Media Storm - Helena's 'Immigrantly' story - with Saadia Khan

Episode Date: August 3, 2023

Come to our LIVE SHOW at London Podcast Festival! Saturday 16th September at 7pm https://www.kingsplace.co.uk/whats-on/words/media-storm-2/ For this week's bonus episode, two podcasts have joined forces: Media Storm and Immigrantly! Immigrantly is a podcast that discusses deeply personal conversations around race, identity, and the immigrant experience, hosted by Saadia Khan. Media Storm host Helena was on Saadia's podcast a few weeks ago to discuss her life as a second generation immigrant in London. You can hear that episode here, but first, Mathilda and Helena sat down with Saadia to find out more about her, her life from Pakistan to America, and why she set up Immigrantly. Get in touch: Follow us on Twitter http://twitter.com/mediastormpod or Instagram https://www.instagram.com/mediastormpod or Tiktok https://www.tiktok.com/@mediastormpod like us on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/MediaStormPod send us an email [e-mail] check out our website https://mediastormpodcast.com Find out more about Immigrantly: immigrantlypod.com Follow Saadia Khan @kh_saadi Music by Samfire @soundofsamfire.  Become a member at https://plus.acast.com/s/media-storm. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi listeners. Thank you for tuning in. Helena and I are still on our two-week break and we'll be back next week with an investigation into women and girls in crisis zones. It's quite a special one. We have women tuning in from Kenya, Yemen, Pakistan, Afghanistan, North America and more. And our guest in the studio is the amazing Nazanine Boniadi, who has an incredible activism record as well as starring. roles in many TV shows and films, including the latest rings of power. That's right. But this week, there's more bonus content. And today, we wanted to introduce you to a little show called Immigrantly. Now, I was on this podcast a few weeks ago, and it's all about the immigrant experience. We're going to play my episode of Immigrantly, but first, Matilda and I called up with the host of the show, Sardia Khan, for a little chat

about why she created the show. Enjoy. Welcome to MediaStorm. It's so lovely to be able to speak to you. Instead of us introducing you, how about you introduce yourself? First, thank you for having me on your podcast. I am so excited. So my name is Adia Khan. I am a Pakistani immigrant living in the United States. New York. I am a rights activist. I'm a social entrepreneur. I'm a storyteller. And I'm a mom, a coffee drinker. I am normally moody in the mornings, but I am really enjoying this morning. And could you tell us a little bit about your life leading up to you creating immigrantly? Oh gosh. So I came to the US in early 2000s and I always tell this story. I'm sure some of your listeners may have heard of this story if they've ever listened to me on other podcasts.

but I came to the U.S. in early 2000s. Before that, in the 70s, my dad came to the U.S. as this young engineer from Pakistan, fell in love with the country, was so happy here, he had a job, but he had to go back to Pakistan to fulfill his familial obligations. But he took a lot of nice memories with him, and he would pass on those memories to us in ways of storytelling and anecdotes. So I felt as if I knew the United States before I was here as a child growing up in Pakistan. And so when I came in the early 2000s, I was expecting U.S. to be this warm and welcoming

place. Unfortunately, this was post-9-11 era. America was a lot more paranoid, resentful, angry at people like me. So I was. taken aback, but I thought, you know what, I'm an immigrant. I didn't even realize I was an immigrant at that time. I thought, you know, we'll stay here for a couple of years. We came for college, we'll go back to Pakistan. But as years went by, we decided to stay. And as we decided to stay, the microaggressions and wave of hatred towards Muslims became more apparent to me. It became part of my consciousness because the stakes were high. So I went back to grad school, my master's in human rights, I was like, you know what? I will work in this space and try to

make a difference. And then 2016 elections happened. And in a single stroke, a lot of us were othered, right? Even those who thought that we had somehow made it felt like we were relegated to the fringes of society. And that's when I thought that I could no longer sit on the sidelines, decided to create a podcast. I'm a huge podcast listener myself. I thought what better way to tell stories than this audio medium which allows people to learn and unlearn in their own time. So I created one and I called it the alien chronicles. That was something that I don't know why I decided to call it that. I thought I was trying to reclaim the alien word itself too toxic for reclamation. switched it to emigrantly.

It's been almost four and a half years. We have another podcast called Invisible Hate. And I am so proud of all the work that we've done, all the stories that we've told, including yours, Helena. So, yeah, here we are telling more stories and unraveling the immigrant experience in the US and beyond. So you talked about 2016 as being a sudden moment

in how immigrants were. were portrayed and seen and treated by the public. We obviously had a parallel movement here in the UK. I assume you're talking about the initial election of, at the time, President Donald Trump. Here in the UK, we had the Brexit campaign and referendum. And I was at that point working with refugees in the aid sector, something I did for a few years and the thing that actually pushed me into journalism in the first place. And the reason that it pushed me into journalism is because the ways in which migrants were represented

was deeply inaccurate as well as being deeply unjust. And what I love about your show is that it takes something that we have come to understand as a deeply political idea, immigration and a political topic. And you treat it not as a political topic, but as a personal human story. story-based topic. And that was so refreshing because when I was working with refugees and I encountered people in the UK, some people would say, why are you doing the work that you do? You know, why are you staking yourself on that side of the political debate? And I'm like, I'm just giving food to hungry people. This is not a political thing I'm doing. We're just

doing a very, very instinctive human thing. So can you tell us, why is it that you decided to take that very human focus? And what is the impact of those stories? in the political climate today. Mr. I'm so glad you ask me this, because a lot of times, especially in the American political and social discourse, immigrant identity is seen as political, right? The conversations that they have here are either about policy or the politics of it all. And to me, that really takes away from basic humanity.

All of us are living our lives, right? now our lives have been politicized and so we have to deal with that but more importantly we are all humans our lives are introspective they are informational our stories are relentless we are funny at times we are angry at times we are emotional at times we find our strength through our vulnerability and what i noticed was that that basic humanity and the broad spectrum of humanity that immigrant identity embodies was missing. And what I thought was that what we are going to do on immigrantly is tell our truths in unwarnished, unadulterated way. And we are going to live our lives and we are going to own our identities, our accents,

our cultural, ethnic heritages. And if people like it, great. If they don't, too bad. But this is who we are and we are going to be unapologetic about it. So that's one thing that I decided from very beginning. It was quite intentional. In terms of impact, I think relatability, human experiences are so intrinsic, right? So whether we talk about love and relationships, arranged marriages, or food and faith, everybody can relate to it. And that creates a more holistic understanding of the immigrant identity, and it makes immigrants and anybody who's othered more human. And to be honest, it's not my job to educate people, but what I am trying to do is just own ourselves fully and people end up learning through it.

Yeah, and do you know what? That relates, I think, so deeply to what we do on MediaStorm, because we center people who are so often talked about but never talk to. And when that happens, when somebody isn't talked to, people form their own stereotypes about that certain group. And in the same way that people form certain stereotypes about immigrants, here you are sort of smashing those down by getting them to just tell their own stories. I also think once you can relate to somebody, it's difficult to otherwise them or feel threatened by them. You are a very... I'm like, why are you pausing?

What are you going to say? I'm like, I'm nervous now. You are a very intuitive interviewer. I feel you really listen when I'm listening to your podcast and put a lot of thought into the questions you ask. And I'm curious what your storytelling background is. I mean, you mentioned that your dad loved to tell stories. Honestly, if I look back, I don't have. have any education around it. I'm not a journalist. I am an activist. My dad used to tell stories.

And as a kid, I would tell stories. But I never thought of it as something that I'm good at. But I am a good listener. And that's always been at the heart of how immigrantly was not just structured, but how we tell stories of our guests. And I cannot talk about our incredible work without talking about our script writers and our team because once we have a guest we do thorough research we learn about them we focus on them rather than focusing on what we want to tell and that's what i am extremely intentional about when i'm having conversation with my guests helena does that make you feel self-conscious knowing that sardia's team has been rifling through your Dirty laundry.

Now I'm like, I wonder what else they found. But this, you know, this leads us on quite well to a question I wanted to ask. Are there any sort of favorite stories that you've heard from people that you've interviewed on Immigrantly, anything that has stood out recently or from the early days of Immigrantly, something that maybe our listeners might be interested to go back and listen to? That's a tough one. I feel like all the guests that I've had on immigrantly, like 230-something, they are such incredible humans, right?

I could not pick one. I would say, though, our recent episodes have been more in-depth, more introspective, and that's because as we are growing as a platform and podcast, our thematic depth has widened, our production quality has improved. But each and every episode is so important, so unique. Like Helena, when I was talking to you, how you and I talked about British colonialism and how that history is never taught in schools in the UK, it really surprised me because I feel like that's such an important and integral part of a lot of people's history, which is

being erased. And then your personal story, how you came to terms with your own identity. and I've seen that as a through line from a lot of kids of immigrants, right? Second-gen, third-gen. It is a struggle for them to own their identity. And once they do, they feel so empowered and so liberated. And that's such a beautiful feeling to see and to experience. And I've seen that with so many of my guests because I do interview a lot of second-gen

kids of immigrants. So to me, every story is so unique. it's so beautiful and empowering. I couldn't pick one. I really couldn't. And have you ever been to the UK? I have. I'm trying to think when. Oh my gosh. It was probably 20 years ago. What's your impression of British Muslim life in the UK? Honestly, I can't talk much about it. But I do know a lot of my family members live in the UK. I think people sometimes living in the US feel that minorities in the UK are more integrated or they feel more at home and that may just be a myth. But what do you guys think? Like do you think minorities are more integrated and more at home

in the UK versus other parts of the world? Well, firstly I think we need to look at different parts of the UK because we both live in London, which isn't exactly representative in terms of having higher levels of integration than a lot of the regions of the UK, particularly rural regions. And then there's also the different generations of immigrants that have come in and the level of integration that has been achieved. You know, something we're seeing now with the arrival of refugees and asylum seekers is high levels of ghettoization. This has been going on for some time where people would be put in accommodation in very concentrated areas, such as, you know, the outskirts of Liverpool or Manchester. They will not be given support structures to facilitate

integration such as language, tuition, or the conversion of their qualifications to help them get into the workplace. And so this has meant that in those regions that are being disproportionately allocated arrivals, hostilities are emerging between the local population and the arriving population quite understandably because that ghettoization really does infringe on the day-to-day life and the scenery that the residents have been enjoying. Now we're seeing that even more extremely where people aren't even being put into hotels outside cities. Instead, we are converting disused military barracks and offshore facilities where we can essentially imprison people. And so I would say that the direction we're heading in in terms of

understanding that immigration can and has been hugely successful and beneficial for the country only happens if immigration is accompanied by integration. And instead of learning that lesson and creating an infrastructure for immigration where integration is encouraged. We're going in the opposite direction. We're justifying this ghettoization by focusing on the imagined fears of immigration and we're actually therefore realizing them. So it's a bit of a pessimistic answer, but I think that we really need to wake up to that. Absolutely. And the irony is that when we think of British colonization and American militarization, they have created a lot of immigrants and refugees and migrants and yet they are so anti-immigration and so anti-refugees which speaks to the irony

of the situation right yeah well at the end of the chat that we had on immigrant fee you asked me to define the UK in in a word or in a short phrase so I'm going to turn it round on you and I'm going to ask you how you would define the US. You know, I have been grappling with this question myself because I ask every single guest. And I mentioned this recently. I see US as work in progress. There is so much that is good about the US. I don't see myself living in any other country outside Pakistan other than the US because it really, really makes you feel in some ways. that you are part of the broader fabric, the societal fabric. But at the same time, there is so much that we have to do.

There's so much work that needs to be done, whether it's reconciliation with racial tensions that exist within the U.S. Or the immigration part of U.S. identity, or the politics of it, or lack of education in terms of understanding other identities. so much work to be done and that's why we have platforms and we have conversations and we are all partaking in a metamorphosis of sorts to really realize the the theoretical American dream but because it doesn't exist in practice to the extent where it should so yeah short answer work in

progress I love that yeah it's suitably critical and optimist And with that, I think we should listen to Sardia's interview with Helena. I, for one, loved listening to it. We'll play it after this ad break. But for now, Sadiah, thank you so much for joining us on Media Storm. And so lovely to see you again. Hi, Helena. Welcome to Immigrant League.

Hello. You're based in UK, right? Yes, exactly in London. So hello to all our listeners in London. And if this is your first time tuning in, do come back. I'm so excited to be doing this. So tell me, you write about other people's stories. I was in fact listening to your podcast, Media Storm in the morning, latest episode in fact. And I was at the gym listening to this very, very, very interesting, engaging conversation around cannabis and criminalization of chronic pain. And I do have questions about that. But first, Helena, I want to know more about you. Who is Helena Wadia? Let's start there. What a big question to start with. I'm not even sure where to start. I've lived most of my life in London. I was born in Hong Kong, actually, of all places. Yeah. And I am culturally Parsi. I'm not sure. I always say that when I say I'm Parsi, I'm like, who knows about the Parsi community? Because we're all, we're so small now. So I often think who really knows about the party community. But essentially for those people who don't know,

the way I put it, is it's an Iranian heritage, but with an Indian culture. Right. Around about the 10th century, the Parsi's were pushed out of Iran, Persia, as it was then. And they settled in India and East Africa mostly. So, yeah, I'm completely parsy, both my parents. And I suppose I've lived a kind of life sort of bridging a very British culture because that's where I grew up with reconciling that with my heritage. And I've always been interested in people's stories where they come from, who they are, what makes them tick, what they care about.

And I think that's the reason why I wanted to become a journalist. I've been doing that now for, gosh, nearly 10 years, I'd say. Helena, talk to me about your heritage, which I assume is South Asian. And on Immigrantly, we talk a lot about what it means to be South Asian in America, in the US. But I'm curious to know, what does it mean to be South Asian in the UK? What are some of the cultural influences of dominant culture? What was it like growing up in London? It's a great question because I think for a long time, I wouldn't have been able to answer that question because my father was a first generation immigrant.

So he came over to the UK when he was a late teenager. And I think for him, in order to be successful, I think he felt like he had to integrate. And so along with that integration when he married my mom and he had me and my sister, I think that it was quite difficult for us. to connect with our culture and our heritage completely because he gave us English names. You know, my name's Helena. In fact, my full name is Helena Rose. I mean, isn't that the most classically English name? And a lot of the time, I suppose I felt disconnected from my heritage because I was growing up

with a very British experience. Now, of course, you can never be completely disconnected because I think, what it means to be British Asian, I think it was something that began to be celebrated as I got a bit older. And there are certain areas of London specifically that are full of British Asians. And that would be South Hall, Wembley, Ealing, Hounslow. And I had a lot of family that lived in places like that. And so when I got to visit those places, all of that culture came to life. And I have slowly, over the years began to see it as a great strength and a big part of me rather than something that I needed to push away and integrate into, you know, wider British culture.

How does your dad see that transition, that shift in you embracing your South Asian heritage? Does he have any thoughts on it? I think you'd have to ask him. I'm not sure he does, to be honest. You know, I actually think a huge part of me re-embracing that South Asian culture. was when I met my now fiancé, who is Hindu. And I see how his family, I think, perfectly bridge both being British and being Asian. And I think, yeah, I learned to celebrate that part of myself again when I met him.

Talk to me about when you were in school. Now, I remember interviewing another guest from London. And she mentioned something that really blew my mind away. She told me that in the UK, kids are not taught about British colonialism and what happened in South Asia. Is that true? That is true. Look, it may be different now because I left school. I'm turning 30 this year.

So I left school a while ago. It may be different now. But we actually did the history of India in school. I think for my A-level history, I think we did it. And I don't think the word colonialism came up once. Why do you think that is the case? In British schools in particular, I think it is absolutely fair to say that they have rewritten history.

And they may not have done it purposefully, although they may have. However, I think it is completely fair to say that they view history through their lens. They view it through their experience. And their experience was that what they did in India was fantastic. and they bought modernity and the new life to India. And it's funny because if you speak to some British Asians of an older generation, say my grandparents, they actually think colonialism was pretty great too. That's so surprising.

It's very surprising. But when you are given essentially one version of history, your whole life, and that version is that, look how brilliantly they bought things to India, look how they built up. the railways, look how they did this, being brought into the 21st century by them, there's no other way of viewing it. You're not going to get that other side. It's very interesting, but it doesn't surprise me. This is so interesting because just by sheer numbers, when the British went to India, one of the richest areas in the world, and when they left,

it was one of the poorest nations in the world. Doesn't that tell us a lot about what happened there? Do you think people are blindsided or they ignore the history because it's convenient? I think so. I remember in, I think it was in 2021, the school's minister rejected compulsory lessons about the empire and the slave trade, claiming that they would risk lowering standards, which is a really shocking sentence, really. This, by the way, came off the back of a petition that was signed by nearly 270,000 people that was condemning the curriculum and it was about failing to teach students

about Britain's role in colonialismization and also Britain's shame during the slave trade. And I think the call was just completely thrown out and I think by the lowering standards comment, I think what he was saying was that, oh, you know, we don't want to pile on more topics for our children. and we don't want them to, you know, have to learn even more. Like, the curriculum's tough enough as it is.

It is part of this culture that is in British politics at the moment where everything is politicised. Every small issue is politicised. And it is polarised. The only way of viewing things is in very binary terms. Are you on the right wing or are you on the left wing? And everything in between is ignored. It's not shocking enough.

It's not clickbait enough. It's very similar to what's happening in the year. U.S., right? But does diversity in terms of seeing a South Asian prime minister or a South Asian mayor of London make a difference? Do you think diversity in terms of numbers or optics is good enough? I think when there was a South Asian, in particular, Muslim mayor elected in Siddique Khan, I do think that changed a lot of people's opinions. You know, So Sadiq Khan withstood huge amounts, and still does to the state, huge amounts of racism and vitriol directed towards him, Islamophobia in particular. And I think that even now you see tweets saying it's become London-Stan.

Right. And just really horrible things directed against him. However, representation for representation's sake is not enough. Yes, we have a South Asian prime minister. I'm sure for many, many years, people didn't think that was ever going to happen. But we also have a Prime Minister who is choosing to demonise transgender people. The British government says it'll block a bill passed by the Scottish Parliament, making it easier for people to change their legal gender.

The bill in question was passed in December. It removes the need for a medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria and lowers the minimum age from 18 to 16 for a person to change. change the gender on their birth certificate. We have to look at things in their context. We had a home secretary in Pretty Patel who implemented one of the harshest, harshest hostile environment policies under which I don't think her own family would have been able to come to the UK.

Wow. So representation itself, it's not enough. So Helena, talk to me about true representation. What does true representation look like to you? To me, I think true representation. is not just diversity, it's diversity and inclusion. That means, and I'll put it in terms of something that I've experienced myself in a journalism newsroom.

So when people say, we've got a diverse newsroom, you have to look at where that diversity is. Is that diversity a couple of people of colour who are interns at the bottom being paid minimum wage? Or is that diversity somebody at the top, somebody who is making editorial decisions? So we are talking about decision makers, right? Decision makers, change makers, and people who can be in positions of understanding. It's not enough to just arrange diversity training and then wash your hands off the issue. Nothing is going to really change until diversity is top of the priority list and until people

really care and want to do the work and they don't just want to tick a box. You're absolutely right, but it also matters what values those decision makers, Right. Going back to South Asian Prime Minister Rishi Sonak, he is a decision maker. He is in a position of power. And yet he's making decisions that are probably going to be extremely harmful for minority groups in the UK. So we have to not just look at representation, diversity, decision makers, but also what values they hold, right? What would you prefer a prime minister who comes from a minority community, but doesn't believe in certain values that will help and grow those communities versus a prime minister who is not from a minority community, but believes in

values that will help minorities thrive. I think always somebody who believes in values that will help minorities thrive. Because I think, you know, it is interesting, as you said, Rishi Zunik is a decision maker. However, I do think that the people of color who are on the right. A lot of the ways that they have got to the top is by essentially throwing their own communities and other minority communities under the bus. Right. And yes, Rishi Zunak is part of a minority community, but he's also part of a huge majority of rich men who run the country. Helena, talk to me about your work. Now, when I look at my work at Immigrantly, most of my activism is driven by frustration with narrow-minded depictions of minorities and people of color, right?

I started the podcast because I felt not just Muslim, but people of color were not being represented the way they should be in mainstream media. They still aren't. How do you face or confront those biases or problematic depictions of minority communities in journalism? in your career, what do you do if you see that problematic depiction of a person from minority community? So I think to answer that question, I'll tell you a little bit about how Media Storm my podcast started. And that's because I was working full time in a mainstream media newsroom in the UK at a newspaper that is extremely popular. It's technically not on the right or not on the left, it says it's centrist, but I think at some point it has had right leanings.

Let's put it that way. I was working in that newsroom, but this is not specific to that newsroom. In every job in the mainstream media I've had, started to notice that the people who are spoken about the most are rarely ever spoken to. Right. And what happened is I was working in this mainstream media newsroom with my now co-host, Matilda. And Matilda specializes in, humanitarian journalism. So she has worked a lot with refugees, with people who have been displaced. And during the time that we were working together, Matilda said, I've noticed that we as a company have put out 40 articles this week about what was dubbed then the so-called migrant crisis. And that is a phrase that continues to still come up. What they mean by that is refugees getting in unsafe dinghies

and crossing the channel and arriving at British shores. And in not one of those articles had we spoken to a single person who had lived experience, a single person who had crossed the channel themselves, not once had we asked them, why did you do that? What made you risk your life to have to do that to come to the UK? It was a point that, you know, I'd thought of many, many times before in different contexts. In the UK, we have a very hostile environment for, transgender people in the mainstream media. And I had picked up on that, that transgender people were

spoken about all the time in the mainstream media, but never spoken to. And we started to sort of make a list of these groups of people. And that developed into us leaving our jobs and starting this podcast. So what we say is that Media Storm is a news podcast and it starts with the people who are usually asked last. Right. Whether that be refugees, migrants, sex workers, people who have been in prison, transgender people, people who smoke cannabis for their chronic pain. These people are always spoken about, but they don't get their right of reply. And if right of reply is one of the main pillars of journalism, it's missing. And so we're trying to restore that. Helena, talk to me about why these people don't get asked in mainstream

media ecosystem. Do you think it's deliberate? I think there's a few reasons why. I think journalists are incredibly time-pressed. Social media means that news spreads instantaneously, and journalists have to compete with that to keep up with it, and they want their coverage to be seen versus somebody else's coverage, which then, you know, leads into click-baity headlines, and they're trying to all compete with each other. And like when you're in a newsroom and your editor is saying,

quick, get that story out, quick, do this, quick, do that. Maybe you feel like you don't have time to approach a reference. for example. And over time, this has just become the norm to do. So digital reporters, they often have no choice but to recycle press releases and tweets as headlines. And what they're not doing is venturing outside of the newsroom as much as reporters used to and seeking out voices that don't readily present themselves. And then I think there's also that because these communities rarely get their right of reply, what it has created is that they are skeptical of the media. You know, we found this when trying to do many episodes.

When we were doing our episode about sex work and we wanted to speak to sex workers, a lot of them didn't want to speak to us at first because they thought, oh, here we go again. Am I going to be put up against somebody who is very anti-sex work? And am I going to be dragged and am I going to be made out to be like dirty and a terrible person? And it was only after trying to get their trust and speaking to them and saying, No, listen, we really want to platform your voices and don't worry, we're not going to oppose you with somebody who's on the complete other end of the spectrum, who has no lived experience and we're not going to stick you in a room and make you debate each other. Talking about your podcast, it is a great mix of great information and humor.

How do you strike that balance? You know, that's so great to hear you say that because I think that's what we've been, what we've been desperate to do. I think when we came up with the structure that was key to kind of striking that balance. So the first half of every episode is an investigation and that's sort of either Matilda or I out on the road and we speak to many, many different people and we tried to make it as immersive as possible so that people feel like they're really on the road with us trying to get to the heart of an issue. And then the second half of the episode, we're back in the studio and we're joined by, again, who has lived experience in that issue and they often have worked in the mainstream media themselves as well. And in that section, we speak about what the media can be doing better

to report on this certain minority community. And in that section, what we do is we look at headlines. We sort of roast these headlines that have come up in recent weeks. And I think that's when we thought we could really bring some humor into this. And that is truly because it is laughable. Like, it's awful, but it's also laughable. Some of these headlines, the tabloid presses in particular, come out with. Sometimes they're so awful that all you can do is laugh. Share a few headlines that you thought were so upset that you couldn't even believe what you were reading. Oh my goodness. One from one of our most recent episodes really stands out to me. Yates, the former frontman with the Glasgow heavy metal band Nocturn Wolf,

gave up his dream of becoming a professional rock star to start a family. Dave was the human equivalent of a golden retriever. Friends of Yates insist he was utterly dedicated to his partner. Why does the mainstream media feel the need to eulogise violent men? I wish I knew the answer. The episode was on domestic abuse and what the media can be doing to report better on domestic abuse and all the pitfalls that it falls into. And this one headline from a newspaper called The Times wrote an entire article about the violent man and his character.

And then in the last two paragraphs spoke about his fiancé who he murdered. And the headline was disbelief at kind and gentle fiancé linked to murder of primary school teacher Morrell Sturrock. Now, the paper was calling a man who murdered. murdered his fiance, kind and gentle. Oh my gosh. Yes. And may I know why they thought he was kind and gentle? So this whole article fell into a massive pitfall that the media often falls into when

reporting on domestic abuse, where they go into, how could this have happened? What could have possibly made this lovely man who doted on his wife murder her? And they forget to include the context of domestic abuse. which is that it can be hidden, which is that most murderers are very charming, which is that most women are killed by a partner or intimate partner and not by a stranger. Right. And what they do is they leave out all the context and instead just print all the nice things that friends and neighbors have said about this man without realizing that friends and neighbors may be entirely unfamiliar with the reality of the situation. Same person can have a very very much.

different relationship with his spouse, partner, versus neighbors, family, mom, dad. Exactly. Abuses by its nature hidden. Right. And the media fails to report that and fails to get people to understand that. So, Helena, if you were to write headline for this article, what would you write? So I work with an organization in the UK called Level Up. And what Level Up have done is they have developed media.

guidelines for reporting on fatal domestic abuse. They have an acronym. It's called Ada and it stands for accountability, images, dignity and accuracy. So you have to make sure you're including all of those four things when you report on domestic abuse. So in this case, to be honest, I don't think I would have written this article. Why? Because this article was just about the murderer's character. What reports on domestic abuse should be is a memorial for the victim, not propaganda for the perpetrator. So I would have written about her. I would have written about whether she was kind or gentle, what her friends thought about her and what her family thought about her and what she did as her job. And I would have also put a photo of her. You know,

the photo was of them together. And I find that incredibly jarring to have a woman pictured next to the man who murdered her. And you have to put yourself in the shoes of the family of the victim when you're reporting on things like this because it's not a case anymore that news is tomorrow's chip paper. News is forever now because it's online forever. So if it's online forever, it should be a memorial for the victim. That's such a beautiful thing to say and I never thought of it that way. Talk to me about all the different topics that you've covered so far. So you've covered immigration, sex work, minority rights. Is there something that stands out to you, something that you were surprised by something that challenged your preconceived notions about an issue or a community

or an identity for that matter? What always jumps to my mind is an episode we did on STI's sexually transmitted infections. There were many things I think that challenged my preconceived I did. But a huge one was that I did the investigation on HPV. HV is the human papillomavirus, and it has more than a hundred different strains. Some strains of the virus can cause genital warts, some can cause abnormal cell changes that can lead to cancer. And it's usually cervical cancer. And that's what people think of when they think of HPV. So you may know that HPV causes cervical cancer, and you might have noticed a huge drive. to get women vaccinated.

But what a lot of people didn't know and maybe, you know, I didn't really know myself is that men can also get HPV and can pass HPV on and are at risk of cancers, penile cancer, anal cancer and throat cancers. When I found this out, I thought, why on earth don't we talk about this?

And why on earth isn't there a huge drive to get men vaccinated as well? So I think that was something that really blew my mind And in that episode, I heard from men who were living with the effects of HPV and also the men who have used their experiences to change the vaccination process for boys and men. It's been a long battle with the UK government because essentially to them it's not really a cost effective thing to do because not as many men get HPV as women do. And then I think something that also challenged my preconceptions in that episode was speaking. to our studio guest that episode was a wonderful educator, broadcaster, writer called Alex Fox. And she was actually a script consultant on the Netflix show, Sex Education.

I don't know if you'd seen it. I haven't seen this show, but I've heard of it. And it's actually a really, really good show for getting facts across in a humorous and, you know, dramatic way. And she was, yeah, a script consultant on that. essentially to make sure that everything about STIs in those episodes is factually accurate. And speaking to her was so interesting because there's just no holds barred with her. So she just talked about everything.

And very openly. And I think growing up, we really did demonise STIs and demonise people with STIs. And it was really, really shameful if you knew someone who had one or people would just make jokes about it. you know, like, did he give you commydia? Oh, I bet you've got Camlydia. He's so gross. And, you know, we wouldn't be able to have even said the words genital warts without laughing. You know, our education around sex and consent and relationships was truly terrible. And so to have somebody, you know, years later come in and talk about all those things openly and without any shame was actually very healing, I think.

How has that reframed conversations around sex? sex for you. I don't know if it's the same in America, but British sex education, oh my God, it is terrible. You know, I think I went through school without the word consent ever being mentioned. I'm not surprised, though. No. Yeah. I think probably U.S. sex education doesn't have the term either. Exactly. I mean, all we heard about was like, don't get pregnant, don't get pregnant, use a condom, don't get pregnant. And absolutely nothing really about STIs, unless it. was in a derogatory way. Absolutely nothing about consent. Right. And nothing about pleasure. Oh my God. It was all about reproducing. Don't get me wrong. There was a bit on male

pleasure, but nothing on female pleasure. So I think it's been very exciting in a way to reframe all those conversations that maybe my younger self has needed. You know, also we did an episode on abortion. And that was at the time that Roe versus Wade was overturned. I mean, that's one of our most listened to episodes because I think we don't realize how much it affects other people. The guest we had on, Renee Bracey Sherman, she's American. And she said to us, everybody loves somebody who has had an abortion. And I think we don't realize how common it is. That's true. And again, at school, it was only ever brought up in like an ethical debatey kind of way. And it was always really scary. The concept of abortion was really scary. It was really

terrifying and was only ever seen as like a last resort if something awful had happened to you, if you'd been assaulted or, you know, it was never framed as something that like, no, you have a choice whether or not you want a baby. Exactly. And so all these conversations have been reframed through the podcast and it's been a learning experience for us, but also hopefully for all of our listeners, you know, we've had some amazing responses where people have said, God, you know what, you really changed my mind on that. And that's not us, by the way, like we're not the ones changing the mind. It's the people with lived experience that we talk to. And they're not doing anything crazy. They're just talking about their experience.

And it's actually shocking when you think that's all we really need. Like that's such a simple thing, somebody coming on and talking about their experiences. And there's no agenda, you know, and there's no political leaning and there's no binary debate. It's just someone saying their experiences. And it's quite simple. You're absolutely. Absolutely right. A lot of times people have agency, but they don't have platforms where they can express it. And you're giving them that platform to have those authentic conversations. It's as simple as that. Helena, are there any interesting topics that you are going to explore on your podcast in the future that you're really excited about? So coming up on series three, we are doing an episode on striking and unions and organizing workers. And the reason that we picked. that topic is because currently in the UK, we're in a period of mass striking. So railway workers are striking, teachers are striking, nurses are striking, junior doctors are striking. And

people are demanding fairer pay in line with inflation, because inflation has gone up considerably recently in the UK. We're in a massive, huge cost of living crisis. People are demanding better working hours. People are demanding better working conditions. And what we have seen is a really polarised response to striking workers. So we have seen a response where members of the public are interviewed on the news. And they're saying, oh, it's so inconvenient. You know, how dare the strikers strike on the day of this big football match or the day of Eurovision? How dare these strikers do that?

They're just trying to make our lives miserable. And we haven't had reporters pushing back and saying, hey, why do you think, why do you think people are striking? You know, we haven't really had anybody asking that question, so much so that we all, as a collective public, seem to have forgotten that strikes are meant to be disruptive. That is the point of them. Like, that is literally a point. And don't get me wrong. Of course I have been frustrated when the trains have been off, when I haven't been able to get somewhere on time. But that's what mobilization looks like. Exactly. I mean, genuinely, I think we have forgotten and we have seen reporting that has been like, so-and-so hasn't been able to get to visit their dying mother in hospital because of the strikers. But if you really think about it, is it because of the strikers or is it because the government isn't paying them a fair wage? Right.

So in our upcoming episode, we are not only going to try and reframe that by asking strikers about their experiences and why they felt the need to strike and what has happened to them and, you know, how are they coping with the cost of living, but we're also going to look a little bit of the history of striking in the UK so that people are going to be able to answer the question, well, what have the unions ever done for me? Turns out, just from my initial research, a hell of a lot. maternity pay, paternity pay, weekends, paid leave, equal pay for women, although obviously we're not quite there yet. You know, they've done a hell of a lot for us. And I think it's important to put that narrative back into the media. You're absolutely right. And at least in the US, the way I see it, ownership is sacrosanct, right? So the rights of owner or employers trump the rights of employees. In fact, employees' rights are stripped at the expense. of that. So I totally see why people would push back because of the narrative that they are fed in mainstream media and otherwise, and how they are made to act against their own well-being.

They are made to think that unions are bad. Striking is bad. Mobilization is terrible so that they don't mobilize and they don't make coalitions and demand rights. Exactly. So it would be a fascinating episode to listen to. Helena, in the end, I normally ask my guests to define in America, the US in a word or a sentence. But this time, I'm going to talk about the UK. If you could define UK in a word, sentence, phrase, how would you do that? Currently, I think I would say, struggling.

Struggling in what ways? I think at some point soon, the UK is going to need a reckoning. it's going to have to address its past, present and future. And I think, you know, I want to be in a situation where I can say, oh, I'm so proud to be British, you know. There are many reasons why I do feel proud to be British. But I think so many of them are trumped by the way that the UK treats many minority groups. And I think it is struggling to reconcile its own past.

It's struggling to be honest. Oh, you know, one thing Britain does is it struggles. to admit when it's wrong. I think US is the same. So they are pretty similar in that sense. But I think the phrase that I want to describe Britain as is always raining but sunny at heart. I wish I could do that. But I don't think we can quite say that yet. But maybe soon we'll be able to. I really like that description and that analogy. Where can people find your podcast? So you can find our podcast wherever you get your podcasts on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google, Acast. can also find us on Instagram and TikTok and Twitter at MediaStorm Pod.

Thank you so much, Helena. This was wonderful. Thank you so much for having me. Thanks for listening. Before you leave, why don't you scroll into our show notes and click on the link to buy tickets to our live show at King's Place in London on Saturday, September the 16th. We'd love to see you there. Thank you.