 been living there for about five and a half years in March 2020. And obviously, we were all starting to become aware of the pandemic that's now in the news all the time. But at that point, I started to notice that a lot of people were leaving Egypt and testing positive for COVID when they returned. And so I because the Egyptian government wasn't exactly being upfront in terms of their data collection, which is pretty normal, unfortunately, for the Egyptian government. I did some reporting and spoke to scientists who had modelled the likely size of the COVID-19 outbreak in Egypt at that time. This was at a time when the Egyptian government officially said they had three cases. And these Canadian scientists had modelled the size of the outbreak in Iran, in the United States, in countries all around the world, but in Egypt, this proved to be a problem. And they estimated that the likely size of the outbreak at that time was between six and a half thousand to 45,000 cases. Obviously, quite a large amount of possibility there, but that's what happens when you don't have real data to work with. It's a scientific model. The Egyptian government were furious that I had cited this scientific model and stripped me of my press card and then quickly began pressuring me to go to a body that is run by the security services in their words so that they could see my visa. And at that point, I got some information from I'm a dual national, German-British national. I spoke to the German embassy who said, we don't think you should go to disappointment. We believe that you're going to be arrested. And pretty soon after that, the British embassy informed me that the Egyptian security services were asking me to leave the country. That request, I assume, was not as polite as the way that they phrased it. And the message was pretty clear, which was that I had to leave or I would be arrested. There are journalists, Egyptian journalists, one in particular, who were near, who was arrested for reporting on the COVID-19 pandemic after I was expelled from the country. And he actually got COVID in prison and died. So the states of this are high, the states of looking at the reality of the pandemic in Egypt and its effect on Egyptian citizens is extremely high. And what the government said to me when they brought me in for a kind of interrogation with the head of the state information service, which is the body that issues press cards, but they're also in communication with the security, is that they said that I was spreading panic by talking about the likely size of the outbreak. And that's obviously stayed with me because the idea that you would be informed about the reality around you and the real nature of a viral disease that has obviously affected us all in some way, but that you would have good information as a random citizen about what's happening, that that is a threat. I think really says a lot about their attitude, not just towards journalism, not just towards press freedom, but also towards basic science and how you think about reality. So that gives you some picture of what the situation is like for journalists. It's funny. I mean, I think it was 1998. I had my visa withdrawn as well, but I never feared being arrested. And in fact, in those days, I think that there was a sense that you had a protection. And there's certainly the Britain. I mean, I'm a British national would back me. And there would be a kind of outcry if you were arrested. Al Jazeera's had someone in jail for four years. And it, you know, lucky was reported on some very fine journalists, but it was kind of just accepted. I mean, do you think that that has happened when someone's regime like in a military regime like I know he was supposedly elected, but he was a military regime that, you know, is just kind of tolerated in the Western in the sense that it wasn't perhaps 20 years ago. I know you weren't working. I mean, I think that there is, I mean, we've seen unfortunate tolerance towards dictators all over the world from Western nations for decades, unfortunately, right? That part unfortunately is not new. I think what is different is that governments now, I mean, I think particularly for example, the French government, the British government's probably also quite a good example, but you know, the French government will happily sell, you know, Abdul Fatah sees he plenty of weaponry and I'll sell him surveillance equipment, which he uses to spy on citizens and journalists and all kinds of people, but they will also turn around and then talk about press freedom and not see those two things as mutually exclusive. And, or rather, they don't see them as interlinked, they view them as mutually exclusive, sorry. And I think the British government does this as well, the German government does it, which is to say, oh, well, you know, we have to sell these dictators weapons, which is in many ways the only thing that they care about as long as businesses are coming in and money is coming in, they view that as support. And then if, you know, if Cici has to stand up next to Emmanuel Macron, who gave him the lesion donner recently, or he has to stand, you know, next to Boris Johnson and, you know, they sort of talk about, you know, his leadership, or maybe they make some kind of criticism about human rights or press freedom, that's a minor embarrassment that they just have to weather. And I think journalists get caught up in that as well, that journalists, foreign journalists, especially domestic journalists, are not prioritized at all in that discussion. That's that I think that that is, you know, the welfare of journalists is increasingly sidelined. And just one thing that I wanted to add, which is that in this context, you know, we can talk about press freedom as something that seems quite theoretical and quite expensive. And I think the one thing that this situation in Egypt really taught me is that sometimes press freedom can be extremely it can function in this very bureaucratic way, where governments actually have lots of opportunities to influence and do things about it. And they often miss it. And so it can be something as simple as making sure that journalists can have press cards, where they can operate legally, Egypt cracks down on this all the time and doesn't let journalists work by not issuing them press cards, it can really affect how you're able to work in a country like that, where these things are mandatory. And, you know, foreign governments have every opportunity to be able to influence the Egyptian government to make that happen. And sometimes they miss those opportunities. It's very easy and they could do it. And they often they miss out. You mentioned there about surveillance, the sale of cryptography, which of course is a very significant earner for Western countries, state of Israel as well, and particularly in the Middle East. And I think that, you know, in terms of this whole discussion, we're framing it at the changes that have taken place, perhaps over the last decade, the last two decades. And that probably comes, you know, up the top of the kind of issues that journalists now have to be concerned about. So, you know, Tim Dawson, I mean, your group, an expert group on surveillance. Tell us about it. Thank you. Yes, I'd be delighted to. So, I mean, the group that I convene is a part of the International Federation of Journalists, which is the organization that brings together journalists, trade unions from all around the world, about 600,000 journalists in all. My own union, the National Union of Journalists in the UK and Ireland is one of its larger affiliates. So, that's what the, that's what the IFJ is. It's worth, I mean, before I talk about surveillance, per se, it's worth, and I, you know, because I appreciate this is quite a general audience and I was asked to kind of explain things from first principles, just to understand why the surveillance of journalists is such an issue. And it really is because confidential sources go to the root of a lot of good journalism. I noticed the other day that an old friend of mine, Andrew Jennings, had died. He famously is the man who kind of really undermined a corrupt regime, both at the International Olympic Commission and at FIFA. Early in his FIFA campaign, he sort of shambled into a press conference at which the FIFA high brass were announcing, oh, I don't know, the draw for this cup or the television rights for something else. And he attracted the attention of the chair and he said, my question is, Mr. Setblatter, I want you to tell me about the bribes that you've been taking. And of course, there was no way that Setblatter was going to put his hands up and say, oh, yes, of course, now you ask the question, I'll detail more for you. Jennings was thrown out of the press conference, the press conference was closed down. It was all, you know, FIFA hoped it was just a kind of minor embarrassment. But what he had done was announced that he was the person who was interested in corruption at FIFA. And he was gambling that there will be lots of people in the middle management of that organization who would feel like he did, that it was wrong, and would want somebody to discreetly hand information to. And that ability to take confidential information in absolute confidence, the kind of holy grail of journals that we protect our sources, that they remain confidential, is at the heart of why surveillance is so important. I mean, we learned, if there was any doubt in August, just how systematically journalists' communication devices were penetrated when Forbidden Stories ran their fantastic expose of the Pegasus software, which were being used by, I don't know, nearly 20 pretty unwholesome regimes around the world to listen in on journalists and to try and work out who were the sources passing information about their nefarious practices. But I mean, to be perfectly honest, for all that, that was a fantastic story. And, you know, there were at least 180 journalists on whose phones the software had been found, including incredibly the editor of the Financial Times in London. You know, a lot of this really we've known about for quite some time, you know, Edward Snowden's revelation showed that the National Security Agency had profound listening apparatus that allowed them to spy on almost anybody in the US population and probably around the world. In fact, at a meeting the NEJ had at the home office, people who I think we can be fairly confident where MI5 officials admitted to us that there weren't phones in the UK that they couldn't turn on and listen into if they wanted to. Before the Investigator of Powers Act in 2016, there were a whole string of cases where for very lazy reasons, police forces particularly tapped or looked at the communications data of journalists to try and work out who had leaked pretty minor and uninteresting stories from Windows forces. So we know that where there is the capacity to snoop on digital communications, it's almost irresistible for those who can do it if they do it unseen to try and do so. So what the what the IFJs, in fact we're called the working group on the surveillance of journalists does is tries to collect information from around the world whenever we hear of cases where this has happened and share it in such a way that it can be dispersed as widely as possible in the hope that journalists can keep at least half a step ahead of the security agencies but I mean actually it's by no means just security agencies, technology which you know a decade ago was accessible only to state players is now widely available to criminal sources. So imagining that it's only if you're doing national security stories that these kind of things become a worry is not even deed. I've spoken with people who develop software that aspires to combat these risks who say you know there are at least 20 different programs which in one way or another without you're knowing it can infect your phone and can provide other people with information and data about what you're doing. So trying to keep the concern about that at the front of journalists minds really is a large part of our purpose. I mean part of that actually is saying to journalists don't assume that your smartphone is your friend it's a fantastic tool it's really useful all these apps are brilliant but there are occasions in your life when it's better left at home and if you're going to do that it's as well to try and develop working practices so that the one time that you leave the house without your smartphone isn't the time that alerts people who are watching you to that being when you're going to go meet a confidential source so try and build up patterns of work that would confuse those who might use your smartphone to snoop on you. I mean actually the NEJ in the UK has just launched a kind of a whole suite of online training modules under the banner of NEJStoriesSmart.com free to use by anybody who wants to do so which includes modules on how you can A make communications devices safer and B tradecraft practices to try and make journalism safer and more effective and it's worth I mean I noticed early this week that the investigatory past commissioner had had produced their annual report in which they detail the surveillance that's been undertaken on journalists phones in the past year now when this legislation was passed I mean that there had been a raft of notorious cases Tom Newton's phone records being being searched to try and find out who had leaked to him about Andrew Mitchell the plebgate story you know really you know not stories that were in any sense of national importance they were just annoying to the police when the investigatory powers act was passing the NEJ and lots of other people the press cassette runner very impressive and effective Save Our Sources campaign said to the government we believe that when agencies like the police want to look at a journalist's phone records they should have to go to a judge in public and to explain why they want to do that and let it be decided by a judge in public now the government turned that down and they said no the legislation they passed means that for a police force to look at a journalist's phone records they have to go to a judicial commissioner which is essentially it's like a judge but they can do so in private so they can do so without the journalists knowing that it's happening but if the evidence of the investigatory powers commissioners report is to be believed and I have no reason to think that it isn't the very fact of that process has reduced the number of applications from scores every year to literally half a dozen most of which were turned down and that's been I mean that was the result of a kind of mass campaign by journalists and journalists organizations that even if it didn't get quite as far as we might have hoped was genuinely effective and you can point it and say that really has made a dramatic difference to that particular route to surveilling journalists and I mean it says to me I mean we're running a campaign at the moment in the UK about the Official Secrets Act which you mentioned the government are planning to reform it and in their consultation they talk about treating journalists more severely than foreign agents which is frankly a terrifying prospect but our success with the Investigatory Powers Act makes me think it really is worthwhile saying to people you know take that issue to you know find out a bit more about it and then go to your own MP and say this is why I'm concerned about it this is why I want you to act in my name when you're in Parliament this is why if you believe in a free society if you believe in a free media it's vital that we don't allow this kind of legislative creep to impinge on the area where free expression takes place. I mean John Rees do you see this somewhat dystopic view of mass surveillance society and you know governments basically bypassing the kind of human rights and protections that journalists had particularly also on whistleblowers which of course is what Tim Dawson began speaking about the need to protect whistleblowers. I mean do you see that in the last decade and you know remember in the backcloth of of Assange, Julian Assange and his leads and you know Edward Snowden do you see this as a pattern that we should be concerned about? I think the the urge to do this is certainly certainly there inside the institutions of the state and inside this particular government at quite an advanced stage and I guess one of the points I'd like to make is that the question of the ability of journalists to do their job without state harassment is inevitably and integrally linked to wider questions of freedom of speech and freedom to organise and this government understands that very very clearly the things that it's doing with regard to journalists if you look at the police bill at the official secret new official secret act that Tim's already mentioned if you look at the material. Can you just fill us in a little bit more about those two acts and what they would mean or at least if they'd become inactive? Well the the police bill is one that's destined to make the whole business of political activism a lot lot more difficult than it is at the moment and still stay within the law. I mean pretty fatalities advocating this on the grounds that it for instance if you make a noise which is irritating residents in the area then you're conducting an illegal demonstration well you know I've organised a good many demonstrations in my time including the 1.5 million march against the Iraq war and it's pretty hard to do an effective demonstration without disturbing the neighbourhood really and probably most people would say it's impossible to do an effective demonstration without doing so so if this were taken literally if the police were to act on the powers that they would be given under this it would make the business of effective political protest essentially illegal. I think the official secrets act I think it's most chilling aspect is the one that that Tim's mentioned they are taking a leaf directly out of the United States prosecution of Julian Assange which is under the 1917 espionage act if he's taken to the United States and ends up in a court in the United States that's the act you'll be charged under there's never been a prosecution of a journalist under that act it is obviously meant to deal with espionage as its name suggests all this stems from Mike Pompeo's speech when he was head of the CIA saying that he regarded WikiLeaks as a non-state espionage organisation now there's a non-secretary espionage is about one state spying on another state a non-state espionage organisation is something which is trying to put something in the public domain it's not handing it from one secret state to the secret service of another state it's self obvious itself evidently trying to put it in the public domain so to recategorize the business of journalism as espionage brings with it an enormous baggage a dangerous baggage because it is and the official secrets act will encode this in British law it is beginning to treat journalists as if they are spies well John I mean what's happened at Al Jazeera in America under the foreign agents registration act a similar kind of thing and I remember in fact when I joined the BBC as I say 40 years ago now I actually signed I was forced to sign the official secrets act but at that time regardless it's somewhat antiquated I think it was from 1911 or something you know a rather sort of you know ancient piece of something that meant that perhaps you know you you know it didn't really have any relevance to me at the time but what you're saying now that if I were to find mouth you know serious wrongdoing for example involving British soldiers or about the any institutions of state in terms of extraditional killings or anything like that and I report that that could be deemed a crime under the official secrets act yes that that's exactly that's exactly what we're talking about and this is the point about the Assange case I mean it's extending the territorial reach of the United States espionage act on a global scale you don't have to be an American journalist you don't have to be working in America but if you expose things that the American state regards as its secrets it can reach across the globe and use its domestic legislation to extradite you and treat you as a spy and this is such a I mean it's such a fundamental question because look there are only really two sources of information aren't there there's official sources of information what governments government departments corporations other institutions society officially released to you and then there's other information that you get from other sources which hasn't been officially released to you now if we're going to narrow what's reported down to the first category and essentially criminalize the second category we aren't going to have very much worthwhile information at all so it's a it's a existential question for a free press well you know it just comes down to I mean I absolutely I think it comes more segues into the whole question of sort of what exactly journalism means today because I mean I personally take the definition that Amira Hess a very good Israeli journalist from that Haaretz newspaper I think she described it as challenging centers of power that that defines what journalism is I mean some not you know but Bial do you believe that many journalists working in Britain or people call themselves journalists shouldn't do so because they're part of the kind of official government machinery that Babs John was referring to. Phil sorry I just missed the first part of the question yeah I was just asking about the sense of what actually it means to be a journalist and you know I mean that in the context of course of looking at you know the growth in social media the way that certain you know correspondence are totally reliant on official sources to do their jobs you know and look I mean Chomsky referred to you know most journalists as propagandists I mean I think he's a propaganda to his to a democracy I think is what a bludgeon is to a dictatorship but words to that effect and you know I mean do you believe that the very definition of journalism needs to have clarity today when we talk about journalism becoming a crime we're not talking about people who reflect power are we amplify powers with their journalism I mean it's an important question given the presence of social media and that I mean unlike becoming a doctor or an engineer you do not really have to do a degree or go through a course to become a journalist anyone putting out information can claim to be a journalist but also as Ruth says journalists and journalistic bodies have certain tools which allow us to perform you know accreditation by the government is a big one licensing that we have institutions behind us so in one sense as you ask me that almost anyone with access to information and being able to put it out in a public domain can claim to be a journalist citizen journalism has come up in a big way this also means that you become part of a huge noise machine and so much is being put out in this conversation around fake news what itself is news what kind of websites are there so this is huge conversations so thus perhaps it is time I feel as you might be suggesting that it's time to redefine or rethink who is a journalist is it somebody who is state recognized and that itself becomes a problem is it somebody with a recognized journalistic body or is anyone who has access to material and can put it out in the public domain but it's putting it out putting things out in the public domain has become much easier so I guess there is a question to be asked that are journalists the ones who question power are journalists anyone anybody who has information and can put it out citizen journalism is a big question in this regard for especially for western journalists and organizations who cannot reach several parts of the world due to various constraints while people from those parts can put out information are they can they be considered journalists are they trained in journalism what kind of protection do they have so yes all these questions do come up when you ask who today perhaps is a journalist well I mean you know what Tim what would you say about Amira Hess's definition there someone who challenges power and therefore one should restrict entry into journalism I say that in the context that you know I mean like when I started you know the BBC it was considered you know an elite group of trained intellectuals who became journalists and you know it didn't it was not speaking to a popular voice and it didn't it denied entry to people it was white oxbridge you know I mean you know how do you get around this problem of defining journalists making it a profession and yet making it democratic as well well I there's a number of things I want to say I mean the first is that clearly there is import in journalism which challenges governments and major corporations which holds truth to power and at some levels that's that's the kind of journalism that we all want to talk about but I think that the threats and risks that are growing to journalists go far wider than that I was I spoke to me today and it came to me that I in the past two or three years I have twice defended people who predominantly wrote about beauty products who were being bullied by cosmetics companies now I don't think any of us would say we're going to go to the wall because the people who write about beauty products are having a hard time of it but they are one end of a spectrum just as our people who write about football people say well you know it's only entertainment it's only a game or we think some people here might feel more passionately about it but but that spectrum of trolling people on social media you know that's only one step to chasing Nick Watt down Downing Street so I think that all of these abuses of people doing journalism are serious important and a part of a whole scene. Secondly I think it's easier to talk about what is journalism than what's a journalist lots of people you know it's perfectly possible for somebody who however valuable might be training and experience it is perfectly possible for people without either to produce competent and important journalism and I think it's that product and the ability to produce that kind of product that we should be defending rather than going to the wall over whether in this territory or that territory you have to have a degree to be a journalist or you have to be a member of a particular organization I think looking at the quality of the work that's done and saying does this meet reasonable tests of separation of fact and opinion of accurate information gathering and so on if it meets those tests and can be called journalism then that's something that I'm in the business of defending somebody who might have got a degree in journalism but is writing a dishonest bent copy in which they're introducing things that didn't happen to try and justify a case I'm I'm for me that's I you know that they can look after themselves. Oh Ruth let me bring you in on that because you know I was in Tunis I think I think it was actually 11 years ago this week or next week I think wasn't it when the Ben Ali regime was toppled in the beginning of the Arab Spring and on several walls it was painted thank you Facebook on the walls through Tunis because it was somehow you know Facebook was something that that actually was was a a motivator engineer of you know the Arab Spring and certainly the uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia. I mean something changed and you know obviously now Facebook is a case of genocide in Myanmar I mean you know what's going on in your view? Well I'm going to disappoint you by not standing up for Facebook no I mean I think what I will what I would say first of all to just to continue on from what you've been saying and to link it to what you've just said is that look we have to stand up for people's ability to share information whoever those people are and when I was talking about you know this idea around press cards those are important in countries that authoritarian regimes that want to define who can share information and say that if you share information that we don't like that means that you're not a journalist which you know authoritarian regimes are very fond of drawing those kinds of arbitrary lines because then they can punish you by taking your press card away for example which is then when we need you know outside intervention or intervention by some external party. In terms of the role of Facebook and people sharing information I mean well I mean what changed was Facebook changed their algorithm somewhere around I believe this was somewhere around 2016 or 2017 they claimed that it was going to help people just talk to you know people in their sense of community I would argue that I don't want Facebook defining what a community is for a number of different reasons I don't think that private organizations should be able to to define community but that's a personal opinion um but they when they changed the algorithm it increased um polarization and meant that people were predominantly sharing faulty information with like-minded people that wanted to hear that faulty information which resulted in a number of different things including um some of the events that we saw in 2016 so you know in terms of talking about standing up for the right to share information I you know I just want to agree with what's been said before which is that yes we have to stand up for the right of people to share verified factual information that's in the public interest but at the same time I think we just have to be very careful getting into a discussion of who is and who isn't a journalist because the moment that you start to draw that line in terms of the person and not the information that's being shared and whether it's in the public interest and whether they should be protected in their ability to say it and to share it on any platform whether that's social media or in um you know or in a newspaper or an online publication I think when you start when it starts becoming about the person and whether you like them or whether you like what they say as opposed to whether what they say is true or relevant or factual or relevant to the public then we move into a situation that I think is more dangerous territory it's much easier to stand up for the information at the start than it is to verify anything social media I mean how can you how can you verify something on Twitter and you know if I can say I mean it's a business model that basically profits from conflict and hatred and obviously the business model improves once you get people fighting each other I mean is that not pretty sick that that should be the case well okay so I listen I'm not obviously going to advocate for the things that Twitter and Facebook have done to increase conflict but those are also human choices that have been made with the algorithms that dictate these platforms so you know there there was human input and decision making on the part of these companies there it wasn't always the case that Twitter and Facebook or any other form of social media was being used to stir conflict there are you know algorithms and not things that just fall out of the sky they're programmed by human beings and you know I think that we are right as a society to hold Facebook and Twitter accountable for the human decisions the policy decisions that they've made and I think that's that's the way to proceed because these things can be used as tools for proper communication as tools for sharing accurate information and people can be held accountable for sharing bad information in public but you know it's it's that's a choice that we make as a society it doesn't just happen I mean John Rhys I mean can I bring you in there obviously you've been you know a phenomenal activist over the years and we'll come back to the polarization of social media maybe in a minute or two but John I mean how do you see something social media now and how it's changed and the key thing surely is how those people on it who believe they are journalists or believe you know okay they are journalists but whose views can be controlled by others not unlike you know Chomsky's basic view of manufacturing consent and we've seen perhaps in the Middle East how governments have now as it were taken over from what was happening in 2011 and managed through political methods or more robust methods to keep the message of rebellion off social media I mean how do you see how that's evolved and how does that relate to sort of journalism and the problem of the criminalizing of it particularly when when people are accused of for example as as Ruth was of you know causing discontent or false news and you know these kind of things are actually enshrined in more in many countries now yes well I think this speaks to the point I was making earlier you cannot sensibly separate the idea of a free press from more general questions of free speech and of the freedom to be able to organize politically because once you start trying to divide that spectrum up you are handing an argument to those who want none of none of that and I mean you know Egypt I mean I was active in in Egypt on and off for 10 years I was one of the organizers of the Cairo conference I was in Egypt for nine out of the 18 days that brought down Mubarak and and afterwards and you know it was absolutely clear to anybody operating in that environment that the ability to effectively protest and the ability to effectively speak freely and the ability to effectively have a free press were all intimately connected in fact the only time in modern Egyptian history when those things existed was when they existed together in the period of the of the insurrection against against Mubarak and since then you know Ruth my experience is the same my political contacts in because I made a couple of documentaries when I was there my political contacts in in Egypt say you can't come back to Cairo now don't think about getting off the plane and when I think about what happened to Julia Regini the Cambridge detailing Cambridge doctorate student who was tortured and murdered by the security services I take that kind of advice very very seriously indeed but the same but the same applies you know not in any in any in any context I think that where there's unaccountable either corporate or political power is where we have to aim the criticism you know when when Facebook changed the algorithm it was in part to limit political debate and there were a very large number of people myself included who got chucked off that platform I never knew why I mean I'm back on it I just created another account but I don't know why that account was closed I wrote to my MP my MP wrote to Facebook asked for an explanation never got one now you can't have a platform as powerful as Facebook which doesn't feel that it even has to give the bland standard template boilerplate reply to a member of parliament that's an unaccountable power and it shouldn't be and it shouldn't be that that way yeah well you know just to bring in some that's actually on this point and to internationalize it I mean we'll come back in a minute to the whole question of polarization but I mean obviously we've heard from Ruth and John about Egypt I mean the Narendra Modi government in India seems to have restricted political debate restrict you know criminalized journalists listened into them as we heard one of the panelists say earlier obviously using Pegasus I mean just tell us a bit about India because I live there at one point and you know India was always a relatively free society maybe dominated by a certain caste and you know it had its perhaps its issues but it was relatively free how would you say that things have changed there and is that an example that can apply anywhere else around the world India has changed and when were you there Phil just to understand I'm afraid it was in the early 90s so right I was I was again but he was when Rajiv Gandhi was killed there was an uprising in Punjab at that time the Kalistan movement so it was around that issues right so Rajiv Gandhi was in the late 1980s so the 1990s was more Narsimha the Congress government and a lot of changes were happening around the 90s and it's you will see the strains of it today in today's how the government performs and how the press performs the two sides to it one is India is the largest news producer in the world in the amount of news that is produced a number of television channels that it has is more than the United States so let me put in a little bit of context here in 1998 India had one news channel by 2010 there were over 350 news channels that was the kind of explosion India had in privatization talking about the Modi government since 2014 look last year 67 journalists were arrested last year seven seven seven four journalists were murdered seven imprisoned one was burnt alive you know that the horrific stories of intimidation intimidation physical assaults trolls that are set upon you is something very equivalent to what Ruth would have seen in Egypt so in one sense we have to look at India supposedly the world's largest democracy has not a democracy today so that is one way we have to view it to understand what it does to free press having said that there are brave journalists some few organizations especially online who managed to carry on the business of journalism holding the government to account so you can have can I just interrupt you don't I mean this is a key question in a way okay there was you know the state media it was sclerotic it was ossified it was you know all that but I mean do you think that democracy is healthier now than then when you have people like Murdy controlling political institutions controlling journalists running Gujarat like his fiefdom you know the way that the BJP under him has managed to influence power in India's phenomenal so you know this is the I suppose a key point you've got this milestone of you know social media people discussing this sort of House of Babel taking place I mean is it actually a better world as or are we looking at journalism becoming a crime that perhaps it wasn't when it was a more elitist or at least a more minority profession you know 20 30 years ago it's a it's a it's a very important question and it's difficult to answer yes or no to this simply because when we are talking about that ossified state television news network which was called Rajiv Darshan because they're I mean a vehicle for Mr Rajiv Gandhi so that was one way of looking at it and now with over 350 news channels most of them owned by the big ones owned by the top industrialists very close to the Modi government so you have a very different kind of media environment but let me take about a couple of minutes to explain this beyond the repressive state apparatus which you have and which is very easy to understand and if it was only the state which was working against journalists I would have had hope because state governments change but there is something more fundamental which has changed in India and Indian media post the 2000s and I'll just take a couple of minutes to explain this if I may so in the mid 2000s so in the 1990s comes these structural reforms brought in by the IMF and then the entry of foreign media happens post 1990s, Murdoch comes in and there is this explosion so of course when you have a state-run channel the funding is from the government when 300 channels are in play everyone is fighting for an advertising pie as we all well know and then comes the demon of television rating points where everything is done for an imagined audience when I had a I did a one-year ethnography of two of Murdoch I sat inside two of Murdoch's news channels one in Bombay and in Calcutta before I wrote my PhD thesis under my book I found that journalists were far more concerned about TRP ratings and audience ratings for their shows than any of the sales team or the marketing team it was journalists who obsessed about the success of their program and what sells and this selling became the most so where selling and selling to a particular kind of audience which can buy particular kind of products which was a middle-class audience which was always being targeted by television channels this changed Phil if I may what journalism and investigate the scope of investigative journalism in the country it took away incentives for good journalism and rewarded journalism which could easily sell or be easily understood and this started in the 2000s and carried on as big media houses brought over CN and IPN being a good example or terrorized out of existence any good journalist organizations and business models advertising started to be stopped people started so my my old organization New Delhi television not only did the government send the income tax and enforcement directorate after them they found all the advertising donors just refusing to fund the channel anymore so on one hand therefore you had the state coming down you had journalists themselves understood rethinking what journalism meant and what was rewarding to be a journalist because after a point journalists must also be seen as people who want professional advancement by removing any incentive from good investigative journalism you rewarded some other kind of journalism and then the takeover of the media by a very small number of industrialists very close to the government that kind of killed this space for investigative journalism and therefore that is what I mean by when I say this is not only this state apparatus but an ideological change and that is where the fear comes from having said this India is a big country there are still newspapers struggling for space and money who carry on this very important business of investigation I mean you know you'd argue and I certainly wouldn't I mean I take of course Tim Dawson's point on board about beauty products I mean I think that those journalists who wrote about those beauty products are investigating power and that's as legitimate as anyone else but I mean I wouldn't know whether I'd say that the Kardashians are legitimate journalists or you know journalists who basically reflect power and amplify it and I mean do you see Tim Dawson do you see this as you know very much what what Chomsky wrote you know on manufacturing consent that you know the kind of things you know that the some have to say that people's careers get enhanced all of these kind of things and of course you become a criminal I think Chomsky found various ways that journalists were ostracized you know first of all the careers that as he once said to somebody I think that you know you're not being you know there's not a puppeteer running you but you know you wouldn't be here asking me the questions if you didn't agree with the power and to that extent do you think that we are you know that that is something that's becoming even more relevant globally now that dictatorships are maybe a thing of the past but that manufacturing of consent is is is even more powerful now than even when Chomsky wrote about the United States and perhaps to those can I say can I just quote the beauty of this I've written this one down to get it accurate the beauty of the system is that such descent and inconvenient information that is challenging power are kept within bounds and at the margin so that while their presence shows that the system is not monolithic they are not large enough to interfere unduly with the domination of the official agenda I mean that's something I pulled earlier today from manufacturing consent and by the way people haven't read that you know those of you viewers I would certainly recommend it but Tim I mean do you think that is something I think there is a view that you know the mainstream media is a monolith in which the kind of pressures that you describe govern who gets where and what attitudes they take I don't think I mean to be honest I don't think you have to spend very long in an actual newsroom to realise that it's a far more variegated disputatious eccentric place than that description if I'm being completely honest I think I mean for all the issues that social media throws up the fake news the trolling you know the fact that these you know the high temples of information that we recognise from 25 years ago have been exploded and there are hundreds of alternatives means that any sense that there is a kind of priesthood of information that perhaps you might have argued once there was simply doesn't hold now that brings with it its own issues it really and truly does but there are lots of people who have found you know journalists who've been sacked in in shocking positions I mean the one that comes to my mind is Zamor who is able to set up a sub stack and get her material out what do you think is valuable or not valuable and continue to make money from it in a way that 20 25 years ago would be simply unimaginable now you know that's why you know because of these techniques because of crowd funding because of the passion that people often at the margins find you know some quite eccentric campaigns and quite eccentric information sources can find funding in a way that never they did before but I don't find that it's consistent with this idea of a kind of information monolith and priesthood that you're describing you know that Chomsky describes and I would also just say you know in terms of the issues that are thrown up by Facebook and Twitter I mean they are profound and they are real but the very case that you made earlier against them could have been made against newspapers in the 1920s newspapers which which often some some peddled grotesqueness information some you know pullets has chain famously caused an actual war wholly through their own endeavors and yet you know newspapers are are very different you know they simply don't hold that kind of power in a way that I suspect in 20 or 30 years time will reminisce about the days of Twitter and Facebook and their apparent omnipotence and you know isn't it funny that we imagined that that they'd just be with us forever and that their power was such that it would never be challenged whereas I think the all the evidence of technological change and information change is that dominant as they might be now it will ultimately be a short-lived regime. I mean you don't think and John Rhys perhaps put this to you you know that where you don't think there's been a danger that social media has divided Britain and obviously you know one thinks of Brexit immigration you know these issues that were off the table at one time in terms of multiculturalism for example it was never questioned by this monolithic group that Tim refers to prior to maybe 9-11 and perhaps even I would say that multiculturalism in the UK really got question when social media started not in 2001 but in 2010 2011 and you find that and we've done investigations of Islamophobia and seen that the rise in Islamophobia has almost paralleled the rise in social media usage and do you think that maybe that even the tabloids in Britain are trying to catch up and that you know Britain is a more divided place now than it was maybe during the Olympics in 2012. I think it is and not just Britain but not primarily because of of social media I think the society is more divided I mean how do you want to look at that the gap between the rich and the poor the number of billionaires in society the collapse of the political centre the emergence of right-wing populism it is a more divided and fractured political culture and social media reflects that possibly perpetuates it has possibly played a role in it but isn't the sole or main generator of it that's the failure of neoliberalism the disappointment of the collapse of the of the welfare state era and much more significant social facts of life than simply social media I think and I think it's very important to look at things developing in this way not just through the lens of the media and what journalists do I mean you know manufacturing consent is a fantastic is a fantastic book and what it says it is true about the way in which the media is structured but if you were to leave it at that I think you would have a very one-sided picture of how ideas and debates and social movements and political struggles take place in fact you would have and I think this is quite a widespread sentiment on the left as well as the right you would have a kind of conspiracy theory explanation of the way in which society changes that there's this group of people at the top they're controlling the media they exclude voices that don't agree with them and that's how the system perpetuates its power that's not how the system perpetuates its power it's one aspect of it and of course it's particularly relevant to journalists but there are many other ways as well keeping control of work discipline in the workplace is absolutely essential the fact that the anti-union laws are very are the harshest in Europe in this country is not often talked about but it's an absolutely fundamental question and I guess no government minister would dissent from that from that thought and then it's almost actually more radical to say the ways in which people don't accept the story they're told with the media because I mean to be honest certainly for people on the left it's not a very surprising statement to say that Rupert Murdoch's printing presses produce stories that by and large justify Rupert Murdoch continuing to own printing presses I mean that's shocking if you think the media is neutral it's not that shocking for people who've had a look at it what what might be more shocking to them is that between 40% and 50% of Sun readers vote Labour now what's going on there I mean we all know what the Sun stance is how come if these people are being programmed by what the media say they're voting in exactly the opposite way that the Sun would recommend them to vote and that's because actually people aren't sort of their heads aren't empty vessels into which the media simply pours bad ideas and they go out and act on them they have their own experiences at work in trade unions in the Labour Party with their family in their civic institutions and they form a counter narrative and that's interesting that that's and that opens a space because that's a space that journalists who don't want to go along with the mainstream story can relate to can report on can find an audience for I mean look what's been happening over the last few nights with the main ITV news they've got the story about Boris and boy are they whacking the government it's like watching editorial consensus work every evening well listen John thank you for that I mean let's you know we're coming to the end now and it's it's like you know when did journalists become a crime let's just focus on that question and in the background of Assange and and you know events of the last decade I mean Ruth could it do you feel you know where you are and being in the Middle East at the press the West cares anymore about press freedom and the protection of journalists in a way that perhaps it did you know 10 years ago that it was prepared to stand up now hey who cares about journalists you know we've got we're too busy with other things in our lives I mean do you think do you get a sense of that um I think with any social issue when we talk about unions or the importance of protest I think it's always really easy to say that people are just going to kick back and say oh actually my life is very busy and hard and actually people can surprise you and I don't think people feel that way I think that people now more than ever understand why a free media is important because we started to see what it looks like when you have elements of it taken away and I think that what's happening with the policing bill and things like this in the UK you know it it rankles me a little bit I think by the way that what you know Boris Johnson's tendencies are towards the sort of flappy authoritarianism but there's authoritarianism in there but one of the things that tends to sort of make me cringe a little bit is if you see you know people in the United States people in the UK people in Western Europe looking at events for example in the Middle East and saying oh you know drawing very close comparisons with um what might happen in the West in a way that um you know sometimes I think can it's sort of ignorant of their own their own privilege to sort of fight back against what's happening domestically um and I just think that you know we have Western governments have plenty of opportunity to care about press freedom and to be held to the standard that they've claimed for themselves Joe Biden has made plenty of statements about how much he cares about human rights or how much he cares about press freedom that he's failed to stand up for so far we should just hold him accountable to his own statements the intention counts for a lot and so I think that you know that's that's on us as a society to hold governments to the standard that they've claimed they want to be held accountable for whether that's standing up for journalists who are operating in the Middle East or other parts of the world Russia also very good at detaining journalists just as a random example um you know I think that we should just yeah it's it's about holding uh holding these governments to a standard that they've they've claimed that they want to be held to and indeed I think it's worth people knowing that you know the war against whistleblower started with Obama not Trump and and indeed you know America's apparent lack of concern with journalists which is probably wrapped up into the so-called war on terror and all of this kind of stuff that happened post 9 11 um is is uh is something that perhaps prevents the West being able to be a beacon for anything um listen we've got quite a lot of questions coming in I'm seeing several now that have come through um so um let me let me pass it to various various people um these are questions um from the audience um and I think maybe just for you um Tim Dawson um given the treatment of Julian Assange should the UK and the US be allowed to talk about the lack of press freedom free speech in other countries I mean should they just shut up about it Tim well I I mean I I think those of us who advocate for free media should relentlessly point out the in most particularly of the United States in the way that they have um but I could have halted this bizarre process so I mean I I I think the point is to to relentlessly be on their case for so long as the sort of grotesque carnival of the expedition and prosecution attempt continues but I mean I suppose Tim the point is and maybe of bringing John here I mean it just seems so hypocritical to people in other countries in Russia people involved in Navalny and all this when you know they see what goes on in the United States and it really undermines their position doesn't it when you know they say these things but yet do precisely the same things as some of the well certainly those involved in any national security issue yeah well I think this is very important dynamic to understand I mean I think Ruth's absolutely right that it's um it's not very sensible when people make kind of comparisons with uh authoritarian regimes and imagine that the same is true in um parliamentary democracies whatever their very great weaknesses might might be I think it's it's it's better to see what the kind of race to the bottom is between these two types of state because what's happening is that um the regimes in America or in Britain are turning around and saying okay you know we might not be perfect but we're not like China we're not like Russia and that justifies removing rights treating Julian the Sanders they're treating him or whatever in their countries and then you have as we had only a few months ago um the representative of the Chinese state standing up in a press conference and saying hey don't criticize us look at Assange and that's what they're the president of Kazakhstan said look at Assange so what you've now got is a race to the bottom where abuses on either side of this divide are being used to justify abuses at home and that's what we've got to unpick it's not good enough that the Chinese state arrests and imprisons journalists it's not good enough that the Valmy is in prison in Russia and it's not good enough that Julian Assange is in Belmarsh and we've got to stick to that argument really yeah um Tim there's a question actually for you Tim Dawson um what has been the most surprising thing you've discovered while being chair of the expert group on surveillance of journalists um what's been the most kind of remarkable access that you found that the institutions of state of hay? Well I think I've described two of them I mean I was I was staggered um I you know it comes by slightly unofficial means but by you know when MI5 fairly openly admitted um that of course they could they could you know there wasn't a phone they couldn't get I knew that from I knew that from Snowden but to hear officials saying that fairly openly albeit in a private meeting kind of took my breath away um a technology expert just before Christmas took me through the many pieces of software with which a mobile phone can be infected and again I you know I knew this abstractly but to see that minutely detailed and how straightforward it is not all of them are as powerful as Pegasus but all have similar traits um and realise just how porous the smartphone is that that that that that that shocked me that's indeed um Ruth there's a question for you actually a very precise one I mean can the Guardian operate any more in Egypt I mean what's the situation for the Guardian there if you can say so? Oh I'm happy to say so well I'm not happy to say so because it's not a happy subject but I mean um it is largely unclear but not very positive so I was told um when they took my press card away I was presented with a very um actually the most so probably the most beautiful gift that I've ever been given from the Egyptian government in terms of its gold embossing and incredible presentation of this letter which told me in very detailed terms that I am a terrible journalist and listed all the reasons why um and so obviously at some point I will frame it and it also said that the Guardian is no longer able to operate in Egypt um I mean what that means long term in practice I'm not sure I'm I'm sure that you know you work for Al Jazeera you are familiar with the uh constraints that certain news outlets have had operating in Egypt long term under the CC regime um I mean it doesn't stop me or other journalists covering Egypt it just means that it is incredibly dangerous for me or particularly anyone that might want to talk to me which is something that I take incredibly seriously so it means that now when I um do interviews with people in Egypt um I take a lot extra precautions because I realized that they're taking uh more risk in talking to me than they were previously. Sure um so enough maybe one for you because it um I think it's applied generally um but um you know India is an example but um somebody's asking one of the audiences asking would greater government deregulation improve press freedom um this speaks to some of the themes we were talking about earlier um maybe you could sort of embody that in a in a simple answer. Again it's a it has two sides to it I mean government regulating social media I think is a need today uh so not deregulation in general but also government um again privatized media non-regulated media has not been the answer to um democracy in the non-west and I think the global south because of uh private ownership has not worked out necessarily the way um perhaps it has worked in some some countries in the global west so I'm I'm not sure uh I I think what I would say is this that if we want to have a a free fair impartial strong media we need to institutionalize media education amongst the citizens without that I can't see how um a free media can work especially in countries where democracy is does not have very strong roots so rather than thinking government regulation which has problems deregulation also has problems as we find out you know in America in in the UK I think more educating citizens through you know through early childhood through schools we're making it a part of a curriculum might work in the long term of how the general public reacts to social media news information and understanding and being more discerning leaders that might hold a key to a more sustainable journalism rather than government regulation or deregulation. There's a couple of questions here about a very thorny subject in fact Naomi Wimborn Idrissi who's a founding member of Jewish Voice for Labor and those of you in Britain may not have heard much of Jewish Voice for Labor because they were very large and vocal part of the Labor Party they never got airtime because they are certainly questioning the absolute right of the Israeli state to control and dominate Palestinians and question the very roots of Zionism as a legitimate political idea by no means all of them I think I think it's fair to say a very mixed group but certainly that idea is one that is somehow not something that the British media likes to touch in any shape or form and before we come to what Naomi had to say question Jonathan Coulter to Tim Dawson actually you say the reality is more very great very gated but how do you explain the monolithic mainstream media coverage of supposed anti-Semitism in the British Labor Party since 2015 we have seen the liberal media like the Guardian and the BBC leading the charge saying much the same as the conservative media who could be expected to attack Labor on sectarian grounds now just to give a little bit of background Tim before we go into that I'm sure you're aware of the way that anti-Semitism was used to depose Corbyn and to undermine his legitimacy as Labor leader even though and I think everyone on this panel would know that in no way is he anti-Semitic whatsoever he's been campaigning on anti-Racism since you know the very since he entered politics so I mean there's just an aside there that the British media was pretty monolithic you look at the Guardian if you looked at the John Ware panorama you know which was a knife job in my view and by the way Jewish voice for Labor had no voice in it for probably very deliberate reasons I mean Tim Dawson isn't that an example of you know Tromsky at work? I'm not entirely sure I mean I think it would be interesting to see precisely quantified how much attention any particular side in that dispute I mean which I'm in in in no sense an expert in but I'm very conscious that when people are very bound up in in a particular campaign whatever it might be and as I say I don't speak specifically of that one that it's very easy to find themselves thinking why is there not more of me in the media why are you know why are my opponents in the papers today and not me and to draw the conclusion from that that they are in some way being excluded I know I mean just to give an example that I'm far more au fait with I know during the Assange extradition hearings which I attended every day of I covered every day of I wrote every day about in a print newspaper albeit not a very widely circulated one and lots of the people I spoke with outside the old Bailey said why are the Guardian not covering this and as I didn't work for the Guardian that time I you know I didn't know but I went countered the number of pieces that had appeared and I think over a month I think maybe 17 had appeared you know which might well have been not sufficient to satisfy those you know the the hyper interested but it was a great deal more than they seem to be giving credit for now I'm I'm very familiar with with with the name Jewish voice of labor I couldn't tell you the names of several of their activists not because I have a particular interest in their work but I found that out from somewhere so I kind of think that perhaps they had slightly more coverage in the media than than than they are allowing for whether that's whether whether it's an amount that's justified by their size their influence the amount of material they put out I honestly don't know but I think suggest that they've been ignored by the media which I I senses the pretext of this doesn't accurately reflect the reality. Go on Idrisi she says here friend from media diversified send me a video clip she had posted on Twitter about a protest we had been on last week against the nationality and borders bill what I am to make of the fact that I carried that it carried this warning she says the following media may contain sensitive material this media is not available it's content you've chosen not to see age she says I made no such choice and be the video clip was actually of her speaking I mean jolly do you do you believe that there are issues that are taboo like for example a robust critique of Zionism without it being equated with anti-Semitism that is sort of not not able to have a voice in the British media well I think it's obviously difficult and I mean there's a distinction between saying that the media is in general biased and saying that it's monolithic these are two different things the first statement in my view is generally true the second statement is not true and it's misleading and it's disabling actually for the for for the left and so I always think you have to contextualize what the media is doing which isn't to absorb it but it is to put it in its proper perspective the reason why it was so difficult over the question of anti-Semitism is because practically the entirety of the parliamentary Labour Party agreed with that argument so the political spectrum from the far right through the Tory party through the Liberal Party went through to the far left in the Labour Party all agreed on the anti-Semitism argument and I might say I don't think that even under those circumstances some of the hard left did a particularly good job of defending Jeremy either so in a way they made anybody in the media who wanted to pounce on this they made their job fantastically easy because the amount of people resisting it was a comparatively small part of the political spectrum now as I say that doesn't absorb journalists of a responsibility to articulate a different argument and especially when there's a kind of you know running on this it's particularly important that journalists take the responsibility of amplifying the voices of those who are on the receiving end of that mob more than they did but the context is important I think and it hides a distinction between reporting and political power the people who are doing this are people who have the political power to do it which by and large on sorry if you're saying that the whole breadth of Westminster as it were and that defines the parameters of debate within the British media then surely that's when journalism becomes a crime and obviously there are pro-Israel groups who'd like to define anti-Semitism in such a way that to make it a racist crime so isn't the very role of journalism is to question that consensus the interest should not be about where there's a division within that but those who challenge it from the outside just like Assange did just like the people who have suffered just like Ellsberg Ellsberg did and in a way that's what the Jewish voice for Labour they're trying to say absolutely and in Palestinians but they can't get a voice for that and it could become criminalized yeah no I agree with that obviously and that's what I said is that there's a particular when you have a sort of garardine swine rushed towards a particular argument like that and we all know what that atmosphere feels like we all know what what's happening when that takes place then of course there isn't a special responsibility on journalists to report an alternative view of that and there is a legitimate criticism to say that not enough of them did that I agree but it's a misunderstanding of the way in which politics is working to simply shoot the messenger they're not against sort of argumentatively shooting the messenger so to say but I just think that it's it misleads you about what the political force is generating it is uh to to isolate what the media are doing from the wider political spectrum of forces engaged in it in any of those in any of those things and conversely with the um with this the Assange argument I mean I haven't visited Julian in in Belmage since COVID but the last couple of times I did he kept on saying to me and I think it's a very important point don't let people talk as if we're a minority actually we've got to the point now where Amnesty International human rights watch the American civil liberties union the majority of the print media in this country are campaigning against extradition the problem isn't the voice the problem is we don't have the power so mobilize the voice to confront the power and I think you know um exaggerating what an embattled minority the left is is a disabling activity well so okay so John believes empowering journalists um especially those who seek truth on you know from perhaps a I mean in a way I think all journalists should be left because you're challenging power aren't you I mean the right tends to support power but maybe that's another argument for another day but I mean just on the final you know we're about to wrap up now um some enough I mean you know if there is increasing hostility towards journalists and this is a question that we've got not from our audience how do we you know if you could be brief I mean how do we overcome that and how how can we create a safer environment for journalists to operate again no easy answer but as I felt that as I said earlier educating the masses empowering the civil society lobbying as so many of you do continuously highlighting various bodies the kind of you know many of you would not know that last year 67 journalists in India were imprisoned because we have not been able to amplify so around the world what is happening we've not what happens in perhaps in the west especially in western Europe and America gets amplified but other voices are not so finding avenues to talk about journalists and their safety to bring it back into mainstream concern is possibly the way we've seen that most governments are not interested so I cannot see the state stepping in beyond this lip service that the UK and the US France and Germany seem to pay except empowering bodies like the ones which we all represent and talking about it and I don't see what I mean to say that I don't see the state stepping in it has to be through civil society journalistic bodies which represent journalism and educating the larger public Ruth Michelson what's your view on that as a final note my view on that is to say that I agree I mean I think that yeah again if we leave defining what press freedom is to states we will be in a difficult place but I mean I think that the you know again record numbers of journalists are around the world are in jail and I think if we frame how we look at these things in a sort of disempowering way and in in terms of thinking about you know how we frame state power and what we can do about that and what does press freedom really mean how do we stand up for it in an active sense I think it is of benefit to society to you know to think about how we empower the public to do that rather than to think about what we don't have because I think that's you know that's how we make press freedom a more expansive thing that's how we improve society well Tim Dawson is doing this Tim obviously John Reese thinks I'm a moaning mini and I should actually talk about this so Tim you're actually doing something about it how do you see that that we can create a safer world I think the single most important thing is for journalists to stand together I think I think it's to understand the importance of what we do and the fact that we do it in a contested space and for us to support each other I confess I don't I think there's something dangerous about thinking that that which is left is good and that which is right is bad not least because the notion of what's left and what's right is in itself contested I think those who are honestly and sincerely trying to truthfully represent the world as they see it even if you disagree with them are people that you should you as a journalist that we should endeavor to support and act collectively and to develop a common sense of what it is and what it is that we all need to defend. Okay I think we got you then no absolutely Tim I suppose my point is the challenging power isn't often something that the right and right in journalists feel is in their blood if you know what I mean but again that's probably part for a whole new discussion Nina is there anything you feel we've left out you'd like to bring in here? To be honest we had a few more questions from our audience but unfortunately looks like we're not going to be able to have them answered today otherwise we're probably going to drag on for a bit longer than we we've told people so I think we're going to we're going to end things there so thank you Phil for hosting us this evening and thank you to our panelists to Ruth, Tim, John, John and Somnaf and to the audience of course and just wanted to say to the audience please join us next week for our second journalism in the firing line event which focuses specifically on the case of Julian Assange and I know we spoke about Julian Assange this evening John Reece and Tim Dawson will be back for that event that's going to be on Tuesday at 6 p.m and it will be live streamed from Sowas University and if you're in London do come along for more details about the event or to learn more about iCOP please visit our website or just follow us on Twitter at Sowas iCOP thanks again to Phil and to our panelists and we hope that you can join us again for some of our future events okay thank you all thank you thank you and goodbye