Committees but stuff a special counsel Robert Miller say theyve done nothing wrong polls open in cheneys president ial election the race is expected to be the most fiercely fought in decades because of the headlines the news will continue him on aljazeera but first lets go over to the listening post. They live in a country plagued by poverty. Billionaires like his own the glamour luxury and pristine. Wonder when east meets the new maharajah at this time an aljazeera. Protests a threat of violence drug arrest record truce on the capital of israel and to real the middle east Peace Process action. Which. Record. The capital of this. Along Richard Burton youre the listening post here are some of the media stories were tracking this week the Political Capital donald trump on does years of u. S. Policy by recognizing jerusalem as the capital of israel but the media seem more concerned with the specter of palestinian violence Rupert Murdoch is getting out of the entertainment business but he will remain a news beric india is whats absent biggest Single Market and the impact the messaging service is having on politics and society there is profound and cinema show saudi arabia finally gets to go to the movies. When donald trump declared last week that the u. S. Was making a seismic policy shift in the middle east officially recognizing jerusalem as the capital of israel the fallout was swift the bulk of the initial coverage focused on the potential for a violent reaction that is to be expected the media like flashpoints palestinians on the streets provide them with one the problem is that that focus does little to explain the real story the root causes of the anger and it fits right into a neat little stereotype widely held outside the region that the people of the middle east palestinians in particular have violent tendencies that are just waiting for a news peg to come out relatively few palestinian voices were granted a media platform to get at that context the conditions of life under an Israeli Occupation that has lasted more than half a century for foreign chorus. Looking to make a name for themselves jerusalem is a posting that comes with plenty of prestige however the journalism produced there like the city itself is among the most contested in the world our starting point this week washington d. C. Today we finally acknowledge the obvious that youre a slim israels can they call that breaking news but it really was the white house that given notice the media knew at least twenty four hours before the president s auto began rolling out the announcement was coming when the news crews descended upon jerusalems damascus gate a frequent flashpoint they found more journalists and Israeli Security personnel there than palestinians just outside damascus gate the crews then moved on to ramallah where protesters came out in numbers and confined to a ready shaped narrative which the palestinians have heard before the palestinians and theyre throwing rocks you can see from a sling shot here what i was focused on was this notion that. This could be a bad idea because it was going to instigate all kinds of violence and violence then in matters. Potentially result in acts of violence against american interests in the region that u. S. Embassies across the region are staffing up on security including u. S. Marine fast teams the framing around the question of violent reaction plays very much into stereotypes about arabs and muslims that are crevel and here in the United States these sorts of feeds you often see in this part of the world we used to the narrative of angry arab theres talk of a new uprising starting what palestinians call an intifada were not used to the narrative of the nonviolent displays of pushback but also perpetuates. Kinds of stereotypes in terms of how one sees the violence on one side the palestinian side ignoring the daily violence inherent in an occupation one way its a fragment of the media sort of over focusing on either of the potential or the actuality of palestinian or of violence but. I think the other way to think about it is you know basically does the International Media the Mainstream Media given enough attention kind of the tween bouts of violence to the complexities of the palestinian and israeli situations and i think that. The answer is we try to. In a story that is so fiercely dispute right down to the way journalists use the word disputed terminology. In the same way that pictures images tend to drive news stories words and the way they are used framed. The situation with covering daily oppression of palestinians comes from the language that the media has constantly used jerusalem is not called an occupied city its just called jerusalem and clashes are expected here in jerusalem im here in jerusalem a city on edge illegal jewish only settlements are or are called neighborhoods palestinian protests and demonstrations are called riots in urban daily riots in or around Jerusalem Israeli Police a stormed one of the holiest sites in jerusalem today after riots broke out attacking protesters called dispersing crowds by israel and the media has adopted this team called in the take used to disperse the crowds the israeli troops who use tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse the crowds and you see the subtleties in the reports and the language being adopted as the norm its the same language the israel uses and unfortunately has dominated the narrative. Another factor that can shape the News Coverage another way to measure is the choice. What forces the news media turned to who they put on the. Palestinians and their supporters have long contend that the International News media and the us media in particular disproportionate rely on not just israelis or jewish folks but also on the International Experts and analysts too many of the long way from the story the fires the protesting burning the American Flag the israeli flag its already begun here it is already begun and we dont know how bad it will get us through media and International Media in general constantly and incessantly take in International Voices over the palestinians strips agency of palestinians and being helps in the denial of the existence of palestinians this comes from not giving us a voice it comes from stripping our faith and putting it in the hands of analysts or experts that are internationals that do not live here do not experience the consequences of israeli oppression so if the president of the United States makes a decision that impacts the us israel relationship it is overwhelmingly israelis that are given permission to narrate events how from now the israeli ambassador to the United States ron dermer and ambassador good to have you back on the show along with their american counterparts who are as we know overwhelmingly supportive of israel and im going to be frank with you i sometimes benefit from that im another white jewish man but this proliferation especially of white jewish voices. Is losing a good bit of the story now were not all the same were not a monolithic white jewish voice but we all come from a certain kind of cloth and we know hearing from others who come from Michael Phelps the d. C. Inside bubbletop especially. The other conflict in the coverage of this story lies within the us news media themselves several major American News outlets not named fox have been accused by President Trump of dealing in fake names and they have not told their punches in aggressively covering this white house many of those same outlets are frequently forced to defend their coverage of the palestine israel conflict against accusations of approach israel bias so what do they do when trump has other Foreign Policy adventures are covered so critically comes out with a policy that is distinctly pro israel i just dont agree with the promise of the crest and i dont think the u. S. News outlets certainly not the one i work for are biased toward israel nor do i think that were you know present only against trump or trying to criticize trump they proceed to say why is trying to in the us what will the impact be what does it mean why does it matter why now whats next is the questions we ask we dont ask like is this good for israel the trump announcement was actually dealt with quite critically in large sections of the American Media partly because it being trump trumped it being israel so to speak across the board were hearing from a lot of different forces im going this wasnt a good move there were attempts to reach a new wants into what President Trump said how did you read this move which simply wasnt there in the text text was anything you all still was a sledgehammer but i think the American Media did give quite a lot of weight to the. Very valuable and almost War International as well as exposed criticism of the president and at the same time all of this this focus on un trump has alleviated israel from its role from its colonized nation of cities like jerusalem despite the policies that its been enforcing on the palestinian residents of jerusalem such as revoking residency and home demolitions arbitrary arrests so this this balance kind of makes you want to question what is really being reported here. And what is not being reported images like this one a boy of sixteen who says an israeli soldier butted him with a rifle it went viral on palestinian social media but for the most part thats as far as such images go they tend not to be considered newsworthy by the Mainstream Media in what has become trumps america this image is a very accurate representation of the imbalance of power on the ground the image has kind of become the iconic representation of this moment among palestinians a sixteen year old palestinian boy surrounded by heavily armed Israeli Soldiers and yet the images that come across in American Media are often images of palestinians acting out in violence against israelis but the reality is that the overwhelming amount of violence that takes place is directed at palestinians and the absence of the coverage of that reality contributes to the skewed perceptions and opinions held by Many Americans to the. Were discussing other media stories that are on our radar this week with one of our producers johannah who is joe Rupert Murdoch has spent six decades building his media empire now hes selling off a big chunk of it to disney how big is this deal its a huge deal richard it basically means the end of the entertainment side of the murdoch media empire and were talking about a sixty six billion dollars sale that weve seen murdoch sell the majority of its twenty First CenturyFox Television and film assets to disney now it also means that this will be the first time that two of hollywoods socalled big six studios are merging and it would mean the disney ends up being the biggest Entertainment Company in the world ok its clear to see where disney is going it gets all kinds of new film and Television Content enabling it to compete better against some of these online newcomers netflix amazon prime but one of the murdochs get out of this transaction well some of the analysts say that theres some real Strategic Value in this due to profitability of murdochs film assets has been relatively flat and theyve been really struggling to compete with newcomers such as apple netflix amazon and google what is important to mention though is that on the new side they are still maintaining some of their key players including fox news fox sports the wall street journal and in the u. K. They are also still in control of one third of the newspaper market and now on top of that they also still have more than one hundred seventy two newspapers worldwide so in short what this comes down to is that their essence are shrinking they are less diversified but its very clear that they are keen to maintain their influence now last week we reported on the yemen story the saudi Led Bombing Campaign there which began in two thousand and fifty to take on that whos the insurgency has resulted in a major media outlet in sanaa being hit possibly targeted what is the story there yes so last week a Coalition Air strike hit yemens who think controlled state Television Channel yemen t. V. Killing four security guards and severely damaging the building and a confusing thing about yemen t. V. Is as we were. Put it last week that saudi arabia actually created a similar channel with exactly the same name beaming in from riyadh telling a completely different story to counter the hooting narrative in yemen but how effective has that saudi version of yemen t. V. Really been it hasnt been very effective very limited and who think the control over the yemeni media space is extremely tight just last week after who thief forces actually killed former yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh it arrested forty media workers from yemen today which is a station that was affiliated to now journalists in yemen have a very tough theyre being attacked from all sides and theres very little space for independent reporting now the other issue that comes on top of that is that the internet is frequently shut off so those reporters that do still operate in yemen have real troubles getting their stories out and this is a case of International Journalism being no substitute for local reporting because so many of those International Journalists trying to get into the country have been locked out stop at the border. Fewer than one in four people in india have a smartphone but when youre dealing with a country of more than one point three billion thats a lot of handsets three hundred million two hundred Million People are on whatsapp making india the messaging services biggest market nowhere else comes close and whatsapp has changed the way indians do six marketers who used to target customers with Text Messages now ping them on whatsapp Political Parties have made whatsapp strategy central to their campaigns activists do the same however indias whatsapp habit has a dark side to it misinformation dissin from ation and rumors can go viral so can fear mongering fake messages that have actually led to people getting killed in at least two cases in century material spread on whatsapp has led to mobs lynching innocent people listening posts Meenakshi Ravi now in a dangerous and at times deadly trap on indias most widely used messaging service. In july this year a familiar image started doing the rounds on whatsapp in india it pushed all the buttons that the most vital whatsapp messages in india can push it was fear mongering it threatening the specter of a violent and powerful islamic extremist base in the country. And it was reported as real news on one of indias louder more sensational channels invent the hindu faith by getting out conversions specially of young hindu gods monies offered to these agents sometimes rate cards of dubious antecedents are also used during incentivize this activity it was claimed that isis is circulating. In catalog where we as women of different religions in india oh were given prices and what we found was that this rate card is actually zero four to shop rate and it has been around for over seventy years and it has been reported multiple times in the media it comes up as media news every every two year in my personally group supports. One polarizing story about. Muslims being lynched in india i. Say this this video is from a country outside india but that thats being passed up by one of my relatives who is rather ignorant who doesnt know how those works i would tend to believe and then i would get that wish aside and probably thought that disturbing video in twelve more. What subgroups are part of what sat is very personal because its groups that you know its not youre not broadcasting to all these many people it feels like somebody is speaking more directly to you so things that once would have spread sort of word of mouth in your local neighborhood in your village in your Community Whatsapp has become a much much more powerful tool to amplify that sort of thing so unverified stories its a source of a lot of sort of often inflammatory videos there are many first time users in india who think that what they were comes in their whatsapp inbox is true so friends and relatives sending whatsapp messages which are misleading is a cause for you know whats happened was becoming while people not knowing that everything is too we believe is also a major reason why whats happening was are becoming. The lot of whatsapp has coincided with a wave of political and social religious activism in india doing party b j p has been particularly adept at using the app opposition parties are playing catch up but the b. G. P. Has been out front using the messenger as a powerful campaigning tool. Many religious and civic groups that share the b. G. P. Is hindu nationalist agenda and also very active what happens take the cow protectors for instance who in parts of india operate with impunity as the party has focused its efforts undertaken. And be fighting across the country dedicated groups have sprung up on whatsapp tracking in targeting those they suspect of harming animals considered sacred by hindus just over two years ago in september two thousand and fifteen in a village just outside of delhi the local Cow Protection group got an alert of a man mohammad oclock who had supposedly killed a cow and stored its meat in his house that information has yet to be verified but it triggered a deadly domino Effect People see this or they dont go to Law EnforcementAgency Agencies they dont call it the police saying that look theres over theres a possibility that a plug could go to go to his relig drag him out and beat him to death and brutally assault his son when this lynching happened minus edition shows that the local whats a network in the you know clark school its what abnormally there has been a build up of of cream perceived agreed on which originated from those fake mules which originated from pig pictures and figure videos circulated widely on whats up there there are tensions periodic lee between different groups and this is not new and usually pursued a word of mouth and that was enough to get it going now whats up i think amplifies it on a scale that didnt really exist before so whats odd is really in fact its not just you know fake news its actually fake news with consequences. The whats up experience in india hasnt been all about fake news and bad consequences the messenger has opened new possibilities of communication across the country linking Families Communities of friends civic groups prayer groups and many more however its the outsized and shocking impact that some of the more politically motivated groups have had that has sent up a flare. One of those groups is the go to. A Cow Protection group that operates just outside new delhi a spokesman of the group. Now that explained what whatsapp has meant for his organizations activities. That most of our members tend to be more active in water which makes it the ideal platform for us the best thing about using whats up is that it delivers our messages to our members instantly we have a system for relaying information to our group for example if the information is about a vehicle transporting before we send it via text message if the message is urgent we send voice messages however if we have an advanced warning about the vehicle then i will compose a long message with the full details and forward it to our members on whatsapp also message. I was talking to one of these guys who was who runs this. Biggest whatsapp groups and network of forth a group in dougherty where the engine of a clock happened i asked him how do you get people to be of out of your group so its very simple you just go to the immobile recharge shops in a village you go there you give you give him a hundred bucks hell give you the number of a diver in it and then you add these people. In need of oddities on the back foot when it comes to even beginning to deal with the challenges posed by the misuse of whats up as a february this year there were two hundred million indians on the app texting voice messaging and video calling each other technologically and even in terms of regulation Law Enforcement officials have yet to catch up whats up itself says keeping a check on the spread of misinformation is quote complex earlier this year one of the companys engineers allan couch said the key challenge to managing whatsapp was encrypted and its one of the most valuable features of the messaging Service Helping ensure privacy and security but it makes it impossible to get to the root the source of some of the most dangerous messages being shared on the app whats up as and to encryption so whats up as a company cannot distinguish cannot actually. Track a message that has gone from a to b. And b. To c. Even though the message may be identical whats have has become the primary medium to spread rumors because people know that they will have legal immunity even if they are pushing out news which might lead to disasters consequences like people being killed the country is so polarized and there is so extremely polarized right now on all sides of the digital camera two eyes ation has increased much more not we are looking at millions of people in a rural india being constantly being radicalized through whatsapp they may not be ideologically driven but they have an ideology be appropriate. And finally after an official ban that lasted thirty five saudi arabia is opening itself up to the world of cinema saudi citizens will actually be able to go to film starting in march about three months from now this is all part of a reform package put forward by the new crown prince mohamed bin. Saudis can already stream films or download them at home and second do not mistake this new policy for a new era of free speech in the kingdom the minister of culture has already confirmed that what goes on the Silver Screen will be subject to censorship the online response though was quick and coming within hours a new hash tag was trending saudi movie titles putting a fan into the titles of some of the most famous blockbusters out there will leave you with some of them and well see you next time youre at the listening. The nature of news as it breaks last time senegal qualified for the world cup was in two thousand and fifteen years on and hope to do even better in russia next year with detailed coverage hard to imagine that only seven years ago people were living right here farming shrimp now the thief has taken over their land from around the world donald trump is promising a major policy announcement on trade a potential challenge to khorat a missed opportunity a braai. Facing realities if a piece of machinery goes wrong is there a train of litigation true which we can bring a legal system to bear getting to the heart of the matter i dont think we need of the wall but some of my producers just to hear their story on talk to aljazeera at this time. You are making very pointed remarks where theyre on line the main u. S. Response to drug use and the drug trade over the last fifty years has been to criminalize or if you join us on say no evil person just makes up of it in the morning and says i want to call the world of darkness this is a dialogue and that could be what leading to some of the confusion online about people saying they dont actually know whats going on join the global conversation at this time on aljazeera. This is aljazeera