The middle east Peace Process action. Which. Wrecked. The capital of this. Along Richard Geres britain europe 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 us 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 how vile. 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 correspondents 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. Scan they called it 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 interest the priest then moved on to ramallah where protesters came out in numbers and conform to a ready shaped narrative that palestinians have heard before the palestinians and theyre throwing rocks you can see some of them sling shot here what was focused on was this notion that. This could be a bad idea because it was going to instigate all kinds of violence 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 seems the framing around the question of violent reaction plays very much into stereotypes about arabs and muslims that are credible and here in the United States these sorts of scenes you often see in this part. The world we used to the narrative of angry hour theres talk of a new uprising starting what palestinians call an intifada were not used to the narrative of the nonviolent displays of push back but also a perpetual two 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 is to frame it as 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 matters in the same way that pictures images tend to drive news stories words and the way very are used framing 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 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 caught in the take used to disperse the crowds of israeli troops who used 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 of 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. Way from the store 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 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 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 when 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 bubble top especially. The other conflict in the coverage of this story lies within the u. S. 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 pulled 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 quest 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 a person 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 is for 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 the text was anything you all still has 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 expert 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 the 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 and 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 Century Fox 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 that this the ends up being the biggest Entertainment Company in the worlds 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 news 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 at a confusing thing about yemen t. V. Is as we were. Port last week that saudi arabia and he created a similar channel with exactly the same name beaming in from riyadh telling a completely different story to counter to who can 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 think 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 journalist 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 trend 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 threatened 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 carrying out conversion 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 where we as women of different religions in india were given prices and what we found was that this rate card is actually zero for to shop late and it has been around for over seventy years and it has been reported multiple times in the media it comes out as media news every every two year in my personal group supports. One polarizing story about. Muslims being lynched in india. See 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 a cycle and probably force 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 amplify that sort of thing so unverified stories its a source of a lot of sort of often inflammatory videos where many first time users in india who think that what they were comes in their whatsapp inbox is true so trends and relatives sending whatsapp messages which are misleading is a cause for you know whats happened was becoming while people not knowing that not 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 whats. Take the cow protectors for instance who in parts of india operate with impunity as the party has focused its efforts undertaken. Eating cow slaughter and be feeding across the country dedicated groups have sprung up on whatsapp tracking and 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 where they dont go to Law Enforcement Agency Agencies they dont call it the police saying that look is over theres a possibility that a plug could go to go to his relig drag him out and beat him to death and brutally assaulted his son when this lynching happened minus edition shows that the local what network in the you know clarks well its what abnormally there has been a build up of of crema perceived agreed on which originated from those fake news which would units from big pictures and figure videos circulated widely on whats up there are tensions periodic between different groups in india this is not new and usually pursued a word of mouth and that was enough to get it going and now whats up i think amplifies it on a scale that didnt really exist before to whats out is really in fact its not just you know fake news its actually fake news of 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 there 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 whats ahead also message to go out of there i was talking to one of these guys who was who runs this. Biggest whatsapp groups a network of for groups and oddity 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 authorities are 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 alan coutts said the key challenge to monitoring 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 of the source of some of the most dangerous messages being shared on the app. Whats happened is 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 the digital camera to isolation 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 been ideology be appropriate. And finally after an official ban that lasted thirty five year 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 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 here at the listening. Stunning images from the niger delta through the unflinching eyes of a look up photographer. An artist on a mission to demonstrates the good and the bad of his beloved homeland documents the effects of the black. Deeds and disfigures his country and showcases the traditional monarchs caught between a modern world and the tribal culture the new africa. At this time on aljazeera. We understand the differences. And the similarities of cultures across the world so no matter how you take it aljazeera will bring you the news and Current Events that matter to aljazeera. Stunning images from the niger delta through the unflinching eyes of a lookout for. An artist on a mission to demonstrates the good and the bad of his beloved homeland documents the effects of the black gold that both feeds and disfigures his country and showcases the traditional monarchs caught between a modern tribal culture and the new africa. This time on the aljazeera kenyan elections intractable war in syria refugee crisis troubles in venezuela and tensions on the Korean Peninsula and aljazeera news special looks back on the biggest stories of twenty seventeen through the eyes of families who lived through them. This is al jazeera im dating obligato with a check on your world headlines the u. S. Senate
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