Media Storm - News Watch: Johnny Depp "Me Too victim", Iran "nuclear bomb", Palestine Action "terrorists"

Episode Date: June 26, 2025

As the US military intervenes in another Middle East conflict, we’re told it’s because Iran is harbouring weapons of mass destruction (in contradiction to US intelligence). We’re also told forced regime change will ‘liberate’ women from Islamic tyranny. WMDs? Operation Freedom? Haven’t we heard these justifications before? To start, we look at lessons for the media from the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and re-centre Iranian women in debates about their fates. After the break: ‘NOTHING IS OFF LIMITS’ in Johnny Depp’s new exclusive with the Sunday Times… except the most important question. How this ‘poor me’ piece legitimises abusers’ victimhood narratives, and attempts to delegitimise the Me Too movement. And finally, the UK government has moved to proscribe ‘Palestine Action’ as a terrorist organisation for spray-painting RAF planes. Media Storm questions why we need anti-terror laws on top of regular anti-crime laws, and whether politicising justice can ever be in the public interest. The episode is hosted and produced by Mathilda Mallinson (⁠⁠⁠@mathildamall⁠⁠⁠) and Helena Wadia (⁠⁠⁠@helenawadia⁠⁠⁠)  Assistant producer: Lily Erwood The music is by⁠⁠⁠ @soundofsamfire⁠⁠⁠ Support us on⁠⁠⁠ Patreon⁠⁠⁠! Follow us on⁠⁠⁠ Instagram⁠⁠⁠,⁠⁠⁠ Bluesky⁠⁠⁠, and⁠⁠⁠ TikTok Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi, Matilda. Hi, Helena. How are you? I'm at the edge of my tether. Yes. What is a tether? Yes, you're at the end of your end of your tether, isn't it? Not the edge.

But what is the tether? Like, you're tethered together, and now you're at the end of the tether. I'm no longer tethered together. The news has been wearing me down. The news is bad. It's not chill. It's very hard to be a normal person in this current news climate. I also feel totally unjustified being worn down by the news because I'm not the one living it.

Yeah, I was literally saying yesterday that it's really jarring to like scroll Instagram and to see like somebody's brunch and somebody's been on holiday and then to just like see somebody being blown up. Like it's, I think we're all being heavily psychologically damaged at this time. So much of the problem is the way that the media is covering it. Normalising really fucked up things as if they are actually, oh, you know, necessary reality. of our just geopolitical sphere and you're part of this Western world view and you know you should be going along with it. I think more and more there are people who reject that because thanks to social media, which don't get me wrong, social media can be just as fucked up in the way it relates information, but thanks to social media, we are not exclusively confined to seeing

the world through the incredibly Western-centric media that is giving it to us. We've had messages It was from listeners saying, I think there's something wrong with the way I'm seeing the war right now. So, yeah, we're here and we're going to bring you our perspective on that. Just before we get on to that, I don't know if listeners remember, but in our first episode of this series, we asked people what they think of the term mainstream media. And we've had some responses, and you wanted to pick out a certain one to talk about it today. Yes, there was one suggestion I really liked, and it was from a listener called Matt. he suggested the term regulated media.

The reason, just to recap, we were questioning the term mainstream media, isn't because we don't think that this is an appropriate collective of media that we can legitimately criticize, but because that term has been kind of hijacked by the sort of far-right post-truth conspiratorialists, and we don't want to disengage listeners by using a term that makes them immediately think, ooh, who are these dodgy mainstream media? Yeah, it's like we don't want to be in the same bracket as

people being like, don't trust the mainstream media guys. Namely, Donald Trump. Yeah, right. So Matt suggested the term regulated media. And I quite like it because I think it captures this sort of double-edged sword of the media we're talking about. It includes within it the positive. The idea that this is a media that at least in theory prescribes to some sort of editorial standards. It's populated by journalists who are trained in those standards.

I also like it because I think it points to the little talked about problems. behind the media, which is media regulation. Media regulation is so inadequate. The systems that we have, they're so powerless to actually hold the media accountable. It's the fact that when there's fake news on the front page, the correction can be in small print on page 17. So I think that the term regulated media also shows if we want to improve the media, we have to improve media regulation. I also like the term regulated media, but I think that it's then hard to distinguish between who we're talking about because it puts BBC News, for example, in the same section as GB News. But sometimes when we say the term mainstream media, maybe we're referring to a legacy

media and not new channels like GB News and Talk TV. Right. And also, you know, a key difference that we could draw between the media you've pointed out is that BBC is public service media, G.B. News and a lot of other media are commercial media. Sadly, the BBC has to justify its existence, often does that by competing with commercial media on commercial grounds and therefore becoming pretty commercialised. Commercial media is good. Commercial media.

There we go. Now we've come up with a new term as well. Okay, let us know any more thoughts we like to hear them, so keep them coming in. Let's get on to News Watch. This week has seen more than a handful of unhinged headlines. Exclusive, did you know that Johnny Depp is a victim of Me too. Pro-Palestine activists are actually terrorists.

And Iran's maybe got weapons of mass destruction? We must bomb them. Do these sound like stories you've heard before? Does our media suffer from short-term memory loss? Or is it all a story of the media who cried wolf? The United States has once again intervened in a Middle East and war. Let's remember why we're talking about any of this. It's because of Iran's nuclear program.

Johnny Depp is breaking his silence in a new interview with the Sunday time. Britain was attacked by a rabid, far-left pro-Palestine mob. Palestine action will be prescribed as a terror organisation. Welcome to Media Storms Newswatch, helping you get your head around the headlines. I'm Matilda Mallinson. And I'm Helena Wadia. This week's Media Storms. Poor Johnny Depp, Palestine action prescribed, and another illegal invasion.

We will be starting with the spiraling and then despiraling, Israel, Iran, and of course, US war. Let's sum it up. On the 13th of June, Israel launched a surprise attack on Iran, killing some of Iran's top military officials and nuclear scientists and bombing dozens of targets across the country. They also bombed several hospitals. Since the initial attacks, the two countries have exchanged waves of strikes. Iran has launched ballistic missile and drone strikes at Israeli targets. Israel has hit more military facilities, nuclear plants, and oil and gas infrastructure. Yesterday, Iranian health officials said that Israeli strikes had killed at least 606 people. Israeli authorities said Iranian strikes killed at least 28 people. On Monday, Iran launched

retaliatory strikes on an American base in Qatar. And soon after, a ceasefire was announced by America's president, Donald Trump. Both Israel and Iran have accused each other of violating the ceasefire agreement. It was off, then it was on again. It's a fast-changing and complicated story that was made even more confusing by the President of the United States saying this. You know what, we basically have two countries that have been fighting so long and so hard that they don't know what the fuck they're doing. Do you understand that?

I mean, literally what the fuck is going on. What the fuck is going on? What we both want to address on today's Newswatch are the justifications for this war and the way the media has been complicit in these justifications. My media storm is about this whole weapons of mass destruction thing. The war was justified on Netanyahu's claims that Iran is months away from building a nuclear weapon. And military intervention is the only way to prevent it. But important to keep in mind is the fact that there is no concrete evidence Iran has been manufacturing nuclear weapons.

This is not some anti-establishment conspiracy. This is the actual conclusion of U.S. intelligence, and that's caused a bit of a rift in the White House. As recently as March, Tulsi Gabbard, who is the U.S. Director of National Intelligence, testified to Congress that intelligence agencies continue to assess Iran is not building a nuclear weapon. Trump's response? Tulsi Gabbard testified in March that the intelligence community said Iran wasn't building a nuclear weapon. What she said, I think they were very close to having one. He says, I don't care what she said.

I think they're very close to having one. So he's just blatantly shunning intelligence. Yeah, and so this has divided MAGA between like the America first anti-interventionists, Tucker Carlson, Marjorie Taylor Green, and the old-fashioned conservative war hawks, who is sort of of the belief that America is the world's policeman and gets to fiddle in regimes overseas.

Sorry, can I also just say it's so rare that I agree with Marjorie Taylor Green, like, what the fuck is going on? She speaks some sense, actually. When she's saying, like, the Democrats control the weather. Okay, carry on. Those arguing for war, give us their evidence the fact that days before Israel attacked Iran, the International Atomic Energy Agency, which is the UN watchdog that has monitored Iran's nuclear sites for years, said Iran had failed to comply with their inspections and thereby violated the nuclear non-proliferation treaty for the first time in 20 years.

You can see why that would cause alarm. Definitely. However, the report also states that it has found no evidence Tehran is developing a nuclear weapon. So US intelligence says there's no evidence. Iran is on the brink of a weapon of mass destruction. The International Atomic Energy Agency says there's no evidence. But Netanyahu, Israel's prime minister, and now Trump say, well, we think there is.

So we're going to bomb them anyway. Is it just me? Or have I heard this whole weapons of mass destruction thing before? We have. The shadow of the Iraq war is looming over these events. And when I say Iraq war, I mean the U.S. and its allies' invasion of Iraq in 2003. This was built on a lie and it was sold to the public on a lie. That lie, either formulated or falsely believed by U.S. President George W. Bush,

claimed Saddam Hussein was harboring weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. WMD's weapons of mass destruction, this is shorthand for nuclear, biological or chemical weapons. The White House collated sketchy evidence to make their case, but George Bush also said we cannot wait for conclusive evidence to attack. Weapons of mass destruction were never found in Iraq, nor any proof Saddam Hussein intended to develop them, nor did Iraq have anything to do with the 9-11 attacks, which might surprise some listeners due to heavy propagandising by Bush's White House,

falsely claiming that Saddam Hussein was in some way connected with al-Qaeda. Now my question, how did George Bush spread this falsehood? Crucially, using the media. And this was a falsehood that wounded Western media. I mean, arguably, it still is carrying those wounds. It collapsed public trust in the media. in experts and in intelligence around the Western world. The Bush administration fed their sketchy evidence to a pliant press,

which began, you know, digging up experts, they would quote to corroborate these claims, and then they would all cite each other's reports until these claims just became like a circle of references with no traceable grounding in reality. And then the White House would use these news reports to further justify its invasion on the basis of widely reported claims of weapons of mass destruction.

And one of the most powerful supporters of the war was Rupert Murdoch, the media mogul who owns over 175 different news stations across three continents. Every single one of his publications across the US, UK, Australia reported the false claims that Iraq harboured weapons of mass destruction. The Murdoch media is now considered by academics to have been fundamental in ensuring public support for this war, a war that is now widely considered illegal. And it was a war that led to eight years of devastation in Iraq and the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis. These past two weeks, we have seen many media pretty wary of this whole narrative of weapons of mass destruction being in Iran because of the scars that they carry. Many have published opinion pieces drawing the same connections that I've just laid out. Note this headline in the independent president overrules intelligence agencies on Iran to justify war. A good headline.

Other media, however, have not. There's been a lot of news alerts from the BBC, things like a visual guide to fordo, Iran's secretive nuclear site that only a US bomb could destroy. Not factually incorrect. It is a nuclear plant. It is secretive. And the theory is only a US bomb could destroy it. It's a pretty leading narrative. Another BBC headline, was Iran months away from producing a nuclear bomb? It's published with the preview. Iran has been at a net zero breakout for months.

Right. And just after Israel launched its airstrikes, Fox News, hosted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who reiterated, without any evidence, that Iran was on the brink of producing a nuclear weapon. Here's that clip. The intel we got and we shared with the United States was absolutely clear.

It was absolutely clear that they were marching very quickly. They would achieve a test device and possibly an initial device within months and certainly less than a year. Fox News, owned by... Rupert Murdoch, was one of the most ardently biased supporters of the Iraqi invasion. A survey of Fox News viewers, years after the war,

found that 80% still believed either Iraq was directly involved in the 9-11 attack, Saddam Hussein was involved in the 9-11. an 11 attack, or Iraq was carrying weapons of mass destruction. And if one person is most guilty of crying wolf over weapons of mass destruction, it's Benjamin Netanyahu. In 1992, Netanyahu claimed that Iran was three to five years away from developing a nuclear weapon. Three to five years, so 1992.

I would have been born into nuclear apocalypse. Okay, right. Three years later, he claimed again in his book, Iran was three to five years away. Okay. In 2012, he made a speech to the UN in which he held up a picture of a cartoon bomb and said Iran is one year away from developing a nuclear weapon. A cartoon bomb? Yes.

And each time he was petitioning foreign powers to invade Iran. That was what he was trying to do. And each time, he was kept at bay by successive US presidents. Until Trump. But while Netanyahu did not get his way. with Iran in the past. He did get his way with Iraq. So he said the same thing about Iraq?

Yeah. Basically, he also lobbied George Bush's administration to attack Iraq, insisting that the Iraqi regime was developing a nuclear bomb. In 2002, year before the invasion, he testified before US Congress about the danger a nuclear-armed Iraq would pose. Not only was he wrong about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, He also insisted that a U.S. war in Iraq would be great for the whole Middle East because it would inspire Iranians to rise up against the Islamic Republic.

Look how that turned out. Yeah, so why on earth would we take this guy's account at face value today? We have heard his claims that Iran is on the brink of nuclear aggression many times. We've heard him manipulate intelligence and public fear many times. A lot of commentators, therefore, see what is happening. as a successful bid by Netanyahu to sabotage any kind of diplomatic normalization between the U.S., the West and Iran. He bombed Iran just days before Iran's supreme leader was due to meet President Trump for diplomatic negotiations about a nuclear deal. So why would Netanyahu want military instead of diplomatic resolution?

That is a great question. And I think that is the question our media should be asking, not peddling this like weapons of mass destruction narrative. Some people say it puts more pressure on Iran to comply diplomatically. That's not a reading I personally buy. Some argue it's to do with some Israeli leaders' wider regional ambitions of territorial domination and is packed into the same group as their attacks on Gaza, the West Bank, Syria. It could be old-fashioned Islamophobia and racism.

cripple non-Western allies. It could also be genuine fears about Israeli security. But look, legally, none of these are justifications for war. What could be a legal justification for war is if Iran is developing weapons of mass destruction and is imminently going to use them. There is, of course, one other theory about why Netanyahu is set on military rather than diplomatic progress.

It was verbalised by Bill Clinton, former U.S. President speaking on the Daily Show last week. Mr. Netanyahu has long wanted to fight Iran because that way he can stay in office forever and ever. He's been there most of the last 20 years. Very interesting point. Side note, why does he sound like a ghost? Yeah, it's a really well-made point. But, you know, Netanyahu is not the only one who has sabotaged diplomatic resolution. Donald Trump may be posting incessantly that he's pro-diplomacy,

but I feel like that was giving him too much credit. Yeah, no, it's true. Who knows what Donald Trump wants or is up to? There is good evidence that the US did not only know about the initial Israeli strikes, but that they actually, like, helped to equip them in secret. Trump keeps saying he's the anti-war president. But back when he came to power, there was already a diplomatic agreement preventing Iran from developing news.

he tore it up, right? Back in 2018, Trump unilaterally withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal. This deal took decades of negotiations involving six countries, UK, France, Germany, Russia and China, all signatories of this deal. They were pretty pissed when Trump just tore it up. The deal, which Netanyahu, by the way, called the worst deal of the century. Netanyahu never liked it. it saw Iran agree to dismantle much of its nuclear program place limits on how much uranium it could enrich and open its facilities to inspections

in exchange for relief from sanctions. After Trump disposed of the deal in 2018 and reimposed sanctions, what happened? Well, the deal was off, right? So Iran stopped complying with this now non-existent deal. Exactly. They started enriching and stockpiling uranium. This is how diplomacy works. Nevertheless, Iran has continued to allow the International Atomic Energy Agency

to inspect its nuclear facilities. This was the first year they were condemned for not allowing enough access. Those were the grounds for the airstrikes. Meanwhile, do you know who has never allowed these inspections on their nuclear facilities? I do, Israel. Bingo. The elephant in the room here, like I have not seen in any... of these media reports. Israel has its own nuclear program, and it also goes against the nuclear

non-proliferation treaty that Iran is being held accountable to. Israel has never formally confirmed or denied its nuclear arsenal, but it is widely considered by scientists, by politicians, to be a public secret. And the Centre for Non-Proliferation estimates Israel has over 90 nuclear warheads ready today. Scary stuff. Yeah. Listeners, if you want to face the reality of what we're actually talking about when we talk about nuclear weapons. Go back and listen to Media Storm's episode, Nuclear Weapons, deterrence or destruction? It's pretty scary. Now, there's something you said earlier that has got me thinking, which was that when Netanyahu was lobbying for a US war on Iraq, he said it would be good for the Middle East because it would inspire people to rise up against their oppressive regime.

From a lot of what you've said, the indication is that Israel's war with Iran is more about securing a regime change in Iran than it is about limiting Iran's nuclear capacity. Which brings me on to my media storm, which is the West's liberation narrative towards the Middle East. Netanyahu is not the first person to weaponize Muslim women's rights to justify their wars. If we look at Afghanistan, for example. 7th, 2001, just weeks after the tragic events of September 11th, the United States, supported by the United Kingdom and other allies, launched Operation Enduring Freedom, marking the beginning of the war in Afghanistan. I'm Laura Bush, and I'm delivering this week's radio address to kick off a worldwide effort

to focus on the brutality against women and children by the Al-Qaeda terrorist network and the regime it supports in Afghanistan, the Taliban. Part of the U.S.'s justification of the invasion of Afghanistan was to liberate women from the Taliban's misogyny. Civilized people throughout the world are speaking out in horror because our hearts break for the women and children in Afghanistan. The fight against terrorism is also a fight for the rights and dignity of women. And it perpetuated a racist narrative that Afghan women are victims who need to be saved by Western.

and crucially, there was no recognition of how military intervention would hurt Afghan women on the ground. And in 2011, 10 years on, Afghanistan was named the most dangerous country to be a woman. And who is back in charge today? The Taliban. Exactly. Now this savior narrative starts at the top, usually with powerful men, and then it drip feeds down. And I want to play for our listeners, an exchange that happened on American talk show The View this week. For those who don't know, The View is daytime television, right? It's a panel of women and they'll discuss everything from political to entertainment news. And two of the hosts clash this week in this exchange.

So the first voice you'll hear is that of Elissa Farah Griffin, who is a political commentator and she was press secretary for US Vice President Mike Pence and special assistant to Donald Trump from 2017 to 2019. Her dad actually founded the far right website World Net Daily, which essentially spearheaded many conspiracy theories including the one that former

President Barack Obama was born outside of the United States. Barack Hussein Obama. Right, that's the kind of vibe we're talking. The second voice you'll hear is of Whoopi Goldberg, incredibly famous black actress and author. Just listen to this exchange. Let's just remember

too. The Iranians literally throw gay people off of buildings. They don't adhere to basic human rights. Listen, here's the thing. Let's not do that. Let's not do that. Because if we start with that, we have been known in this country to tie gay folks to the car. I'm sorry, but where the Iranian regime is today. I'm sorry. They used to just keep hanging black people. So let's not even the same. I couldn't step-lovering. Oh, no, that's not what you mean to say. It is the same. No, it's not. The year 2025 in the United States is nothing like if I up foot wearing this outfit in Tehran right now.

I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I can't have my hair showing. I can't wear a skirt. I can't have my arms out. I'm telling you as a... I literally said it was up to the Iranian people. Yes.

And that's why I am saying that it is the same. Murdering someone for their difference is not good. Whoever does. I think it's very different to live in the United States in 2025 than it is to live in Iran. Not if you're black. Not for everybody.

Not if you're black. Guys, don't go to Tehran. Do not anyone at the table. Listen, let me tell you about being in this country. This is the greatest country in the world. But, yeah, I know that. I know that. And we all know that.

But every day, we are worried. Do we have to be worried about our kids? Are our kids going to get shot because they're running through somebody's neighborhood? They are not big deals. And I don't mean to say they're not big deals to you because that's not what I meant. And they are not doing well.

there either. They are not doing well in Iran. They are not educated. They cannot talk about the United States. I'm talking about here. Nobody wants to diminish the very real problems we have in this country. That is no one's intent. But I think it's important we remember there are places much darker than this country and people who deserve rights and we shouldn't. Not everybody feels that way. Not everybody feels that way. Okay, they don't have free and fair elections in Iran. It's not even the same universe. They can't go out of their house. Women. You know what? There's no, there's no, There's no way I can make you understand.

So Whoopi Goldberg there is repeatedly trying to point out the hypocrisy of this like poor brown women narrative by pointing out that black women, black people are not safe in the very country that they're broadcasting from. And I think it is so, so interesting that the person sitting there preaching, well, I couldn't wear this dress in Iran, worked directly with a man, Trump, who has a history of abusing and disrespecting women. And she wants to sit there and say that living in the US is in no way comparable

to living in Tehran when someone with direct lived experience of being black in the US is sitting opposite her, trying to make her point and being consistently and constantly interrupted, it's wild, it's unbelievably hypocritical. And even ignoring the fact

that you can't help people by bombing them, just ignoring that tiny little fact, even ignoring that. It's very interesting to see who is so concerned about sexism in countries like Iran, but still supports laws that harm women like anti-abortion laws in their own Western countries. There was a post doing the rounds on Instagram, which you probably saw by comedian Annette Mullaney. And I think it summed up the hypocrisy so well. She wrote, historically, when Americans suddenly care about women's rights in a Middle Eastern country,

those women are about to get bombed. Do you know, tell me if this is interesting or not, do you know something that really strikes me, we see this all the time from Western leaders, denigrating how Arab countries treat women as justification for their aggressive policies against them. You sometimes see Eastern or Islamic, maybe I should say Islamist leaders, philosophers,

calling the West uncivilized because of how the West treats women. because of the sexual objectification. At the end of the day, this is just a load of men using the same old stories of defending some patriarchal idea of women's honour to justify their, like, violence.

Yeah, I want to pick out another part of this exchange that we just heard, which is where another panelist, Sarah Haynes, who's a white woman, jumps in to talk about women in Iran, and she says, they're not educated. They can't even go out of their house. Like, these are the racist narratives that underpin world wars.

Because let me tell you something about Iran, okay, as someone who has Iranian heritage. Iran has a long history of science, art, academia, literature, education, going back thousands of years. Like, Iranians are among top scholars, engineers, artists worldwide. And in 2020, the overall literacy rate of women in the country was 85.5% percent. And it was more than that of men. Presently, the number of female graduates in medical sciences and humanities exceeds the number of male graduates. I'll tell you about an undergraduate student in Iran.

Her name was Sarah Jodot. She was an undergraduate student of photography at the Paz University of Architecture and Art. And she was killed by an Israeli strike on Iran's capital. She was 22. So, yeah, she left her house. She was allowed to leave her house. She was allowed to have an education and you liberated her how by killing her.

God. This dehumanizing language that we heard on The View and similar media conversations recently does a disservice to the women and many Iranians who have long been resisting their repressive governments. The woman life freedom movement in Iran was completely led by those on the ground

and some like huge international superpowers. dropping bombs isn't going to help them. Just like stop cloaking violence in the language of liberation. That statement, stop cloaking violence in the language of liberation. Going back quickly to the Iraq War, all live coverage by Fox News, this is something that came up in my research. During the Iraqi invasion, it displayed a waving flag animation in the upper left corner with the headline Operation Iraqi Freezes.

freedom. This is not something we should need to like remind ourselves of. Also like, if you care so much about the freedom and rights of women, then why aren't you speaking out about the mass murder of women and girls in Palestine? This is like one of the main hypocrisies, right? So last week, Netanyahu gave an interview with Iran International and he spoke directly to Iranians and he said, they've impoverished you. They've given you misery. They've given you death. They've given you terror. They shoot down your women. This coming from a man who has spearheaded the killing of thousands of people in Gaza.

More women and children killed in the first year than the equivalent period of any other conflict over the past two decades. Also, the they, you language, right? They are oppressing you or they shot down your women. Sorry, your women, okay. It's just so patronizing that we think. that we have the right to speak for others about something we know nothing about. And this for me is the issue. This is a very complicated problem. I do not want to downplay the oppression many women experience in Iran. It is unacceptable. As a woman, I feel that.

And there may be some anti-regime fighters, opposition members in Iran, who would even want foreign support. But you just can't understand that. When this conversation is being freely, had by people with not a single Iranian woman around the table. So before we shoot off to the airbreak, we've rounded up a few clips by Iranian women about their thoughts on the conversation unfolding. The worst thing that could happen for this idea that we have of Iranian woman being oppressed is external intervention, where everybody becomes nationalistic and goes back to the ideals of 79 and the idea that the only way we are going to survive in our culture, in our faith,

and everything is to be the polar opposite of the West. Our liberation does not come from Israel, the same murderous regime that is starving, innocent civilians in Palestine. By the way, during this time, all of our feeds are covered with Iran, Iran, Iran, there is a complete media outage in Gaza. None of these things are a coincidence, and acknowledging it does not take away from Iran. Starting a war with Iran, not a war, sorry, a unilateral attack on Iran, destroying hospitals and civilian infrastructure, and putting everybody, all of these Iranians, in a state of panic and fear and terror.

If for a moment, anybody thinks that that actually creates a condition for a democratic people's movement uprising is absurd. Welcome back. What have you got for me next, Matilda? Up next, the poor me piece legitimising abusers' victimhood narratives. Wow, sounds like a must read. Look, in case you missed it, let me paint you a picture of the Sunday Times magazine

front cover this weekend. Johnny Depp stares stoically into the distance with the title... I was a crash test dummy for me too. This is so bad. Like the times have outtimes themselves with this. I'm not done. The title spread pictures him playing acoustic guitar on the steps of Madrid.

A city, by the way, where his ex-wife Amber Heard now lives with her children trying to stay out of the public eye. The title here says, I have no regrets about anything. Are you fucking kidding me? I'm sorry. Then you're adding nothing to the conversation. Are we living in a simulation of the darkest timeline? Like, I can't deal with this. I was actually quite scared to bring you this story

because I just thought you might have like an aneurysm. Yes, this is insane. It is also designed to provoke. Right. So I'm not just going to take the Sunday Times' bait. Depp is not convicted. Like it or not, he remains a feature of our cultural landscape. He exists.

I'm not quite of the belief that there is no such thing as a relevant interview with Johnny Depp today. But I think it has a seriously high threshold to justify its existence given his recent past. Right. By which you mean the accusations against him by his ex-wife, Amber Heard, which include sexual assault and domestic abuse. Yes. Also, yeah, I do think it's important that you clarified that Depp hasn't been convicted of those crimes. But I also think it's important that we clarify that not being convicted of a crime is not the same as being found innocent. A criminal trial is about the prosecution trying to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant is guilty. But the defence don't have to prove the defendant is innocent.

We can't say that every failed conviction means that the alleged victim was lying, especially in cases of sexual assault. And I'd add to that, especially in cases of very rich and famous men. Yeah. And that is why I think that to publish an exclusive feature with Johnny Depp, you have to really justify why you're doing it. And not only did I feel that this piece failed to justify that, I actually went away worrying this piece could cause actual harm. I know it's caused harm.

I haven't even read the piece, but I've seen extracts of it being shared by Depp's online fan base accompanied by abusive and misogynistic comments about Amber Heard. who, of course, is not given, right, of reply. No, of course she's not. And I've also seen comments that generally undermine believing victims of abuse or just like outright justifying abuse. And look, that outcome was obviously a likelihood,

whether or not the Sunday Times, you know, chose to acknowledge it. I think they actually lent into this narrative probably in the knowledge of how shareable it would make the article. So the narrative I'm talking about, which you alluded to with those tweets, is an incredibly common strategy in all legal trials about domestic abuse. It's a strategy of flipping the narrative

to refocus attention away from the accusations and onto the character of the person making those accusations. It's a strategy of collapsing that person's credibility, showing that they don't fit your simplistic idea of what a victim should look like, making them unbelievable or undeserving of sympathy or even deserving of sympathy, or even deserving of abuse.

Now, many people listening might rightly be thinking, didn't Amber Heard lose a defamation battle in the US over these accusations? She did. It's also true that Johnny Depp lost the same battle here in the UK when he sued the son for libel for calling him a wife, Peter. The UK High Court determined there was substantial evidence that Depp had beaten up Amber Heard and therefore,

the description held. So how did Johnny Depp lose essentially the same trial in the UK and then win it in the US? Well, the main difference between these two trials was that the US trial unfolded more in the media and online than in the courtroom. It was live streamed and fought out by armies of online warriors, Depp's fan base being much more sizable than herds. It was decided by a jury whose phones were not confiscated as they would be in a criminal trial. It was basically a trial by TikTok. Right. The UK trial, by contrast, was decided by a judge alone. Now, in both trials, Depp's lawyers argued Amber Heard was lying. They attacked her character. They claimed that she was in fact the abusive partner. This is such a common defense tactic. It actually has an acronym in legal circles. It's called Darvoh. Deny, attack and reverse the roles of victim and offender.

Now, today, judges are increasingly trained to recognise this strategy, and the UK judge, in Depp's libel trial, dismissed a lot of his evidence as irrelevant to the accusations. But that same evidence was treated as admissible in the US jury trial. Legal experts see this is a key reason he won there. Now, the reason I'm talking about this is because it tells us a lot about public misconceptions about domestic abuse. and how these actually affect the course of justice. The Sunday Times Magazine article is playing into these public perceptions. It's also creating them. It's also creating them, yeah.

Depp is given a mainstream media multi-spread to give his side of the story about Amber Heard and his relationship without rebuttal. And this is what he says. This is a quote. If you're a sucker like I am, Sometimes you look in a person's eyes and see some sadness, some lonely thing and you feel you can help that person. But no good deed goes unpunished because there are those who, when you try to love and help them,

will start to give you an understanding of what that malaise, what that perturberance was in their eyes. Sorry, what? So he was helping, he was what? He was helping Amber Heard. So his only crime as being a sucker. Yeah, and try to love her, but no good deed goes unpunished. That is disgusting. I'm sorry. I'm fuming. Yeah. Now the journalist, right, he's a good writer, and he injects small doses of balance.

He points out, Amber heard a woman with far less money and significantly fewer fans, suffered more both in court and the court of public opinion. At times, he describes debt slightly unflatteringly. But honestly, the journalist is restricted in his attempt to provide balance, because this is ultimately a commercial piece. The journalist booked this piece on the condition it would promote Depp's new film. Oh, there it is.

It can't exactly like feed the boycott movement. You know, the piece literally closes with the caption, Modi, three days on the Wing of Madness, is released on July 11th. At a time when violence against women and girls and misogyny are on the rise and Depp, whether he likes it or not, has become kind of a poster boy for that.

Like, I need this piece to be justified to me, ethically. Honestly, could anything have ever justified this article's existence? I thought about this a lot because, you know, in reality, like how many journalists are going to say no if they get the exclusive with Johnny Depp? I would. Actually, no, I wouldn't. Well, and that's interesting. Yeah. Because for me, I think that this piece could have journalistically been justified

if it actually broached the tricky questions. Right, if it actually asked the right questions. And it promised to do that. The contents page teased four hours, multiple drinks, and nothing off limits. Why, then, is the most important question off limits. Right? This whole article is about Depp having no regrets. He repeatedly says this.

So the journalist presses him. Doesn't he regret all those really embarrassing details about their private life being made public? No. Doesn't he regret a woman he once loved going through so much online abuse? Why doesn't he ask Depp, do you regret hitting her? Do you regret violence towards a woman who was barely half your age, barely a woman? She was like 22. Because The Times is a UK paper.

And here in the UK courts, Depp was found to have beaten up and be heard. So if the Sunday Times is telling me no topic is off limits, why is the only topic that actually matters off limits? Time for eyes on Palestine. Now, who are Palestine action? Because you've probably heard a lot about them this week. Palestine Action are a group that uses non-violent direct action to shut down weapons factories, factories that supply weapons to,

for example, the Israeli army. Less than a week ago, members of the group broke into RAF Braes-Norton in Oxfordshire and spray-painted two military. planes red. And now, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has said she will prescribe Palestine action under anti-terror law. She's going to lay the draft order before Parliament next week and if passed, the ban would make it a criminal offence to belong to or support Palestine action punishable by up to 14 years in prison. Now, what I've seen from a lot of the reporting is very high up in the articles will hear what Yvette Cooper has said,

namely that Palestine action has a long history of criminal damage and its activity has increased in frequency and severity, and this government will not tolerate those that put our security at risk. I've also seen high up in articles what the Armed Forces Minister has said, that the break-in was not only epically stupid, but it was also a direct attack on our national security. I've seen what the Metropolitan Police thought, after they enforced an exclusion zone on Monday

so protesters couldn't demonstrate outside Parliament. But you often have to read really quite far down in articles to see what Palestine Action has said. So I thought I'd read out their statement. They say, the real crime here is not red paint being sprayed on these warplains, but the war crimes that have been enabled with those planes because of the UK government's complicity in Israel's genocide. We are teachers, nurses,

students and parents who take part in actions disrupting the private companies who are arming Israel's genocide by spray painting or entering their factory premises. It is plainly preposterous to rank us with terrorist groups like ISIS, National Action and Boko Haram. It is absurd that this group is being called a terrorist group and it comes in a long line of attempting to silence critics of Palestine. It's such an abuse of power. And this is actually I could talk about the hypocrisy that this group is labeled, a terrorist group and other far-right white supremacist ones aren't. But to be true to myself, I actually just think it delegitimizes the use of the term terrorist and of terror laws. We have laws that make hate violence illegal.

What terror law does is it concentrates the power to execute that in political hands, right? And famously, the judiciary, justice, should be separate from politics. And when it isn't, we see this kind of abuse of power. Rules apply to some people differently. Rights apply to some people differently. We did an episode on this. Controversially, in October, 2023, Media Storm did an episode titled One Man's Terrorist.

And we spoke to people who carried terror convictions in different contexts of different part of the world. One takeaway is that the term terrorist can never be trusted to politicians. It will always be applied with an unacceptable double standard. One story that really stated with me from that episode was an IRA fighter who signed up to the Irish Republican Army prescribed as a terrorist group after his dad was murdered by British soldiers, which they saw, for reason, as an occupying force during Bloody Sunday.

And here were his thoughts while he was in prison. I think the use of the word terrorist or terrorism, it's a heavily weighted emotional and propaganda term. I was convicted as a terrorist. When I went to prison, I did reflect in a sort of infantile way at times on the fact that the person who killed my father, who was soldier F, hadn't spent a single day in prison for his murder and the murder of four-hour young innocent people within the space of. 15 months and yet here the son of one of those murdered people was classed as a criminal here's the thing if you had been there on Bloody Sunday you were absolutely terrorised by what you saw thousands of people were forced to scatter under heavy gunfire and those who couldn't get away were basically slaughtered like animals in the street was that terrorism of course it was and there's

Nobody better at it than the British, in my view. And I also want to add that this possible prescribing of Palestine action continues a long line of cracking down on pro-Palestinian protesters, but it also continues a long line of cracking down on protest full stop. And that is something that we all need to be aware of and we all need to fight for whatever our political beliefs. Thank you for listening. Next week, we're going to be bringing you a deep dive on Womanhood.

With our guests, Katie Montgomery and Natasha Devon. It will touch on some of the discussion we had in our live show. So if you miss that, don't miss our next episode. If you want to support Media Storm, you can do so on Patreon for less than a cup of coffee a month. The link is in the show notes and a huge shout out to everyone in our Patreon community already. We appreciate you so much. If you enjoyed this episode, please send it to someone. Word of mouth is still the best way to grow a podcast,

so please do tell your friends and obviously leave us a five-star rating and a review. You can follow us on social media at Matilda Mal at Helen Awaddiya and follow the show via at MediaStorm Pod. MediaStorm is an award-winning podcast produced by Helen Awadier and Matilda Mallinson. The music is by Samfire. Happy Birthday Sanfire. Happy birthday, Samfire!

Getting ready for a game means being ready for anything. Like packing a spare stick. I like to be prepared. That's why I remember, 988 Canada's Suicide Crisis Helpline. It's good to know, just in case. Anyone can call or text for free confidential support from a train responder anytime. 988 Suicide Crisis Helpline is funded by the government in Canada.