Media Storm

We bring back Media Storm's episode on 'terrorism' to reflect on the escalating war in the Middle East, and ask how geopolitical biases are playing into this week's headlines and restricting our understanding of events.

The episode features Lebanese reporter Zahera Harb, Afghan refugee Gulwali Passarlay, former UN Security Council President Kishore Mahbubani, South African freedom fighters from the LSWV, and ex-IRA convict Tony Doherty.

Hosts: Mathilda Mallinson (@mathildamall) and Helena Wadia (@helenawadia)

Music: Samfire (@soundofsamfire)

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Nuclear weapons: peace in our times, or destruction in our future?

What you think probably depends on where in the world you are - because what journalists write generally depends on where in the world they are.

Here in the UK, nuclear weapons are a necessary deterrent, and that’s the end of the story. The coverage is coloured by geopolitical considerations and political voices, while scientific and humanitarian ones are absent.

That’s why Media Storm is bringing in a Nobel-winning physicist and a Japanese peace activist to dig deeper. Dr Ira Helfand and Yumiko Sakuma join us for (heads up) our scariest Media Storm episode yet.

What would survivors tell us if we gave them a voice? What hidden risks are going unreported? Who gets rich from fuelling the arms race? And what would actually happen if nuclear warfare broke out?

Also: is there another way?

Plus – your weekly Media Storms: Zombie knives and ninja swords, doubt in the details of a Telegraph article about benefits - and why Boris Johnson knows nothing about Bridget Jones. Also, sausages.

Hosts: Mathilda Mallinson (@mathildamall) and Helena Wadia (@helenawadia)

Music: Samfire (@soundofsamfire)

Assistant Producer: Katie Grant

Support Media Storm on Patreon - and help us out by sending your favourite episode to 3 of your favourite people!

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Prince Harry’s 40th birthday, Kate Middleton back at work, and ANOTHER dramatisation of that Prince Andrew interview. Headlines about the Royals are frequent front pages - but is this actually news?

The monarchy is given a fairly easy ride in the media - rarely questioned, often praised, history erased. But why don’t editorial guidelines about ‘due impartiality’ apply to the royal family, when 40% of Brits disagree with its existence?

This week, storyteller Kelechi Okafor and author Dr Laura Clancy (who wrote Running the Family Firm: how the monarchy manages its image and our money) join us to talk about monarchy in the media. How much money does the taxpayer spend on the monarchy? What is the actual job of a royal correspondent - and why are they all called Ms England, or Mr Dymond, or Ms Bond? And what actually happened during Elizabeth II’s Empire?

Plus, your weekly media storms. How the Trump campaign is playing the papers; how British tabloids got a pro-Palestine pregnant mother arrested for calling Sunak and Braverman ‘coconuts’; and what the Jewish Chronicle scandal reveals about our wider media's mistakes.

Hosts: Mathilda Mallinson (@mathildamall) and Helena Wadia (@helenawadia)

Music: Samfire (@soundofsamfire)

Assistant Producer: Katie Grant

Episode research: Camilla Tiana

Support Media Storm on Patreon!

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Content warning: rape, sexual assault, and gender-based violence

Headlines about gender-based violence are sadly not rare. But over the last week, two harrowing stories have sent shockwaves around the world.

In France, pensioner Dominique Pelicot stands trial for recruiting 72 men to join him in drugging and raping his now ex-wife, Gisèle, over the course of a decade. 

And in Kenya, Ugandan Olympian Rebecca Cheptegei burned alive after being set on fire by her ex-boyfriend, Dickson Ndiema. 

There has been much reporting on these stories - and not all of it good. Joining us in the studio to pick apart the headlines is Daniel Guinness, Director of Beyond Equality - the UK charity working with boys & men; and writer, researcher, and workshop facilitator Nathaniel Cole.

Men are being erased from the problem, and excused from the solution. So this week, Media Storm is flipping the script - because if violence against women begins with men, it can also end with men.

We also speak to Bryony Ball and Meggan Baker, the co-founders of SLEEC - Survivors Leading Essential Eduction and Change.

Plus, your week's media storms: the New Yorker article casting a shadow over the Lucy Letby inquiry, what news talkshows can learn from the Jeremy Kyle inquest, and how to judge AI findings of BBC anti-Israel bias. 

Hosts: Mathilda Mallinson (@mathildamall) and Helena Wadia (@helenawadia)

Music: Samfire (@soundofsamfire)

Assistant Producer: Katie Grant

Episode research: Camilla Tiana

Support Media Storm on Patreon!

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Headlines about wars in Ukraine and Gaza have flooded front pages - yet, the "world's biggest humanitarian crisis" is battling for media attention. Why? 

In Sudan, a terrible war is raging. What started as a conflict between the Sudan Armed forces (SAF) and paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has exploded into chaos and bloodshed, with countless militias, ethnic massacres, and foreign proxy self-interest.

Over 25 million people face acute hunger. Nearly 11 million have been displaced. And the death count is suspected to be as high as five times as high as in Gaza.

But if you were to judge by how much international attention Sudan gets - either from the media, politicians, or humanitarian donors - you wouldn’t realise this is happening before the world's eyes. 

Joining Media Storm this week is Sudanese activist and the man behind the social media platform Sudan Updates, Ameen Mekki. We are also joined by Sudanese refugee, public speaker, and charity worker Gaida Dirar, to discuss how British colonial history played a part in Sudan’s present-day difficulties - and why the war is as urgent to Western audiences as any other.

Plus, your week's Media Storms: panic about a potential pub garden smoking ban, an extracted anecdote from Jess Phillips that apparently provided proof of a 'two-tier NHS', misleading claims about crime at Notting Hill Carnival, and the voices missing in Israel-Palestine coverage: though they may not be the voices you think. 

Hosts: Mathilda Mallinson (@mathildamall) and Helena Wadia (@helenawadia)

Music: Samfire (@soundofsamfire)

Assistant Producer: Katie Grant

Episode research: Camilla Tiana

Support Media Storm on Patreon!

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The Paralympic Games are underway - and there's plenty to celebrate! More coverage than ever before, a public-participating opening ceremony, and over 160 nations televising the event. 

But is it enough? There were 10 million tickets available for the Olympics - and only 3 million for the Paralympics. What does it mean that the Paralympics will be broadcast on Channel 4, rather than our state broadcaster BBC (where extensive Olympics coverage takes place). Is this a question of reduced public interest and 'relatability'? Or an underlying bias against disability?

Joining us to discuss perplexing media coverage and perpetuating stereotypes of the Paralympics are two para athletes. Wheelchair tennis silver-medallist-turned-fashion expert Samanta Bullock is in the studio, and two-time Paralympian blind footballer Keryn Seal tunes in from Paris. 

Plus, your week's Media Storms: the shocking truth behind attention-grabbing headlines about crime at Notting Hill Carnival, journalists band together to denounce Israel's assault on a free press, and why numbers CAN lie when it come to how much immigrants really cost the country... 

Hosts: Mathilda Mallinson (@mathildamall) and Helena Wadia (@helenawadia)

Music: Samfire (@soundofsamfire)

Assistant Producer: Katie Grant

Episode research: Camilla Tiana

Support Media Storm on Patreon!

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‘UK PRISONS OVERCROWDED AFTER RACIST RIOTS!’

‘A CHILD IS STRIP-SEARCHED EVERY 14 HOURS’

‘SCORES OF CRIMINALS COULD BE FREED IN DAYS’

Headlines this week spotlight the UK’s criminal justice system, as prison overcrowding triggers emergency measures. Amazingly, serious talks about prison reform have entered the mainstream media - but a key voice is missing from the coverage: prisoners themselves.

This week, people with inside knowledge of the system join Helena and Mathilda for the week’s top stories. Lady Unchained and David Navarro talk prison overcrowding, child strip-searching, and the new prisons minister, James Timpson. We also ask: was this really all caused by Keir Starmer’s ‘clampdown’ on far-right rioters?

Plus, other Media Storms of the week: Superyacht shipwreck, migrant ‘superheroes’, and Steven van de Velde's post-Olympics interviews.

Hosts: Mathilda Mallinson (@mathildamall) and Helena Wadia (@helenawadia)

Music: Samfire (@soundofsamfire)

Assistant Producer: Katie Grant

Episode research: Camilla Tiana

Support Media Storm on Patreon!

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Cult members. Fanatics. Selfish. Evil. All words that have been used to describe climate activists in the mainstream media.

Just Stop Oil have made many headlines since 2022, be it by stopping traffic or throwing powder on Stonehenge in their token orange shade. Last month, five members were sent to prison with the longest sentences ever given for peaceful protest in the UK. But what does the group actually want? If it weren't for the name, Just Stop Oil's aims would be largely absent from press reports, which focus on the public nuisance caused by the group rather than the climate change message behind it.

Are the horror stories of blockaded ambulances all to be believed, or is the media misrepresenting the group? If so, why? Why do the public apparently hate them so much? And why hasn't this stopped them?

We're joined by Just Stop Oil spokesperson Adrian Johnson and climate journalist Diyora Shadijanova.

Plus, your round-up of the headlines through a Media Storm lens: exposés of NHS strike 'plots', the reasons for inaccuracies coming out of Gaza, an Islamophobic Daily Mail front page, and... dogs? 

As a take home message, we also speak to Emma Webber, mother of Nottingham attacks victim Barnaby Webber, about victims' consent in true crime and her reaction to the riots that followed the Southport stabbings.

Hosts: Mathilda Mallinson (@mathildamall) and Helena Wadia (@helenawadia)

Music: Samfire (@soundofsamfire)

Assistant Producer: Katie Grant

Support Media Storm on Patreon!

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This week has seen stories of bigotry, fuelled by bad information.

Anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant riots sprung up across the UK, with no factual basis in the incident that triggered them - a stabbing attack that killed three young girls in Southport last Monday, founded on a widespread fake news story that the attacker was a Muslim asylum seeker who arrived ‘illegally’ by boat.

But some mainstream news outlets seemed to have trouble naming the problem. Riots were labelled ‘protests’. Attacking a mosque was called ‘disorder’. And the word Islamophobia? That was nowhere to be found.

This week we are joined by Rizwana Hamid, award-winning journalist and the director of The Centre for Media Monitoring - which promotes accurate, fair and responsible reporting of Muslims & Islam. We discuss longstanding Islamophobia in the British media, the treatment of Zarah Sultana MP on Good Morning Britain, and smash tropes and stereotypes including accusations of grooming gangs and extremism.

You’ll also hear from Sabah Ahmedi, aka @theyoungimam, who invites those who disagree with or fear his faith to step out of their comfort zone, visit a mosque, and see for themselves.

Plus, your round-up of the headlines through a Media Storm lens, including tackling the disinformation surrounding the ‘gender eligibility’ of two Olympic boxers - Imane Khelif and Lin Yu-Ting.

Hosts: Mathilda Mallinson (@mathildamall) and Helena Wadia (@helenawadia)

Music: Samfire (@soundofsamfire)

Assistant Producer: Katie Grant

Support Media Storm on Patreon!

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On Monday, three young girls were killed in a knife attack in Southport at a Taylor Swift themed dance class. They were 6, 7, and 9 years old. Eight other children were stabbed.

A community, and a country, are in shock. Even though male violence against women and girls is commonplace, it can be hard to understand in these particular set of circumstances. 

A 17-year-old boy, who cannot be named for legal reasons, has been arrested on suspicion of murder. That is all we know about the boy who carried out this attack. 

But - alternative narratives were formed online, and they spread quickly.

On Tuesday evening, rioters believed to include English Defence League (EDL) supporters, formed outside the Southport mosque, screaming abuse and smashing windows. They broke garden walls, and threw bricks, bottles, and rocks. They set a police van alight. 27 police officers were hospitalised.

The 17-year-old has no known links to Islam, but those behind the violence had been fired up by social media posts which incorrectly suggested an extreme Islamist link to the stabbings.

What makes somebody hijack the grief of a community, and instead use it as an excuse to spread racism, Islamophobia, and more violence? How do people get radicalised into the far-right?

In this Media Storm investigation, we speak to reformed Neo-Nazis, far-right grooming victims and undercover counter-extremists. We investigate the recruitment tactics of violent terrorists attempting to spread hatred, and uncover proof that mainstream media and politicians may be playing into their hands. We're finding out what pushes people to the far-right, and crucially, how we can pull them back.

Hosts:

Speakers:

Music:

• Samfire @soundofsamfire

Exit Hate UK offers non-judgemental support for individuals & families impacted by far-right extremism. For support please contact [email protected]

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