Read this: Spinning the coup that wasn't

BBC sounds music Radio podcasts hello, this is the media show from BBC Radio 4 now when the Mutiny and it was called off for the weekend.

We all want to know why do you have any progression suddenly changed tack well on Monday we gave us an explanation or at least he's explanation not on TV but an audio message on the app telegram.

We're going to look at how telegram fits into the media equation in Russia talk about covid the former Health Secretary Matt Hancock been giving evidence covid enquiry and reflecting on the stakes made by the politicians, but what about journalist? What did the news media get right and wrong in itskovich coverage? They have correspondence economist and the New Scientist or reflect on that and John sudworth BBC news as well as from New York is a form of BBC News China correspondent as well John you got a new podcast out all about the origin.

Of covid-19, how did you go about that given that you were doing your reporting from the US well as you know when the pandemic began was and of course that question you no hangover the story of that emerging outbreak turning into a pandemic.

It was an easy to ask that question in China there are all sorts of challenges working in an authoritarian state of course but actually even within the context of working within the foreign Media they were challenges about editorial priorities about what is truth about whose version of the science.

We should believe for example.

We were grappling with all that back in China I was forced to leave in early 2021 moved my new posting in here in New York where I caught a lot of that scientific debate is taking place so it seemed like a great.

Need a bring some of that China experience with me to use it to reflect back on the story in those early early months and years and combine it with you.

No speaking to some of those scientists about where they stand now 3 years on and explore some of those issues you allowed to in the next few minutes on the media show will also talk to you about your experience of being asked to leave by the authorities, but that's possible turn our attention to Russia sitting next to me in my t-shirt studio is Princess car a journalist with BBC monitoring he wants his Russian state TV and Russian social media channels and asked you to come in because the man in the biggest story in Russia at the weekend the Mutiny was you have any Bacardi and then leader of the mercenary group and he is using an app called telegram before you tell us about telegram.

Here is a widely reported statement from regarding back in May

Highbury Park that was made that was when progression with railing at senior Russian military figures Francis give us a beginner's guide to telegram telegram is an app.

It was created by a guy called Pavel durov in 2013.

He is often called the rushes answer to Mark Zuckerberg and it functions as a messaging app encrypted one a bit like WhatsApp way more interested in is its role as a platform for news outlets and blogger individuals many of whom are Anonymous on there is not censored which is unique in the media landscape itself as a platform for completely free speech and doesn't MoDA its content and in the context of the war in Ukraine it's popularity has gone hugely.

There are two main reasons for this is a huge demand for breaking news in Russia the isn't giving the same varnish.

We see on state tv.

Which.

Controlled by the Kremlin and the second reason is that the Kremlin has gradually tighten the screws on the media in Russia so we've seen Facebook and Instagram and Twitter blocked but at least slow down by the authorities and while telegram has remained largely unscathed.

Why is it unscathed? Why is Putin not tried to control the information what he has tried to control information on it back in 2018 ostensibly the authorities Bandit because they were trying to investigate a suicide attack on the st.

Petersburg metro and accused telegram of not giving the authorities access to the messaging along the organisers of this terrorism attack attempt to shut down telegram was widely Condemned by Human Rights organisations like an international assassin attempt to stifle freedom of expression in Russia but the attempt to shut it down with someone.

The two years later in 2020 the authorities decided that if you can't beat something it's better to join it and instead after that we saw the authorities actually using free sample in the coronavirus pandemic, which one are we going to speak about later on the show it was used as a platform for public information and since then we've seen a program in individuals using it to put across there and messaging to show up his authority after the short-lived Mutiny he hasn't done telegram as far as I've seen he's been doing that on television whilst 8tv remains the choice of source information for about two-thirds of Russian so it's more popular than telegram and this is a tried and tested platform for putting he's over his two decades or so in power tv is remainder the prime the prime way that he's prime Primary ways to put across.

And is used in this instance to try to reassure the Russians that everything is is going back to back to normal and trying to portray the outcome of this attempt to mutiny as a victory for Russia show of Unity among the Russian people as you listen to Francis describe telegram and the relative freedom for people have to share information there.

Why do you think that is possible in Russia but there's no as far as I'm equivalent in China is a very good question.

I think there are real clear differences and I have been for some time.

I'm in China has no interest in allowing its to talk to each other in ways that it cannot listen to that's the dad's the simple truth of the matter.

You're the services telegram others like signal are encrypted so even the the man in the middle of you.

Service provider doesn't know what is being said we could still use them when I was in China you have to use of these bits of software virtual private networks that they are pretty much out of the most ordinary Chinese people are getting increasingly difficult to use china attempts to to sort of make it difficult for people to take to get around the firewall in that way and I think it's at different different.

I mean obviously there is deep concern about Putin's increasing repression of Russian Civil society at China is a generation a head.

I remember I was going to talk back in 2012 when I first arrived in China and very insightful speaker who knew the Chinese online ecosphere very well, and he said he said this and it stuck with me ever since he said if the the Chinese Communist Party is swept from power in 20-years time.

It'll be because of the internet with anyone on to say that if the Chinese communist.

Still hanging on to power in 20-years time it will be because of the internet.

We just we just don't know he said that then in 2012 which way that equation is going to go we absolutely do know it now China if you Bill Clinton's phrases nail.gel O2 the wardroom him saying that you can hold on the internet with you like daily jelly to the Wall of China has done that will be deeply concerned 1-ft 1.4 billion people live in this highly controlled information environment with variable access to the outside world and at the same time Chinese propaganda.

Channels have been out all the time and taking it.

Would you be free media environments yes to something there was an expectation that the internet would be beyond the control of even the Chinese authorities, but so far is used to describe.

They are managing to control the information ecosystem bring you back in with the final thought on the situation in Russia because it strikes me as you and many others try and work out what nurse been going on the last few days, it is very difficult.

Where you should turn because progression is not a reliable source of information the kremlin's not a reliable source of information Putin is an either.

It's very hard to know where to find information beyond honourable journalistic exceptions that we can think of such as the BBC Steve Rosenberg but even he has been saying on television, it's difficult where do you find for reliable information? I tend to look at ironically telegram where I can but of course as we've been discussing that comes with huge numbers of pitfalls in the nation.

There is not in any way verified or moderated and you have to use your own judgement to sift through what you find that and in order to come to any kind of reasonable conclusion, you can't trustee state Media in Russia and independent media has been has been crossed with most journalists apart from a few small local outlets being forced to leave the country.

Ann or being jailed in in-14 Miranda Francis BBC monitoring now John you're still with us one of the reasons your hair podcast called fever the hunt for covid origins before we talk about it.

Let's hear some of it.

This is the story of my quest to ask a question to ask questions.

It's a question.

I've been told I shouldn't ask and one that's become embroiled practising fever Politics of our times as very dangerous to a suspicion rumours the series on BBC sounds now.

It's also on radio for every Tuesday at 11 a.m.

We're up to episode 5 at the moment and John take us back to late 2019 early 2020.

Do you remember the moment?

That someone first mentioned the virus.

Yes, it was JFK questions to be honest.

I don't remember the date or time.

I had been in early 2020 in Taiwan the covering the Taiwanese Presidential elections.

We've got back to a sort of barrage of hostile criticism from my Chinese foreign ministry mind about that particular trip.

This is probably you know before the end of the first week of January and there were already these reports emerging of some kind of outbreak in Wuhan the incredible.

Isn't it back then even as that began to sort of very quickly take the shape of a major story within the context and we were suddenly consumed with the story.

We were kind of telling.

It is if this was a China story and there were no warnings concerns if that we spoke to some doctors you're working in icy use in Wuhan who were saying.

The world needs to watch out this is coming but you know it is obvious now, but it wasn't then you know we weren't in that mindset know we have quite real is what a global pandemic would mean we don't know and as such as you were making the list of questions that you were very keen to find out answers to What's the origin of the virus such a huge and pressing question in the way that it became in the coming months and years not immediately at the Assumption of from the beginning of course you know what is seemingly Max Chinese facial officials as well Rose and certainly that's was begun in that wet market there in the centre of will hang around with some of the cases appeared to be connected, but within a few weeks by the end of January the question was being asked and interestingly the first place.

I saw it was on the Chinese internet.

Yeah, we talk about.

About the kind of control of information, there was this amazing moment for a few days a week or so where party I think because of the shock of having almost lost a whole city of 11 million people the Chinese authorities appears to be sorted caught in the headlights and it almost seems as if the senses and sort of gone home for the day people with suddenly able to sort this out there were questions being asked it felt like an existential crisis for the Chinese Communist Party and was in in that sort of Brief window.

They very quickly closed again that I first heard that question that that that that that coincidence of this virus having a merging of the city which was also home to one of the world's leading Laboratories for the study of exactly this kind of virus that about coronavirus and that became known as the lab leak theory of course listening to you John and Natasha loder health editor of The Economist and Claire Wilson medical reporter at the new Sciences welcome to you both.

Those early months of 2020 and how you were trying to handle the story of covid as a as a specialist science journalist you can remember this is the biggest story you've ever covered and you happen to be the expert.

Who is in the right place at the right time so it's quite exciting mean when the virus first Pop-Tart we just heard any January we don't really know what to think it was one of those events that pop up you have an unknown infection.

That's is reported you.

Hope that it will go away.

You know if you've been working as long as Claire and I have these things pop up and it wasn't until I would say about 2 or 3 weeks into January but it was clear that it really did have legs because remember says the original stars.

Actually question it was put out travel to number of countries, but we did actually ends at 1 and we fast forward on from January through February into March then get into a stage where this was clearly a moment of great national Agency not just for the UK but of course for many other countries did that pose a journalistic challenge where you were looking to question what you were hearing from the authorities like you always work as a journalist, but at the same time.

There was a a need at a national level to get good information about this virus out.

It was a very very strange time and it just got stranger and stranger into into February and March but I actually think you know a lot of scientists in the UK with very good at sharing the information especially as your sage the government's expert advisory group became more open it was unprecedented information that they were getting out.

Buy middle of 2020 and the issue of the origin was that as Potent as it became nothing but it didn't help that when it when this idea first popped up.

It was and dismissed as a conspiracy theory and while I'm not now saying which which side I believe yet, anyway.

I am I don't think it helps Trust if something is a conspiracy theory and then it later turns out that is some reason to be certainly to support further investigation think the issue very politicised in the US quite quickly quite early on a group of came out and said you we think this has an actual origin long before we had any certainty about that fact and you know certainly in the US it was dead.

Calverton Maps back to her for quite a while, I didn't have a problem with that in April 2020.

I was writing about Both series and you know it wasn't an issue, but it's interesting you mentioned the is John let's bring you in because in one episode of your podcast you directly reflect on whether the fact Donald Trump was referencing the lab leak Theory was affecting how some sections of the media would cover the idea.

Yeah, you know I think again so take yourself back to that moment of this sort of shock that we were facing an unprecedented global crisis you can understand to some extent at the motivation of scientists to say no now have all times is not the time for politics and we heard that all the time.

That's keep out of science at the same time you had Donald Trump and not immediately of course.

I'm in cider strangely innovate rumpy and way in the early sort of weeks and months of the pandemic.

He was praising sheeting.

By the middle of 2020 had adopted the sort of lab leak theory and was pointing the Finger of suspicion in that direction.

I think there's a sort of an equal and opposite reaction from some of those scientists already motivated to sort of have this idea of trust and collaboration with Chinese colleagues etc to recoil from what they saw as a very heavily.

I think that's understandable the trouble for me being based in China at the time.

Is you know I sort of felt having as many years there as I had is it you cannot take politics out of the equation politics as we've just been discussing your we mentioned social media.

I had to mention.

There are people in xinjiang doing prison sentences of multiple decades simply for having encrypted messaging apps.

This is not a society at prone to transparency and from the very beginning at that sort of veil of a lack of transparency.

Look right over this story and it made me feel.

Perhaps as a result of that some of those people looking from the outside in with missing a vital part of the story but equally there was absolutely an attempt to use this in a political way and read the accounts of got the who was involved in the trump administration.

He will tell you that Trumps change of opinion towards China was because he about March giving up on the hopes of shining a trade treaty with China and was really pissing because now he was facing an election and a runaway virus and so he material he needed information to be China with and so that the kind of information environment that this was being pushed it now.

You know that doesn't mean we shouldn't have taken journalist the origin of the lab leak Theory much more seriously, but I think you know there's lots of reasons.

Why there was that was problematic and of course the

Coving wasn't it wasn't the only thing that became politicised Nearly Everything did that nearly every scientific question people with heavily influenced by the starting a new for us science journalist new on this scale topics people can get very exercise about them before covid really autism can be caused by Vaccines was one of those hot-button topic is no evidence that climate change has become a lot more politicised.

I mean I remember writing how this felt like a kind of post-truth pandemic the first pandemic where you know it's actually health information had been coloured weaponized.

Just so many for us and the why this time the info dynamic to just basically describe this wave of misinformation that was coming out.

It was an incredibly challenging environment and it was just enough to try and convey what you believe to be true and an element of uncertainty because they're always is and then that's John how is it been releasing a podcast on this subject into the into the information ecosystem in which we exist ovarit.com I stay off Twitter why won't you not too busy writing writing each each other the next episode but you know I think Natasha and raise really interesting point that they're very good reasons of course.

We all know deeply concerned about her own information ecosystems disinformation misinformation the toxicity of our public square the the risk of physical harm the threats that come with all that it is a

Is Messi and it seems like a disaster on the other hand you're having lived as I have for a decade in the alternative wear one authoritarian power holds a monopoly on truth and I even science is subject to Total party control and the possibility of oversight or accountability on questions that really matter like the origin of covid are almost impossible.

If not impossible to unpack I think we have to be aware of that different so I think that you know it's a Churchillian think this is the worst of all systems except when compared to all the others we have to accept.

I think sometimes conspiracy theories will be part of the public discourse.

I think the lesson for me is that you know perhaps at the end of all this is that maybe for those who are rightly concerned about what they see is your dangerous on truth if you work too hard to control them or to repress them you end up doing them and we're very much focusing on.

Your journalistic experience is back in 2020 and st.

John's making This podcast let me attach ring Claire ask you about covering covid-19 this week.

There's been an awful.

Lot of focus on early on the beginning of the pandemic because the cupboard enquiry is is up and running but if you try and write stories about kovid now or perhaps covered and how we handle it in the future has received by your audiences many people just don't really want to revisit it if they don't have to understand why the enquiry has to happen.

My feeling is that we should be writing and much more how we should Orient ourselves to the next pandemic come in at the moment if you try and go and feed the ducks in your local park.

You may be told you can't because there is an outbreak of a

It's something that could develop into the next pandemic it might not but you know the fundamental question is planning better this time.

Are we knew making sure that an international level the right things are happening so that we can respond better.

I'm not convinced that we are doing all those things.

I'm not people are interested in what might happen in the future as in you know who said what to whom.

You know three and a bit years ago and so you're saying there will be more coverage of operations in case this happens again.

That's a scientific challenge.

I just wondered on the journalistic side of things if a pandemic happened again, what lesson what what lesson should you take from from the experience that that you had in the last 4 years one of the things I would recommend to join less when writing about scientific information.

Always remember to convey uncertainty and that also goes with untested the problem comes when you say we are absolutely certain about this and that is always an issue, so I guess black and white there is always the same time what you have to remember is that the stakes are really high when there's a pandemic in terms of conveying health and people want reliable information and they want it quickly and you know providing that quickly is important.

So you have to make a judgement call about what to say how to put in.

Thank you very much indeed.

John I wonder I prefer earlier as you did the fact that the Chinese in the end asked you to leave do you think that decision by the authorities was connected to you asking too many questions about covid.

Maybe in parts, you know I think I was already in in hot water long before the pandemic began that largely over by reporting the mass incarceration in China's western region of xinjiang what is doing to the uyghurs? It's the week as I was referring to earlier who have been really sort of targeted for things like the use of encrypted messaging app really chilling policy there.

We would we were going out and you know trying to sort of deliver new information around that story trying to dig to the real truth, what system was what the thinking was behind it and having some success and we were the only ones doing it at the foreign journalists were doing it to but I think by putting it at the top of you know a national news broadcasters at running orders on the 10:00 news and front front and centre of our website was rattling the Chinese authorities we began to feel through.

18 2019 at the real for the consequences of that I've been called in regularly by the foreign ministry and some point in 2020 19 they began say to me about my journalism and lecturing me about it peace and keeping me on short-term visas and all that stuff that they began to stay in if you keep doing what you're doing somebody might see you hang on.

It was the first time I saw that you obviously really stuck out to me back off who is better soon and then we don't know if you just keep if you keep upsetting the Chinese somebody will be running a sort of double barrel double barrel.

Sort of propaganda.

Campaign against me personally such sort of such levels DB teachers at my kids school is top speed on me Chinese teachers there.

It was really getting very very intense and travelling friends with telling us what to think about leaving and then done in early 2020.

Going to Wuhan world Health Organization press conference mission on the origin of John I'm going to jump in I'm really sorry.

I went right up against the end of the program.

Thanks to talking to us everyone can hear more of your accounts are being asked to leave on BBC sounds.

Thanks on the dash of The Economist care for the New Scientist and Francis from BBC monitoring.