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- [00:01]
Host/Anchor
This week on the take, we're marking.
- [00:03]
Reporter/Correspondent
One year since a pair of devastating.
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Host/Anchor
Earthquakes hit Turkey and Syria with a new digital interactive.
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Reporter/Correspondent
Listen and watch stories of survival, recovery.
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Host/Anchor
And coping with the grief@al jazeera.com earthquakes.
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Reporter/Correspondent
Again, that's al jazeera.com earthquakes.
- [00:34]
Narrator/Lead Correspondent
We begin with an apocalyptic story that gets nowhere near the news coverage it deserves. The civil war in Sudan, the atrocious effect on civilians there, children and the foreign players out for themselves that are part of the mix. The West Bank, Israeli settlers on the rampage and the American journalist who saw it all, captured it on camera. Plus, we know how they report at home. But have you seen what these Indian journalists get up to when they go to work outside of the country? With repeated ceasefire violations in Gaza and efforts underway there to prevent a return to a full scale war, we're turning our attention to another catastrophic story. Sudan. The country has been at war Since April of 2023, when fighting erupted between the Sudanese Armed Forces, the SAF, once the army of the former dictator Omar Al Bashir, and the Rapid Support forces, the rsf, a militia group with a long history of atrocities in Darfur that now wants power for itself. This has been a brutal war. The massacres, the deliberate starvation, sexual abuse. Millions of people uprooted. But unlike Gaza, Sudan's story struggles to make it into the headlines. Right now, the RSF is laying siege to the city of Al Fashr in northern Darfur. Food has all but run out there, so has medicine, all while foreign made bombs and shells fall from the sky. The scale of the suffering, the brutality on civilians and countless children is unimaginable. And yet many global media outlets, for various reasons, keep looking the other way. This is a story that even when taking Gaza into account, is about the biggest humanitarian crisis on the planet by far. Where 13 million Sudanese people have been displaced up to 150,000 killed. Where the city of El Fashr in Darfur has been under siege for more than 500 days. Where, because of the dangers on the ground, the reporting often resorts to imagery that comes from space via satellites that provide glimpses of the scale of the destruction, but not the suffering. A conflict where the warring factions are known through their acronyms, the SAF versus the rsf. And where the coverage is frequently mia, missing in action because of all the things that journalists are up against and the lack of attention of the international media.
- [03:20]
Expert/Analyst
The crisis in Al Fashir, with its terrifying numbers of deaths and crimes, amounts to a genocide. But it's not received the necessary Media attention For many reasons, the city is under siege, making it hard for the media to reach it. Journalists there face catastrophic conditions.
- [03:39]
Journalism Ethics Commentator
There are two elements that prevent this news of coming out. One of them is a blackout of the Internet. There is a campaign against information coming out. There are scores of journalists that have been killed, not only in Al Fashed, but throughout the country.
- [03:57]
Expert/Analyst
Then you have the international factors, the influential foreign powers that have vested interests in keeping Al Fashr's crisis in the dark.
- [04:07]
Narrator/Lead Correspondent
El Fahr is the last stronghold that the SAF has in the province of Darfur. The militia group enforcing the siege, the rsf, comes from that same region. It grew out of another militia, the Janjaweed, the so called devils on horseback who terrorized Darfur in the early 2000s. Once this war broke out in 2023, the RSF seized much of the capital, Khartoum. After losing that ground earlier this year, it turned west back home to consolidate its power in Darfur. Now it is bombing El Fashr mercilessly in a siege that has prevented food and aid from reaching the people there. One aid organization says that over a recent two week period, 327 children were killed in RSF artillery attacks. Another 171 children died of starvation. Anyone trying to flee the city or to smuggle aid in risks running into RSF fighters who carry out horrific war crimes. Lynchings, torture, executions. Often filmed and shared online videos intended for audiences both domestic and international, posted by militiamen who don't even bother to hide their faces.
- [05:29]
Reporter/Correspondent
There was one video, a woman lynched and hung from a tree by an RSF soldier who showed his face to the camera. This really demonstrate the impunity, but also how we got here is that effectively they can get away with murder. And the RSF is trying to speak to the international community to say effectively we are the power and we will do what we want.
- [05:50]
Journalism Ethics Commentator
The rapid support forces know full well that they don't have the legitimacy in the territories that they seek to control. They enact severe forms of violence and disseminate these messages throughout Sudan to really send a signal that if, if people do not comply with their control, what they see is going to happen to them. Legitimacy then is derived through extreme forms of performative violence.
- [06:18]
Narrator/Lead Correspondent
The fighting is taking place between army units loyal to the two generals. At the start of this conflict, it was routinely framed by international journalists as a war between two generals. The RSF's Mohammad Hamdan Dagalo and the SAF's Abdelfattah Al Burhan.
- [06:38]
Regional Media Analyst
Fighting a dangerous power struggle between two Sudanese generals.
- [06:42]
Narrator/Lead Correspondent
That framing had elements of truth to it, but it was misleading. This is not just a power struggle between men in uniform. It is partially fueled by foreign interests and global supply chains. Take the Chinese made drones now bombarding Darfur, weapons the RSF reportedly receives through the United Arab Emirates. The UAE's ties to Sudan go back decades. But when the country's longtime dictator Omar Al Bashir was ousted in 2019, the UAE formed an alliance with the RSF to ensure the continued flow of a commodity that Sudan has plenty, gold.
- [07:24]
Expert/Analyst
This is a very complex war in involving gold ports, economic interests and rivalries between major countries in a strategically important region. It's part of the struggle over natural gas and mineral resources. It's also part of the struggle over the Red Sea between China and the United States. So describing the conflict as a fight between two generals is a misleading and simplistic characterization.
- [07:50]
Reporter/Correspondent
The uae, of course, denies arming the rsf. It denies any role that it doesn't frame as humanitarian on Sudan. But we know that it has a stake in the Red Sea and the commercial traffic that goes through there. Sudan is Africa's third largest producer of gold and has been sort of propping up the Dubai gold markets. And we know that the UAE sees Sudan, which has very fertile flat lands, as, you know, a very important part of its food resources, not just now, but in the future.
- [08:21]
Narrator/Lead Correspondent
From the very first week of this war, mainstream media outlets in Sudan started to disappear. Most were based in Khartoum, where the fighting was initially centered. Multiple news organizations were taken out, their buildings destroyed. Of the journalists who tried to stay on the story, more than 30 of them have been killed, many of them targeted. That has left Sudanese civilians increasingly reliant on international news out outlets operating in English or Arabic. The problem, there isn't enough coverage coming from the outside. And the Sudanese cannot even get access to what does get reported in a war zone where both sides have imposed sustained Internet blackouts to suppress the news from getting out.
- [09:10]
Reporter/Correspondent
So to get independent media right now in Sudan is very, very difficult. A lot of the news that is is taken seriously in Sudan is international media.
- [09:19]
Indian Media Critic
We've just crossed into North Dart Forward.
- [09:21]
Reporter/Correspondent
A place that's been virtually impenetrable to journalists over the last two years of war in Sudan. And this is what makes the dearth of international coverage of Sudan so worrying.
- [09:30]
Narrator/Lead Correspondent
Our correspondent Noel Al Magharfi has been.
- [09:33]
Regional Media Analyst
On a rare trip to Sudan's capital, Khartoum.
- [09:36]
Reporter/Correspondent
We need to see much more resources being put into Sudan, into bringing reporters into the country, but also also using the reporters available in the country, both in English and Arabic. What we need to see more of and what a lot of people have been calling for is greater sustained attention on Sudan.
- [09:52]
Journalism Ethics Commentator
The same reasons motivations that lead journalists to risk their lives elsewhere are the same ethics that Sudanese journalists have. Despite all that they're up against, despite the blackouts in the Internet that are done on purpose, despite the drone attacks that oftentimes target them specifically, despite the summary detentions, executions that occur, despite the fact that female journalists are targeted disproportionately now. So the international community and journalists worldwide need to know that that continues.
- [10:23]
Expert/Analyst
The absence of Internet, electricity and professional journalism has turned Sudan's war into an arena of disinformation where false or misleading news dominate the media landscape. The absence of on the ground journalism gives the warring parties cover to commit further massacres. These are not just numbers. These are families, human beings. I wish these numbers were humanized to reflect the horror of what Sudanese people are facing. There is immense suffering that's not getting the media attention it deserves.
- [11:00]
Narrator/Lead Correspondent
To the occupied west bank now, where this past week, an American journalist, Jasper Nathaniel, encountered Israeli settlers on the rampage, backed up by the Israeli military in the Palestinian town of Turmu. Ryan Cowles has been following this story and spoke with Nathaniel about what he saw.
- [11:19]
Field Reporter
Jasper Nathaniel was there to document the kind of Israeli settler violence that has become routine in the occupied West Bank. The difference this time was that he caught it all on camera. The American journalist was accompanying Palestinian farmers during their annual olive harvest. He says Israeli soldiers directed them to take a route that led them directly into a settler ambush. As they were getting chased, Nathaniel captured the moment one of these Israeli settlers attacked an elderly Palestinian woman, repeatedly bludgeoning her even as she lay on the ground defenseless.
- [11:51]
Eyewitness/Interviewee
What that image doesn't capture is just how chaotic this scene behind that was. We saw him knock her unconscious, and then by the time we caught up to them, he was standing over her and he had already struck her several more times. I remember then thinking, this is the ugly face of what the state of Israel has become. Nobody is safe from the settlers. They can steal land, they can steal homes, they can beat people, they can kill people.
- [12:29]
Field Reporter
Across the occupied West Bank, Israeli authorities have tightened the screws on journalists. They face harassment, arrest, violence, and restrictions on their movements. Given this was how an American journalist was treated, one can imagine what the reality is like for Palestinians. Nathaniel says that what happened in the days after demonstrates a pattern Initially the Israelis do some damage control, followed by impunity for the settlers involved.
- [12:54]
Eyewitness/Interviewee
After I caught that incident on camera and it was seen by a lot of people around the world the next day they had a peaceful harvest and the soldiers were there protecting the farmers. It was very clear that it was a PR crisis that they were trying to solve. In fact, the soldiers told me as much that it made them look very bad and they were unhappy about it. And then the next day they were kicking journalists and activists out of the olive fields, getting rid of people who can document it just like they have done in Gaza where they've been systematically killing journalists. And I think you don't have to be a genius to trace those events.
- [13:32]
Field Reporter
We've seen this playbook before. The Israeli military trying to save face after it gets caught out before going back to business as usual. What set this attack apart? The there was an American journalist there to report on it, forcing the Israeli authorities to own up to it.
- [13:47]
Narrator/Lead Correspondent
Thanks, Ryan. In the nearly 20 years that the Listening Post has been reporting on the global media, no news and information landscape has been transformed as profoundly as India's has reporting on the world's most populous country. The media there are vast, influential and over the past decade have become increasingly toxically jingoistic. Domestically, Indian news outlets, particularly television news channels, constantly get called out for their sensationalism, their partisan deference to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government and their reluctance to challenge corporate or political abuses of power. And those news organizations are now having a spillover effect across borders. Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Nepal have all recently experienced political upheaval, changes at the top. And the Indian media coverage of those South Asian stories has often been inaccurate, gloating and divisive. The Listening Post's Meenakshi Ravi now on how India's media are shaping and straining New Delhi's relationships with other countries. In the neighborhood.
- [15:11]
Host/Anchor
Amidst the political protests that gripped Nepal last month, scenes like these played out a few too many times for comfort. Indian journalists heckled, chased, even assaulted. For many Nepalese protesters, these reporters weren't journalists doing their jobs, but rather mouthpieces of a political agenda from a larger, more powerful neighbour.
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Indian Media Critic
Television in India today is suffering a large scale credibility crisis. Whether it is about sensationalizing a whole bunch of issues, whether it is about conducting communal debates day in and day out, whether it is about really trying to sound patriotic and hyper nationalist and you lose objectivity of coverage.
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Field Reporter
Thank you for joining us and staying.
- [16:14]
Host/Anchor
With us here on our special broadcast. Proud to be Indian and not doing.
- [16:17]
Indian Media Critic
The very basic of journalism, which is asking questions to those in power and authority. So the kind of decline and credibility crisis that started within India, that has spilled over as a larger image problem in the neighborhood, you know, where Indian channels are followed closely with the Indian.
- [16:33]
Regional Media Analyst
Media, it becomes, I think, especially frustrating for Nepalese because in a way, if there is one country and if there is one media that should know Nepal better, it is India. The depth of the relationship, both government to government, people to people. Yet that is not the case. I think that the Indian media has really swept in to pay closer attention to Nepal only at moments of great crisis, but without having close, nuanced understanding, reporting, etc. Through the interims, it becomes very difficult to report well or to make sense of events when everything is moving this fast.
- [17:10]
Host/Anchor
It was some of those failures in reporting that got Indian media heckled in Nepal. In one viral clip, a reporter was visibly excited when he found a group of young protesters delivering exactly the message he seemed to be looking for.
- [17:37]
Regional Media Analyst
I don't know the circumstances around that interview, but whatever they might be, the NDTV anchor just latches onto that and immediately starts pushing the line.
- [17:46]
Indian Media Critic
They're saying they need a prime minister.
- [17:48]
Narrator/Lead Correspondent
Exactly like Narendra Modi for their progress, for their development.
- [17:52]
Regional Media Analyst
And where it gets even more ridiculous is that you have another Indian channel, Times now, which takes, I would imagine, significant pains to pinpoint exactly the same guy and to get him to say exactly the same thing. This narrative that's being created, that Nepal wants Modi or a leader like Modi, that this moment is about something like a resurgence of the demand for a Hindu state in Nepal that is so completely off the mark compared to what is actually happening here, that it really doesn't take a genius to see through the games that the Indian media is trying to play.
- [18:31]
Indian Media Critic
Nepal Ko Hindu Raj Rabanane kimaang te hogai hai.
- [18:35]
Regional Media Analyst
And I think it's also becoming very, very clear that the Indian media's priorities are not in any way connected to giving people a realistic assess and a realistic reflection of what is happening here.
- [18:46]
Host/Anchor
We wrote to NDTV and Times now asking for their response to that critique, that their journalism can be so focused on a predetermined narrative that it's often at odds with a more complex reality. Neither outlet wrote back, even though we followed up. Nepal, however, is just the latest amongst a number of India's neighbours where Indian media have developed a poor reputation. When protests in Bangladesh forced Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to resign last year, Indian Channels were all over the story. Remember, the big news that's come in from Bangladesh is how Sheikh Haseena has resigned. Sheikh Hasina had long been an ally of India. Her relationship with Prime Minister Modi was notably close. Since her ouster, she's been living in New Delhi. So to many Bangladeshis, Indian media's coverage of the protests and their outcome seemed coloured by the fact that it was a Modi ally who had fallen from power.
- [19:39]
South Asia Political Commentator
Indian media exactly when Hossina's regime fell, Indian media started saying that Bangladesh has collapsed, that it no longer exists, that it's turning into a stateless country, that its economic foundations have disappeared. The Indian media was also propagating that extremists, Islamists or reactionary groups were the ones protesting against the Hossina regime, that ordinary people had no connection with these protests.
- [20:18]
Indian Media Critic
Bangladesh, I think the mainstream Indian television that went in, they wanted to communalize the agenda so much more by talking about the constant attacks on the minorities there. There was a large exaggeration also in the initial reporting. Of course, what's happening in Bangladesh today is fight worrisome. On hindsight, one is forced to question did the protests really lead to something positive or something more dangerous for the country? Having said that, if you see the kind of dislike the people had for the mainstream voices because they thought that they were coming in, they were sermonizing Bangladeshis what to do. They thought that there was a. The political Big Brother attitude was seeping in through the media.
- [20:52]
Host/Anchor
The Indian media's crisis of credibility is felt most acutely within India itself. In the decades since Narendra Modi's right wing government came to power, India's media has undergone a profound shift. Ownership of major outlets has become increasingly concentrated in the hands of political and corporate allies. Critical journalists have been silenced through lawsuits, police action and job losses. India's ranking on the Global Press Freedom Index has also slipped from 140 when Modi took office in 2014 to 151 this year. Among the most toxic players in this landscape are India's television news channels. In the Modi era, they have perfected a formula. Nationalism, noise and endless debate.
- [21:38]
Indian Media Critic
Barring the odd exception of one or two Indian mainstream television channels, most of them today, they have fallen into the trap of more noise and less information. So whether it's a conflict with Pakistan, where you suddenly see Indian television channels announcing that the Indian armed forces have captured Lahore, Karachi, things which are not true, you see a lot of jingoism, a lot of hyper talk. So when you do that you just look like you're turning yourself into a.
- [22:19]
South Asia Political Commentator
Circus with neighbouring countries. There is a dependence on each other. However, if one of the two countries, especially the larger one, takes advantage of the situation, that is abuse. Indian media is so skewed in favor of the Hindutva ideology and consistently abuses the access and influence it has in Bangladesh. If the Hindutva, the people of Bangladesh, closely, if they had reported honestly, they could have preserved the long standing goodwill that Bangladeshis feel for India and its media. But they did everything to destroy that trust.
- [22:55]
Regional Media Analyst
I think the Indian government's domestic agendas certainly have a massive impact on the way that the Indian media is covering the neighborhood. More and more you're seeing that those domestic, domestic narratives take priority over actually doing good journalism on the ground and giving Indian news consumers a fair picture of what is happening in Bangladesh.
- [23:17]
Journalism Ethics Commentator
The minorities are up in arms.
- [23:20]
Narrator/Lead Correspondent
Pakistan Ko ni nd nayaribura.
- [23:25]
Regional Media Analyst
If these channels are meant to act as a propaganda arm or as some kind of strategic extension of Indian government policy, it's very important to ask, are they really helping? It's also becoming increasingly clear that Indian media actually hinders Indian interests in the region. If these channels are meant to act as some kind of aid in terms of India being able to promote its own interests in the region, I think that it's becoming increasingly clear that this media is actually a liability.
- [24:00]
Narrator/Lead Correspondent
And finally, ever since Donald Trump announced his ceasefire agreement in Gaza, which the Israelis have repeatedly violated, the US President has been exporting envoys and cabinet members to Israel to make sure that things are going according to plan. It's a practice that both Americans and Israelis have described as BB sitting. Vice President J.D. vance was in Israel on Tuesday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Thursday. Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner are constantly in and out, all to make sure that Benjamin Netanyahu sticks to the terms of the US brokered deal. That's led to some fun takes on X. Wondering which Republican might be next up on the Bibi sitting list? Could it be RFK Jr. And there was this cartoon from the Israeli paper Haaretz where the American babysitters tell Netanyahu he can play with his toy tanks and bombers, quote, unquote, a little bit more. But then it's straight to bed. It is such an odd story that when you boil it down, satirize, it says so much about the relationship between Washington and Tel Aviv. With such a precarious ceasefire hanging over the people of Gaza, their fate is being decided by outsiders and a white house that has to strong arm Netanyahu not to blow up this deal and go back to his genocidal ways.