Media Storm

Support Media Storm’s ethical journalism on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/MediaStormPodcast

It’s World Refugee Week and the results are in: join us as we crunch the latest numbers on global displacement, to see how Europe and the UK are ranking on the hospitality charts.

Spoiler: it’s not very well.

This bonus episode combines new data with lived experience testimonies, as we revisit some of the stories from our first ever episode, ‘El Dorado: Why do refugees love the UK?’

The episode is created by Mathilda Mallinson (@mathildamall) and Helena Wadia (@helenawadia). The music is by Samfire (@soundofsamfire).

Sources:

More on Media Storm

Media Storm was first launched from the house of The Guilty Feminist and is part of the Acast Creator Network.

Become a member at https://plus.acast.com/s/media-storm.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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

Hey listeners! We've launched a Patreon. If you want to support us for a small monthly fee, head to patreon.com/MediaStormPodcast

What words come to mind when you hear the word 'strikes'? Delays, cancellations, chaos? With 'misery for ordinary people!' brandished across our headlines, it’s easy to see strikes as a general nuisance. But this week's episode of Media Storm looks beyond the everyday grumblings of train delays and travel chaos, to ask the question “what have trade unions ever done for me?”

Spoiler alert - quite a lot it seems.

Focussing on three key areas of union achievements - health & safety rights, wage increases, and equal pay - we speak to strikers standing on the shoulders of the first trade unionists. Hear from a Bristol midwife struggling with poor conditions who felt balloting for industrial action was the only answer, the then 23-year-old leader if the 2017 McStrike (who got the date tattooed on her arm!), and one of the warriors that won Glasgow women back almost three quarters of a billion pounds of stolen wages.

In the studio, we have General-Secretary of the ASLEF union Mick Whelan - who is no stranger to tough media rounds, to dissect the myths and latest headlines about strikes, unions, and workers - and tell us whether he really did schedule a rail strike over Eurovision...

Speakers:

Sources:

Get in touch:

Your hosts are @helenawadia and @mathildamall. Music by Samfire @soundofsamfire. 

Media Storm was launched by the house of The Guilty Feminist and is part of the Acast Creator Network.

Become a member at https://plus.acast.com/s/media-storm.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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

In this week’s bonus episode, Helena and Mathilda have an announcement to make… they have started a Patreon! You can access it at https://www.patreon.com/MediaStormPodcast

This is a chance for us to build a community space for our Media Storm listeners, where we can discuss ideas, share bonus material and get to know you all a little better! It’s also a chance for you to contribute to the work being done at Media Storm, if and how you can.

In this bonus episode, we’re also trialling some new bonus material as requested by listeners. You’ll hear an uncut interview from last week’s investigation about 'Medical cannabis and the criminalisation of chronic pain'. If you haven’t yet heard it, we encourage you to go back and listen first.

This raw material features our full-length interview with Dr Steve Hajioff, who will tell you all you need to know about how cannabis regulation works in the UK, and how cannabis interacts with the body to produce medicinal effects. It should also gives you some sense of just how much interview time goes into a single one of our investigations - which typically contain five or more interviews like this, all cut together in a 20-minute adventure!

Get in touch and let us know what kind of bonus material you’d like to see - whether it’s raw material like this, more episodes of our ‘This Is How You Do It’ interview series featuring media change makers, offcuts from studio discussions, Q&As with listeners, or anything else at all. You can reach us at [email protected] or on social media @mediastormpod.

The episode is created by Mathilda Mallinson (@mathildamall) and Helena Wadia (@helenawadia). The music is by Samfire (@soundofsamfire).

More on Media Storm

Media Storm is brought to you by the house of The Guilty Feminist and is part of the Acast Creator Network.

Become a member at https://plus.acast.com/s/media-storm.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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

Chronic pain is a silent pandemic affecting somewhere between 8 and 28 million people in the UK alone. Recent headlines (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-65596283) reveal it’s contributing to 2.5 million Brits leaving work. But more alarming still, is our response.

The UK prescribes more opioid pain killers per capita than any other country in the world. This is in spite of NHS guidelines warning against its use for chronic pain. It is also in spite of a US opioid crisis that has plagued the nation with half a million fatal overdoses.

But opioids are not the only option. Medical cannabis has been legal in the UK for almost five years, yet fewer than five people have ever been prescribed it on the NHS for chronic pain. Private clinics, by contrast, have issued over 89,000 prescriptions for unlicensed cannabis medicines not available on the NHS.

Those who cannot afford private healthcare are left with a difficult choice: legal opioids, or illegal cannabinoids. And over a million are choosing the latter. Join us as we explore the UK’s thriving black medical market, meeting patients, police officers, doctors and dealers.

We also hear from those driving the UK's legal market in the face of many barriers, such as Arthur Wakeley, Managing Director of Celadon Pharmaceuticals Plc, and patients on their breakthrough clinical trial, who are fighting to spread awareness and acceptance of a plant that has been medically celebrated around the world for centuries, but painted as the world's worst drug in our own.

Mathilda and Helena are joined in the studio by football pro and chronic pain warrior Stevo (@stevothemadman: also known for his unhinged comedy stunts storming social media!). They examine the mainstream media’s approach to medical cannabis, asking questions of accuracy, balance and blatant mistruths. 

The episode is created by Mathilda Mallinson (@mathildamall) and Helena Wadia (@helenawadia). The music is by Samfire (@soundofsamfire).

Guests

Sources

More on Media Storm

Media Storm is brought to you by the house of The Guilty Feminist and is part of the Acast Creator Network.

Become a member at https://plus.acast.com/s/media-storm.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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

We're back with this bonus episode to give you a little bit more of our conversation from Episode 1 on the rise of far-right extremism, and what role the mainstream media has to play.

Our guest, Nigel Bromage, was once a member of a far-right group - and now, he runs Exit Hate UK, the charity helping people walk away from far-right extremism. Here, he tells us how they help to alert victims of radicalisation to dangerous fake news.

In this bonus episode, we discuss the collapse of trust in the mainstream media, and the explosion of alternative 'news' platforms - and in what ways this feeds the far-right. 

You can hear our full investigation into the radicalisation of Andy Leak, the man who bombed a Kent migrant centre last October, and the role played by mainstream news and politics, in the full episode on this topic. Scroll down a little and click on the episode titled 'Radical Thinking: How to fight the Far-Right'. 

Get in touch

Music by Samfire @soundofsamfire.

Media Storm is brought to you by the house of The Guilty Feminist and is part of the Acast Creator Network.

Become a member at https://plus.acast.com/s/media-storm.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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

On the 29th April 2021, the Domestic Abuse Bill became law. Many called the Bill 'landmark', or 'transformational'. Others called it discriminatory.

Why? Because migrant victims with insecure status have ‘no recourse to public funds’ - meaning they cannot access refuges, income support and other state benefits to help them escape abusers. Meanwhile, 'hostile environment' legislation is used to threaten them into silence. The result? Many migrant victims of abuse are stuck in a catch-22: stay with their abuser, or face destitution and deportation.

The bill's shortcomings have been put to the government. But in 2021, an amendment was rejected that would extend protections to all migrant women. Two years on, Media Storm speaks to survivors of immigration abuse, and those still fighting for legal reform, to see the real-life results of this omission.

We are joined in the studio by Janey Starling, award-winning feminist activist, writer and co-director of gender justice organisation Level Up, to discuss what the media can do better when reporting on domestic abuse. Janey spearheaded the UK’s first media guidelines on responsibly reporting domestic homicide, which are now backed by all press regulators and multiple newsrooms - find them below!

Speakers: 

With thanks to Heard heard.org.uk

If you are a victim of domestic violence, you can call Refuge for free on 0808 2000 247

Sources:

Get in touch

Music by Samfire @soundofsamfire. 

Media Storm is brought to you by the house of The Guilty Feminist and is part of the Acast Creator Network.

Become a member at https://plus.acast.com/s/media-storm.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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

Every day in the UK 58 people are diagnosed with a gynaecological cancer. 21 will die.

Lack of awareness, late referrals and widespread stigma mean people are being denied life-saving diagnoses and treatments. That's why 12th May shall henceforth be known as Get Lippy day! A campaign by The Eve Appeal is determined to get us talking about gynaecological cancer. So in this bonus investigation episode from Media Storm, we meet medical professionals and patients with lessons that could save lives.

The episode is hosted by journalist Mathilda Mallinson (@mathildamall), and features Dr Aziza Sesay (@talkswithdrsesay), Lydia Brain (@lid_jar), Karen Hobbs (@karen_hobbs) and Dr Anita Mitra (@gynaegeek).

It was produced by Helena Wadia (@helenawadia) and Mathilda Mallinson. The music is by Samfire (@soundofsamfire).

Learn more: listen to Media Storm’s investigation into men and HPV.

Become a member at https://plus.acast.com/s/media-storm.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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

Warning: mentions of sexual violence 

As political polarisation stretches us to breaking point, co-hosts Mathilda and Helena head to the shadowy fringes of society to find out what pushes people to the far-right, and how we can pull them back.

For its season launch, Media Storm puts these questions 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.

The episode features a deep-dive into a terrorist attack that no one remembers… the bombing of a Dover migrant centre late last year, that came with comments by the UK Home Secretary about an “invasion on our southern border”. Dr Rajan Basra unveils the untold story of the radicalisation of Andy Leak: what should’ve been a lesson for us all, but was lost to a 24-hour news cycle.

For part two, we're joined in the studio by former neo-Nazi, turned founder of Exit Hate UK, Nigel Bromage, to pick apart what the mainstream media could do better to tackle extremism.

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

Speakers: 

Sources:

Get in touch

Music by Samfire @soundofsamfire. 

Media Storm is brought to you by the house of The Guilty Feminist and is part of the Acast Creator Network.

Become a member at https://plus.acast.com/s/media-storm.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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

Media Storm is back on 4 May! Helena and Mathilda take on the mainstream media and embark on new investigations that put people with lived experience back at the centre of the story.

Investigations will take us into the worlds of far-right radicalisation and international freedom fighters, elevate the voices of strikers and domestic abuse survivors, and investigate the problematic worlds of medicinal cannabis and UK policing… and that’s just a taste.

Make sure you’ve clicked follow so you don’t miss any releases!

Get in touch:

• Follow us on Twitter http://twitter.com/mediastormpod

• or Instagram https://www.instagram.com/mediastormpod

• or Tiktok https://www.tiktok.com/@mediastormpod

• like us on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/MediaStormPod

• send us an email [email protected]

• check out our website https://mediastormpodcast.com

Music by Samfire @soundofsamfire.

Become a member at https://plus.acast.com/s/media-storm.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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

Print is dying. Since the arrival of the internet and fast-paced, free information at the tap of the finger, the news outlets that tell us what’s what have been scrambling to find their footing. Some have been haemorrhaging money for decades, others have become richer than ever. But at what cost?

In this special feature to launch our NEXT SEASON, Helena and Mathilda break down the different funding models that make up our mainstream media. They look at the ongoing warfare between ethical interests and economic ones and ask what it really means to be independent in journalism today.

We also hear all their plans for the coming new season! Watch. This. Space.

Become a member at https://plus.acast.com/s/media-storm.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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