
Show Notes
In this week’s Media Confidential, Alan and Lionel talk to Yara Hawari, co-director of Al-Shabaka, the Palestinian policy network, about the dangers journalists face in the Middle East.
Amal Khalil, a Lebanese journalist and reporter for the daily newspaper Al-Akhbar, was killed by the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) in an airstrike on 22nd April. On the podcast, the three discuss the risks Amal faced as a long-term war correspondent and threats against her life which she had previously talked openly about.
They also talk about the targeting of journalists by the Israeli government, and how it appears to act with impunity. They reflect on the IDF’s justifications for its attacks, which is says targets those linked to Hamas or Hezbollah. In 2025, Israel killed at least 84 media workers and journalists, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.
Alan, Lionel and Yara also discuss the risks of being a journalist in Lebanon or Gaza and the fact that foreign journalists are still having their entry barred. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
More from Media Confidential
In Prospect’s last episode of Media Confidential, Alan Rusbridger and Lionel Barber look back on three years of the podcast.
Billionaires, millionaires and biohackers are plying themselves with supplements and consulting AI to extend their lives indefinitely. But would you want to live forever? This week, Ellen and Alona are joined by journalist and author Katherine Stewart, who investigates the politics of the longevity movement.
In today’s Media Confidential, Alan and Lionel discuss the death of Professor Jason Arday, the Cambridge academic who took his own life last week after weeks of media scrutiny.
In this week’s Media Confidential, Alan and Lionel are joined by Jonathan Shainin, founding editor of Equator, a new longform publication with ambitions to challenge inherited assumptions about journalism—and the world it describes.
As Andy Burnham marks his first two weeks in Downing Street, the polls are registering a bump in support for Labour. This week, Ellen Halliday and Imaan Irfan are joined by Prospect’s contributing editor Tom Clark to assess the prime minister’s first steps in office.