Protests of course you can follow those stories on our website at aljazeera dot com more news in half an hour with the news grid until live from the t. V. Good buy. China has a serious shortage of women and a lot of. One on one east meets those desperately seeking any way they can at this time on aljazeera. That bombshell book rocking the white house michael was firing kerry for troubling allegations that the president is telling. Us they sent a letter. To the russians are now being raised about the reliability of the biggest area they pretty much free reign at this place. Hello im Richard Quest but if youre at the listening post here are some of the stories weve been tracking this week Michael Wolff throws the book at donald trump exposing a dysfunctional white house and a thing or two about the u. S. Mainstream news media egypt and the talk show hosts on the front lines of the c. C. Governments propaganda efforts night after night after night the protests in iran and the social media battlegrounds that matter there plus oprah says of the press the worst of the worst in the age of twitter and the twenty four hour news cycle a book launch might seem like a story for a slow news day unless its fire in fury by Michael Wolff a journalist who divides opinion on his approach to sourcing and to the facts having inveigling his way into the trouble white house to tell the inside story of the administration he describes a president with the barest grasp of his responsibilities suffering from a gradual loss of his faculties in short wolf goes there using the d. Word that mainstream news outlets have shied away from dementia well wolf publishers stand firm against Donald Trumps lawyers and the threat of litigation copies of the book are flying off the shelves the american mainstream news media remain hypnotized by a spectacle they did much to create our starting point this week the white house. The president has said fire and fury was making headlines before the first copy was sold as that bombshell book rocking the book has come out and everybody says and explode it is a devastating portrait of the trouble with the excerpts alone fueled two entire news cycles forty eight hours of coverage peppered with angry tweets coming out of the oval office or perhaps the president s bedroom and winning the presidency qualifies him is not smart genius and a very stable genius at that if the white house actually thought threatening the publisher with a lawsuit would stop the inevitable it was wrong the publication was moved on the book is published as at nine oclock this morning the president s lawyer sent a cease and desist letter to which you say actually what i say is were going to send the box of chocolates from this particular book is the kind of president ial history that this particular prison president deserves they can have this particular president then that has generated the kind of jordan which is not predicated on the politics of substance but the politics of subterfuge and show there is nothing in this book that actually addresses the fundamental issues of these but actually banks on a kind of sensationalism that now is extended into the formation of a book between two cupboards we cant get enough of this whether or not every one of those anecdotes can be trusted you know we will see im sure that more reporting will continue to play out but what wolf has offered is this behind the scenes fly on the wall look at it at an administration that people are still trying to figure out just how it functions on a day to day basis weve seen a lot of confirmation bias by people who want to believe that donald trump is exactly as depicted in the book and others are saying well frankly this is really not all that new you also see some jealousy perhaps of Michael Moore by other journalists who have covered. Very closely that perhaps theyre upset that theyre not the ones getting all the attention now. The idea that Michael Wolff merely gathered known journalistic tidbits and repackage them in book form is only partly true inevitably there is some of that both the New York Times in the Washington Post have new reports about the mind of donald trump there has been plenty of reporting on President Trumps mental stability his temperament however when it came to the possible signs of dementia news outlets have treated that with caution and no one had ever quoted Steve Bennett trumps former advisor describing meetings with russian contacts as treasonous before and that led to a series of attacks from trump and bannons ouster from Breitbart News one of the online voices of the american all right. Journalists covering the white house either did not find those stories or if they did their editors chose not to publish mainstream news outlets like to say they hold power to account but they also tend to build bridges to power and burning those bridges can mean losing future access that can come back to burning them early on some journalists decided to sacrifice their integrity for access well kind of had the same idea he went in there to do x. As journalism and then realized he had burned his bridges at the end of this by publishing the result so i think that if anything we should be having a broader conversation about what the purpose of access journalism is a government that wants to essentially function as an autocracy a government that routinely attacks the press and threatens journalists so we were talking before the break on the medias reluctance to discuss donald trump and the possibility of dementia heres m s n b cs morning host Joe Scarborough regarding a column that he writes for the Washington Post i written twice in my column. A quote about one of the people close. Donald trump during the campaign saying hes getting really sage of the mention he repeats the same stories over and over again his father had it but twice the Washington Post would not let me put that in my column would end until your book came out this was something that we were not allowed to speak about like so many in the Mainstream MediaJoe Scarborough has come a long way on truck compared to the early days of the election cycle when his program was addicted to the candidate the ratings he would draw the revenues he would generate scarborough as a lot of blood on his hands because back when it was in Joe Scarborough self interest he gave donald trump enormous access to his show talking about a way with very very light questioning now all is that he wants to say that he has a story saying that trump has early onset dementia to me that would be something that you would need and on the record source for. Michael wolff admits in his preface that on questions of sourcing and verification many of the accounts in the book are in conflict with one another but in some cases they are for the reader to judge and that he had settled on a version of events i believe to be true thats not so much of a preface as it is a disclaimer however well wolf has become a lightning rod for those critical of the state and standards of american journalism today the role of his publisher macmillan has been largely ignored which is since without the Publishers Distribution Network the writers words would go on read mcmillan says it had one editor and three Fact Checkers working with wolf however some basic errors including getting names wrong still made it into print Michael Wolff is not a popular figure both for personal and professional reasons he certainly played fast and loose with facts in the past he doesnt follow some of the same sourcing guidelines that a typical newspaper reporter would book is at times. Sourced at times simply a stunning graphic repetition of what certain sources have told wolf the irresponsibility of the Publishing House is worse than the irresponsibility of the author. Hundred fifty years ago democracy. The way. The rich. At the time. Michael wolff did not make his name covering politics his best known work to date was a biography of Rupert Murdoch a news. Understands the meat the role they have played in the trump story and he would have known that they would find his version of the story. Fire in many ways the reality t. V. Reality t. V. President. Style in the book that are reminiscent of reality cast of characters who are constantly at worth each other were plotting with each other. To the public for example a Serious Investigation of crime and if you use our heart the foundation the. Medias fascination. Is all about race friends it was. Affectively a steroids for the news Media Business the dysfunction now gripping this white house in the short run. Help them survive. And where do you go from that i dont know. The flotus. You can go back just like a drug unless you go through a. Catastrophic. Body slamming c. N. N. Which maybe is what were headed to because i dont think any of this is and this will not end well. Were discussing some other media stories that are on our radar today with one of our producers john a whos joe over the past couple of weeks around has seen some of the biggest political demonstrations its seen in almost a decade the social media is among the platforms where this battle is being waged what are we seeing there while government critics have been on the streets since late last year and they are demanding political social and Economic Reforms now the government has responded with force at least twenty one people have been killed and over a thousand have been jailed now both sides are also using social media to spread their messages despite the fact that Facebook Twitter and you tube have been banned in iran since two thousand and nine now this was the last time that we saw protests on this scale now instagram and telegram which is the countrys biggest social media platform are also being temporarily blocked but people in iran are used to finding ways around these kind of sensors and they are actually still using these networks funnily enough so is the government so the protesters are using social media to share information imagery and to get organized what about supporters of the government what are they doing on social well dozen of twitter bots have been created now these are accounts and have very suspicious profile names they dont have any profile pictures they have very few followers and what these accounts are doing is they are tagging certain images as fake and they are discouraging iranians from joining these protests now they are also putting up tweets saying things like oh well i just arrived here at the protests but nothing seems to be going on and why are lying nobody is actually a year now on top of that theyve been identifying protesters in videos and pictures asking authorities to arrest them but the protesters are actually fighting back they have created accounts in which they share details of the security personnel who is confronting them in the demonstrations turning out to another story that youve been looking into in india the government there has filed a criminal complaint against. The journalist over a data breach something to do with a very ambitious Identity Card scheme the governments working on that involves biometrics one of the details well this seems to be a very care case of shooting the messenger now this campaign by the Indian Government is called hard and it basically stores very elaborate details of virtually all indians online now last week a reporter for the Tribune Newspaper watched kyra published an investigation in which she actually showed that she could buy these personal records online for less than ten u. S. Dollars now these records include Contact Details but they could also potentially include fingerprints and retina scans now the unique Identification Authority of india due idea which is supposed to safeguard that data set that the reporter violated indias privacy laws by trying to get access to the database and theres no actually demanding Police Action against her so the governments been getting some blowback on this and not all of it is coming from within india no its not a lot of people are saying that this case is an attack against press freedom and whistleblower Edward Snowden actually weighed in on this case from moscow on twitter last week saying that the journalists that are exposing the breach deserve an awards not an investigation if you want to arrest those responsible they are called the you idea i thanks joe egyptians call them emperors and every night millions tune in to watch them lecture entertain rant and even cry their way through hours of television output their talk show hosts and as a group they form a key filter through which a gyptian succumb to view their politics. Under the rule of Abdel Fattah Elsisi talk shows are used to digital mys his presidency and to vilify his critics Television Audiences may be dwindling in many countries but given the high rate of illiteracy in egypt t. V. Remains the medium of the masses and few institutions are more influential than the evening talk shows not everyone in egypt is buying what the talking heads are selling though given that they frequently venture into the realm of the absurd listening posts not fun now on the highly politicized world of t. V. Talk shows in egypt. Say that talk shows are the most important phenomenon in the way that government communicates with the public will be an undersea. Feed and. Many its consistent its entertaining. You get the feeling as though youre sitting at a cafe with them. And dont mistake it for a moment this is not about bringing information to the people this is about bringing government this course into your home. But. The. Point in egyptian Intelligence Officer on the phone to a number of t. V. Personality directing them on how to report the u. S. Decision to recognize to resign him of the capsule. Instead of condemning the decision they should persuade the u. S. To simply accept. The takes of time by the New York Times show just how involved the state can be and what goes out on the country. And i share. Egyptian talk shows are an accidental byproduct of states censorship when former president Hosni Mubarak allowed more private channels on the air he made it clear that news bulletins would remain in the hands of state and broadcasters private stations got around that by creating discussion programs focusing on the news of the hosts of these shows were everything that monochrome counterparts on state t. V. Were not so i didnt get any and they said they did the job i did my sad sad was late looking at how yeah i know yet how many hail it is they. Can yet they have a good that theyre engaging emotional and opinionated and uniquely egyptian and that they start out with a monologue that goes on and on and on the monologue can be up to a half hour in some cases forty five minutes where you have a host not only talking. But working himself or herself up emotionally. Sometimes you would have some video theatrical props a bullet a picture a video and the other thing is the interaction not only with the in studio guests but also with viewers at home for example weve seen relatives of some of the victims of the terrorist bombings where an audience member calls begins crying on the air. And a host begins crying as well and of god. And as a result the host becomes this Emotional Link this connection that brings people in their homes together i can see at least eighty percent of the journalists i interviewed in egypt told me. To be First Citizens and the second professional journalist i got not you know off track. And there is a strong cord for subjectivity within that is to Community Set for c. S. Issue of the idea of objective journalism as trees and the importance of the personalities at play are beyond crucial without them the shows would crumble two of them happen to be the power couple of middle eastern talkers is the first and he is very likely the most handsomely paid. He has a natural instinct of intelligence and the intelligence agencies recognize that his wife is the incident she is a study in upper middle class the core and delivers her message not as opinion but as fact. A plot to watch. The third person that comes to mind is the most grotesque figure of explicit propaganda comedies i have to should go out on a fic while also not defend it all that much. Is loud fascist nonapologetic all what are you. I guess what i think what he excels at are hyperbolic nationalistic form of diatribe that appeals to the lowest common denominator. President of the photography three took power four years ago with a value to return stability to egypt staking his legitimacy on combating terror must. Have. The right man in motel one in ireland became a. T. V. Personalities play a leading role in echoing the governments line. But how to prepare us how do. You watch that you have a guy that they create a shared sense of panic purpose and victim. One of the key aspects of the stock shows is the way they whip up a sense of national emergency. At the as they react in a very emotional sensationalistic way to very atrocious events. Shaaban most bought about. That me about that ok are you not only support the government if you bend over backwards so to speak so dissidents Political Prisoners are typically vilified and they are portrayed as enemies of the nation as. They would wish i had and i do when. And if you portray anybody as an enemy of the nation in a time of emergency what youre saying its ok to jail them its ok to beat them up and in some cases its ok to kill them talk shows i very prominent Political Tool or political platform for messaging you need to support because said he she is facing unprecedented dentures coming from south side but also and mainly from inside there is a conspiracy coming from tell us a prostitute oh man i have black yanni over the. The little bit of a i got not one was the new one despite they are on their feet. By seventeen as three critical voices can be linked to someone suppressive the roster of the bad guys real imagined and otherwise is constantly evolving to suit the needs of the state. Of. Qatar is now public enemy number one turkey is public enemy number two in iran is public enemy number three consume it every day and lets not put it up out of and then pop out of the let it. Go let a happy well i dont have a comment about im here i say and depending on the day of the week israel isnt so bad or is public enemy number one and its not easy they had acted idle. And of course the ruler is featured prominently one way or another very rarely do you hear criticism and when you do it is measured i. E. The critique isnt leveled at the president. Is going off easy. Might be how much i dont know. How. But got a fortune. There has always been a consistent awareness where the red lines are precisely and right now there are more out lines than there ever been and for the most part the presenters know not to cross those red lines they know that jobs depend on direct criticism of the president the military or the Intelligence Services all awful or cross one of those red lines and you could end up disappearing from the airwaves like. A prominent british lebanese preventer who had a contract and before being kicked out of egypt in two thousand and sixteen he really thought a journalist to start shifting his political positions to suit the times had his shirt counts lost yes and theyre not the only one. Is sort of the type of muckraking investigative journalist whos not afraid of speaking truth to power. In the. North didnt. Before the revolution for example he became known for basically confronting mubarak and his sons so thats one example of another famous talk show host and. Hes not afraid to push controversial issues and that was his undoing for airing a very famous interview. That got mr fired you have to keep in mind that it all comes down to information who has it doesnt how its delivered hats off to the sea for understanding the twenty First Century for understanding the link between lack of education ease of the simulation obstruction of information the government has created an environment where dispersement of the nation unless it is tightly controlled by government is all but. Finally its award season hollywoods Golden Globes have just been handed out and President Trump wants in he recently told his twitter followers that his own awards for bad reporting from the Fake News Media will be coming out soon that inspired the new york based committee to protect journalists to announce their own c. P. G. A global press oh pressers awards threats against journalists are no laughing matter the c. P. G. Says two thousand and seventeen saw a Record Number of them jailed and journalists are being censored attacked sometimes killed over their work will leave you now with some politicians who have made it into the sea pjs hall of shame and well see you next time youre at the listening post. Arts. Training starts lightly but the pace picks up quickly as these grannies work out a long lifetime of frustration. At eighty five years old intombi sword what trains as hard as anyone and. I feel so good i feel fresh i punch this side and this side like this and like that i really left theres a dirty. Because i will bring these ladies are tough and i take their training very seriously who. Go through more and more interjected through all my life. 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. Other than the morning and says i want to cover the world in darkness this is a dialogue that could be whats leading to some of the confusion online about people saying they dont actually know whats going on join the conversation at this time on aljazeera. This is zero from studio fourteen here at aljazeera headquarters in doha. Welcome to the news we were