTube and Telegram channels regularly generate more than a million views. The past few months, he has focused on Lukashenko's mishandling of the COVID-19 crisis. But his efforts to hold those in power to account stretch far beyond this pandemic. "I cover crimes committed by officials and civil servants. I try to publish what isn't being printed by the state newspapers, or aired by the state broadcasters. We publish documents that are leaked to us by government insiders - information that discredits the authorities and lowers their ratings," says Svyatlou. The popularity of bloggers like NEXTA is making Lukashenko increasingly nervous, not least because their followers have started to mobilise on the streets. And with the presidential election just a couple of months away, that is the kind of dissent Lukashenko can do without. Andrei Bastunets, chair of the Belarusian Association of Journalists, explains that "the authorities have come to understand that blogs like Stepan Svyatlou's NEXTA, or Sergei Tikhanouski's Country for Life, don't just spread information, but the bloggers themselves are becoming the centre of attention, and they can actually influence politics, not just talk about it." The Listening Post's Johanna Hoes reports on Belarusian bloggers, and their efforts to bring about political change that is long overdue. Feature Contributors: Stepan Svyatlou - Founder, NEXTA Andrei Bastunets - Chair, Belarusian Association of Journalists Katerina Andreeva - Reporter, Belsat TV - 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 selective application of a "fake news" law in Russia leaves journalists and citizens vulnerable. Plus, bloggers in Belarus take on the role of journalists. COVID-19 in Russia: Fake News and Forced Confessions Russia is currently in third place in the list of countries with the most confirmed coronavirus cases. The official figure exceeds half a million. But that is in dispute as is the country's fatality rate which, last month, was seven times below the global average. Truth is a casualty of the coronavirus war and the Kremlin itself is trying to get a grip on a glut of conspiracy theories and fake news about COVID-19 that gets shared online and then seeps into mainstream reporting. On April 1, the government equipped itself for the job. President Vladimir Putin hastily signed off on legal changes that enable the authorities to go after those they accuse of spreading fake news. Which, when you examine some of the sketchy COVID-related data being produced by the Russian government, is a little rich. Contributors: Liliya Yapparova - Investigative Journalist, Meduza Vlad Strukov - Professor, University of Leeds Precious Chatterje-Doody - Lecturer, Open University Sarkis Darbinyan - Chief Legal Officer, Roskomsvoboda On our radar Richard Gizbert speaks to producer Meenakshi Ravi about the six-year prison sentence Filipino journalist Maria Ressa now faces, and; the way Chinese and Indian media have covered clashes at the Sino-Indian border. Belarusian bloggers: Breaking the media mould What do you do if you are from Belarus and want to learn about the pandemic? You have a president, Alexander Lukashenko, who has long refused to accept the existence of COVID-19, let alone that it was killing people. Your mainstream news outlets are no good to you - the president brought them to heel long ago and they are telling people to get on with life as normal. So you go online - YouTube, Telegram - where bloggers are doing the job of journalists. Engaging young audiences, giving them the data they need right now and making President Lukashenko nervous, since he has an election coming up. The Listening Post's Johanna Hoes reports on Belarus's bloggers, the kind of work they do and the impact they are having in a country where political change has been a long time in coming. Contributors: Stepan Svyatlou - Founder, NEXTA Andrei Bastunets - Chair, Belarusian Association of Journalists Ekaterina Andreeva - Reporter, Belsat TV - 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/