The Listening Post

A year into the civil war in Sudan, the humanitarian costs have been staggering - but the news coverage has been minimal.

A conflict on this scale should top the news agenda but it has been relegated to the back pages – in part – because of what is happening in Gaza and Ukraine. And it is increasingly difficult to deny that the lack of media interest in this war comes down to where it is being fought and how it is understood.

Contributors:

Hager Ali – Research fellow, German Institute for Global and Area Studies (GIGA)

Kholood Khair – Founding director, Confluence Advisory

Matthew Benson – Sudan research director, London School of Economics

Yassmin Abdel-Magied – Editor, Eyes on Sudan

On our radar:

Silencing the voices of dissent at United States universities over Israel and Gaza. Producer Tariq Nafi reports on what that says about freedom of speech in the US.

Poland’s media revolution

Restoring the independence of state-owned news outlets in Poland has not exactly gone according to plan. Producer Ryan Kohls on Donald Tusk’s media overhaul in the country.

Featuring:

Daniel Tilles – Editor-in-chief, Notes from Poland

Dorota Nygren – Journalist

Maciej Czajkowski – Deputy director, TVP

Michal Adamczyk – Former head, TVP

The algorithms that Big Tech designed - and the genocide they assisted. The Listening Post explores how Israel’s killing campaign of Palestinians has relied on artificial intelligence to choose its targets. A dystopian nightmare serves as a marketing campaign for technology flawed by design, and deepens the global digital divide.

Contributors:
Sophia Goodfriend – Researcher, Duke University
Mona Shtaya – Digital rights scholar
Matthew Mahmoudi – Researcher, Amnesty Tech
Sebastian Ben Daniel – Journalist, +972 Magazine

On our radar:

Nicaragua put Germany in the dock at the International Court of Justice, accusing it of facilitating genocide in Gaza. Germany is the second largest weapons supplier to Israel.

Meenakshi Ravi dissects the reaction from Berlin and the German media to the case.

Truth to power in wartime Ukraine

Three years into Ukraine’s war with Russia, journalists are feeling the pressure. Where once investigative outlet Bihus.info was relied on to expose Russian war crimes, they’re now undergoing Soviet-style surveillance by security services for exposing corruption in Ukraine.

Featuring:
Yaroslav Yurchyshyn – Ukrainian Member of Parliament and chair, Freedom of Speech Committee
Natalia Ligachova – Editor-in-Chief, Detector Media
Maria Zemlyanska – Investigative journalist, Bihus.Info
Denys Bihus – Founder, Bihus.Info

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It is election season in India and Prime Minister Narendra Modi seems set to win a third successive term in the national elections — for good reason, say his supporters. They claim 10 years of the Modi government have transformed India, from lifting millions out of poverty to elevating India’s global status, but his critics say Modi’s record is far from perfect.

In this episode of The India Report, we analyse how India has fared in the past decade on the foreign policy and economic policy fronts.

Featuring:
Jayati Ghosh - Professor of economics, University of Massachusetts
Anand Gurumurthy - BJP spokesperson  and economist
Suhasini Haider - Diplomatic affairs editor, The Hindu
Raghuram Rajan - Former governor, Reserve Bank of India
Veena Sikri - Former external affairs diplomat for India

With international reporters locked out, Palestinian journalists have made huge sacrifices to keep the world informed of the unprecedented killing and destruction in Gaza.

More media workers have been killed by Israel since October 7 than in any other conflict in modern history.

Like the rest of the population, Gaza's journalists have also been maimed, arrested or threatened, have seen their homes and offices destroyed and are grieving over the loss of those close to them.

The Listening Post spent time with three Al Jazeera journalists between February and March 2024.

Contributors:

Anas al-Sharif – Reporter, Al Jazeera Arabic
Hind Khoudary – Reporter, Al Jazeera English
Marah Elwadiya – Journalist, Al Jazeera Digital

A Listening Post/Ain Media co-production.

Tariq Nafi – Senior Producer
Shrouq Aila – Gaza-based Producer
Ahmed Madi – Producer
Kit Harwood – Editor
Meenakshi Ravi – Executive Producer

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Six months into Israel’s devastating war on Gaza, the United Nations Security Council has finally passed a resolution demanding a ceasefire. The United States’s abstention marks a pivotal moment in Israel’s increasing international isolation.

In the Israeli media, the opposition to the UN vote is near-unanimous and unsurprising. More striking is the lack of interest from American news outlets. The implications this story raises are perhaps a little uncomfortable for them - they hit too close to home.

Contributors:
Ramzy Baroud - Editor, The Palestine Chronicle
Ardi Imseis  - Former UNRWA official
Daniel Levy - President, US-Middle East Project
Sarah Leah Whitson - Executive Director, DAWN

On our radar:

A New York Times piece has revealed more information about the mass surveillance Israel has deployed on Palestinians in Gaza. Producer Tariq Nafi reports on how facial recognition is being used to collect and catalogue the faces of Palestinians, “without their knowledge or consent".

Modi’s messaging machine

In a few weeks, India will launch a six-week-long process of voting for the next national government - and Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expected to win an historic third term in office. Producer Meenakshi Ravi explores the all-encompassing information ecosystem that is likely to help put Modi back in the prime minister’s office.

Featuring :
Neerja Chowdhury - Contributing editor, Indian Express
Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay - Author, Narenda Modi: The man, the times
Saba Naqvi - Author, The Saffron Storm

With India amid a national election campaign, its news media is in sharp focus. Until recently it was believed that the sheer diversity of outlets ensured a range of perspectives, but now, India’s mainstream media has largely been co-opted by the Bharatiya Janata Party and Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Just how did the media in India get to this point and what does it mean for the upcoming elections?

Featuring:

Ravish Kumar - Former Host, NDTV
Shashi Shekhar Vempati - Former CEO, Prasar Bharati
Pramod Raman - Chief Editor, MediaOne
Amy Kazmin - Former South Asia Bureau Chief, Financial Times
Meena Kotwal - Founder, The Mooknayak

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The threat to ban TikTok in the United States has prompted an online backlash. Critics question the premise that Chinese ownership poses a security risk and suggest the real reason may be the surge in pro-Palestinian content since October 7.

Contributors:

Julia Angwin - Tech Policy Writer, New York Times; Founder, Proof News
Russel Brandom - Tech Editor, Rest Of The World
Marwa Fatafta - MENA Policy and Advocacy Director, Access Now
Evan Greer – Director, Fight for the Future

On our radar:

In yet another deadly raid on Gaza’s al-Shifa Hospital, Israel abducted Palestinian journalists covering the story – including one of Al Jazeera’s own. Producer Nicholas Muirhead reports.

Why Russia has looted Ukraine’s art

Following Vladimir Putin’s expected re-election this week, we’re revisiting a story about the Russian military’s targeting of Ukraine’s heritage. Producer Tariq Nafi explores how Russia’s war on Ukrainian culture is designed to rewrite history and weaken the country’s resistance.

Featuring:

Milena Chorna - Head of International Exhibitions, War Museum in Ukraine
Alina Dotsenko - Director, Kherson Regional Art Museum
Ihor Poshyvailo - General Director, Maidan Museum

Elections are weeks away in India and opposition parties are attempting to take on the seemingly unstoppable juggernaut of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who is seeking a third consecutive term.

The opposition claims that Modi’s success rate has very little to do with his governance – but more because scores of his political rivals have been arrested or charged on questionable grounds. They say it has kneecapped the opposition and gamed the political arena in favour of the governing party.

In this episode of The India Report, Sreenivasan Jain examines whether these actions are – as the Prime Minister claims – part of his crusade against high-level corruption, or an unprecedented campaign against of the opposition which is deeply dangerous to India’s democracy.

Featuring:

Derek O’Brien - Member of Indian Parliament

Adish Aggarwala - President, Supreme Court Bar Association

Anjali Bhardwaj - Founder, Satark Nagrik Sangathan

Priyanka Kakkar - Chief Spokesperson, AAP

Maya Tudor - Professor, Blavatnik School of Government

With the global media’s attention trained on Gaza since October 7, things have worsened for Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, and near impossible for journalists to cover.

With their movement severely restricted, dozens of Palestinian journalists have been arrested, often held without trial or charge.

Contributors:
Anan Quzmar - Journalist

Assal Rad - Middle East Scholar and Author

Mariam Barghouti - Writer and Journalist

Oren Ziv - Journalist, +972 Magazine

On our radar:

Ahead of an upcoming election in India, there has been a slew of movie releases built around key Modi government talking points. Producer Tariq Nafi discusses Bollywood’s role in electioneering.

George Soros - Financier, philanthropist Or bogeyman?

Hungarian-American billionaire financier and philanthropist George Soros has been at the centre of countless conspiracy theories. Flo Phillips sifts through fact and fiction to understand how the crusade against Soros became one of the most destructive smear campaigns of the 21st century and a blueprint for others.

Featuring:

Emily Tamkin - Author, The Influence Of Soros

Hannes Grassegger - Reporter and Founder, Polaris News

Marius Dragomir - Director, Center For Media, Data and Society (CMDS)

Credits: George Soros images courtesy of the Open Society Foundations

The politics of Hindu nationalism have played a central role in the dramatic rise of the BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi. As the elections have neared, the Modi regime has turbocharged its Hindu-first agenda - best exemplified in the inauguration of the Ram Temple in the city of Ayodhya.

Veteran journalist Sreenivasan Jain explains how the opening of this temple - and the whitewashing of its controversial past - illustrates how Modi and his party have made their brand of Hindu supremacism not only acceptable, but a key part of Narendra Modi’s appeal to Indians.

Featuring:

Asaduddin Owaisi - Member of the Indian Parliament

Uma Bharti - Former Vice-President, Bharatiya Janata Party

Hartosh Singh Bal - Political Editor, The Caravan