Media Storm - News Watch: PinkNews allegations, Syrian asylum claims, and don't forget about Georgia

Episode Date: December 12, 2024

Content warning: descriptions of violence, mentions of rape, descriptions of transphobia Join Mathilda and Helena on their weekly news debriefs! We pick apart the most unhinged headlines and try to make sense of the mainstream media - helping you consume the news critically. This week, we point out a gaping blind spot in the international press: Georgia, a country at the intersection of Europe and Asia and on the southern border of Russia, is on fire politically. And its people need the world to care. We hear from journalists on the ground, and spotlight how and why this story has been underreported, and its global significance downplayed. Next, serious allegations of sexual misconduct against the founders of PinkNews have been uncovered, thanks to over 30 former and current staff members at the outlet. But some media outlets and personalities have capitalised on victims' testimonies to promote transphobia - and they think they can get away with it. And finally, one day after the fall of the Assad regime in Syria, the UK has paused decisions on Syrian asylum claims. We discuss why this announcement is politically trigger happy: focused on cheap domestic wins, not international emergencies. Also... Helena holds more space for Wicked. The episode is hosted and produced by Mathilda Mallinson (@mathildamall) and Helena Wadia (@helenawadia) Follow us @mediastormpod and support us on Patreon. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi Media Stormers, it's Helena and Matilda. The news is chaotic as hell. It's terrifying. It's confusing. It's conflicting. Basically, it's a domster fire on Trash Island. So how are we meant to make sense of it all? How about we do it together?

Every Thursday, we're bringing you a news roundup. The main stories dissected. finding the facts behind the fear mongering, cooling out the most unhinged headlines, and helping you read the news critically. It's your essential guide to the mainstream media. This is Media Storm's News Watch. You look at some of the fake news on these platforms, there's just so much out there right now. Some breaking news to bring you now.

People want to be able to express opinions. I understand that. I have only one objective, which is to make sure the BBC is truly impartial. I don't think that the mainstream media was lying. I think we missed the overarching story. Welcome to Media Storm's News Watch, helping you to make sense of the mainstream media. I'm Helena Wadia.

And I'm Matilda Malinson. This week's media storms, pink news allegations, Syrian asylum claims, and don't forget about Georgia. Heya. Hello. Feeling any better? Yes, actually, so much better.

Thank you. I think I still do have a, sinus infection so there may be some nasally but there is airflow in the nostrils people so hopefully my voice will sound a lot nicer to our listeners this week so yeah where are we what are we starting with okay so i want to start with talking about wicked okay no i'm leaving we are not we are not talking about wicked again no okay but listen like i'm just holding space on news watch for wicked but also it is a media storm story okay justify that Now. Okay, I'll be quick. We spoke a couple weeks ago about how after the Wicked premier, the front pages were filled with Ariana Grande and not Cynthia Arevo, who is a black woman playing the main part of Alphabet in Wicked. And anyway, this week, it's just, I just, I guess I wanted to draw attention to how these News Watch stories come right back around because I was reminded once again of that missed opportunity from the media to elevate black talent. The Golden Globes nominations were announced and the BBC

did live reporting on it. And the only BBC news notification I got was Ariana Grande Clinch's first Golden Globes nomination for Wicked. I thought, okay, cool, opened the notification, opens the article, had to scroll down for really quite a long time to see that Cynthia Arrivo has also been nominated for a Golden Globe for Wicked for best actress. And I just think it's interesting that Cynthia Orivo is like one of the few artists to be Egot nominated and that's if you've been nominated for an Emmy, a Grammy and Oscar and a Tony award. And this is her fourth Golden Globe nomination. Like I just think we need to put some respect on her name. Yeah. Okay. I'm nearly sold. You've nearly sold me. Okay. And this is

the final thing that we'll sell you on talking about Wicked again. I just think it's very telling that like the media know what will draw people to their reporting, i.e. a notification about Ariana Grande, but then don't like put in any effort to try and promote the incredible UK talent staring them in the face. God, yeah, I really wish they would sometimes promote incredible UK talent over massive celebrity fronted podcasts. No comment. Okay, to kick off properly, I want to talk about Georgia. And people might be thinking, Why Georgia? I mean, so much has happened this week. Tectonic news from Syria, and yes, we are going to talk about it.

Jay-Z's been accused of raping a 13-year-old. He's then denied it. Obviously, wicked is still massive news. Obviously wicked. But Georgia, a country at the intersection of Europe and Asia and on the southern border of Russia is on fire politically, and its people need the world to care. This is an underreported story, and its global significance has been strangely downplayed. It's about Russia versus the West, about EU federalism versus anti-EU nationalism, and it's about revolution in the face of a totalitarian coup.

Hundreds of thousands of Georgians are now two weeks into persistent protests that have been met with ever harsher crackdowns by a government widely believed to have stolen the recent election. Okay, give us the background. So tensions intensified in Georgia in late October when the Georgian Dream Party, which is led by Georgia's richest man, Ivanishvili, claimed victory in a contested election that was widely seen as a referendum on joining the EU. This has been a goal of Georgia's since breaking from the Soviet Union in 1991 and it's supported by about 80% of Georgians.

But 15 days ago, the self-declared government said it was aborting EU accession talks until 2028 after the EU refused to accept the party's win. And in response, thousands of protesters took to the streets of the capital city, Tbilisi, waving Georgian and EU flags and chanting Russian slaves at police officers. Protests have since spread across the country, despite freezing temperatures, mass arrests and ferocious police brutality. The Prime Minister, Iraqi Kopakizzi, has issued a warning to opposition figures threatening punitive measures for organizing violence. But to give you a sense of his tone and his outlook, I want to play you this clip of him responding to a reporter at a press conference when she asks him about the aggressive

police treatment of protesters. She's asking, how are the people supposed to protect ourselves? He says, take her microphone away. I will kick you out. He says, shut up, shut up, or I will kick you and proceeds to have the reporter removed. Despite the severity of the situation and clear attempts to silence journalists, international coverage has been relatively scant. And a Georgian journalist I used to study with called Tata Chick-Viladzei reached out to me and our class of international reporters, imploring us to secure more coverage in foreign press.

So with her help, I've put together an audio report of the evidence of state atrocities coming out of the news. Georgia. This video shows a riot police officer punching a protester in the head. It gives dark context to countless photographs of protesters with bleeding, swollen and broken faces. One photo shows a comatose 22-year-old who was reportedly hit in the eye by a gas chemistry. In this video, crowds of protesters shield their faces while attempting to flee tear gas and water cannons. Release detainees have shared accounts of their arrests on social media. A Facebook post describes cops threatening a man, they'll put a broom in his ass.

A woman's Instagram story describes three police threatening to rape her in their car. She writes, she was so scared she wet herself. Georgian demonstrator, Shota Dimitrishvili, was detained and beaten twice by police. He tells media storm, the country is in a state of terror. I was jailed twice in one week and the name of the situation in Georgia is terror. I mean literally it's terror from the government to our people, to their people. And it's not just activists who've been targeted. In these videos, leaders of the opposition Ahali Party are being violently detained by masked police officers.

In another, a member of the pro-Westerns, Coalition for Change is beaten by a dozen Georgian dream agents and left in a heap on the floor. And in this video, a well-known Georgian blogger called Dodie Carkelly is arrested outside her daughter's kindergarten. It appears police waited there for her to drop her daughter off before detaining her on the doorstep. Now one aspect of this street violence is a blurring of lines between official law enforcement officers and disguised henchmen of the Georgian Dream Party. In this video, masked attackers beat and terrorized Georgian protesters. These thugs have been called Titushki, borrowing a Ukrainian slang term used to describe

Russian security forces disguised as plain clothes hooligans. They have been linked to the Russian-aligned Georgian Dream Party. In another video that went viral on the 8th of December, A female reporter for the opposition-aligned TV Privelli is beaten while live on air. We can see her being thrown to the ground while her camera operator is kicked in the head by multiple masked men, both sustained visible injuries.

In response to this incident, a presenter of the state's propaganda outlet in Medi TV resigned in protest. But this behavior has been a staple of the past fortnight. This final video shows a clearly injured civilian confronting a police officer, accusing him of standing by as 30 masked thugs beat him with truncheons. Tata, who collated this footage, tells me she's no longer taking her mobile phone to protests as police are confiscating them by force.

This makes it harder and harder to document what's happening. Here's what she has to say to media storm listeners. One quick caveat, she contacted me after to say the exact number of journalists who've been physically assaulted is difficult to prove, but is estimated to be between 70 and 90 at the time of recording. As a former political journalist reporter and a host as intensively speaking past few days to the international media,

and sometimes when speaking to them, I don't even know where to begin with. Should I name that there are over 90 journalists assaulted and physically damaged during these protests? The entire process, I would say, is extremely complex. You have to read behind the lines to understand that we're on the verge of dictatorship from authoritarianism. But in this podcast, what I'm trying to pay attention to is the international. national media coverage. It seemed to me that it was only covered like an ordinary protest described with clashes against the demonstrators from the police forces. But to me, it is the gang against the people willing Georgia's Euro-Atlantic integration. To me, it is the man in the

police uniforms against the use of Georgia. To me, it is the oligarch with his ruling party who captured the Republic of Georgia. To me, all this protest is, is about the people on the streets with bruises on their faces who want to be part of the EU and out of Russia. We just not only want in the EU, but our main aim is also to be out of Russia. And it also seems to me that with this brutal torturing of peaceful demonstrators, Ivanishvili's government is trying to silence the voices. And sadly, I sometimes fear that we're heading toward even more repressions. What gives me some hope is that this de facto government is forgetting the nature of

Georgian people, because we're always striving for better with dignity and honor. Tata does not just tell us about journalists being harassed. She interviewed Becca Baradze, a reporter from Radio Liberty, who was himself beaten, and who tells Media Storm about an apparently deliberate. targeting of journalists. I was arrested with my brother and my friend in 1st of December. It was early morning, more like 3 o'clock of night. We just got surrounded by this black-masked people.

When I was trying to tell them that I'm a journalist, in that moment, they decided to arrest me. You could feel they were happy that they arrested somebody from media. They led me to this place where there's lots of police. Like a corridor? Yeah, yeah, like corridor. people get for 40 minutes, more or less, handcuffed and, like, get bitten. And you mentioned that they kind of felt happy while they found out you were a journalist.

Like, what do you mean by that? Well, I can say that because when this beating was going on for 40 minutes, it door suddenly opened and there was, like, one of these spats guys asking which one of them is journalists because there was like seven other guys we all were beaten. And another masked guy pointed on me. And after that, this guy came and beat me like for one or two minutes. What they are trying is to make journalists and people, society, to be quiet and scared and just be okay with the processes which goes on and now in Georgia.

Speaking of international media, how do you see that the international media is kind of paying attention to us in a way? Because I myself as a journalist by profession disliked the coverage that I have faced. What's your stake? My feeling is that Georgia deserves right now more interest from media all around the world. I think a very important fight is going now in Georgia. It's not only about Georgia. It's not only local. It's part of much bigger play what's going on in the world.

And we would like to get support more from media all around the world. This is my feelings. I just find it absolutely. astounding that I am a journalist who works within the world of social justice and it is shocking to me how little I have heard about these events in Georgia and more specifically really truly about these events from the ground. It is. It is shocking and I think it reveals such a selective empathy within our media and our political agenda. How has the international community responded?

So sanctions have been imposed on the Georgian Dream Party and called for by Zelensky in Ukraine and the Baltic states, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, as well as by Georgian protesters. The US has talked about considering sanctions, but it hasn't done so at the time of recording. but I just want to read you this sign from a Georgian protester. It says, Dear West, you are late again.

Sanction, oligarch and his puppets now. It's weird that actually the calling for these sanctions hasn't been taken up by the media in the West because Georgian protesters are calling to be more aligned with the West. Well, yeah, I mean, that was exactly what I thought. But I also think that there's maybe something awkward for Western spokespeople, like the main commentators

who influence the news agenda with what's happening here and that's why we're seeing so little of it. It's awkward for political leaders of countries that have been given this generous Western reputation that's to do with liberalism and EU membership. It's awkward as these values are becoming so fraught here and many of those political leaders

have actually based their own rise to power off of rejecting this liberal identity and leaning more towards nationalism and Euroscepticism and I even think it's awkward for our media here in the UK that has hugely under-interrogated the consequences of Brexit at home when a foreign population risks their lives for a chance at what the UK walked away from. Okay, so the next story I wanted to talk about on News Watch was the story that broke about Pink News.

Now, Pink News is the world's largest LGBT news website. It played an influential role in the campaign for marriage equality in the UK, and it runs an annual awards ceremony. I'm sure you've seen it, the Pink News Awards, you know, huge celebrities attend and are honoured and prime ministers have attended, politicians have attended. Pink News are a very established brand. It's run by a gay couple, Anthony James and Benjamin Cohen. They have now been accused by staff of multiple incidents of sexual misconduct. A BBC investigation has revealed that several former staff members said they saw Anthony James, who is the director, kissing and touching a junior colleague who they say appeared too drunk to consent.

And more than 30 current or former members of staff said a culture of heavy drinking led to instances where the founder Benjamin Cohen and his husband behaved inappropriately towards younger male employees. There's allegations of bullying, section misconduct, which made some staff feel unsafe to be alone around both Cohen and James.

There's also allegations of misogyny and female members of staff were reportedly asked if they would act as the couple's surrogates. Now representatives for both Cohen and James told the BBC they were not able to provide a statement at this time, but that their position is that the allegations are false. Now, these allegations are serious and I'm really thankful for this investigation. You know, I think within the industry we've long heard about the culture of Pink News being toxic and those people who have

spoken out are brave as hell. It's difficult to speak out. So other than, you know, this being about a media outlet, what makes it a media storm story? I think what makes it a media storm story is how some factions of the mainstream media or people within the mainstream media have seized upon this news to further their own anti-queer and particularly anti-trans narrative. Should have seen that coming.

So give me an example. So I think the best example of this is Julie Bindle's article in Unheard. Now Unheard is a right-wing platform. It was founded by a billionaire hedge fund manager, someone who's invested over £50 million in GB News. Julie Bindle is a journalist and an author who is very vocal about her views that a man is a man and a woman is a woman. She is herself a lesbian and she campaigns very strongly for what she calls sex-based rights.

She's a big supporter of J.K. Rowling and she has gender critical beliefs. Can you maybe just describe for us quickly what are gender critical beliefs? Gender critical beliefs are widely known to be a movement that opposes the concept of gender identity. and especially gender self-identification. Okay. Now, after the allegations against Cohen and James at Pink News were revealed, Julie published an article in Unheard called, The Downfall of Pink News was a Long Time Coming.

Here's a quote from it. Today's revelations are grimly unsurprising. The outlet has reliably targeted any feminist who dares speak out publicly about the misogyny of trans activism, publishing a seamlessly endless stream of baseless hit pieces about nasty bigoted turfs. God, that statement is so hyperbolic. It's targeted any feminist who dares speak out

against the misogyny of trans activism. Like, that's just a fact. And what a seemingly endless stream of baseless hit pieces. This is like, Pink News, as you said, is established. news outlet. What grounds is she even arguing this on? That's a good question. So in May 2020, Julie Bindle filed a libel case against Pink News over an article. This article was titled The Gender Critical Feminist Movement is a cult that grooms, controls and abuses, according to a lesbian who managed to escape. Now, the article details the experiences of a young American lesbian

who they call Amy and her involvement with what she termed the gender critical cult in the UK. It detailed how Amy felt love bombed by household named journalists and felt groomed into having more and more radical beliefs about trans people. And at one point Amy was invited to speak at a conference which the article described a conference of a prominent organization that campaigns against trans rights in the name of women's safety. and Amy then describes how she felt like she was being radicalised and therefore left the movement. Wait, but so what has this got to do with Julie Bindle? Why would she need to file a libel case against it? Well, that's another good question. So the article did not name Julie Bindle nor name anybody.

However, Bindle argued that she was identifiable from details contained within the article and was therefore defamed as a result of allegations that had been made. made within the article. After over a year of this libel case, the proceedings were settled, and Pink News released a statement on its website saying, The article made a number of serious allegations of misconduct, and Pink News accepts that if the allegations were understood to refer to Julie, they would be wholly untrue. Julie Bindle accepts that Pink News published the article without intending to make any such reference to her. Pink News is sorry for the distress the article caused. It has taken down

article and will not be republishing it. So basically, the woman who gave her testimony in this article, you know, that is her account. That is what she feels happened. She feels she was groomed and radicalised to serve an anti-trans agenda. But this article was removed because it unintentionally and apparently falsely implicated Julie Bindle specifically. And what happened there is quite a sad example of something that I think happens quite a lot in this discussion, which is that the important systemic issues we should be uncovering and should be talking about get clouded by a really vindictive and really personal diatribe. And not only is it this one article that has to be removed because of that, now in this unheard article, Julie Bindle is attempting to delegitimize all of the

coverage Pink News has done about anti-trans campaigning. Right. So in the unheard of article, Julie lays out her libel action against the platform and then says that because of that, the allegations against Cohen and James are grimly unsurprising because they've targeted anyone who speaks out against the misogyny of trans activism. Yes, exactly. You know, the work that journalists at Pink News did is amazing. As mentioned before, it played an influential role in campaign for marriage equality and people who've worked there have done really incredible work, elevating minority voices and calling out transphobia. As you and I know, it's the journalists that are a backbone of any news organizations and of the incredible content that gets published. That comes from the

bottom, not the top. Also, the allegations came from the journalists themselves. Like, these were whistleblowers within Pink News. Why are they being stripped of journalistic integrity because of this? Because they were victimized by their superiors. Exactly. And to top it off in this unheard article, Julie then proceeds to be transphobic herself in the very next paragraph. Oh, God. Where she writes, female members of staff say they were badgered to act as surrogates for the couple, a horrible abuse of power by bosses in a workplace, even if it were meant in jest. Given that some men have wounds, according to the ideology pink news promotes, it remains a

mystery why they never asked any male employees to bear their child. Talk about lowering the tone of the debate. Yeah, and of going low. Like that's low hanging through. And it's just like I was saying, like we need to focus on the systemic issues and not make this some sort of personal vendetta because that's where real rights get lost. Also, it's sad that, you know,

suddenly we see people rallying to this takedown of pink news because apparently they care about victims of assault. But if you really cared about victims of assault, you would care about trans people because they are the single most sexually victimized subsection of the population. I thought the exact same thing. And honestly, I think what we should be focusing on is making sure there are justice for the people who have been wronged. And, you know, hoping and working towards this being a turning point to create a safer media landscape for LGBT plus journalists in general.

And, you know, as a shout out to a guest who, has previously been on Media Storm twice, like this is also an opportunity to support other queer media, really important, truly independent queer media like Queer A-F, run by Jamie Wareham, who, yeah, as I said, has been on Media Storm multiple times. So last week, we talked about events in Syria,

but this week there's an update that means we have to revisit. I did see a clip from the Syrian mainstream media which is a story in itself I have to share and that is that Syrian State TV started broadcasting just a single still image a red screen reading The Great Revolution has triumphed

and the Assad regime has fallen. It is so historical what is happening in Syria and many, many Syrians around the world. The most displaced population in the world are rejoicing. I've seen countless statements that Syria is free. People who never let themselves believe they would ever see their home country again are starting to toy with that euphoric possibility and everything that that means. And we do not let them breathe and process for a second. One day after the fall of the regime, the UK France, Germany, Greece, Austria, and other countries moved to pause asylum claims for Syrians,

to stop processing asylum claims for Syrians. It's just fresh heartbreak for people not just the ones trying to come here, but people who've been here for years and are receiving a really hostile message from the country they now call home. It's also ignorant as hell, like as if one day after toppling a brutal regime, a country suddenly becomes safe and prosperous? I mean, literally, Israel has invaded. Israel has taken the opportunity of this power vacuum to invade Syria.

So yeah, you're totally right. And Western global powers should know this better than anyone. I mean, how many, like, coups have our governments instigated or intervened in and then withdrawn only to see years and years of instability and strife? So, yeah, in terms of what it says about our... understanding of international relations, it's pretty embarrassing. But the thing is, even by our own flawed logic, we're still failing, because as we talked about on the podcast last week, Hayat Tarir al-Sham, the rebel group that has led this revolution, is labeled a terrorist

organization by the UK and the EU. And while we think that that says more about our lack of understanding of Middle Eastern politics than it says about Middle Eastern politics, listen to last week's episode, that is still the reality. So which is it? Are they a terrorist organisation or are they a legitimate civilised government to which Syrians can safely return? But I also think this is a media storm story because I think that this terrible policy making is happening because of our media's failure to hold governments to account for anything more than quick clickbait wins. And that's what this policy is. This is basically a cheap headline saying fewer migrants, maybe fewer migrants. It goes hand in hand with posts by hardliners on

the right calling for reviews about deportation policies to Syria or calling for fresh incentives for Syrians to quote, go home. And our media has conditioned politicians to write policies on these grounds. And not policy that actually works because like be under no illusion, this policy to pause Syrian asylum claims. It won't actually do anything to reduce or even streamline the global displacement crisis. Like, it will aggravate it. This is just postponing, processing admin. It's reshuffling the pile.

It's probably going to add to the backlog. And that, by the way, is what a broken asylum system looks like. And it's also going to trap Syrians in limbo. So, yeah, this is a poor policy decision, even by domestic measures. Yeah, and that nuance is not found in the media. Like, our media need to be holding the government accountable by those standards, not just the standards of clickbait. Totally, yeah.

It fails even by domestic policy measures. But this is what I want to stress. By international policy measures, this is disastrous. Okay? Like when a regime falls and a new regime needs to be built and we want to see a democratic transition of power, the international community is so important. They have a huge role to play in applying pressure

on the new government and providing proper support to see that democratic transition and to see the restoration of effective and humane governance. Now, Hayat Tarir al-Shamm have shown over the last years that they are malleable to global pressure and that they adapt according to national need and to international pressure. And that means that global governments have to show they care about Syrian civilians' lives and they'll support moves that are in their best interests, not that they're going to just bend over to whichever walk-in Syrian regime will take back its displaced population.

Our governments have handed over all the leverage, basically saying, like, yeah, if you take your refugees back, then we'll probably let you do what you want. Also, I'm nearly down, I swear. But it sickens me that Assad, the Syrian dictator, has just like waltzed into Russia and been handed aside. whilst Syrians, who are the most displaced population on earth because of him, have to go through hell for even a shot of it.

And that's a cruel irony. Thank you for listening. If you want to support MediaStorm, you can do so on Patreon for less than a cup of coffee a month. The link is in the show notes. And a special shout-out to everyone in our Patreon community already. We appreciate you so much. And if you enjoyed the 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 leave us a five-star rating and a review.

You can follow us on social media at Matilda Mal at Helena Wadia and follow the show via at MediaStorm pod. MediaStorm is an award-winning podcast produced by Helena Wadia and Matilda Mallinson. The music is by Samfire.