Out the facts. But more and more and in the world in which we live — but it has always been the way, ever since there has been war — conflicts and wars always unfold on two levels. One is the facts on the ground and the other is the perception of the facts on the ground. And these perceptions now have become an increasingly hostile battlefield. I don't need to tell both of you that it is nothing less than a battle for the truth. So, that it's notjust that something happened, it's what other people think happened. And that feeling of what they think happened can matter more in the evolution of the conflict and in terms of how the story is told and retold and told again and then, it becomes history. And the efforts of the people within these stories to influence how the media helps shape those perceptions, they must�*ve changed the way that they try and influence how you and many others cover the stories? they have many more tools now. Before, it was simply face—to—face. Then, we went through a long period in the '70s whenjournalists were being kidnapped — most of all in lebanon! then, we came whenjournalists were not just on the front line but they were the frontline. And what we have seen — and it has been especially intensified during this gaza war — is that people think they don't need us any more. We are the so—called traditional media, mainstream media, msm, they call us, and it is not a compliment. It's not just an acronym, it's a way of saying, you don't have the truth. You are presenting a biased view, a western view. And so, they take that story and they put out what they think is happening. There was a moment when i was — i won't say which one, but one of my colleagues was doing an interview with a very, very controversial personality and the bbc was filming the interview and then, i realised they — his people, were also filming the interview. And their film of the interview got more hits and went more viral than the bbc's view of what happened in that interview. They chose the questions, they chose the answers, they edited it and suddenly, a bbc interview was broadcast in a very different way on a non—bbc channel. And that's becoming more and more common? it is being weaponised. There were moments where, — this is my last point — moments live on television fromjerusalem, doing interviews, talking to people and i thought my — and at one point, i had to say to one person, sorry, myjob is to ask the questions and you're to answer it. This is a conversation. But they used us as content. They took our interviews, put them on their twitter feed and then got more reactions on them and i thought, i'm producing content notjust for the bbc but for everyone else! so all. . . There is a — there's something really fundamental happened in our world of information, news gathering, the battle for the truth in this war. It's partly to do with technology, partly to do with unintelligible, partly to do with the israelipalestinianl conflict and the broader region. I know you're heading to the region soon. How does it work? just tell us how in terms of — you know, clearly, you're all rivals. You're rivals against, you know, the other reporters who are out there. But in these situations, are you all staying in touch? are you making sure that each other keeps safe? how does that work? chuckles. I don't see them as rivals — maybe because i'm not british, but i've never seen them — you know, there's this classic thing that if you get there — the bbc gets there before itn or before sky, that matters even more. You've got to get there! they've done it already! and of course, journalism is very competitive. When the truth is notjust at risk but your lives are at risk, nothing — no story is worth dying for. And it does bring journalists together. I remember we saw this during the full—scale russian invasion of ukraine. I spent the night speaking to my colleagues from cnn, from sky, from itn. I called up all of them and said, you know, what are we going to do? they called me up. And i think it does bring people together because, quite frankly, i heard 0rla guerin's piece — our excellent senior international correspondent. I heard her today on the bbc saying exactly the same but completely different. Hezbollah has taken us here. This is what hezbollah wants to see. This is the human cost of this war. In some ways, there is no exclusives in this — you just want to tell the story as it is, bring your listeners, readers viewers into where you are. What are your constraints around the dangers, both editorial as well as real dangers. And get out alive. Get out alive. Before we let you go, it is obviously about to be a year since october seven and i wonder in terms of your reflections about what we have learned in that year, particularly about how the media covers this region? it has become — the media has become the story. And not just a story but very, very very emotional story, a story fired up with anger. I think it is a defining moment for notjust the media — and the media is seen as a reflection of the wider world — with many now discussing, criticising so—called double standards and it's very difficult for us at the bbc because we have these rules about don't show too much bloodshed, don't use certain kinds of words, we have a certain language. And as we heard earlier that, in making those choices, but we would regard as technical editorial issues are seen as political issues that we are not really telling the real story. Do you sometimes wish you could say more? no, i think we can — i'm a big believer in that you can find ways to communicate the enormity and the intensity of an issue and sometimes — you know, i often say don't dramatise an already dramatic situation. One word cannot convey the entire enormity of what has happened but a good story well told has far more — has far more impact than the particular language, so i think this has been a really salutatory time, most of all for the region, including forjournalists — i know you've done this before and a record number of journalists killed. How palestinian journalists have stepped up to cover not just what is a major world story but it is their own lives literally on the line. And how we are dependent on them so much. And it's — it will live long, what has happened now, the way we have reported, they way we have acted and, of course, the way the world has acted in this crisis. So much is being tested. Many thanks to the bbc�*s lyse doucet. Well, one of the many tasks within the bbc�*s newsroom and many others around the world when a story of this nature is escalating is the verification of videos that are emerging — particularly videos posted on social media. And to understand that process, i've been speaking to my colleague from bbc verify shayan sardarizadeh. He's been explaining the work he did in the minutes and hours that followed iran's attack on israel. We were on our toes waiting for it to happen and obviously, when it did happen, we started looking at the sources we've got and the places we usually look for these types of videos. Now, fortunately, in my case, i was born and raised in iran before moving to the united kingdom so i know iranian sources pretty well and where to look when it comes to an event that is directly linked to iran, so we started checking videos coming from iran. It's really not an exaggeration to say within half an hour, maybe 45 minutes of — the moment we got this alert that iran had launched these missiles, we had upwards of, i think, 100 videos to look at because they were coming in thick and fast. In different parts of iran, people were basically pointing their smartphone cameras at the sky, seeing these — what clearly looks like missiles travelling in a certain direction. And pretty much interestingly, even with those videos, you know, night—time pitch dark because mostly — not always but mostly — around places these missile launchers are in sort of areas that are rural, not populated by a lot of people, and most of the videos that we are getting initially from inside iran were like people in small villages, rural areas, towns, looking at what was going on and they knew exactly what was happening. And then, we sort of very immediately because, exactly as i said earlier in the programme, because these were not cruise missiles but were ballistic missiles and actually, from iran's possessives. Very, very advanced ballistic missiles, we saw this flood of videos from different parts of israel of missiles flying over different towns and cities and then, what separated this attack from the one that we had in april was at this time around, we actually — the videos were showing quite a lot of impact in different parts of israel, particularly in four separate areas that we got most of our videos. Can i just ask you, so first of all, you are assessing who is sharing these videos and in some cases, you can take a position about whether that looks like a reliable source or not. But even if it is a reliable source, presumably as well as checking who is sharing this, you need to look at what's actually in the video and start doing checks about whether this would be — this appears to be a legitimate recording of what happened ? yeah, the steps we usually take. First of all, we want to make sure that the video we are seeing is recent. So, the internet is flooded with all sorts of videos from all different times and eras and one of the things that happens when you have a breaking story like this, you will see tons and tons of videos being posted on social media, either deliberately for engagement or by people who basically don't know the facts of past conflicts, recycled videos, videos from similar events in the past but not what's actually happening at the time that the story is developing. So, first of all, we have to determine the video we are seeing is recent. Then we have to determine where the video was filmed — the process we call geolocation. We want to establish where exactly the video was filmed. And finally, we want to make sure we can find an earlier source of that video — the person originally posted that on which platform? what did they say? and what was the context? did they film any other videos? did they film any other images? because that then informs our process of reporting to audiences not just the fact that this video exist and it's a striking video and people want to see and know what's actually happened in this part of israel or in iran but also, in the wider context, we want to be able to tell a story about what exactly happened, based on these videos, putting them all together and them into a story. Shayan, thank you very much indeed for sharing what you've been doing in the last 2a hours and the verification process which shayan is describing, we've heard on the media show before, is absolutely fundamental matter how many of the biggest news organisations in the world respond to stories such as iran's attack on israel on tuesday evening. Now, let's turn our attention to what could be one of the biggest flops in video game history — indeed, one of the biggest flops in media history. This is a new game from sony. It cost millions of dollars to develop and it's been pulled after just a few days. There were high hopes for it, though. Here's a trailer. We cannot tell them anything until they unlock the free gunner frequency. Probably not going to happen. What? most people never. Get what they want. Set your expectations. . . Low. And prepare to be disappointed. To find out why concord is being so unpopular, i spoke to keza macdonald, video games editor at the guardian. Well, concord was what's known as a hero shooter, so the idea is that you and your friends get into a game, you each pick one of a roster of heroes — like heard in the trailer there — and you all have a very good time shooting each other. It's also what's known as a live service game means that the idea is that players will play it for months or years and it will have a long life and make lots of money for its publisher. But obviously, that isn't how it's worked out in this case. And why not? why was it so unpopular? why didn't it work, do you think? you know, it's hard to say but i think one of the problems with concord is that it took about eight years to make, which is not unusual these days — video games, big budget ones like this, blockbuster ones like this, take an awfully a long time. And a lot of money, presumably! a lot of money, like as you said one of the estimates put it at about $300 million, $100—200 million earlier estimates were saying. Either way, it's an enormous amount of money. And i think by the time concorde actually came out, people had moved on from these genre. There are already a lot of very popular games in this genre — among them valorant, apex legends, overwatch — these are all games that millions of people play and there wasn't room in the market, it seemed, for another one in that genre. I am aware of back in — showing my age — but of the et game in 1983 that atari made that was considered the worst gaming disaster ever in history. But is this now beaten it? how unusual is it for a game to be pulled just after launch? i don't think this has ever happened. It's not unusual for a game to be cancelled in the run—up to launch. Like, there was a game called i think hyenas called sega which was similarly a hero shooter and it was cancelled maybe 4—5 months from launch. That's a big story in games. But for something to be on the market for 11 or 12 days and then to be pulled completely, it must've been such an incalculable disaster. It would have much better from a pr perspective for sony to have cancelled before it came out because then, it doesn't turn into a huge story like this. And what about the way the investment in these games — is it inevitable? you have to put so much money, it is a very narrow market in terms of people often the same game now for years and years and years, they are very wedded to one game. Is it inevitable in the gaming industry that there would be expensive flops and are they built into the sort of usp and the way they think about this? i really do think this is a kind of existential crisis moment for video games because these budgets are getting very out of control, there has been a huge contraction in games in the last few years after the pandemic — lots of people losing theirjobs, lots of projects getting cancelled, lots of businesses going out of business — and i think that a return to more manageable ways of developing, more sustainable ways of developing, has to be on the cards because these live service games, they are enormous gambles. Either you make millions and millions and everyone is happy or you have to absorb this kind of exceptionally huge loss and most companies in games cannot absorb losses like this very often, if at all. So, that's a prediction about the future of where the video games market might go. What about the explanation for why? has it happened? i don't mean why is it a flop, i mean why have they been these mass lay—offs in the industry? what's behind it all? during covid, obviously, everyone was stuck at home and video games became very, very popular, increasingly so. Games like animal crossing: new horizons — which i'm sure a lot listeners would have played or remembered from that time. It sold 30 million copies. So there was a lot of investments suddenly in video game developers. And a lot of, in my opinion, quite poor business decisions made by certain companies that meant that they scaled up massively in a very short period of time and then, when the investment money tap was turned off, suddenly a lot of people ended up at the sharp end of lay—offs. And this is something that's been happening for the last year especially in games. There have been heartbreaking stories about studios who were making critically acclaimed games, popular games but still, their studios are being shut down and i really think it's to do with just a general sustainability mindset. Like, gaming has become huge and billions of people play games now. People spend so much money on them. But it's also become stratified. You get these massive blockbuster games and then, you get indie games and then, that space in between has become difficult to work in and think it will be a correction there in the next few years. Keza macdonald, video games editor at the guardian, thank you so much for coming on the programme. Now, we speak to the manager of europe's biggest youtube creators, the sidemen. If you have not heard of them, they're a group of friends who post wildly popular videos. Let's have a listen to one — this is them playing a giant game of hide and seek. I've shut down the biggest shopping centre in the uk foran insane game of hide and seek. The boys are starting in gravity on the go—kart. They're going to race into the shopping centre and hide wherever they want. Here we go. Boys, you have 20 minutes to hide! l go! let's go! we've been talking to the manager of the sidemen, jordan schwarzenberger, about the creative process behind the videos and the business strategy, too. So, the sidemen — i've always say this now — the biggest sort of cultural export for gen 2 from the uk, really, and people have likened them to the one direction of youtube, as was in their documentary, and i guess how we describe the guys — there's seven real friends who started playing games together in 2013, literally grand theft auto. It's interesting because actually, ten—year anniversary of grand theft auto vi is about to come out and grand theft auto v was the mark of their friendship and their whole brand, really. So, playing games together and that blossomed into a channel and into them making videos with each other that became this huge sensation on youtube, when youtube wasn't at a point where it was as — nowhere near as big as it was today. So they managed to kind of get there early, make content together that's all about them basically having fun, travelling the world, doing challenges, game shows and all sorts of other really fun things and i think people connected with them individually, right? you've got seven friends some people will know. Obviously, some people like ksi has obviously gone on to have amazing career in music and boxing etc. But the other boys as well — if you go out on the streets and you ask anybody probably under the age of 30, they would be equally as famous. That's meant that they've gone on now to — you know, we joined them in 2021, i think they had 8 million orjust hit 10 million subs on youtube. They're now at 21 million subs. We've had a netflix documentary, two charity matches that have grossed 5 million for charity and sold over 130,000 tickets or whatever it is. We have done a christmas number one in 2022 with christmas drillings — beat mariah carey at christmas, which will be the top thing on my cv, thank you very much! — and got, yeah, numberthree on the official charts and number one on the global charts. We've launched a fried chicken restaurant now co—brand, and a breakfast brand called best, a vc fund called upside and a whole host of other things. So yes, it's been a lot of fun, and that's all borne out of the connection that they have with each other and also with fans across the world. So that's a lot. That's a long list, even though there's — it's a group of them and a group of you working with them. Help us understand what a normal working week would be from your perspective and also from theirs because to generate this volume of products and this volume of content must need a pretty detailed plan? i mean, it changes all the time but really, they are producing i think about 8—12 videos a week — it might even be more than that — across all