Media Storm - News Watch: Syria, Sex Workers, 'Sickfluencers', and Gregg Wallace is sorry-not-sorry

Episode Date: December 5, 2024

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, Gregg Wallace turned his back on his target audience ("middle-class women of a certain age") while issuing a statement that will surely go down in history as a top PR nightmare. It's all off the back of multiple serious allegations against him - both uncovered AND undermined by The Telegraph. Next, we step outside of the Western worldview to look at events in Syria, as Aleppo has been captured by the armed rebel group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham from government forces. Plus - under a world-first law, sex workers in Belgium will be giving the same rights as any other worker, and is The Times being hypocritical with its article about 'Sickfluencers'? The episode is hosted and produced by Mathilda Mallinson (@mathildamall) and Helena Wadia (@helenawadia). The music is by Samfire (@soundofsamfire). Follow us @mediastormpod 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 round up. 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 MediaStorms News Watch, helping you make sense of the mainstream media. I'm Matilda Malinson. And I'm Helena Wadia. This week's Media Storms. Syria, sex workers, sick fluences,

and sorry, not sorry, Greg Wallace. Hello, hello, hello. Hello, everybody. Helena has been struck down by flu season. How are you holding up over there? really have. I mean, honestly, listeners, excuse my voice because I'm so aware I sound like a real mouth breather right now because I really am. There is no airflow through my nostrils. It's my sinusitis, but I've got an amazing steam contraption, which I sent Matilda a photo of not so long ago. It's hot stuff. It's really sexy. I actually put a Instagram story of me using my like steam contraption for my sinuses. This was like a few years ago and I remember I got so many messages of people being like, what the hell is that? If you're not already following Helen on Instagram, this is the kind of

content you're missing out on. Yeah, guys, you're missing out. But yeah, I was like, some of you don't have chronic sinusitis and it shows. Anyway, apologies for my voice for the rest of this episode, but you know, I'm still here doing News Watch and that's what's important even though I feel ill. You know what else made me feel ill this week, apart from this lurgy? The allegations against and the not-apology apology from Greg Wallace. I feel the rant coming on. Greg Wallace, the presenter best known for MasterChef, was last week accused of misconduct. A telegraph investigation and a separate BBC News investigation shows there are allegations from at least 13 people,

spanning a range of ages who worked across five different programmes. of inappropriate sexual comments. I'll sum up these allegations. Telling sexualised jokes that made people feel uncomfortable. Taking his top off in front of a female worker. Telling a junior female colleague he wasn't wearing any boxer shorts under his jeans. Showing a former Master Chef worker topless pictures of himself and asking for massages. Asking a former female worker about dating women and the logistics of how it worked.

dancing around the Master Chef studio almost completely naked and a male worker on Master Chef said Wallace regularly said sexually explicit things on set and now more allegations than the 13 official ones are emerging. Now earlier this week fresh allegations were made and these now involve Greg Wallace allegedly groping a woman and pressing his waist and penis against another woman's behind. The media has so far labelled this as inappropriate touching Now, I think this story falls into a tricky area when it comes to reporting and when it comes

to calling something by its name. Groping is sexual assault, pressing is sexual assault, but the media hasn't labelled it as such. Mostly, the actions have been described as alleged inappropriate sexual comments or inappropriate behaviour. And this description has led to some people, and by people I mean men, to use it as an opportunity to almost try and prove that the behaviour is not inappropriate, or like try and persuade us that inappropriate behaviour is up for interpretation. So before the latest allegations of groping and pressing, but after the allegations of misconduct, the telegraph ran two stories which I found interesting. The first was that the telegraph said they had been investigating complaints against Greg Wallace for more than

four months. The headline is how more than 20 members of staff spoke to the telegraph about allegations against Greg Wallace. But then the subhead reads, Master Chef Star, embroiled in claims that banter, laced with occasional sexual innuendo, has crossed the line. Gosh, this language that the telegraph uses, it just, it's confusing to me, because, you know, on the one hand credit should be given to the telegraph for drawing attention to these issues, for platforming, the women speaking out. But the language that they're using sort of works to undermine the cause that they are claiming to present, it's more like scandalizing gossip, right? Not a really important scope into potential power abuses in the workplace.

And I thought this when I saw the Telegraph front page on it as well, which was like BBC sex scandal. I was like, is this a sex scandal? I mean, is this about sex? Is this about power? Either way, what that headline was saying was, you know, yes, we've got one up. on the BBC, not we give a fuck about victims. And that's exactly it, really crucially, this article in which they say, look, we've uncovered all these allegations, it really does not centre victims' voices. The article starts by talking about how successful Master Chef is, how it's transformed Greg Wallace's life once but a humble greengrocer.

It labels him as a cheeky chappy, points out he has millions of fans, and says again that his light-hearted banter with his co-host, John Torode, is occasionally laced with sexual innuendo, but rarely so much that it is likely to offend viewers before the 9pm watershed. Oh, this is such an old tune, like a tired tune, and it just doesn't sound like an article that is uncovering sexual misconduct and inappropriate behaviour. Exactly, it's honestly shocking and it gets worse.

After this article comes out, claiming that the text is, Telegraph investigation has uncovered multiple allegations against Wallace, the paper, then the very next day, publishes a piece by William Sitwell, the Telegraph's restaurant critic. The title, My Mate Greg, has a mouth like Bernard Manning, but he's a top bloke. Okay, so they publish an article detailing, distressing allegations they've uncovered, including mimicking a sexual act on a member of staff and stripping off his clothes in front of staff. And then they published something calling him a top bloke. Again, this is not holding power accountable.

This is just stirring the pot. This is just creating clickbait. Yes. Now, this article by William Sitwell is even more frustrating. It's just paragraphs of excusing sexual harassment as banter, trying to garner sympathy by throwing in lines about Greg's autistic son and his mother-in-law who lives with them. It's a defence of, and I quote William Sitwell,

the Greg I know. And isn't that just the point? Not only need I remind any women that the men we think we know aren't always the top bloke they present themselves as, but the Greg that William Sitwell knows is hardly going to be the same Greg

that these women know. Like the only journalistic reason I can see to even include that testimony would be to use it as a springboard to ask, okay, well if an apparently top bloke is making multiple colleagues feel deeply uncomfortable, should we collectively try and break, break down what a top bloke actually looks like. That's not what they're doing here.

Exactly. And quite frankly, everyone is missing the point. This is not about what is and isn't a joke and what is and isn't inappropriate. This is about power and about protection. So since the first round of allegations came out, it's also been revealed that a warning and a formal HR investigation took place in 2018 when two women on the show Impossible Celebrities complained about comments Greg Wallace had made about his sex life to staff on the show. So there's clearly some history here. And I want to read out what BBC News Night broadcaster Kirsty Walk said. She's one of the original 13 people who accused Wallace of misconduct. She was a celebrity master chef contestant in 2011 and she said Wallace told sexualised jokes during filming.

She said, I think people were uncomfortable. We were essentially a captive audience. People looked embarrassed and just got on with their work. I was actually more angry than anything else, and in a sense, what I thought was it was about power more than anything else that he felt he could. Sexual misconduct, sexual assault, sexual harassment is always about power. It's about having the power to silence a room, to make women feel uncomfortable, to make them feel humiliated. And crucially, Wallace was, allegedly, allowed to carry on with this behaviour because the power structures allowed him to. How many people knew how big of an open secret was it? And for how long did he know that he would be able to get away with it

because he knew younger women who were just starting out in TV wouldn't want to rock the boat. And actually, his Instagram story response a few days ago, basically, basically summed that up. Yes, and for those who didn't see this, after the initial misconduct allegations, I mean, I don't know what possessed him and God knows if he has a PR team. I think the same PR team as Prince Andrew. Oh God. But Greg Wallace took to his Instagram stories to defend himself by saying that he's worked with thousands of people on Master Chef and the complaints were from a handful of middle class women of a certain age. I mean, nothing says I'm not a misogynist like stereotyping women.

Like, babe, the only women speaking out against me are the one secure, privilege and experience enough to do so is not the defence you think it is. I had some thoughts on that. Okay, I think it's probably important to mention that the day after he released that Instagram story, he released another Instagram video apologising for this sort of misjudged response. And I believe in forgiveness if people, social people in power, hold their hands up to the mistakes they've been called out for and want to be part of a constructive conversation forwards.

But if you listen closely, in his apology, he wasn't asking for forgiveness from the people he offended. If you listen closely, he said that he released that initial problematic statement because he felt like he was under siege. And I think that term under siege is a calling cry to a clear type of person, like a type of man who thinks that men are right now the victims in society, the ones under attack. And it was just like in his self-defense video that that just awful quote, you included a handful of middle-class women of a certain age. Like, it's interesting how willing he was to throw his core target audience under the bus for a totally new one.

Like who does he think his market is, if not middle-class women of a certain age? Like, who does he think his fan base is? These are the viewers that made Greg Wallace who he is, and as soon as some of them hold him accountable, instead of seeking to amend things with them, he humiliates them, diminishes them, and turns to a new audience. One he clearly thinks will jump to his defense.

This, yeah, men's right movement. And so often what we see when people are asked to repent is actually they just turn their back on their traditional target audience, and embrace this fringe group of people who see them as the victim. Greg Wallace's new show on G.B. News to come out soon, I guess. No. Okay, turning our news watch further afield, let's talk about what's happening in Syria. Syria has been back in the news as rebels who had been pushed back to Syria's northwestern corner of Idlib,

launched an offensive and succeeded in pushing government forces back, even taking control of Syria's second biggest city, Aleppo. So what makes this a media storm story? Yeah, well, it's this very, very Western and sometimes insincere analysis coming through our media. The kindest description of the reaction in Western media is alarm about escalating instability in the Middle East. and fresh dangers to Syrian civilians. It reads like an intellectualization of people's suffering and it does so because it plays down Syrians' agency

and right to determine what's best for them. And in all the reporting, there has been very little mention of the human reasons behind the rebellion. Instead, the people involved are dismissed as rebels or vilified as terrorists and Islamists. Yeah, so on the reasons, behind the rebellion. So if I remember correctly, Syria is ruled by ruthless dictator Bashir al-Assad, who was willing to decimate Syria's ancient cities and murder half a million of his own

population in order to hold onto a country that he inherited from his father. That's the one. Asad's vengeful post-revolution repression has been going on for over a decade, and it has been wildly underreported in Western media, except for right at the beginning. Syria's civil war, if we can call it a civil war when so many foreign parties, including our own government, have had proxy involvement. But anyway, Syria's civil war started after pro-democracy protests in 2011 were met with brutal repression. And the resulting conflict has led to more refugees than any other in the world. Officially, this conflict has been frozen since a ceasefire in 2020. And in that ceasefire, all parties agreed Assad would open some doors

to democracy. He hasn't. So now rebels are rising up again. And the commentary from Western officials has been critical of them for resorting to violence. This is true. I've seen repeated analysis published in the mainstream media about how the solution will not come through militant means. Right. And the irony being, the only reason that they have to resort to militancy is because the international community has failed or completely neglected to push any meaningful political resolution in Syria, while also feeding conditions that are ripe for violence. I'm talking things like stationing their own troops in oil-rich regions or profiting from illicit arms deals. Again, these are things I learn about, not from our media, but from Syrian

citizen journalists. And this is where I speak about this lack of sincerity in Western alarm for Syrians' well-being. Because at the same time as criticizing the rebels for violence and bringing violence to the country. Our commentary across news outlets has also been kind of smug that Syria's government is being punished for relying too much on Western enemies, Russia and Iran. So for context, one of the reasons that rebels are rising up now is because Assad's key military allies, Russia, Iran, and Hezbollah have all become occupied and weakened by their conflicts with Ukraine or Israel. To convey this smugness,

I just want to compare the response of the White House National Security Council spokesman with Turkey's foreign minister. So the White House comment said Assad's, quote, reliance on Russia and Iran has created the conditions now unfolding. Turkey instead puts it down to Assad's lack of reliance on his own people's support, calling on the Syrian government

to reconcile with its own people and the legitimate opposition. Okay, so yes, our media's response has been very Western. I mean, no surprise there. No, no surprise. Okay, but here's the huge oversight I want to flag to listeners. It's about the terrorist label. Now, the main rebel group, Hayat Tarir al-Sham, or HTS,

is classed as terrorist by the US, the EU, the UK, and it has Islamist roots, which is maybe why no one is covering the human reasons behind the uprising. But dismissing the rebels as terrorists or isthmists, it not only simplifies the situation, it shuts down meaningful inquiry into why it is happening in the first place. Now I want to share what a Syrian friend said to me when I shared my feelings about the coverage with them. They said, Western media's tendency to instantly label rebel groups as terrorists or Islamists

creates false dichotomies, framing these groups as separate from the Syrian people who originally rose up against a brutal regime. Syria is a majority Muslim country, and religion is a powerful unifying force. It's no surprise that rebels rally under an Islamic flag, just as Christian Syrians have united under Christ in their fight against the regime, often joining forces with Muslim rebels.

This isn't a religious war. It's an uprising of oppressed people against dictatorship. And the relentless Western attempts to frame these conflicts as religious reveals not only a deep misunderstanding of their root courses, but also a persistent bias and ignorance about the complexities of the Middle East. And the result of the bias that they describe is that the story coming from Syrian social media accounts is very different to the story in Western mainstream news.

And now, of course, not everyone in Syria feels the same, but I have seen many, many civilians in new rebel territories sharing videos of rebels speaking in their mosques, in their churches, and celebrating their words. Listen to this clip. In this clip, rebel group leader Ahmed al-Dalati addresses a mosque in Aleppo and promises protection for all residents. He's speaking Arabic and he says, We are from you.

We are your sons. It is forbidden to harm anyone or any sect present in Aleppo. They are the people of Syria and they are our people. Now this video was shared by a resident of Aleppo who celebrated My City is free. And this is something that many Western media seem to have missed. The people fighting in Syria are themselves Syrians. The issue is one we find a lot on Media Storm that Western audiences are being shown a different version of events

to non-Western audiences. And with no awareness, we see it so differently. And the sudden concern of Western media about Syrians' well-being would be a lot more credible if we'd consistently covered it for the past decade. Right. Instead, our media has largely ignored what Syrians face at home, just as they feed fear and ignorance about the swathes of Syrian refugees now coming here to escape it. Took the words right out of my mouth.

So this week, a story from the Times caught my attention. The headline reads, sick fluencers help followers claim benefits as 15,000 a week approved. The sub reads, social media influencers advise followers how to maximize claims for universal credit and personal independence payments as the welfare bill grows. So this is a story about how people on TikTok, for example, who are unwell or who have disabilities, are giving their followers who may also need benefits or sickness payments, tips and tricks on how best to achieve that. Worth saying, I guess, that these TikTok accounts are public so anyone can see them, but they are intended for audiences who need to fill out benefit forms and applications. The article basically gives a lot of examples from these TikTok or YouTube accounts.

For example, a video called Unlock the Secret Steps for Winning Your Pip claims. That's got over 370,000 views and offers advice for people seeking personal independence payments, which are meant to provide extra support for difficulties caused by physical or mental health conditions and disabilities. So before I get your reaction to this story, can you cast your mind back two weeks ago to our first episode of Media Storm's News Watch? And we were talking about the new inheritance tax laws for some farms. And you mentioned that the Telegraph had published a guide for its disproportionately wealthy readers on how to avoid paying taxes. Okay, so do you see where I'm going with this?

Uh-huh. Why do we praise people, like, for example, Martin Lewis, the money-saving expert, for telling us how to save money on our household bills, but we cast doubt and scorn and, quite frankly, judgment on people with disabilities and people who are ill for doing the same thing? How many articles do you think the Times would have published, which have advice for people who, by the way, are likely already very rich and privileged, to get more money out of the system.

Pretty much every other article on these right-leaning outlets is about how to avoid tax more effectively. Like, should we also be asking if that is, and I quote from this article, a lifeline or a tool to game the system? Oh my God, that is such a good point. I honestly didn't think about that. That's such a good point.

And also, we have to think about this in the context of how difficult the pensions, benefit, PIP systems are to ask. access. Yes, and the mainstream media do tend to ignore how bad the system is. Latest figures from policy in practice estimates that the total amount of unclaimed income-related benefits and social tariffs across Great Britain is now 22.7 billion pounds a year. Like, people are unaware of what and how they can claim, and as the UK's social security system has evolved over time, it has become more complex. There's varying eligibility

criteria, there's varying obstacles for people, not to mention that people who may be older or with a disability find using technology difficult. And also not to mention stigma, because benefits continue to be associated with a sense of shame and articles like the one you've bought to Newswatch today definitely don't help with that stigma. Our final story is a piece of good news from Belgium, where sex workers have gotten maternity leave and pensions under a world-first law. The policy will entitle sex workers to official employment contracts, health insurance, pensions, maternity leave and sick days. Wow, okay. I mean, so basically they'll have the same rights as every other worker. Radical stuff happening here, yeah. But it is radical. But it is, yeah,

like sex workers have been lobbying for these rights all over the world for decades. Maybe longer. It means brothels will have to have emergency panic buttons and meet basic hygiene criteria. It means sex workers can refuse to perform a particular sexual act or accept a client without the threat of being immediately fired by a brothel. And firstly, I want to praise the coverage because a lot of it has centred sex worker voices in a way that has been so rare in media coverage to do with sex work. The BBC's Gender and Identity Correspondent, Sophia Batica, went to speak to multiple Belgian sex workers whose lives will be directly affected by this policy, and she prioritises their expert voices. It's a must read. However, what I would

have loved is if some of the coverage coming from British media included a bit of introspection regarding laws here in the UK, because while sex workers, yes, have just won labour rights in Belgium. Sex workers in the UK are currently desperately fighting for them and they're trying to attract media attention to their cause. Here are some British sex workers we spoke to in our series one episode on the topic as they protested exactly this issue here in London. We get treated like workers but without workers' rights and that's why we're here to say, Fuck that shit! Well, I'm here for sex workers' rights and just with parents who are sex workers as well.

The most vulnerable women in society who do sex work are criminalised. Sex workers work and we deserve workers' rights and we deserve to work safely. We want to live, we want to be safe in our homes, we want to be safe in our workplaces, we want to be safe on the streets, we are sick of police violence, we are sick of laws that criminalise our bodies in the way that we make money. If they're not going to offer us any better solution than sex work, why are they punishing us for doing it? That was sex workers protesting in Media Storm's series one episode. And sex workers are not just concerned about the UK's existing laws.

They are right now trying to draw attention to new fears that they have about the Labour government. Weren't we literally contacted by the English collective of prostitutes about this just a few weeks ago? Yes, we were. And I want to read the press release they sent us. It said, since Labor came in, there is a real threat that some of the labor women who consider themselves feminist and who now have ministerial positions will introduce a clause in the next criminal justice bill to criminalize clients or to redefine prostitution as sexual exploitation. It says both proposals will be disastrous for sex workers and put us much more at risk of violence and arrest.

Now, I've looked into this and Labor has proposed several amendments to the bill. and they replaced the term prostitution with the term sexual exploitation. They've also moved to amend the Sexual Offences Act of 2003, again replacing the term prostitution for gain with sexual exploitation of an adult. In other words, they are defining prostitution as inherently exploitative under the law and defining prostitutes in turn as inherently exploited. Now, just for listeners benefit, the term prostitutes is criticized by some sex workers. but it is also intentionally opted for by others, including the English collective of prostitutes.

And while we haven't yet seen a law brought in to criminalise sex workers' clients, it is a view that's been expressed by some in government. And I think more widely the issue here is that Labour's moved to redefine sex work as inherently exploitative is the idea that underpins the Nordic model. Now, the Nordic model is a legal model common in Scandinavian countries, and it involves criminalising sex workers' clients as a way to stop sex work without law. locking up sex workers themselves. It's often positioned as a way of protecting sex workers. But as we've investigated on Media Storm, sex workers widely oppose it. And one of their

greatest grievances is that the policymakers don't just ask them what they think. Right. So here's Nikki Adams of the English Collective of Prostitutes telling Media Storm what she thinks of this model of criminalising clients and what it really means for the sex workers it's claiming to protect. Well, the Nordic model is a scam, actually. I mean, it's put forward in the name of gender equality, and it really plugs into women's sometimes justifiable fury at men. You know, it's like people look at the situation, or some people look at the situation,

and then they kind of go, well, women are getting criminalised, but the men aren't. Let's criminalise the men. Instead of, why don't we just decriminalise everyone? You know, what kind of equality is that? It's been introduced in a number of Nordic countries, which is why it's called the Nordic model, but also in France and in Ireland,

and it's been an absolute disaster because it has this veneer that it's going to improve the situation of sex workers. The line is that sex workers aren't criminalised, but only clients are criminalised. But of course, that's absurd. If you're involved in an interaction with a client and one part of that interaction is criminalised,

you are forced more underground. You know, if I'm working in a flat and something happens, there's no way I'm going to go to the police. to report it because the police then know where I'm working and they can just sit outside my flat and wait for clients to arrest them and all my business goes down the drain. On the street you have less time to check out clients and that is really a matter of life and death sometimes. Those kind of safety mechanisms are employed by sex workers everywhere and we feel infuriated that we're working so hard to keep ourselves safe and we don't get any backing or support,

from feminists, the women that call themselves feminist, because I would dispute whether they're feminists, we're characterised as victims who need saving, and they behave like they know better than us, what's good for us. That was Nikki Adams from the English collective of prostitutes. So to sum up, sex workers are urgently trying to put decriminalisation on the agenda in the UK, and our coverage of Belgium's new law is a massive missed opportunity. For more sex worker voices on Labor Rights, scroll back to our series one episode, Sex Workers Ignored and Under Threat. It's my dad's favourite because he says it completely changed his view.

Yay. Okay, just before I leave you, we love calling out unhinged headlines, and I saw this unhinged headline, and I just need you to vote on whether or not it's more or less unhinged than chicken as a woke sandwich filling that we had a couple weeks ago. So in an interview with the telegraph, Dame Sheila Hancock, the very famous actress, is talking about her journey from Catholicism to the Quaker faith. The headline is, If Christ were alive today, he'd be cancelled. Oh my God.

So Sheila thinks Christ wouldn't have lasted a minute in the 21st century because he said exactly what he thought he'd have been cancelled. Wait, I'm sorry, am I like, am I forgetting from, you know, my entire Catholic upbringing and my reading of the whole Bible cover to cover? Am I just like misremembering? But was Christ not very famously cancelled? Yeah, I think it involved a cross and some nails. Thank you for listening. 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 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 Malins. The music is by Samphire.