Media Storm - News Watch: Trump v Zelensky, Gaza ceasefire sabotage, and the law putting Black boys in prison

Episode Date: March 6, 2025

Time for another weekly news debrief: we pick apart the most unhinged headlines and try to make sense of the mainstream media, helping you consume the news critically. In this episode, we take you through the Media Storm mission: we’re not about conspiracy, we’re about media literacy. THAT Zelensky-Trump press conference set the tone for world news this week, as Western leaders rolled out red carpets and tried to decipher diplomatic rationale from clickbait MAGA politics. So who was the rude reporter that set the wheels in motion? And what should we make of the pantomime that’s become of the White House’s press room? Imagine, instead, if Netanyahu had been in the hot seat (we play it out for you): warned by Trump and Vance that he is gambling with World War Three. That he has no cards to play, if the US wants a ceasefire. Instead of applying such pressure, the US government pushed through an emergency arms sale to Israel this week - days before imposing new terms on the ceasefire with Hamas. But is that how the press reported it? Now for something NOT TRUMP. Ever heard of joint enterprise? The little-known law putting Black boys in prison has failed to attract much press scrutiny, so we dive in. And finally, Mathilda’s secret aristocratic background has been exposed by the Daily Mail! Find out why Helena’s so disappointed. The episode is hosted and produced by Mathilda Mallinson (@mathildamall) and Helena Wadia (@helenawadia) 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

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We're dissecting the week's main stories, finding the facts behind the fearmongering, calling 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. Well, I don't think that the mainstream media was lying. I think we missed the overarching story. Welcome to Media Storms News Watch, helping you make sense of the mainstream media. I'm Matilda Malinson.

And I'm Helena Wadia. This week's Media Storms, Trump Vizelensky, Gaza, C-Sysol. via sabotage and the little-known law putting black boys in prison. And Matilda's secret aristocratic background. What did we mean by that? Okay, this time last week, you sent me a screenshot of an email you'd received, and I lost my mind. I found it so funny.

Please share with listeners. In my stress, Helena, was just in absolute hysterics. Yeah, I know. Afterwards, I was like, have I not been supportive? because I just found this too funny. No, but you were right. The only reaction was to laugh. Yeah, okay, I got this email.

Dear Matilda, Harry here from the Daily Mail Eden Confidential Diary. We're planning to run an item tomorrow about your aristocratic background. You cited Nathan's privilege on go back to where you came from to use as an example. Curious to know why your privilege wasn't cited instead. We'd like to hear back from you before we run anything. So the Daily Mail reached out to you for a comment because of this documentary you were involved in, they felt like they were doing some kind of secret takedown of your privilege. Yeah, yeah, exactly, which is something I never talk about.

Privilege is so irrelevant to any of the work I do. You keep it so secret. Yeah, and it's about this conversation where I say to Nathan, we're born with privilege, for example, you have citizenship, you're white, your male, and that's not the case for everybody. So this is the TV rant with the heart of the scandal and the fact that I didn't then immediately go on to talk about the fact that according to the Daily Mail, I'm an heiress and direct descendant of the baronet, Sir William Mallinson. I didn't, do you even know what a baronet is? I've never heard of a baronet, but you know what, Matilda, I can't believe you never told me.

I know, and I can't remember if I didn't bring it up as an example to Nathan. That is so disingenuous. This is my mum's response. Doe. Okay, a message from Doe. Not direct line. They don't have any money anyhow. You're not an heiress in any shape or form. Sorry. Way to burst the bubble, Mrs. Mallington.

Also, Eden Confidential, they said was the column. What is that? So I looked up the Eden Confidential and it says it's this daily mail column that reveals the secrets of the rich and famous. Oh my God. I don't know you're rich and famous. Am I rich and famous? I feel like if you were rich and famous.

and famous, media song would be much bigger than it is currently. Yeah, yeah, that would be really great. Okay, so they ask you, I guess, somewhat disingenuously for a statement, your right of reply. Did you give a statement? Well, my brain was really, really going because I was like, I don't want to be used to undermine the point. I don't want to become a distraction from the main point, right? So I drafted this full response. Let me read it to you.

Your article literally represents divisive politics, trying to use personal takedowns to distract from bigger social problems. Can I suggest the Daily Mail spends less time doing takedowns of people it politically disagrees with and more time reporting on actual human rights abuses

against the refugees they get rich of dehumanising? Burn! P.S., if any of your readers want Nathan's own view, he's coming on MediaStorm podcast. We tried to get a plug for Media Storm in the Daily Mail.

Okay, now I hear that you said that this was what you originally drafted and apart from trying to plug Media Storm in the Daily Mail, which, let's face it, wasn't going to happen. I'm guessing then you changed your response to them. Well, look, they're never going to publish me saying,

your journalism is shit. They're just not going to do that. And I sent a line instead that they could only include in full. The line that I did send was my point, which Nathan put in his own words later on, is life's a raffle. And we shouldn't focus our anger on people who have a tough draw. And they included that.

I'm glad that they included that statement. And also, you know, I thought it was particularly, ironic that you got this email from the Daily Mail after we had just recorded a whole episode about polarisation and divisiveness. I am sad about the baronet though because I was hoping that maybe we could like call her up and get her to fund media storm. I mean this William Mallinson baronet is long dead. Damn it. And apparently broke. Damn it. And apparently not my direct line either. Damn it. Okay. So we don't have anybody rich and famous to call up to ask for funding for Media Storm?

No, but we do have our listeners. Yeah, no, okay, serious tone, we want to talk to you guys about something. Media Storm is constantly having to ask the question, how do we fund the kind of journalism we do?

In the past, we set ourselves the goal to grow the podcast, to reach a sustainable level of listeners that we could monetize through ad revenue. We have had to accept that that is not possible. for various reasons. One of which is that the listener threshold

for being sustainable is getting higher and higher and our growth which is happening is happening slowly and incrementally. But also because if we really wanted to grow to numbers in which we could only be supported by ad revenue,

we would have to do the style of news that we don't like, that we fight against, that we spend every week actively working to dismantle. And that would be clickbaiting. news. And the thing is, we don't need that. We sat down and we look to each other. We are so proud of what we've made at Media Storm and with our community as it is. All of you are wonderful and

mean so much to us. And when you message us, we don't feel the need to push and push. We don't want our priority to be growth. We want our priority to be continuing to meet the high editorial and ethical standards that you set for us. So where does that leave us? Good question. Great question. We are now turning our focus strongly towards goodwill, donations, subscriptions. So the first thing is Patreon. Patreon is a subscriber platform for creators where you can pay anything from, I think it's $3 a week or more, just towards our work.

And because we are really not being remunerated by ad revenue, if you can afford that and you value this and you listen to Media Storm regularly, We really, really ask that you subscribe to Patreon. Thank you so much to our new subscribers this week. Alan, Emily, Luke, Molly and Helen. We love you. Thank you so much. Thank you, guys. And then the other thing is, if you happen to know any baronet,

anyone who has the resources and is looking to fund independent journalism and diverse voices and grassroots activism, please reach out to us. We are sending. all our grant applications out into the ether because we really want to keep bringing you this content. What's our first story this week? I want to talk about a story that has fallen out of the new cycle for basically a year and has briefly popped its head up again this week

but not for the reason that we might think. So, do you know what joint enterprise is? I actually do, but the only reason is... Do you remember last year when I interviewed Mina Smallman? Mina Smallman's the mother of two sisters who were murdered and she was at the heart of this campaign about how the police don't care about black lives. She's amazing. Go listen to her interview if you haven't.

But Mina, she asked me, do you know what joint enterprise is? And it sort of rang a bell, but I was thinking something to do with business. No. When I looked it up, I was shocked. I'm not surprised that you were shocked. Joint Enterprise law allows someone to be charged with another person's crime if it is believed that they foresaw it and intended to encourage or assist them.

So say a person fatally stabs someone, they get charged for murder. However, under Joint Enterprise, there may be a group of, let's say, six people who were on their way to the same location where that person was fatally stabbed or who knew the stabbing was going to happen and didn't try and stop it.

And if the court decides that about the six people in the group, then all six of that group can also be jailed for murder or manslaughter. Okay. And you said that this was in the new, a year ago or something, what was that about? Right. So briefly, in 2023, campaigners who felt strongly about joint enterprise pushed the Crown Prosecution Service or the CPS to monitor joint enterprise prosecutions for racial bias.

And guess what they found out? Black people are 16 times, 1-6, more likely to be prosecuted under the principle than white people. 16 times. It is shocking data, okay? And remember I said this came out at the end of 2023 because campaignists forced the CPS to do it, okay? It's shocking data.

It includes more than half of people prosecuted under Joint Enterpriser from minority ethnic backgrounds. White people make up 81.7% of the population, but only 38.9% of defendants. Black people make up 4% of the population and 30% of defendants. It's clear bias. Okay.

Joint Enterprise might be something that a lot of people haven't heard of. But the themes in this story are reoccurring and reoccurring here at Media Storm. Last season, we learned that black children are four times more likely to be strip searched than white children, something that shouldn't be happening to any kids. And we spoke about the adultification of black children by law enforcement with David Navarro and Lady Unchained. Just say you're just walking down the road, they'll come and see you, stop you. If they don't find nothing, they'll take in a van for a strip search. because they believe you've got something else.

And a lot of the time, in fact, every time, they've never found anything on me. Really? How old were you when this first happened? Like 15 to 16. I'm not going to lie, I've only been strip search in gel. It was the most traumatising thing ever. Like, I can't even tell you if you're putting children, putting them through that continuously. If you're always being stopped and searched continuously and you actually ain't doing anything, unfortunately, you're just going to think this is it.

So you're going to think, what's the point? I might as well. be doing something then. We also spoke to David Lammy in series one episode on drugs. Oh, my God, he's Foreign Secretary now. Oh, wow. Foreign Secretary has been on Media Storm. That's actually not very media storm.

But he spoke about racial inequality in drug prosecution, which is very media storm. And he described the issue, sweepingly criminalising people for gang affiliation, which I think is what Joint Enterprise typically does. He describes this as a deep betrayal of children in our society. I raise issues around the gang's matrix because it was being used so loosely to associate young people as young as six, seven, with being associated with a gang. And we've got to be careful that we describe them as a gang just because they happen to be based in Brixton or Peckham. Look, I think that we spend way too much focus in our public discourse on the young people and not in our focus on the mafia, the misdemeanor. the bigs, the men in suits who organised the transshipment of the serious amounts of cocaine.

Because nobody thinks that a young person in Mossside, Salford or Tottenham knows how to organise tons of cocaine out of Colombia. That's organised by serious, serious gangsters. And that organised crime which pimps young people out. And this story of pimping is as old as time. Oliver Twist, is about the pimping of young people. This is child trafficking, what's going on. When you see a young person traumatised, as young as 12, 13, seeing serious drug taking up close, seeing the violence, fearing recrimination, this is trauma.

This is trafficking and it's child trafficking. But why we're not doing more to deal with the real gangsters, who most often are not ethnic minorities, by the way, That's the issue, it seems to me. Wow, that says it all. Okay, so surely when this data about racial bias in joint enterprise was revealed, they looked into reforming joint enterprise? Well, there is currently an independent inquiry going on,

and the submission for evidence ended this week. So that's why it's briefly popped up again in the news, and the findings will be released later this year. But the inquiry is not to do with racial bias data. So while the inquiry will look at reforming joint enterprise laws, it only exists as part of a wider inquiry into tackling the record Crown Court caseload. So basically, in this independent review of the criminal courts, they're hoping that considering the overuse of joint enterprise

will help tackle the backlog of prosecutions. So essentially, their motivation in reforming this law is saving money, not correcting racial bias. I just think that this shocking statistic that black people are 16 times more likely to be prosecuted. We'd be up in arms if it were any other group. Like if it were white people, if it were women even maybe being disproportionately prosecuted, I feel like there would be a huge urgency to sort this out. But as it stands, that shocking stat wasn't motivation enough.

The motivation was money. Okay, but even if it wasn't the motivation behind the inquiry, surely they're looking into racial inequality as part of the inquiry. The entire press release doesn't mention the words race, ethnicity, inequality. And the thing is, is that this has completely fallen out of the new cycle, although maybe it's worth asking if it was ever really in the new cycle, the absolute lack of media attention beyond the publication of that data research has been shocking. And, you know, there was really no follow-up to that research either.

And so in order to throw some more attention on it, I just want to highlight the human stories behind this. So as an example, there was a trial of seven black teenagers accused of killing 15-year-old Deshawn James Tewitt. One was found guilty and convicted for the murder, but six others were on trial for the murder under Joint Enterprise, and then they were later acquitted. Now, the lawyer of a 15-year-old who was acquitted said that that teenager spent 14 months, on remand before being cleared. So that means he was in prison but over a year due to joint enterprise before being found not guilty.

It's a wild. And it was later found to be sadly an unplanned spontaneous stabbing. But this 15-year-old boy was in prison for 14 months. And how many, as the data shows us, likely black, likely working class young men, are currently in prison because of this? How many miscarriages are.

of justice are there, and how long is the media going to ignore it? I take it you've all seen that Trump Zelensky press conference. Oh God. It has shaped the world news of the week, from the bullying of Zelensky into, at least according to Trump, groveling for US military aid back, to the scaring of Europe into returning to cold war levels of defence spending at the cost of foreign aid and other public investment. Let's just squirm through that clip one more time. You have nice ocean and don't feel now, but you will feel it in the fusion.

God bless, God bless, God bless, you will not have war. Don't tell us what we're going to feel. We're trying to solve a problem. Don't tell us what we're going to feel. I'm not telling you. Because you're in no position to dictate that. That's exactly what you're in no position to dictate what we're going to feel. We're going to feel very good.

We're going to feel very good and very strong. You will feel influenced. Oh yeah there's so much more but I can't go on And anyone listening to the news would have heard the reactions This has never happened before You know not on camera anyway This kind of belittling belligerence in how Trump spoke to Zelensky Is it all a bluff by Trump

A really clever way to snap Europe into shape We've seen Stama, Macron Sort of playing his game ever since And then being blindsided by Trump's withdrawal of aid Hours after, Stama, by the way, denied that Trump was going to do that. The thing is, it's actually not hard to understand any of Trump's mind-blowing diplomacy. As soon as you stop trying to rationalise our Western supremacist policy of US appeasement, and instead look at it for what it is.

America first, MAGA politics. Simple. This painful press conference, it all seemingly went downhill when Vice President, J.D. Vance, interrupted, already unusual, and why? To push this clickbait, mager angle about Ukraine not being grateful enough to America, not respectful enough to the White House. When I watched it live, my main, like, visceral reaction, the main issue I had was with someone who spoke before J.D. Fence and who I felt paved

the way for his attack. A lot of people who heard this clip out of context assumed it was said by Vance to Zelensky, But actually, it was said by a journalist in the room to Zelensky. It's been picked up by some media, but I really think its relevance has been lost in the wake of the conference. So, here's the clip. A second question for President Zelensky, do you ever, why don't you wear a suit? Why don't you wear a suit? You're the highest level in this country's office, and you refuse to wear a suit.

Just want to see, do you own a suit? Yeah, yeah, problems. A lot of Americans have problems with you not respecting the United States. I don't have such, I will wear a costume after this war will finish. I actually can't believe that it was a journalist who said, weren't you wearing a suit to Zelensky? I thought it was Vance. Yeah.

So now let's talk about the other oligarchy forming around Trump, besides the Musk-Metta tech one, already on our radar, the media one. In other words, the propaganda machine. Okay, how about the guy spanning both Jeff Bezos? Oh my god, yeah, we should definitely talk about that. But first, I want to focus on what this journalist did, because I think what he did tells us all we need to know about Trump's foreign policy that has got the world playing all these guessing games. So this whole suit jive that this journalist has gone with, it's a real broken record in MAGA circles, making fun of Zelensky

for wearing camo instead of a suit or saying it's disrespectful. And up to this point in the press conference, the leaders had been speaking cordially. But when this happened, BBC reporters in the room, Burt de Busman and Miroslava Petsa, they said that it immediately changed the atmosphere. And 20 minutes later or so, Vance interrupts, and he repeatedly brings up these themes, disrespect, and gratitude. Have you said thank you? No, in this entire meeting, have you said thank you?

You went to Pennsylvania and campaigned for the opposition in October, offer some words of appreciation for the United States of America, and the president who's trying to save your country. And the whole event spirals to the point Zelensky is ejected from the White House early. This was a pantomime. This is not complicated. This is token maga politics. And I honestly don't think any of what Trump's doing is much more complicated than that.

There's no altruistic bluff. It's not a radical diplomatic strategy. It is only American interests matter. And to be honest, only a small number of Americans interests matter. So this leads to Trump pulling aid And hours before he pulled aid He said the same refrains He deserves more respect

Zelensky should be more appreciative So a journalist repeated A MAGA talking point In the press conference And now it's just turned into this whole American clip date Yeah And look we sort of know this by now

But what in this story do people not know Trump had carefully designed The audience for that press conference Which he literally celebrated as he walked out This is going to make great TV And he was able to do that because of something else that happened last week, just as media storm went to press, so to speak. The Jeff Bezos thing. No, not yet.

I mean, that's part of it. We'll get there. Why am I so desperate to talk about Jeff Bezos today? Such a vangirl. So last week, the Trump administration announced they would be deciding which journalists are allowed into the White House and which are not. This takes control of the press pool from a independent panel of journalists. for the first time since 1914. This is literally a move that takes US press freedom back by more than a century.

Yeah. And so, you know, who's banned from the White House now? Associated Press. That might not mean something to many listeners, but to journalists... Every journalist knows Association of Press. They're the news outlet for journalists. They're one of the main newswires relied on by reporters at papers, both right-wing and left-wing all over the world.

Exactly. And now when they announce this decision, White House Press Secretary Caroline Leavitt said, Quote, deciding which outlets make up the limited press pool on a day-to-day basis, the White House will be restoring power back to the American people.

But do not be deceived. By cherry-picking, who gets to question the president and who gets to give information to the people? The government is not giving people power, it is taking it away. Dangling access over reporters' heads forces them to be compliant. And among those journalists cherry-picked

to do this vital service is the man who asked that question about the suit. So who is he? Firstly, he is the chief White House correspondent for an obscure right-wing cable news outlet called Real America's Voice. Oh my God, please. That says it all. One of several new pro-Trump channels

to have cropped up in recent years. It's peddled conspiracy theories like the election was stolen. and 2021 capital riots were started by police and Q and on is real. God, do we know anything about this guy personally? His name is Brian Glenn and he is reportedly the boyfriend of none other than Marjorie Taylor Green. It all comes together. If you're lucky enough to not know who she is,

she's that far right firebrand who blamed California wildfires on Jewish space lasers and compared COVID masks to the Holocaust and said that the Democrats control the weather when there was a hurricane. She is also, and I can't believe I'm saying this, an elected member of Congress in Georgia. So this is the kind of new voice that Trump is sacking qualified journalists to make room for.

Yeah, you'll notice Glenn doesn't ask Musk why he won't wear a suit in the White House as he bounces around in frat boy merch parading his nepo baby like some accessory chihuahua. He doesn't ask Vance why he insists on dressing like mini-me Trump every single day. He doesn't ask Trump, why are you so orange? And yet he asks the man who is dressing down in solidarity with his people at war, just like Churchill did, why are you not wearing a suit?

This was at-home propaganda, not international diplomacy. And you made the point just then, Helena, about the kind of journalists, qualified journalists, Trump sidelining. I also talked about the BBC reporters who, thanks to them being in the room, actually like shone a light on what happened. And this, I think, is a good time to talk quickly about what we, you and I mean at Media Storm. when we say we exist to call out mainstream media mishaps. Believe it or not, we're actually really grateful to the mainstream media for a lot of its reporting. We rely on it. Our criticisms on the way it's regulated, the way it's monetized, commercialized,

the way it pretends to be much more objective than it actually is, these do not step in tow with the authoritarian and conspiratorial anti-mainstream media campaigns trying to usher in a post-truth world order. At MediaStorm, we are never telling you, do not read the news. We are telling you, here's how to read the news. We're saying actually, go and read it. God knows we do, but take it with a pinch of salt.

Exactly. Ask who reported it. Ask why they reported it. And how their report compares to reports elsewhere. We're not boycotting the mainstream media and we never had. We're just trying to help our listeners navigate it. Media literacy, not conspiracy, that is what we're about.

That's a good tagline. We should add that in. Okay, now can I please talk about Jeff Bezos? Okay, the floor is yours. Okay, this is very relevant to what we've just talked about. Jeff Bezos, the world's third richest man and owner of the Washington Post, intervened this week in the newspaper's editorial output by restricting the kinds of opinion articles the post is allowed to publish.

Having previously claimed he was a hands-off owner of the Washington Post, Bezos emailed staffers last Wednesday morning, and the email read, I'm writing to let you know about a change coming to our opinion pages. We are going to be writing every day in support and defence of two pillars, personal liberties and free markets. We'll cover other topics too, of course, but viewpoints opposing those pillars will be left to be published by others.

There was a time when a newspaper, especially one that was a local monopoly might have seen it as a service to bring to the reader's doorstep every morning a broad-based opinion section that sought to cover all views today the internet does that job. Wow. Personal liberties and free markets

is basically Trumpian values. It is scary how quickly such a respected outlet like The Washington Post, which I pay a decent subscription for or I did until now, can be overnight turned into the president's propaganda instrument. Its tagline is literally democracy dies in darkness. But you know, while it might seem like this happen overnight,

we have to look at the deep-rooted structures of our media that made it possible to happen in the long term because the potential for this to occur was laid as soon as Bezos was allowed to buy the Washington Post, despite such clear conflicts of interest with media independence. And this is not the first time he's pulled the reins. In October, Bezos pulled the papers pro-Kamela Harris endorsement. So this is a clear signal he's made.

moving politically closer to Donald Trump. It's not about owning an independent news organization anymore. It's a political tool to broadcast and protect his own commercial interests. Yeah, you're right. And that gatekeeping media structure that exists here in the UK where I think just three publishers own 90% of all our print media. You know, monopolies are held by multibillionaires like Murdoch, Rothermeir, the Barclays brothers, and they are all primed and ready for if or whenever an authoritarian

leader decides to make them all his bitches. This is why we need MediaStorm, by the way. This is exactly why we need to keep Media Storm alive. Exactly. There is a silver lining, though, listeners, don't despair too much. It's really scary when this lack of pluralism gives a small number of very rich men massive power over information. But people aren't just rolling over. The Opinions editor of the Washington Post, David Shipley, immediately resigned. Former Executive Editor of the Post, Marty Barron, who had actually praised Bezos for a long time, now said that Bezos was basically fearful of Trump. And there were rapid fire cancellations of subscriptions to the Washington Post the day this

email was sent. More than 75,000 digital subscribers have cancelled their memberships since last Wednesday. Including me and I'm personally quite sad to lose access to their crosswords. They did the best ones. Let's do an exercise. It's going to involve listening to that horrible press conference we we were just talking about. Oh my God, please. But I want you to imagine sitting in that chair instead of Zelensky is Netanyahu, Israel's prime minister.

Trump and Vance are putting him under pressure in front of the world's cameras. And here's what they say. Right now you guys are going around and forcing conscripts to the front lines. And I know what happens is you bring people, you bring them on a propaganda tour, Mr. President. You're gambling with World War III. You're gambling with World War III. And what you're doing is very disrespectful to the country, this country. That's back to you.

Far more than a lot of people said they should have. Then you tell us, I don't want a ceasefire. I don't want a ceasefire. I want to go and I want this. Look, if you could get a ceasefire right now, I tell you you take it so the bullets stopped and you meant stuff getting killed. The problem is I've empowered you to be a tough guy. And I don't think you'd be a tough guy without the United States.

Because let me tell you, you don't have the cards. With us, you have the cards. But without us, you don't have any cards. Oh, my God. Literally word for word, this could apply to Netanyahu. Except in reality, Trump is saying it not to the more powerful country illegally occupying its neighbor, but to the occupied neighbor. And meanwhile, on Saturday, Trump approved another $4 billion arms sale to Israel,

bypassing Congress by using an emergency authority. Bear in mind, he just this morning as we record Wednesday morning, he rejected the Arab League's plan to rebuild Gaza. This is their alternative to his Riviera plan. Because, to quote his national security spokesperson, it does not address the reality that Gaza is currently uninhabitable, and residents cannot humanely live in a territory covered in debris and unexploded ordinance. My God.

I.e. the Arab League plan doesn't involve forcibly displacing or Palestinians from Gaza. And now just think about this excuse, this reason. In the context of the US arms sale, I just mentioned, $4 billion, it includes more than 35,000, 2,000-pound bombs to be used against where do we think? Oh my God, this is truly terrifying. for the people and the children of Palestine. And I think this brings us very neatly onto Eyes on Palestine. This is where I want to point to one huge mainstream media mishap this week. The framing of the US and Israeli positions on the ceasefire in Gaza.

Let me read you some headlines I woke up to this week. Israel backs US proposal to extend ceasefire in Gaza Daily Mail. Israel agrees on U.S. U.S. plan for temporary ceasefire in Gaza through Ramadan and Jewish Passover. The mirror. Hamas rejects Israeli request to extend first phase of Gaza ceasefire. Sky News. And finally, Israel adopts U.S. proposal to extend truth over Ramadan. Hamas rejects it. Jewish news syndicate. So the impression you get from these headlines, right, is U.S. and Israel want a ceasefire. And the obstacle is Hamas. They haven't agreed yet.

Yeah, totally. But what's actually happened is not the US and Israel asking to prolong the ceasefire. It's asking to postpone the ceasefire, which was set to progress to its second stage, beyond the captive exchanges we've had so far, and onto real conversations about a long-term peace and governance plan for the region. It's the delay of the ceasefire that Hamas hasn't agreed to. So basically the opposite impression of those headlines you just read out. Yeah.

And there was a smattering of mainstream media that actually had headlines coming closer to accuracy. Like Time Magazine, who phrased it, Israel tries to impose a different ceasefire plan on Hamas. Or the FT, who wrote, Israel seeks Gaza ceasefire extension while shunning talks to end war. It's like what we spoke about last week with compliant language.

Headlines hoping to rewrite truths by repeating the words and names chosen carefully by politicians to describe what they're doing. Yeah, and it plays right into Netanyahu's hands by framing Hamas as the ones who don't want the ceasefire days after the US literally sends it like tens of thousands of new bombs. And this gives him an excuse to actually break the ceasefire. I'm not saying, you know, Hamas is holier than now,

but our governments are not arming Hamas. They are arming Israel and backing a US authoritarian president who wants to ethnically cleanse Palestinians from the region. And look, there are good reasons that many suspect Netanyahu who want to end the ceasefire, so helping him pin it on Hamas or pin it purely on Hamas would be a huge media failure.

Netanyahu was reportedly pressured into agreeing for a ceasefire in the first place against his will by factors that have since expired, things like fear of complicating his ongoing criminal trial or the army's objections to his moves or American criticism and most of all, the Israeli hostages

who were held captive in Gaza. But since then, many hostages have been released, including the most politically sensitive, foreign nationals, women, children and the elderly. And there are indications of what he wants that we've barely seen up front in Western media. The fact that Israel itself violated the captive exchange deal, blocking the last Palestinian releases after the last release of living Israeli captives had gone ahead. Also, not withdrawing the army from the Philadelphia corridor along the border between Gaza and Egypt.

And now the fact that he's not willing to begin the deal's second phase as planned. Yes, and I just want to add to that, that on Monday, Israel said it's stopping the entry of all goods and supplies into Gaza. I just read that exactly how it's been reported. What has failed to be made clear in many reports is that international humanitarian law makes clear that aid access must be allowed. And that story did not make a single front page, at least in British mainstream. media the morning that it was announced. Thank you for listening. Tomorrow, our deep dive looks at paternity and maternity leave in the UK and why it is

just not working. 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 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.

You can follow us on social media at Matilda Mal at Helen Awadier and follow the show by at MediaStormPod. MediaStorm is an award-winning podcast produced by Helena Wadia and Matilda Mallinson. The music is by Samfire. International Festival of Authors brings you a world of stories all in one place. Discover five days of readings, talks, workshops and more, with over 100 authors from around the world, including Rachel Maddow, Ketourou Isaku and Kieran Desai. The Toronto International Festival of Authors, October 29th to November 2nd. Details and tickets at Festivalof Authors.ca.