Of covert 19 the World Health Organization took too long to get the word out on the virus but the story is more complicated than it seems in pakistan a cleric tells the media what he really thinks of them live on the air and spoonful of clorox makes your temperature go down donald trump the prospect of him bleach mint and making the medicine go down. A president at odds with his advisors and scientists over kovac 19 who has said that the virus is no worse than the flu and who supporters accuse the news media of hyping the story its not the u. S. And donald trump its brazil and joey are both are not our president both are not all continues to downplay this pandemic even as the number of deaths reported in brazil surpasses chinas unhappy with his Health Ministers more conventional cautious approach both so not all fired him he then spoke at a protest demanding that the military intervene to get people back to work thats an elected president talking on the airwaves however 2 of brazils biggest Media Players headquarter t. V. And s. P. T. Still have his back and where there is yield a ball so not all is in denial or simply playing politics theyre standing by our starting point this week is the capital. As we close out this is what it is it is it is and it is you know its not brazil doesnt do social distancing 24 of the 27 states have those measures in place its just that the president doesnt do. So balsa not has been downplaying the risks the coronavirus right now hes been saying in the media that scientists are trying to create some sort of panic in society exaggerating the risk and meanwhile hes been going out in public not wearing a mask. And hes going out and hes coughing a law and hes shaking hands with supporters and and taking pictures and selfies and hes setting the wrong example for everybody as to what to do in the times of social distancing. And so in that way maybe hes the most irresponsible leader in the world right now in that and hes also been incentivizing his followers to attack the media. To show your bull so nado and his supporters the brazilian. Media have caught the covert 19 hysteria buck criticizing him unfairly for wanting to get people back to work come what may. Also not never had much time for the Mainstream Media when he ran for president in 2018 he was a far right outsider who relied more on social media specifically whatsapp than Photo Opportunities or press conferences and it worked hes borrowed heavily from Donald Trumps fake news playbook and taken it further he recently mocked journalists who risked infection to do their jobs. As the best told us how it was that they think i got. The ok. You know oh. Well you know this is very similar to what weve already seen during Donald Trumps election and in britain during breaks it feeds social media with garbage to convince the parts of the population that is the truth that the traditional media a lying and worthless because you have an Extensive Network through social media especially on facebook that feeds its own fake news to the people they live i could it be i like it should you if you push an ace there been video circulating around the internet in brazil of journalists mostly global journalists out in the street reporting you know theyre using their mask theyre trying to do social distancing in the street and people are grabbing the mike from them or not letting them talk yelling at them saying you know global is trash and that theyre lying and basically creating an environment of harassment so that the media can do their job and this is absolutely inspired by your boss and i dont and by his machine a digital influencers that he and his sons operate when he attacks the media for example hes attacking specifically some of the biggest Corporate Media outlets and specifically global in that where television and newspaper. Put it some and start. Planning to newspapers in brazil that are also very powerful institutions that afford it ok lets put it off would be good got a little. Good thought oh no get a bottle go do it so he materializes hes battle against powerful elites and. By confronting these media outlets. The broadcast space in brazil begins with global its the biggest player in the country and the largest media conglomerate in latin america global has always been conservative it back to the military dictatorship that ruled brazil from 1964 to 1985 for which the channel later apologized in 2016 it cheered on the impeachment of leftist president Dilma Rousseff over a dubious corruption investigation yet compared to the far more conservative bill sinatra and his stance on covert 19 global comes off as a voice of reason. Love about us moans about us most about us most brazil is a country where people dont read much to get their news news mainly from their social media or television so that gives global a lot of power and shaping resilience will think politically and global has been vilified both by the left and the right d on the covert 19 pandemic is interesting because it plays the role of the ministry of health all those pretty spice bije it was doesnt what he thought it was all a man so see just a bunch of the witness that they had learned that myself almost a source even his mates i did them to come to see this but even so for a lot of people they are redeeming themselves with. That. As. The political changes i think global will be a once again everyones favorite. President both some models principal allies on the airwaves are headquartered t. V. And s b t 2 channels that have little else in common core is the property of a dear macedo the owner of a huge evangelical church. That she lives on my hands. And i buy a new. S. P. T. Is owned by a businessman Silvio Santos and deals in low cost entertainment programs like reality t. V. S. P. T. Is where the idea of coronavirus concentration camps came up it was the brainchild of a presenter there theres a news presenter an f. 18 and mark on the pole and he went on t. V. And when this long rant about how the way to solve the crown of ours crisis is open everything up let everybody get back to work but take everybody who is in fact it and put them into a concentration camp such as what was asked. Out. To us obviously after he said that there was a huge public outcry and as a result mark owen was briefly removed from t. V. By the owner of the network but you know a few weeks later they were they quickly allowed him to go back on t. V. After he issued a minor apology couldnt. Have been a very important. Platform during the marriage they have nation right nationwide. As bit in has lots of popularity among viewers and here. Is the t. V. Channel janica church the universal kingdom of god. In these 2 channels also matter can reach both say secular low income brazilians and jenny in fairness though thats not something that started with bo so the. Bit it has always been. Allied to the present ho ever the present is so the same people that now endorse far right politics of also the also Indoor Center left politics of the Workers Party because it is convenient for them should be. The presence of good graces. And its profitable the brazilian government spends a lot of money on Television Advertising and also not has been directing that money away from channels he doesnt like to those he does back in 2017 globo the most watched network got almost 50 percent of the governments total ad spend when both sonata took power he cut that to about 15 percent. A quarter and s. P. T. Are up to about 40 percent each so when brazilian journalists say it pays to stay in the governments good books theyre not being metaphorical. As. Well but the Mainstream Media with from exceptions have a loving relationship with our president for most of the time theyre crucial to getting a particular president elected so yes there is an extreme dependency on public funding especially at a time when the means of Media Production a change in radical newspapers and magazines is a feeling far left by everybody of losing audience to social media so mainstream outlets are increasingly dependent on public funding. Of these mines. Not only are the media dependent on that funding its a 2 way street the public have never been more dependent on their media for factual information and too Many Brazilians in the time of coronavirus arent getting it thats the balsa not our way. Were discussing other media stories related to the coronavirus now with one of our producers actually ravi mena there was a skirmish recently in pakistan between a cleric and journalists and Prime Minister emerson caught on happened to be there tell us what happened exactly this incident unfolded at a telethon that was aired on pakistan state broadcaster p. T. V. And simulcast across channels part of a national couldnt i this relief effort promised to mankind was there along with other politicians members of the media and religious figures one of whom was jimmy now jimmy is a cleric hes part of the publicity to mount an Islamic Missionary Movement but we mentioned in our piece out of india last week his sermons online and on television have millions of listeners now at this event he had this to see on what caused the spread of the couldnt know by this time. On the committee. Yeah you could sort of party module on beer yank it out of. A luckier subset is. Marburys crosscut to get to a lot i dont know but assad. Botch and he didnt stop there in the presence of all those media personalities that were invited to the telethon he called them liars it was the word agenda look at my look in their most nessie had to get their man a catch and those who george got a little put a gentle cut them also the 3rd you really thought the most of many of the t. V. Journalists responded but they dont broadcast with the pushback against what he said and the uproar was so much that jimmy had to come on television and apologize for both those statements now pakistani journalists are accustomed to getting it from all sides from the government from the military or intelligence establishment still we have any idea what provoked jamil on this occasion well many news outlets in the country have been critical of religious orders that have been reluctant to completely shut down mosques and pray accommodations during this pandemic theyve also been critical of the mankinds government which has been slow to react to the could only by this now this event bringing together members of the government Media Establishment and religious figures was an attempt to bridge some of these divides but theres really no accounting for the perils of live t. V. Ok thanks me. Covert 19 is the biggest news story that most of us have ever seen and of all the institutions responsible for getting information out the kind that can save lives the World Health Organization may be the most vital the w. H. O. Was a special agency of the United Nations born of the recognition that since no single country can manage a global outbreak an International Body was needed that could a sensibly rise above the politics of National Interests in this pandemic though the w. H. O. Has fallen badly short of its mandate not only that it failed early on to properly vet the information coming out of china that w. H. O. Amplified it and that includes misinformation donald trump says the w. H. O. Is china centric hes threatening to cut its u. S. Funding and even though trump has good reason to search for a scapegoat preferably one from overseas in this case he has a point what if one of the most Important News sources we have right now is compromised the listening posts nick near had now on the World Health Organization. This is the headquarters of the World Health Organization in Geneva Switzerland it has 194 Member States operations in more than 150 locations and its remit is in its name. As of now there is no organization like you that has the ability to shape who. We have the freedom in our system and that could be 19 can be kind of. A pundit when you have organization has just declared that this is a pandemic the deadly job visually the clinical view 19 a pandemic of the World Health Organization has to write a virus a Global Pandemic so when at the onset of cope with 19 Chinese Media observers noted the similarity between one m. P. H. I was saying. And official statements coming out of china was of course for long. Lawrence kasdan has worked closely with. Professor gaston on january 14th the chair repeated chinas claim that there was no proof of human to human transmission of the corona virus a claim we now know to be false why do you think that. The dog radio did. Reiterate chinese. Reporting but dont really know independent means to assess the deliberately of chinese reporting early on china did not really allowed to have meaningful access to its territory and to independently verify with journalists scientists and doctors on the ground and back to teenagers is strategy and was to try to used smart diplomacy to coax china into Greater Transparency and he had some success with that because later on the w. H. O. Team a small team did go to china and they did a joint assessment report. The originals reporting by virtue of its governance is highly dependent on every member countries ability on this the it willingness to share data and issue notifications of them explained in their sort of country jurisdictions its verification systems can only be as good as access via. The w. H. R. Has been there before i can 2002 beijing suppressed information about another viral operate saws and deny the w. H. R. Access for months it was a different time in china the communist party was experimenting with liberal reform temporarily loosening its censorship of the media the great firewall of china was easier to 2nd. Event and social media was a far more open space chinese journalists were covering the outbreak citizens were discussing it online and the w. H. O. Had a much better window into the country than it does today. Prior to sars the largely relied on its Member States to report what was going on inside of them so if they werent cooperating the debate show was essentially light but in the years just before sars the debate show an act of this enormous push to essentially monitor media especially if youre the internet so they had a very good idea what was going on inside through their private contact with scientists and also through monitoring chinese Message Boards so you can now look back d 20 years and say that the early 2000 including the sols epidemic of 2002 was a sort of mini golden age of really quite tough investigative reporting by Chinese Media which then provided a great deal of benefit to outside foreign media and International Organizations like that in a weird way by loosening up what media the Chinese Government itself a huge amount of favors the time by helping to control the outbreak its critically important to have bust. And reporting in 3 Civil Society in a free media and for fighting to pandemic or any outbreak because when you have a free press when you have whistleblowers they can get out the word and sound an alarm about an epidemic and far earlier than a gun government will and that was one of the critical deficiencies early on during in china. After the w. H. R. Reportedly confronted china with its findings beijing pain team and they operate risk from time. This time around the criticism has been that the w. H. O. Acted too slowly that out of fear of offending china declared over 19 a pandemic too late but theres a story behind that as well this is believed to be ground 0 in the swine flu outbreak h one n one or swine flu broke out in mexico in 2009 and the w. H. R. Was quick to react the World Health Organization is expected to declare the swine flu or h one n one virus a pandemic this morning the worlds media 100 just about every word coming out of the w. H. O. However when the outbreak tapered off with relatively low casualty rates there was a backlog theres very angry over the anger against the World Health Organization for affordably making its one n one pandemic bigger than anything was. So what was the criticism of w. H. O. Was the criticism was it seemed that every day nearly Margaret Chan whos there and director general dont do it joe got up an announced a new alert level. Does depend emic was spreading and it was widely seen that using that alert level really. Made the public fearful panicked in alarmed but was unnecessary and having declared a pandemic early the division was criticized for a variety of things claimed by every now and a german scientist that vaccine manufacturers pressured the World Health Organization into declaring a swine flu pandemic seeking to increase profits and whether or not that was fair i think you see the leadership becoming a bit more tentative looking at it and saying wait we did the thing were supposed to do and we got we got criticized for it and we got run through the wringer in the media and so maybe we should be more careful in the future when the w. H. O. Declares a pandemic not only does a risk inducing a panic but it can also be devastating to the global economy. As we are seeing today with the 19 which is why governments around the world will go to Great Lengths and in some cases great expense to control the information that gets out chinas contributions to the w. H. O. Pale in comparison to the u. S. Or the u. K. But since the sars outbreak of 2002 it has steadily increased that funding which on the surface seems like a good thing but money can also buy influence its not realize that actually tens of millions of dollars every year coming from beijing. And have been doing for quite some time so i would say that when we had w h l information going out to the world about whats happening in china there is no doubt an element in the press minds that they have to keep their sponsors happy the Chinese Government is to be congratulated for the extraordinary measures it has taken to contain the outbreak and the u. N. System itself is has become a place for geostrategic posturing and its this is happening across u. N. Organizations the w 2 it just happens to be the latest one where powers europe and north america is starting with emerging powers like china for influence and particularly soft power influence. Over over the world. Much of the criticism of w h os handling of covert 19 comes down to structural issues primarily funding. In the journalism business if a newspaper is for lying to an ad revenues from the oil industry its coverage of Climate Change is taken with a pinch of salt and yet when we choose an end to the w. H. O. We see an impartial source of information even though the powers it is meant to hold to account it to determine in large part its axis and its funding today im instructing my administration to halt. Funding of the World Health Organization. Its not totally neutral if youre seeing something coming from that average joe its something that its Member States want to be really something that a member state consented to be early so i think that if you really want to hold it accountable you basically need to go to each individual member state and engage with journals and they are engaged with criticism there. To see the full picture you sort of have to go beyond what what states are killing it. And finally if your feeds look anything like mine for weeks now youve been seeing americans begging their News Networks to just stop with their live coverage of Donald Trumps daily coronavirus briefings they say the misinformation is just too dangerous the idea for instance of injecting bleach into your veins as a cure but even if those networks agreed and tried to kill their live coverage their shareholders probably wouldnt let them because the ratings are just too good which will come as a relief to randy a rainbow hes an online musical satirist who made his name during Trumps Campaign back in 2016 his latest number is in the millions of views just like those News Networks he has found that this president is a marketable commodity well see you next time here at the listening post went viral symptoms under law there are Home Remedies to try and find the one that works. And every week youre saying that is santa during. That hour she did just inject it. In a minute. Of clorox makes your temperature go down your temperature go down temperature go down just to. Make certain. That. The latest. Issue hits a buddy with british troops who are just very powerful like a politician who distracts has very little time for facts in this science to see how your black. Bloc out there is about to fire and hang with. Mr was. Its interesting to me. Its interesting. If you want to help save the world. Sneeze into your own. More than 40 people die in a prison riots in venezuela and violence is increasing among all those who locked up in latin america during the pandemic. And i there i missed and this is al jazeera live from a well headquarters here and also coming up israel opens a crossing allowing the palestinians about to watch. A sim used to u. S. Health lack of battling the pandemic but new yorks governor paints a good