Terrible. Getting our objective is to kill a black. If i missed the 1st. If. They got caught they have taken the right approach another day another politician standing offish that weve got. Hello im Richard Gilbert and youre watching the listening post here are some of the coronavirus stories the media angles that were covering from home this week the casualty figures are climbing in the u. K. Yet most of the british media are failing to hold the government to account locked in with covert 19 across the world prisoners are trying to get their stories out israels Prime Minister decides mass surveillance is the best way to check the spread of the virus he has a ready made template to do it and say you cannot i mean a reminder in britain of a contribution that can no longer be taken for granted. As the coronavirus death toll in the u. K. Continues to mount there is a growing market for explanations and its not being met at 10 downing street government officials at the daily briefings are dodging difficult questions journalists are failing to get answers whether thats because of the challenges created when briefings are conducted via video link or an overly respectful press corps that sees itself as part of a collective war against a pandemic its meant that politicians have been getting away with vague or incomplete answers on some serious failings such as the lack of testing personal protective equipment and ventilators in a relatively prosperous country then there are the questionable decisions the Prime MinisterBoris Johnson took in the early stages johnson caught the virus but its recovered his personal story has received plenty of attention but how we got here and who was responsible is a larger story yet to be properly told our starting point this week is the site of the u. K. s daily covert 1000 briefing in downing street london. Press briefings are only as useful as the quality of the questions asked by reporters and answers given by officials. Before he tested positive Prime MinisterBoris Johnson a former journalist turned politician who has casually lied his way through 2 careers was at the podium confronted with facts that not even he can fudge the rising number of infections the body. People will be very worried about in something it will be much less what. Can you say to the matter how many lives. Then when johnson fell ill his ministers faced questions on the lack of testing. Personal protective for frontline workers as well. As the larger issue of responsibility those questions were slow to town and many have missed the mark i think the journalists who have been at the press briefings could have done a much better job scrutinizing the advices and the politicians who are addressing office it would be handy if they had a scientific background but i dont think you need to have scientific background to questions on the decisions which have been made the 1st job. Is to question the entire press conference. Kind of all get nice to be as a propaganda or exercise they keep on telling us that they are following some oil. Producing the chief medical officer and the chief scientific officer in these other Public Officials ministers to her behind and the press corps having to die only if we go to questions from. The 1st question is from the b. B. C. Thank you very much very hard for them to ask follow proper follow up questions the entire thing is sort of structured in a way that makes press scrutiny incredibly difficult the media are being what michael back to behave. They are being more tolerant and perhaps less questioning government because there is a feeling that this is a crisis that. No one was expecting that we all have to do our bit to try and become a cyclist titians have been given more leeway than they would normally be given its a fake. And they were tricksters no one in the u. K. Is calling for the kind of briefing circus coming out of washington where weve asked them to accelerate whatever theyre doing in terms of a vaccine to never seen a video like that playing in this room the talking points shouting and president ial media bashing you know your fake that you buy yourself time you didnt pass bills you didnt use it to rant about testing for a so what you saw disgraceful but the performance of british journalists settling for unclear incomplete answers from downing street falls well short of their reputation for aggressive reporting and the johnson government has much to answer for its initial half baked version of social isolation was built around the herd immunity concept and then abandoned but that took time many more days of mass exposure and more infection in those early days i would say from the beginning of march to mid march when policy was cracked and. Approach one of the theories is that you know you could sort of. Take it all in one it want to go and allow the disease as it were to move through the population there wasnt really a robust question in. The past and we i think the School Editor piece about it but media did not really question those of us who did question we were. More dangerous than the virus itself matthew the Health Secretary said that john raised questions about the destruction that his job is to save lives but its also very very bad and necessary to off these difficult questions how youre not. Before social distancing was inforced in the u. K. The medias focus lay elsewhere countries in which the numbers were rising fast acting and that. Number of people going to the coronavirus its overwhelming there was little. But as the u. K. s daily death toll surpassed diddled us the tone of the reporting was less alarming more measured and broadcasters still led with news of Boris Johnsons recovery downing street says hes sitting up in bed gauging positively with staff said Thomas Hospital its really stark that when the death toll started mansingh in. You know the role of the press to me to you was so so in us understanding the scale of the calamity and yet has been extraordinary living through the same moment in person where the death toll you struggle to even see it on the front pages of the newspapers on the front page of news websites and. Which is being put out on a daily basis is instead becoming the headlines in the talking points theres been a real step change in the last few days. Where the press is becoming more aggressive and we are becoming more and. Taken were we to get. There has been some aggressive uncompromising reporting on called it 19 in the british media most of it takes place a long way from the official briefing on april 11th after 3 days of rising death tolls and record numbers the guardians front page looked like. And on the broadcast that britons are finding some quality journalism in some unexpected places. Not to. Elderly people died in hospital and we cant do enough piers morgan need formants haploid newspaper insert in the u. K. Who has for some time now been posting. This program on i. T. V. And Good Morning Britain and all the lives not been physically well known. Had hitting journalism in june this crisis he has consistently been at voice Holding Governments who account when you figure that we had a plan and im not prepared to admit any mistakes in that plan i find that clearly felt evidently ridiculous. The hospitalisation of the Prime Minister was yet another coronavirus angle to cover 70 percent of the newspaper sold in the u. K. Tilt Boris Johnsons way to the political right there editorial dilemma his life was in the hands of the state funded National Health service the n. H. S. Whose funding has been cut by conservative government cuts that those papers have strongly supported. N. H. S. Frontline workers are now the toast of for the conservative papers have had no choice but to jump on that bandwagon another Public Institution thats had its funding cut the b. B. C. Is watching the n. H. S. Story closely the lockdown has seen the b. B. C. s ratings search news programs are up 25 percent childrens programs are close to 50 percent and the bead is playing substitute teacher online educating children who cannot go to school through daily lessons the n. H. S. And the b. B. C. As the saying goes are having a good coronavirus but can they survive the peace if and when it ever comes those arguments that around the n. H. S. And around the b. B. C. Will come. Back i think it quietens and now we see a National Response and everybody pulling together and i think when we emerge on the other side then might be more support simply because there has been some very good records and. Biggest challenge. But i think there is also very good other channels and that the underlying issue that there shouldnt be state broadcasting which is what some people have been trying to undermine b. B. C. Thing i think that when Research Things but always see that there. Is great mindy patient the power and the importance of the traditional Mainstream Media and certainly exist broadcasters like the b. B. C. But why dont we see an end of that then were also going to see a significant because downturn and the b. B. C. Will continue to be under threat its going to be difficult to continue to protect it despite the absolutely i took it as plain as an institution and did we really. Were discussing other covert 19 media stories that are on our radar this week with one of our producers Nick Muirhead nic this pandemic is keeping most of us reporters at home not nearly enough of us are out there in the field which means people out there with stories to tell are having to find some novel ways to get those stories out what kind of ways. By taking matters into their own hands for truth for example there was a group of female migrants cone can cost rated in louisiana by the u. S. Immigration authorities they being held 70 to door member afraid that one of them had contracted the corona virus and want to get the word out that facility has a Video Visitation Service so they used to call a reporter at the intercept news sites but they knew if they told the reporter their problems the call could be cut off so they used handwritten signs instead one of the guards eventually clued in in the video ends by that stage the story got some coverage so choked on. The United States has more than 2000000 people locked up in its prisons there must be other stories like this out there there are just last weekend and annoy a reporter from an a. B. C. Station in chicago went to the Cook County Jail to cover a reported operate in that prison which has as many as 4000. 00 prisoners. While they were producing that report some of the inmates stocked images up in the windows trying to draw all the t. V. Crews attention to the plight which worked because those images then made it into a. B. C. News is report but its not just this person there are multiple cases like it not just in the u. S. But across the globe and some of those prisons have journalists in them behind bars they do and some cases are better known than others for example who is in prison in Londons Belmarsh prison his support to the say that they feel for his health and just last week april 6th the committee to protect journalists wrote an open letter to african heads of state urging them to release 73 journalists and media workers who are currently in prison and one of those cases close to home aljazeera Mahmud Hussein and is one of 26 journalists in egypt who are currently in prison its been 3 years now and the sisi government hasnt even charged him and then convicted him of a crime. Ok thanks nick. Here at the listening post weve been tracking how some governments are using technology primarily phone data to monitor the movements of their citizens and to curb the spread of the corona virus weve examined some of the long term implications of that the concern that even if this pandemic is brought under control those governments might prove reluctant to give up their new surveillance powers israel would be a case in point Prime MinisterBenjamin Netanyahu now has the legal right to surveil Israeli Citizens in new ways and he acquired that right without even consulting Parliament Israel already has expertise in this field it has spent decades holding its ability and the Technology Required to monitor the movements of palestinians listening post often now reporting from hall on the surveillance the palestinians have been subjected to and whether israelis can see whats coming you must stay at home. I mean. Quite simply stay at home the state has rarely been more present in peoples lives more employed it is right now theres a war on war on the. Leaders everywhere are using extraordinary measures to combat sgrena violence in israel the government is leaning on the Security Services to provide a Security Solution to the pandemic so that i dont have no facts to. Show against sending spies to procure medical equipment tasking secrets biological Research Center to find a vaccine and all through i think israels domestic security through the shin bet to spy on all citizens using a vast previously undisclosed database. Extraordinary times require extraordinary measures but these should not be of course at the expense of our privacy and our dignity as citizens in the case of israel of the shin bet which is an internal Intelligence Agency operates in top secrecy of course has very little public oversight or accountability and therefore you know this is not the right authority to meddle in such crises israel has been always. Militarized society due to its geostrategic historical background so there is nothing new in this is that the military and the Security Services are playing a central role in the Israeli Society says they have the capabilities and their badges and the other a sharing of this Civic Society its no wonder they know they are the most effective tool in combating the virus the difference with israel is that it has and place i template possibly the most sophisticated in the world the Israeli Military have been surveying palestinians movement for decades and what netanyahu did was very early on he authorized the secret service to use their surveillance technologies not only on me and in the occupied territories but also on Israeli Citizens and theres a sense wait a minute you know what just happened here this is what happens when Security Services gets unrestricted access to fund data about where israelis go they speak to and what they do online kentucky using that data to track those who could be infected could help governments around the world but the question. If how the data is used and by whom then or so is an Israeli Technology firm in the business of surveying best known for its talking Software Pegasus among its clients saudi arabia pegasus was one of the tools the found in the murder of journalist jamal khashoggi. A call or met the other level is. The height of. Your ball alarm now israels minister of defense wants to put Data Collected by the state into a socalled poorna meter built by and they grade citizens on their likelihood of spreading the virus there as a group has tarnished record of human rights their new arrest stories of journalists and human rights defenders and Civil Society activists being killed harassed surveilled using. Spyware and malware insert Companies Like lisa are in no business to deal. With their health data theyre not just interested in profit at this moment their profit comes nationally and i sell it comes because it white washes their reputation the reputational damage it allows them to claim expertise when theyre next are going to sell their products to other governments and literally allows a news release. As a laboratory a mentality of constant who has ways existed and it is a militarized the sides for the vast majority of israelis military service is mandatory and the military month goes way back Emergency Powers were 1st used by the british to monitor people to demolish homes to restrict free speech and movement and those powers have been a fixture of palestinian life since 1948 so israelis do not have to look very. To see whats happened when populations are used as a testing lab palestinians have been exposed to invasive surveillance for decades by these radio 4 teams are i. C. T. Infrastructure is controlled by israel and therefore it has direct access to palestinian state is a very relaxing information on Peoples Health situation if someone is having an affair and Sexual Orientation on their financial needs and in some cases this information has been used to blackmail palestinians the surveillance is so invasive that it has become in our d. N. A. As palestinians that we know that israel you know is this only Patient Power that it knows everything about the state of emergency has been in place since 940 nobody had to declare it always exists the only thing that prevents the use of emergency against Israeli Citizens is its a taboo its an issue of legitimacy and once theres legitimacy just sort of a different types of Israeli Citizens because theyre being defined as suspicious or as dangerous by the government then there really is no way to curb that power is really Civil Society groups have raised the alarm that the country has been trained into dangerous territory. In the name of National Security israels besiege point minister Benjamin Netanyahu has ramped up surveillance with virtually no oversight and at the same time shielded himself in scrutiny by shutting down the pools just as he was about to go on trial for corruption the pandemic has provided no to no with an opportunity like no other to entrenches rule and silence his critics and hes taking. Every night is really the. The Television Studios with with these messages a little dog humor him as we. All know who is limited he wants to give the impression that the country cannot do without is this a viewer of the nation only he can save israel and its people from this terrible terrible calamity if occasionally we are given the lead to begin to shoot it got at the end a movie that had been. Given a felony. Has been in power for 11 years he didnt do when they lost reelection is and still ease manipulating the situation to concentrate even more power in your head in these lands depend emic will pass sooner or later it will pass but these deployed tools and surveillance to infrastructures the fear is that these will will continue for a longer time and if history taught us one thing post 911. 00 is that these technologies can really shift our world can shift our Digital Ecosystem fighting the pandemic is one thing but we should not sacrifice our privacy as a price for it and we should not be put in a corner where we have to choose between our privacy or our health. And finally every thursday night in the u. K. At 8 pm people open up their windows or step outside their doors to applaud their front line workers in this pandemic including Health Care Workers and theres an irony in that because this pandemic intersects with another major news story in Great Britain one that was charged with zina phobia and anti immigrant sentiment the black side story Migrant Workers make up a large part of the National Health service theyre saving british lives so a london based creative producer named situ me in boulder nia recruited some of those workers all 1st 2nd or 3rd generation immigrants to recite a poem called you clap for me now its a simple yet powerful reminder of the contribution that we can all make to a society wherever we are and wherever we come from well see you next time here at the listening post so. Its finally happened i think you are afraid of somethings come from overseas and taken. Made it unsafe to walk the streets. He tracked. A. Proud nation on. But not me. Or me or me knowing you clap for me now you cheer as i toiled. Bringing food see your family bringing food from your soil propping up your hospitals not some foreign invader and. Keep your life saved dont speak so. Dont say not here you know how it feels to be a prison you know how it feels to live in fear so you clap for me now all this love you are bringing but dont forget when its no longer quiet dont forget when meek no longer hear the birds singing or see clear waters that i am cause for you to make lives filled with peace. Group peace to come on quest unilateralists new immigrants see what we have learned it only takes the smallest things to change their well. Me and mine is on trial from rape to genocide the government stands accused of committing atrocities against their own injured people. One on one east investigates on aljazeera. Save humanity i really really not getting anywhere near it. And i are in taylor and on the top stories on our 0 protests as a back out on the streets of the us tom a thing that governors and demanding an end to the coronavirus shutdowns in several states some areas are rolling out plans to start lifting measures after president pressure from President Donald Trump and his supporters despite the steady rise in deaths and infections around the country in the west at state of new York Governor Andrew Cuomo warns he wont be reopening anything straightaway were not at a point where were going to