All and said basically, they would not confirm or deny that and they really wouldnt be able to comment on anybody� s covid vaccination status. What they did confirm, one participant has tested positive on the show, so they havent confirmed if it is a dancer or a participant, contestant. They said the show is following all the covid guidelines, all the participants are being regularly tested. The Launch Programme and tonight was recorded last saturday and the positive case was discovered the next day. The first live show will be on the 25th of september, so at this stage it doesnt mean the positive tested person will necessarily have to drop out. No partners have been swapped as a result of this and about The Sun Newspaper story, they have said it is not a legal requirement to be Double Jabbed and the programme is following all covid protocols. Thank ou ve following all covid protocols. Thank you very much following all covid protocols. Thank you very much for following all covid protocols. Thank you very much for that. Now on bbc news, its time for the Media Show. Hello, welcome to the Media Show. Now, this week, we become aware of Power Battles within the taliban as we watch keenly to see what kind of government it wants to create. Also this week, were seeing increasing evidence the worlds media is tuning out of afghanistan. Well, were not doing that on the Media Show were going to tune in to how western media and afghan media have covered this story. I want to understand the relationship between the taliban and journalists. I also want to understand whether this has revealed structural problems in how news works. Has there been enough space given to Context And History as many of us watching whats been playing out have been asking, why is this happening . Well, weve a number of guests to help us, including cnns chief international correspondent, Clarissa Ward, who, with this clip, became one of the faces of the story as the taliban took over. We decide to leave and head for our car. The fighter takes the safety off his Ak Lfl and pushes through the crowd. Stay behind him, stay behind him you can see that some of the taliban fighters are just. Hopped up on adrenaline. I dont know why. Its a very dicey situation. Suddenly, two other taliban charge towards us. You can see their Rifle Butt raised to strike Producer Brent swales. When the fighters are told we have permission to report, they lower their weapons and let us pass. Clarissa ward from cnn, thanks forjoining us on the Media Show. Thanks so much for having me on. Now, this is an extraordinary report, an extraordinary moment. Many of our listeners will know it very well. Just tell us about how you came to be in that position, close to kabul airport. Well, we wanted to get a sense of what it was like for afghans who were desperately trying to get into the airport. And so, we arrived outside, there were large crowds and we started trying to push closer to get a better idea of what it looked like. The taliban fighters there were carrying whips and truncheons. They were very, very aggressive, as i think you can see from that clip, which had not been my experience with other taliban fighters in other parts of the city. And they were not particularly receptive to our desire to talk to them and our desire to talk to other people around the airport. One thing that you cant see in that clip is that we were immediately swarmed by afghans desperate to show us their papers look, i worked at this us military base. Look, i was a translator for the us embassy, heres my paperwork. Help me get out, help me get into the airport which is always a really tough position to be in as a journalist. Clarissa, youve covered many, many stories on the Trial And Execution of Saddam Hussein in iraq, the conflict in syria to the situation now in afghanistan. I wonder, given all of those experiences, if you anticipated the degree to which that particular report would reverberate around the world. No, i dont think i possibly could have predicted how our reporting during that week that the taliban took over would resonate with people. And its always difficult when youre in the field to have a real sense of how your reporting is being received elsewhere because youre working 19 hours a day. Any bandwidth you have left is being used to think about things like what will i eat, how are we going to put this piece together, etc. So, i only really had a sense when i looked at my Instagram Account some weeks later and realised that i had 200,000 new followers. And youre talking to us from london now, so i wonder if you think you could do the kind of reporting you did a few weeks ago now. No, theres no substitute for being on the ground. I mean, you have to be there, you have to smell things in the air, you have to talk to people on the streets, you have to see it for yourself to really get that visceral feel of what a conflict feels like and what people are going through. So, i dont think theres any substitute for being there on the ground. Well, were delighted youre with us on the Media Show. Lets bring in Sana Safi, a presenter with bbc pashto. Sana, youve got a new documentary called afghanistan and me on the Bbc World Service this weekend. For people who havent listened to you before, just explain where you grew up and how you came to move to the uk. Thank you, ros. So, i was born in Afghanistan In Kabul in 1989, and then i was 18 months old when my parents moved to the southern city of kandahar. It was the time of the mujahedin, the western backed freedom fighters, as they were called back then, who were fighting against the soviet regime. My parents were threatened when they had to take refuge with my aunt in the province of helmand, which is also in the south of the country. I was seven when the taliban took over afghanistan, and it was then that i wasnt allowed to go to school, so i had to go to three different underground schools in the five years that the taliban were in charge. Then 9 11 happened. After 9 11, the international involvement happen. I went to my first official school in 2002, and i got a job with a local Tv Station in 2006. In 2007, ijoined The Bbc and came to the uk. I was 18. Youre faced here with the Bbc Team that also has youre based here with the Bbc Team that also has an operation in afghanistan. How do you go about covering whats happening in your country from afar . In the last 20 years, it has been very difficult to cover afghanistan because weve had instances of staff who were having to relocate to different parts of the country in order to tell the stories, the qualityjournalism that our audiences demand. But also to keep them safe. I remember different cases in the last 20 years that we had. Some colleagues that didnt want to use their own names. We gave them that option if they didnt want their names used. They could use a different name or they could not use a name. In some extreme cases, we had to re voice a report in order to protect their identity. So, we had to make constant on the day decisions, so to speak. This situation is still so fluid. As you both know, in order to report in afghanistan now, you have to deal with the taliban. To understand how that works, i got in touch with a man called Saad Mohseni. Hes the ceo of mobi group, which owns tol0news. To understand asking a client, you have to look at tol0news. It began in 2003. Its grown into a formidable operation. It has millions of litres of left centres across afghanistan and an influential voice millions of listeners. I want to understand how Saad Mohseni manages that relationship. It has always been professional. We had an incident where they. Attacked one of our buses in 2016, resulting in the killing of seven of our employees. The network took responsibility for them. The relationship has been fairly professional other than that. L theyre always available online. In areas they control, they provide us with safe passage. We were in bed with the taliban unit when they took on isis. Which was an extraordinary documentary we prepared. | i think theyve always been media | savvy than the former president. | the taliban were professional. So we had a better relationship towards the taliban than the previous team. The Haqqani Network had killed some of your staff . Yes, absolutely. Its a different neighbourhood. We have different benchmarks and standards in terms of dealing with people. But for us, we were always committed editorially to a piece that we felt every conflict has ended a negotiation. If you look at afghanistans recent history, we had 40. Odd years of fighting. Given the talibans know how, is there a risk its using you . Absolutely. Just like you wouldl be using us as well. As a sort of a benchmark in terms | of how the taliban are behaving. | we are a bit like the canary in the coal mine, and i think a lot of western audiences are looking j at us in terms of how we survive, and that would be a clear Indication L as to how others would survive. L but when you run those stories which could be seen as being negative to the taliban, are they on the phone saying to drop this . Not yet. I think they still dont have the bandwidth to deal with everything, every single day. I think right now, they are scrambling to deal with the airport, the security, with food, with this new cabinet appointment. But with time, theyll become a lot more savvy, theyll have teams and they will be calling the media. This is a real challenge for us, how much capacity will they have for criticism . Saad mohseni, the ceo of the company that owns tol0news. He has a striking turn of phrase. He describes afghanistan as a different neighbourhood. You will both have what have working relationships with the taliban. Clarissa, help me understand how you engage with them. Weve been engaging with them for a couple of years now. I did a story in the north of the Country Injanuary of 2019, which entailed spending time in their territory, getting permission from them, and one thing i will give them credit for, which i think saad touches on there, is there was a process. You did have that from the taliban and you could be reasonably secure knowing that you werent at risk of being kidnapped on a trip and you would be given access to what you had been promised. So, there was a mechanism for dealing with them, and from what were seeing on the ground now, that mechanism still exists. There is a department that you go to, theres paperwork thats signed off on. The problem becomes now particularly that youre dealing with. Not necessarily the same as of the dealing of the upper echelons of the taliban. It can be difficult to persuade them that you do have a legitimate right to be there and do yourjob as a reporter. Sana, does this echo your experience . I agree with what Saad And Clarissa said, they are more professional, but i would say they have a double standard. For International Media, for people like clarissa with a huge platform, there is a much more polished interaction that for local staff like the people who dont have international platforms behind them, they do have some help, but the treating has been horrendous. We saw four of their journalists were badly beaten, and the same with news and owned by an afghan businessman. Some of theirjournalists were treated in some of the most inhumane ways. I think the taliban are clever in knowing that we need to polish our message to the International Media and give them what they want, but crackdown on people who have no other way of protecting themselves and escaping. As such, is there a risk that foreign journalists such as yourself are being played by the taliban . Books, theres always. Its not so much there is a risk of being played, you have to go into it with your eyes open and know the way im treated is not the way another journalist, particularly a local journalist, might be treated. When you look at the professionalism more savvy of the taliban, you have to understand it in its proper context, and it is largely transactional. They hope to get something out of that. The veneer from what we see is pretty thin. People to carry out their jobs as journalists. 0n the other hand, they are firing at protesters, theyre beating journalist, so just because you talk the talk, if you dont walk the walk, we will cover that. Help me understand your calculations on these issues. You are part of the first international team in myanmar in february after the Military Coup there. That wouldve only been possible with the military� s acquiescence. What are your calculations when deciding to work with some degree with people like the military in myanmar or the taliban . My calculation is that we are put in this position all the time, whether its north korea, syria or youre given access to a country by a repressive regime. Yourjob when you accept that access is to make sure that you tell the stories to the absolute best of your ability and you go even further in ensuring you hold peoples feet to the fire because that privilege that sana talked about can occasionally be used for good as well because in myanmar, for example, where localjournalists were doing extraordinary work, from a Security Point of view, it wasnt possible for them to look a Top General in the eye and confront him with evidence of children being killed by his own forces. Thats a privilege that i enjoy as a foreigner because im allowed to leave the country at the end of it and i dont run the risk of being spent in prison. I would still say that based on our experience in the airport, its much more of a fluent situation. Even as a foreigner, if you get the wrong person on the wrong day, that situation can very quickly become very dangerous. Youre dealing how the cnn deals with the taliban. Youre helping us. Lets hear from another person who deals with them, secunder kermani. Hes currently in the city of northern afghanistan. I told him we discuss these issues, and he kindly recorded this. There is definitely a sense of privilege that comes from being an internationaljournalists. Weve seen at times some of our afghan colleagues being badly beaten, tortured even, by the taliban. It hasnt happened with the foreign media, at least not yet. I think the taliban know there will be more pr consequences. Its not to say there are no challenges theyve tried to prevent us filming at demonstrations or at the airport. Overall, their attitude has been very cooperative and really very friendly. I think thats partly because on an individual level, we are still thought of something of a normalcy we are still thought of something of a novelty. They want to portray a particular image to the rest of the world. I that itself presents its own challenges because theres a lot of misinformation around, and both the taliban and their critics have a narrative they want to push forward. The Truth Isnt always easy. One of the key things i bear in mind in my reporting is an important. Whilst we can and should talk about the gains being made l over the past 20 years womens rights for example its also important to remember the crises of. If we could pick up on his final point there, do you think theres a risk that the western media and afghan media and accurately portray afghanistan by focusing too much on the capital . Its absolutely a risk, and we have seen in the last years as well as days since the taliban have taken over the capital. The focus has been on the airport, and then it went to the rest of kabul. Actually, at that time, some attributions did take place. I am getting horrific videos of men being shot on the spot some executions. None of that has been reported from the International Media. I dont know why. Maybe they exclude it because they talked about the privilege and the responsibilities. Some International Media have the privilege to hold power to account. They couldve used this time and reported on the horrible crimes happening in the west of the country, and i can mention kandahar and others. The videos are so horrific. I watched one and couldnt sleep. They are presented very inaccurately about the history of the war, who is involved, who is now in Charge And Everything else. 0ne Challenge is to make sure the coverage is accurate, comprehensive to the whole country. The other is to make sure the coverage is being carried. On that subject, lets bring in another person. Alex sheppard is with New York public magazine. Alex, is it reasonable to say that us media is already starting to move away from this story . Certainly correct. I think theres a systemic myopia in media that focuses intently on partisan and electoral politics. The story almost instantaneously fed into this Meat Grinder in which it became a story about republicans and democrats disagreeing. You almost immediately had the sense that 20 years of combat was set to the side. Everyone was focusing on the chaos at the airport. The problem with that framing is we have the story of bipartisan failure. The press loves to cover bipartisan success. They love it when republicans and democrats come together and sing kumbaya, but they really struggle to cover bipartisan failure. I think what you saw was the story of that particular problem, but also that showed a larger bias. There is i think a tremendous humanitarian story that americans. We werent covering that. But we were covering instead is a story that quickly became aboutjoe bidens approval rating. Clarissa, do you agree with that critique . I think alex raises in some really important points, and i know from my personal experience covering the story that it felt like everything i would say when i was reporting was then kind of shoehorned into someones political narrative or appropriated by one side or the other. It was like Clarissa Ward is a warmonger, or whatever, and none of it had any bearing on reality. All of it, frankly, was a distraction from the real story in my mind, which is what the afghan people were going through and what they were experiencing and what americas role is and what americas responsibly was in that. So it is frustrating as a journalist when you see both sides politically trying to weaponize these issues that ultimately subvert attention from the real focus of. But it isnt notjust about politics about both sides but decisions taken by editors that think its easier to make content thats popular if its seen through domestic politics, rather through experiences of afghans . I think it depends where you work. Obviously, if you work at one of the Big Three networks in the us and you have a half Hour Evening News show, youre a lot more net limited in how much debt you can get into. Were lucky at cnn we have 2a hours a day, and i was doing live shots for our Morning Show that would sometimes go 18 minutes. You are able to have a more expansive conversation. But theres no question that there is a trickle down. Of course there is, and there are certain areas there are more interesting to americans, and those areas obviously get the most attention. Alex, theres a stark analysis that you offer us. Do you draw that conclusion because there are structural problems within how american news works, or is it particular to this story . I think there are structural problems. This is probably the most glaring example of this. I think because the assumption that americans either dont care about afghanistan or assume the war is not going well to begin with. Two things ive written about i think are related one is there is a bias what i call new news. The story is much bigger at the chaos at the airport. That is directly related to years of corruption of the afghan government. We didnt get much of that because we had all these images of the airport. The other is i think the distinction between episodic and phonetic coverage. People like clarissa do an exceptionaljob showing us whats happening on the ground, but doesnt always happen is that becomes coverage. We get a narrow focus on what is happening. If those are some of the challenges for us media, sana, lets look at it from the other side. When you tell the story of afghanistan to afghans, how do they see this story, in Domestic Terms . Its very hard to judge, but we get all sorts of criticism. Some see us as completely, It Showsm and there is another side to see it as an afghan failure. There is no One Way in this, and we probably have the hardestjob because our own audiences are our harshest critics. In these times are very difficult to operate for anybody, but especially somebody like public broadcast like bbc to operate in afghanistan and tell those stories. If you look at what happening in panjshir, we are getting accusations of being against. There are ethnic issues as well. Its very hard for us. Sana saf, those comments will have to be the final ones because were out of time. Many thanks to all three of you. Clarissa ward, Sana Safi and alex sheppard. Thank you for watching here on bbc news. The Media Show will be back at the usual time next week. Till then, bye from me and the team. Hello there. Weve done pretty well with the sunshine today, plenty of areas were dry, fine, quite warm for central, southern, eastern england, but well continue to see the chance of heavy showers and thunderstorms through the midlands this evening and into the first part of the night. Its not been sunny everywhere, we have had this weak Weather Front bringing more cloud to southern scotland, northern england, wales and the south west. These Weather Fronts will start to reinvigorate as we move through the night. The showers and storms through the midlands fade away, but it is out west where we see to see these Weather Fronts bringing more persistent and at times heavy rain, but the eastern side of england will stay dry, quite mild and muggy here, but further north a bit fresher, particularly where we have any clear spells across the far north of scotland. So for part two of the weekend, we have more Weather Fronts round, so its going to be cloudier generally, certainly to start the day, with outbreaks of rain, some of it quite heavy. The rain, though, becomes confined towards the eastern side of the country through sunday afternoon, particularly eastern england, some heavy thundery bursts. Meanwhile, it brightens up out west, so a better day for wales with some sunshine, one or two showers, though not quite as warm as what well see today. Hello there. This is bbc news. Im lukwesa burak. The headlines at five at least four Energy Companies are expected to go bust next week amid soaring gas prices. Ministers hold talks with industry representatives. We barely seen Supply Failures in recent weeks. Part as a consequence of that and the result of other things, its really difficult to tell if there will be any more. Holiday firms say they expect a surge in bookings after Travel Restrictions in england are relaxed. France is recalling its ambassadors to australia and the united states, in protest over a Security Deal which includes the uk. Us armed forces apologise for their � tragic mistake after killing ten innocent people including children in a Drone Strike during their final days in afghanistan