To the press, and they had some very light media training, you know, just teaching them how not to get tripped up. And if you can imagine, the press are kept outside the campus in this huge line and are let in at a certain time. You have 100 journalists swarming this encampment, and you have six or seven students just trying to field all these requests, journalists fighting over them. So that was one of the things that they learned from 68, wasjust this discipline of message, making sure they say the right things and their words couldnt be twisted. I saw that some high profile journalists in america have been criticising the protesters for not speaking to media outlets. It sounds to me like it was easy for you to speak to the people whod been designated, but you couldntjust go around asking other students to talk to you. Or did you try that . I wonder what your take is on what people are saying about that. I was turned down a couple of times, but its completely understandable. Any sort of protest situation, not Everyone Wants to talk to you. And one example, i went up to one student at one point and said, hey, do you mind if i talk to you a few minutes . And he said, whats your name . And i told him my name. He googled me in two seconds and he was reading out my biography and said, 0h, youve covered syria. You worked in The Middle East. Ok, lets do this. So they were very savvy. Vetting you on the ground. Yeah i think if someone had trouble getting interviews with them, it was probably because the students didnt trust them. Did you come across studentjournalists who were also trying to get access . Did you interact with Student Journalists at all while you were covering it . They were everywhere that night. Yeah, they were at every barricade, in every side street. They had special markers on their back saying studentjournalist to identify themselves. Deeply, deeply impressed by their commitment to get out there and get involved. I saw Student Protesters following the live stream of the radio station. That was their tool to keep up to date on everything that was happening. So, yeah, they were everywhere that night. Really interesting. Richard hall from the independent, thank you. Well, next lets talk about Student Journalists, because theyve been commended by the Pulitzer Prize board for covering protests and unrest in the face of great personal and academic risk. Julia vargas jones is a masters student at Columbia Journalism School and also a freelance reporter. Julia, welcome to the media show. I know that you were covering some of these events for cnn. Just tell us how that happened. Well, thank you for having me. Well, i had, you know, i had a connection with cnn before id worked with them for many years. And in the moment, you know, i got a call from another classmate, natasha caragnano. She called me at around 3am, and she said, you should be here. And honestly, i didnt even ask cnn if they really wanted me to go. Ijust said, im here, you should take me live, and we started coverage from the occupation. I think when i got there, we were about six, seven hours in. And i did talk to people, you know, i was able to talk to people who were not media trained and said, look, im not media trained. I cant give you an interview. Im like, look, im a fellow student. I want to report for the entire world. Were about to go live on cnn. I need to know a little bit of whats going on. Help me out here. I want to understand, how did the night go . Was it peaceful . Like, what happened after people went inside . And i think, obviously being a student, i was able to build that trust with some of the protesters. Julia, im interested so you call up cnn and you say, im here, i can go on air as soon as you like. But what are the practicalities of that . Because youve been woken up at 3am in the morning, youve rushed down to where the story is. What are the practicalities of getting on air . Im assuming youre using your phone. Or am i wrong . Yes, so, you kind of need two phones and a tiny tripod with a ring light and microphones, wireless microphones, and a headset, a very simple, bare bones headset. Now, throughout the day, we were able to charge. I actually had to recruit some fellow masters students to help me and be my camera operators. The biggest challenge of the coverage was, eventually, the phones started dying, batteries started running out and we just had to make do with whatever we had. So its switching phones, its switching live methods. So every time that you saw me come back up, i was probably trying to figure out another logistical issue before i could, you know, talk to the anchors at cnn. While you were dealing with all of that, and you were no doubt encountering lots of other students who were reporting on it. You mentioned columbias Journalism School. I know a makeshift newsroom was established to deal with the level of interest in this story. Just tell us what that was like. I have to commend the Journalism School for everything that they did to help Student Journalists continue reporting. A lot of people arrived there. Student journalists arrived there after the gates were closed, and the dean and the vice deans had to physically escort people into the building. In one of the main halls of the Journalism School, there was coffee, water, pizzas, snacks, advice from very established professors, people that have been in the industry for 30, 40 years. So i think it was probably the best education injournalism that this cohort is going to get. Julia, thanks for speaking to us. Thats julia vargas jones, a masters student at Columbia Journalism School. Well, next, lets assess how effective the protesters have been about getting their message out via the media and how Media Coverage, especially via the mainstream, has shaped americans perspective on the protests. Doug mcleod is Professor Ofjournalism at the university of wisconsin madison. Doug, welcome to the media show. I know youve been studying how the media frames protest. And you use an interesting term, you talk about the protest paradigm. Just explain what you mean by that. Yeah, well, weve been studying social Media Coverage of social protest for over 35 years. Weve studied it across a variety of different protest contexts, both left and right groups, abortion groups, environmental groups, black lives matter anarchists, a whole host of different types of protest topics. And one of the things that emerged when we looked at mainstream newspaper and Television Coverage of these protests was a certain common pattern of covering social protests. The stories look pretty similar in terms of structure and the way the protest was covered. And thats what we call the protest paradigm, a way of covering social protest. So what are the pitfalls that News Organisations can fall into, in your view . So, one of the pitfalls is really getting caught up in looking for dramatic stories, dramatic images, looking for, say, conflicts between protesters and police or between protesters on one side of the issue and protesters on the other. As rich talked about before, it looks like a war scene, and it makes great video images. But one of the real problems is that the issues, the underlying issues of the protest, sort of get lost in the process. Are you saying that the media isnt interested in peaceful protest, im wondering . Well, i would say calm, rational protest that stands up to have expressed an opinion to try to influence public and policy on a given issue is unlikely to get a lot of Media Attention unless they can create a certain amount of drama that fits what journalists are often looking for. Uh, and so you often see clashes with the police. You often see incidents of property damage, even though in many of these protests, the people who are actually engaged with, uh, police or other counter protesters is a small fraction of the larger protest group. And so when it comes to these protests that weve been seeing and theyve obviously been punching out across the media, you know, certainly across america and wider here in the uk. Um, some people have been saying that the Student Protests have overshadowed their cause. Has the message cut through, or how has the message cut through, do you think, and how does that, um, reflect the coverage . Yeah, i think its a pretty good example of what were talking about with the protest paradigm. There has been a ton of attention on our campus at the university of wisconsin, on the police removing the encampments from campus, uh, and arresting protesters. Its pretty similar to the way, uh, the protest has been covered across campuses. Um, the nod to what the protesters are looking for in terms of things like divestment are sort of briefly acknowledged within these stories, but theres little exploration of what divestment means. What are the investments of a university in israel or with companies that supply the Israeli Military . What is it that is problematic about what universities are doing that have led to the complaints that the protesters, um, are trying to allege against the administration . Its very hard, as a member of the public to really, um, divine what it is that the protest is all about. And so if you dont have a lot of thorough discussion, uh, of what the protest is about the protest looks very foreign to you, very disruptive, uh, particularly radical tactics of the protesters tend to be focused on and their, their issues kind of get lost in the clutter. Professor mcleod, thank you. Weve heard three perspectives on these Campus Protests. Lets hear one more. Werejoined by Shaina Oppenheimer from Bbc Monitoring. Shaina, youre with us from jerusalem, and were going to speak to you about a couple of subjects on todays media show. But i was interested to ask you, you spend your time looking at Media Coverage that you can view from jerusalem. I wonder how these Campus Protests have been covered in israel. I think its important to understand, kind of as a starting point, that the israeli media does not really cover what happens in gaza from a humanitarian standpoint. There are very little images of the civilian impact of israels military actions there. So then israelis have a really hard time comprehending or understanding what the anger is and why people are protesting on College Campuses in the us. So the media kind of use interchangeable terms like anti israel protests and anti semitic protests without ever mentioning the cause and the reason why students were protesting. And they take these images that we were talking about of the most extreme cases of violence, and they use it to kind of question and perhaps delegitimize, some people would say, the Protest Movement at large, without contextualising it at all. Shaina, you are going to be staying with us. Before we carry on talking, let me say thanks to richard hall, professor doug mcleod, and julia vargas jones, whove been with us, as weve talked about those Campus Protests in the us. Shaina, lets stick with whats happening in israel. Um, because israels government has shut down the operations of the Aljazeera Television network in the country for the duration of its war in gaza. Heres a clip of their correspondent, imran khan, announcing the move, to viewers on sunday. If you are watching this pre recorded report than al jazeera has been banned in the territory of israel. Allowed the Prime Minister to ban al jazeera. He has now enacted that law. That was aljazeeras imran khan. Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu says the Israeli Cabinet agreed to the closure while the war in gaza is ongoing. As i said, Shaina Oppenheimer from Bbc Monitoring jerusalem, you are still here. Just tell us why, why its happened. Well, the Israeli Government, i mean, in general, israelis do not view aljazeera quite favourably. As i mentioned, there isnt really a lot of coverage of how israeli policies, um, affect palestinian civilians. So theres an inability to understand where aljazeera is coming from in that sense, now, during the war, and at large. And theres this long time accusation that aljazeera works kind of in kudos with hamas. People in israel see it certainly as a mouthpiece. So for a long time, israel has not seen aljazeera favourably. And certainly when this war started, this idea of perhaps doing something to shut its operations has kind of been in the background. And the timing was quite sensitive, because at the end of the day, aljazeera is based in qatar, and qatar is quite a key player in negotiations with hamas. And there are even ongoing negotiations right now. Lets bring in mohamed moawad, whos Managing Editor of aljazeera, and with us live from doha. Uh, mr moawad, thank you very much indeed for your time. Um, following this vote, mr netanyahu claimed in a statement that aljazeera reporters had harmed israels security and incited against soldiers and has called your network a hamas mouthpiece. How would you respond to that . Uh, these are unfounded, uh, unfounded, uh, baseless allegations that the Israeli Government is, is, unleashing against us. And, uh, this is the least. Dangerous action they have taken against al jazeera. Weve lost, uh, three colleagues covering l from the front line of this conflict, and they were i targeted by air strikes. So, uh, to be honest, this is the least dangerous action by the Israeli Government. And, uh, um, this is something that we have heard before, uh, against aljazeera from the authoritarian regimes in the, in the mena region, in The Middle East. Uh, when they shut down offices for aljazeera, uh, with the aftermathj of the arab spring, uh, this is the, the same, uh,. Authoritarian, uh, playbook. And, uh, to be honest,l we see that as, as a way to conceal whats happening inside gaza. Well. We heard today from israel hayom that the minister i ofjustice in israeljust told the, uh, hostages familiesj that, uh, he is watching aljazeera because he knows arabic and hes watching i aljazeera to follow whats happening with the negotiationsl and the war, because netanyahu is not telling them much about whats going on. L let me pick up on a couple of things. First of all, israel denies targeting aljazeera journalists. Indeed, it denies targeting, uh, alljournalists. Also, the israeli, israeli intelligence, uh, accuses aljazeera of revealing the locations of the israeli army in some of your coverage. Do you accept that perhaps in some of your coverage, you have accidentally given away information that could put israels military at risk . I dont think covering from the front line i of the conflict, uh, giving voice to the voiceless, uh, uncovering the atrocities committed in gaza that was described i by the United Nations and other, uh, humanitarian organisations as, uh, war crimes, i dont think this is revealing positions for Israeli Forces or. Something like that. This is a fine journalism. This is the core Mission Ofjournalism around the globe. And thats our mission. Were giving voice to the voiceless. I were reporting the gazan side, and were reporting the israeli side. I mean, were airing the statements by Israeli Government officials, and we are being criticised, by the way, in The Middle East that we are airing them. People are criticising, criticising us and saying that aljazeera is givingj a platform for, uh, for the Israeli Government lies and that we are airing after them what contradicts what they are saying, because they go on air and say we, we care about civilians. I and then we report that hundreds are killed in their. This is your Immediate Reaction to the ban by mr netanyahu and his colleagues. Is there anything further that you can do about this . Can you challenge the ban legally . Of course weve. Started the process. We are pursuing all legal actions to make sure that we, uh, you know, counter these unfounded allegations. And we are sure that, you know, that the whole Israeli Government and the israel. Is now, uh, is being tested. The democracy in israel is being tested because they are using the same playbook of the authoritarian regimesl in The Middle East, but theyrej calling themselves democracy. So lets see if, if, if the israeli institutions are going to defend Freedom Of Speech and, uh, you know, the Freedom Ofjournalists to operate. In israel, uh, in front of the court. Mohamed moawad, Managing Editor of aljazeera, with us from doha, thank you very much indeed for speaking to the media show. Thanks to Shaina Oppenheimer, too, from Bbc Monitoring. Thank you. I want to turn to something very, very different now, but it would have been hard to miss. The photographs earlier in the week, splashed across the media, as stars took to the red carpet in sometimes questionabl