'The Trojan Horse Affair and its aftermath' | RISJ seminar with host of New York times podcast Hamza Syed

11:30AM Jun 1, 2022

Speakers:

Caithlin Mercer

Keywords:

podcast

journalism

brian

people

parkview

hamza

trojan horse

reporting

question

story

school

letter

birmingham

wrote

speak

happened

investigation

britain

piece

michael gove

Hello, and welcome to the global journalism seminar series at the Reuters Institute for the Study of journalism. I'm Caitlin Mercer and I'm joined this week by Hamza Syed co host of The New York Times and Serial podcast production. The Trojan horse affair. The podcast follows Hamza at the time studying Journalism at the demand for university in Leicester and podcasting veteran Brian reed of s town fame as they search for the author of a 2013 letter that alleged there was an Islamist plucked to take over Birmingham schools. The letter was used by then Education Secretary Michael Gove, despite being told by Birmingham City Council that its credibility was in doubt, to extend counterterrorism strategy prevent in schools that should be the headline takeaway from this podcast, but it hasn't been because it was a podcast investigation that cost Hamza in a protagonist role as a character grappling with the role of journalism, who he wanted to be as a journalist how his faith fitted into that equation and what objectivity means. If you've joined us today, hoping for a gotcha takedown of a young journalist, you'll be disappointed and I'll explain why later, but for me, this podcast triggered a lot of reflection. I could identify with the mistakes Hamza made, I knew what backlash was coming for him and I was not surprised by the criticism. But for our first story, the first investigation that took over two years yielded 1000 hours of tape was fact checked by a team of seven editors and five lawyers in the US and the UK, and the New York Times standards division. It is a remarkable piece of work. Maybe he didn't get to the bottom of the Parkview school scandal or trigger any new inquiry inquiries, but he definitely made a lot of people think about journalism, British journalism, podcast investigations, and the limits of objectivity and for that reason, I'm so pleased to welcome you Hamza, and continue this conversation. Thanks for joining us.

Thank you. Thank you for inviting me.

Let's start out with a nice softball. Why did you decide to study journalism after qualifying as a doctor and where did you go to study it?

sequence of bad decisions wasn't quite as direct as going from medicine to journalism. I graduate from medical school and I had this like, vague notion of wanting to be a writer. That's kind of what I was pursuing. But I had no definition beyond that point for a while. So it's just you know, I settled on comedy writing for television for a bit actually. Because a script of mine did like, really well in this competition and the BBC option. Then I thought, okay, here we go. That's kind of where I'm headed. And spent God knows how many years just struggling TV right. Not getting any of my stuff kind of made or even read that often. And I've given myself this hard 30 I was like the second I hit 30. I am going to stop this and do something else. And I hit 30 and actually was this really weird thing? The second I crossed 30 At that point I was working on on a drama about terrorism, but like it was just kind of it's fictional piece about this British guy who basically gets radicalized and I'm going to go into Syria, as well as a bunch of accounts I was following on Twitter at the time who were like academics. We've done a bunch of research about radicalization. And one of them tweeted out randomly about this investigative journalism masters that's about to start at De Montfort University, that channel four, we're sponsoring. And I just thought, well, I paid my 30 neighbors, what appears to be a clue for what I what I could possibly pivot to, you know, still be writing but like, you know, in a way that might be useful to people. And so I applied for that master's, and here we are. Yeah.

And just before starting that program, you cornered Brian reed in his dressing room in 2019.

delay before Yeah. So we're supposed to turn up to the course with a story that we're going to investigate as a student project, and I'd settle on a Trojan horse. I talked about it with my professor, I talked about a few other people. And it's such a notorious case. You know, the Trojan horse is something that was very widely covered by a lot of experience reporters. And so I felt like I'm not sure what what you're trying to introduce here to this narrative, and the idea that the entire thing might have been, you know, bullshit, was hard to put across to people. So Brian was traveling through he was passing, passing through my city doing a talk for as town this big podcast that he just put out. That was a big fan of the way. They did stories here. So I thought, yeah, let's let's see if I can get him to listen to the story and help me out a little, you know,

what were you imagining was going to happen at that point?

The intention was clear. I was I just want to get in front of a journalist, and essentially just rattle through the beats of the story. This is, this is the Trojan horse, as people understand it, and then I just needed some direction of who to speak to first I was really paranoid about messing up this investigation and going about it in a totally wrong way. I've never done this before. I felt like a serious case. So that's all I really wanted. I just want someone to hear me out. But hear me out from like, you know, the first time they can point in the story. And then advise me like my main question was, should I go to add the primary school essentially, tomorrow and try to speak to people there so I go to the council, shall I go to DFE Where do I begin? Before I even got to that he'd already kind of jumped in and said he really liked the story. And you might want to look into this with me. And yeah, you know, next thing you know, he was jumping in on my project and taken on tape.

So now you've you've studied but not worked in a UK newsroom. Is that fair to say? And you've had this baptism of fire and the biggest newsroom in the US possibly the world. My question is What differences have you noticed between US and UK journalism?

On like, a very like superficial level just confidence to be honest. Like I don't people aren't afraid to do certain stories here. And I'm not saying it's like a reflection of the culture of the two countries, I think, is a reflection of the laws of the two countries. As far as journalism is concerned. It's not as protected in Britain. And that means every story as much as being kind of like, from my experience anyway, as much as being considered on the merits of the story. It's also at the same time being thought through as the viability of it, you know, are we going to be able to tell the story are we going to get in trouble like what's what information are we going to put together? And I think Brian was new to journalism in Britain, so I don't think he'd quite like considered what it would entail. Do an investigative series in England. So I think like a good reflection of the difference between the two countries is Brian's experience. And the Trojan horse affair, like the stuff that he's getting upset about stuff that he's getting frustrated by. That's because he doesn't expect that. He doesn't expect the journalists to have to suffer in that way.

Give us an example of where Brian was getting really frustrated.

I mean, thinking of the fly guys, every I mean, every day fly is were a nightmare, not just in terms of like listen, like no government just willingly gives up information that's that's likely going to lead to something but there's at least a bit of a process in place in America that makes more sense in in England, you put in and fly and it seems to be that a well established game amongst the government or officials is to time you out to time you out. Like they can take 18 months to release you information that you have a right to that you will ultimately get but it'll take you 18 months. And not everyone has that time. So I think that's just it's just clear the way the frivolous rejections that you get for fly so that was a problem. People just not willing to speak was new to him and concerned by what it would mean legally, you know, defamation injunctions, all these terms will come up that he doesn't usually have to deal with on a daily basis. I remember the one of the biggest issues we had was trying to get any information related to the addley case, which is a very important central kind of, you know, a part of this story. And we couldn't get like a straight answer about where to get the reasoned judgment, you know, which is just the document that the judge has summarized the case and published it and it should be available publicly but even that is hard to get a hold of in Britain. And then the court files that were like, we have them we don't have them, they've been destroyed, they should have been destroyed. Like, you know, in America, you could just walk into a courtroom and just, you know, fill in a form and they give you all the evidence base or or the every document that's associated with that. So it's just that yeah, it's just the right to access to information is very different than the two countries and I think that reflects in the journalism that you get.

I wanted to play a clip from Episode Six, and in this episode you've written a letter requesting an interview. And it's a letter that all combined where you're kind of really appealing to the guy, you know, saying you never believed a single thing about the the Trojan horse scandal out and then you kind of invoke your religion to get the guy to speak to you brother to brother. I'm sorry, I know. It's crazy. How did how did your How did your stomach drop when you realize he'd sent the letters to Brian? Yeah,

I mean, I was in shock. I I remember telling Brian Yeah, I could. I could. I knew I was on the phone to someone and they were talking but I couldn't tell you what he was saying. I was just in my head just was whirling. But yeah, you can play the tape.

Sorry, takes the letters. He sends them to Brian read. And he tells him that you're using him. And I want to play this kind of internal dialogue that Brian has near the end of that episode. And just wave at me if it's not working correctly.

If I think back to the reasons I got into journalism, if you asked me back then why I was drawn to it. I would have told you I like stories. I want to learn the craft. I'm interested in people. I do distrust authority. I want to hold them accountable, making a change in the world would have been in there but not at the top of the list. The Hamza has been clear from the get go about his reason for getting into this work. In fact, aside from that unfortunate paragraph in his letter to awesome in which Hamza lists all the people he never believed most of what he wrote in that letter amounts to a moving mission statement. If you believe journalism is an evil organ, capable of causing great damage, Hamza wrote that by default, you believe that same organ can reach as many people to cause great change. That's the concept I've decided to dedicate my life to. He would pursue this work he wrote, as a Muslim first and foremost, and as a journalist, second

imagine writing that source.

I can I can imagine writing that too. But I put down my phone at that point. And I started having a very, very, very long debate with myself. Because I was with you up until that point. Even with the letters I've done that but when you said as a Muslim first and foremost, and as a journalist second, I was so uncomfortable with their statement and I had to kind of stop and go, Okay, why are you so uncomfortable with that statement? Is this Islamophobia? And I don't think so. I lived in the Arab Emirates for nearly a decade in the early 2000s. So I had that massive awakening of how what shyt job the Western media does of covering the region and the nuances of both the Arab region and Islam. But I am someone who came out of big religion and so I guess I'm very cautious about any ideology that doesn't evolve and take in new information. Any ideology that resists changing or evolving under the guise of the preservation of tradition, and hadn't as I was kind of arguing with myself about, oh, it's not good to have this ideology in front of journalism. It kind of clicked in my head. Journalism is an ideology. And it's one that should evolve and take in new information and and it's one that refuses to evolve under the guise of tradition. So should I I don't really get to sit there and go, you must list your ideologies in this order, please. And the thing that you're bucking against throughout this podcast, that kind of concept of objectivity is kind of holy. To us. And I'm still struggling with the idea from a lot of young journalists that we need to throw it out because it's entirely impossible for anyone to be impartial but here's the question. Does it mean that we shouldn't be aiming to be impartial at least?

Yeah. where I stand on this is that and I don't know if this is right or wrong. This is just where I'm at.

I don't know if I'm right or wrong.

I think if journalism concerned itself with the truth above all else, that's what every reporter when they're embarking on this story, if that's what they were looking to find, and by the truth I mean find evidence to be able to support what you're saying, not just an opinion. I find objectivity or impartiality is your fallback plan, if you fall short from gathering enough evidence to be able to tell me definitively what happened, then yes, go and gather all the different perspectives on it or the different possibilities and settle for that, but don't aspire for that. And I find most journalism aspires for that, as opposed to going further to try to establish what the truth is. It's about let's get an assortment of opinions about what might have happened. And so I've never kind of put objectivity as my end game as like this is what I believe is a perfect piece of reporting not perfect pieces of evidence to be able to say definitively what happened and that's kind of what I pursue and then if I don't get the fall back on, well, here's one person's taken. Here's another person's take, you know, in that moment, one of my biggest fears paranoia is and if you want me to get into where that came from, was, I knew from day one I'm a Muslim person, and I'm reporting on a story that involves Muslims in Birmingham. This is very close to home. And from day one, I'm just imagining what that means for my journalism. What that means for my credibility will people believe me just because I'm so close to the to the event. And for a long time in this investigation, I was just constantly obstructing myself obstructing my instincts obstructing my thoughts and my responses to people because I just wanted to just disappear. I wanted to be in the background. You don't even notice me. Here's me with a microphone and to speak into this microphone and unchecked as far as I was concerned, because I did not want to get in the way. I don't want to be accused of directing someone in some kind of way or even like looking for specific answers from people. And I twisted myself up in to such an extent that I thought I was practically useless in rooms. I had no idea what I was doing there. Apart from sat opposite people who for two hours, I knew were talking nonsense. And I was just allowing that to happen because I didn't want to get in the way of their narrative. What if their narrative doesn't make any sense? And if I have evidence to challenge that narrative, why am I sat here for two hours and why? Why am I being shy about it? By letting them know that I don't believe you and here's why. And when they asked him let us surfaced, it was as if it was I knew it was kind of game over? In some sense. I was like, Well, what are you gonna hide now? You know what I mean? This is who you are, and it's out there. And so I just prioritized who I am above what I was doing and wasn't shy about just making that clear. So when I say you know what's going first and rapport second is because that's how I believe people perceive me anyway. And so might as well live it and at least that means I'll be more functional and hopefully more useful during my work because not constantly just cutting myself down. You know?

To tell you it was kind of freeing in a sense.

Well, yeah, it was liberating. I remember we had a conversation about at one point where this big two hour debate about journalism, which was recorded actually it was it never made it through podcast. And God knows what we'll do with that tape. Make it? Yeah, it was it was at the height of my disillusionment with journalism. And we were in New York and I was just schlepping around for weeks and Brian was like, Okay, you clearly have something on your mind. Why don't we just jump in the studio and let's just talk and we had this two hours debate about journalism and the story and what it was doing and as part of that, it was, I came to the realization that like, That letter was so liberating for me and whatever I've managed to achieve with the Trojan horses because of that letter, is because beyond that point, I just knew what I was and what I was doing. And before that, I was so confused. And I don't know what impact that would have had on the journalism and I don't know where the story would have got to if I remain in that state, but what you hear is a product of me switching and you know, just deciding that like, This is who I am, but here's all the evidence, and if you can get past who I am and, you know, confront the evidence, I think we're going to be alright. But yeah, it's a bit of a complicated moment. It took a few years to come to terms with it.

Did that two hour conversation help your disillusionment with journalism? How are you feeling now?

I mean, by the end of it, I was I was pretty much I had like, unofficially given my notice, you know, and I mean, to just be like, I'm doing this story. At that point, we still had years of writing ahead of us. So it wasn't, it wasn't placed for me to check out completely. But it was a marker of just like, I'm here to finish this project. I'm here to write the series. But beyond that, I am I am gone. And that's kind of, you know, that two hour conversation. It wasn't as Brian I remember, Sarah cainy got ready to get involved and it became like a whole conversation you know, it'll be leaked someday, I'm sure. But yeah, it helped me just realize I can't do this, like I need to step away.

Yeah. Well, listen, Brian, Sarah, if you're listening, we're very happy to host that content. Whoever the leaker. Might be. How are you? How are you feeling about the the reaction in the UK press?

Terrible, terrible. I mean, I'm pretty quite predictable, to be honest. Thank you, so

it wasn't predictable to you. Did you know Yeah,

I mean, listen, if you listen to episode eight, and I haven't I haven't heard the podcast since before it came out. So just a bit of tape that you played with the first time I've heard that in many, many months. But from what I remember, there is a piece of script in episode eight, that I was determined to kind of leave in there, which was just foreshadowing what's going to happen when the series comes out? And it's not hopeful, you know, it's not expecting great change. So it's that predictable. In fact, it's so predictable that at one point, I remember writing headlines before the series came out. Saying, This is what we're going to expect and even predicting sources, they're gonna go speak to this person, and that's the kind of article that's going to come out. And if I were to publish that now you think I'm like, some psychic or something like that. It's almost verbatim what happened. Like that's how predictable it is, which is, you know, it's depressing. It's embarrassing, like you know, it'd be nice for British journalism to surprise you now and again, but no, I wasn't. I wasn't shocked by what happened. I totally expected it. Do you?

Do you understand the criticism that actually those school investigations did on Earth some serious problems like the homophobia and the child endangerment the women's rights stuff?

To a certain extent, I think I think I would love someone to explain to me why Parkview or any of the schools in Birmingham for them are different to general schools in England, the issues you'd confront in any school in England, I'd love someone to explain to me that because what I find shocking actually is we lay out in Episode Six all the various issues concerns factual errors that are embedded in that official report are the Trojan horse for people to continue to pluck allegations from that report and say, Well, what about this? What about we're trying to say that like, Hey, listen, everything merits investigation, everything merits scrutiny, but you still verbatim just taken allegations that you have not gone on to find out if that's if that's a truth or not, you know, the stuff that we focused on the most concerning allegations to come out of Parkview? Well, you know, what happened with half of those allegations, you know, what became the truth of those? I'm not saying there wasn't things happening at Parkview that were terrible. I think, as all schools in England, terrible things happen. Whereas other schools, there's a context brought in, for example, there was a there was a story that came out I think, a month or so ago in Britain, someone can jump in with the details. Because I'm kind of hazy on it, but it involved a young girl she's 14, who got stripped searched, I believe, by the police in a school in London somewhere. Yeah. Nobody saw that as a reflection of school policy. That's not how it was reported or something that everyone in the school agreed with or consented to or happens regularly. It was a shocking event dealt with as a shocking event as some kind of singular failure in some sense. And, you know, the people responsible and the police, the teacher who referred that child or whatever, you know, it was contained within the characters who were involved in that specific event, but I didn't hear an argument or take them this is reflection of a school policy or this is how that school operates with all young girls. They all just get randomly stripped, searched now and again by the police. Like that's not what the argument has been made about.

So secular that wasn't that wasn't exactly,

exactly now if that happened in East Birmingham in 2014, the younger was stripped searched by the police. That would have been reported in a very different way that would have been seen as a reflection of like how women are treated at the school, these men who are in charge of the schools, this is this would have been talked about as if it's like a school policy as a regular occurrence. So what I'm trying to say is, were there isolated incidents at Parkview school and other schools in East Birmingham and schools everywhere in Britain, where things go wrong, absolutely. But with the Trojan horse that's not how any of that was discussed. Every incident, whether verified or not, was seen as a reflection of some wider ideology as a commentary on the faith that these people practice the culture the background, and that's where I take issue with the Trojan horse concerns. Yes. Why didn't that? I'm not sure. And I don't I still would love to see some evidence that would support that.

You do you think you should have spent longer addressing these concerns so people understood that you understand how important they are?

I think someone would have to again, to each their own in terms of the ratio they would give these incidents in a story. I, I would point out that our podcast is eight episodes long, eight hours with two episodes. So it's two hours of the series. Speaking to these events apart from school speak it is allegation at Parkview school hearing from teachers at the school directly dealing with the evidence the official accounts are following up on that with the people who accused or alleges that's two hours of eight hour podcast. Trojan horse was you know, a substantive case loads of events, loads of different storylines. If you're telling me that we should have given it three hours, four hours half the series should be spent on the allegations then I disagree but to each their own in terms of where they draw the line. We thought those issues were well covered by giving them two episodes and Episodes Series but you know, to each their own.

It's 25%.

Yeah, you know,

what would justice have looked like to you? What were you hoping to achieve?

I mean, the Trojan horse came out in functional democracy. Here's what I would have expected. At the very least I imagine. One of our biggest discoveries involves this audit report, which was very important to us specific a specific event connected to the Trojan horse. And we discover that there is a big timeline issue with some of the details in this report. That has huge consequences for the understanding of what happened at that school and possibly what happened with the Trojan horse affair. At the very least, I would have expected the local police who had a full investigation into that case running at the time. For whom that detail that we've now discovered which is crucial. It possibly suggests misdirection of the investigation. At the very least I would expect the police to have reopened a fraud investigation consider this detail of ours and seen how that fits in with what they understand happened at that school. Likewise, the booming city council who were responsible for the audit report and retracted it off the back of this detail that Brian and I zeroed in on. I would expect them to have confronted that detail. Imagine what that meant for the audit report reevaluated what they thought about what happened at the primary school and the Trojan horse affair. I would have expected someone whether it's government, whether it's any reporter in any publication anywhere to have asked Michael Gove why he knowingly used a piece of misinformation to drive hysteria in the country and change our laws or help with the changing of our laws, like that's such a foundational question that I think like I'm shocked nobody thinks that's important enough to ask him. You know, like, take the wallpaper out a bit. Just take that detail. A minister a government minister used a piece of misinformation to mislead the public and help drive draconian changes to our laws and nobody cares. So at the very least I would have expected some follow up with Michael Gove about why he chose to ignore that briefing. And then, you know, maybe I'm dreaming here but I would have expected newsrooms in the country to look at the way they reported on the Trojan horse and see if there's anything that they think they could do differently next time. You know, if there's anything they need to put in place to make sure they don't, you know, go off on a tangent again. That for me was just basic, you know, and I think if the Trojan horse came out in a country that worked, that would have happened and if you look at what has happened, nothing, nothing. And when I say nothing, I mean as basic as you know, we talked about this, like Adley Primary School is featured quite heavily in the series. Even if you're going to write a hit piece on us, if you're going to write a dangerous person from Birmingham has done this terrible podcast, don't listen to the New York Times, blah, blah, blah, etc, whatever. Whatever you just, you know, like, like, being Comboni to call the school even for a comment. I'm not even saying like, call them to be like, what do you make of these allegations? Just to be like, hey, what do you you know, do you want to contribute a quote to this piece that we're writing to say that these guys have drains in idiots or whatever? To that extent, there's been no follow up like nobody, no one has been curious enough to even call the school to say that like, hey, there's, you know, there's plenty said about what happened there in 2012. Do you have anything to say and back? I'm not saying it would have been a more substantive conversation. But I haven't even seemed like the school denied a request for an interview. I haven't even seen that line anywhere yet. That's how a little follow up has happened. So you know,

I mean, there's been there's, I think it's I do think it is a very fair criticism to say there's been a lot of coverage but it's been 80% op ed.

Well, that's the thing. See what I mean? I'm not saying it confused me because I can see how that happened. But so much of what's been written about us has either been opinion pieces, commentary pieces, or arts and culture critics reviewing it as a piece of entertainment. You know, how many news articles have followed up from the Trojan horse affair? I think one maybe the Guardian the Michael golfing, Birmingham live.

It's some interesting reporting, but I think

I mean, the most interesting, here's Birmingham live, they actually had an opportunity to ask Michael Gove a question because he was passing through Birmingham at the time this podcast came out and they reported decided to ask Michael Gove. What do you make of the podcast essentially? Yeah. Now what do you think? What what is that question gonna yield? Why don't you ask Michael Gove why he knowingly used a bogus letter to whip up a frenzy like it's basic, but that's when I decided to use that opportunity to ask him what do you make of the podcast and I think he said something about shorting pieces, etc, etc. Yeah. Excellent.

I will say that something I found particularly strange was when I was reading all the articles trying to prepare for this. I just wanted to find what university you'd been to. Such a simple thing. What university did you do your masters at? Not a single article of the 1000s bothered to do that? That tiny little tiny piece of journalism like oh, let's find out where this guy studied. Let's ask his professor for a comment. I mean, yeah, so I'm saying

like it just, I don't know what it is either. Just betrays that disinterest either betrays laziness either. I don't know what it betrays. But it's not journalism. You know what I mean? Like, again, like it would have been great if people would have been engaged with this if news reporters had engaged with this story. But it's almost I don't know it's almost by design, because then if you engage with this as a news reporter, you have to you have to deal with the discovery of the podcast, you have to deal with the news and the podcast, you know, and it is Britain wasn't interested in that, like Britain would rather just deal with I don't know it's like frivolous issues. You know, what I mean? Like just distractions is the phenomenon of 2014 just repeats itself again, when the podcast came out. And, you know,

would you do? Would you do anything differently?

Yeah, we've talked about that a lot. Like, I think, here's my take on it. We put out an AOL podcast in a country that is still catching up the tradition of investigative journalism in the podcast medium, and I think we asked a lot of people to sit for eight hours, listen to the whole thing. You know, take it all in understand it. Focus in on the details issues, pull them out, and then go do some follow ups like that, I think is fair. Like you could say that we don't have the time for this. Or the patient's for this. We should have my opinion. And we know this now, this isn't just my opinion. I think we're all in agreement. We should have released alongside the podcast, just a summary article where we just distill the findings of the investigation. Yeah, that was that would have

there were headlines and that there was a series of headlines in there. Yeah.

Exactly. Now, if you would have picked this this before the podcast came out, I would have said absolutely. Not. Because we just worked for years on this piece, and we wanted it to be you know, received. We didn't want anything to be any surprises to be stolen away by not a code. Like we wanted people to listen to the podcast and appreciate the story and take it all in at the same time. But that's on us. That was that was the wrong call. Like we should have been less precious about the story and more about the information. Put that out there in a format that people could just like read a quick article. pick all that up and then if they choose to do listen to the podcast, so be it but if not, at least information is being confronted. So yeah, that's something you know, we will bear in mind.

In your opinion, as somebody who was aligned with the New York Times office for a while, does the New York Times have it in for Britain has one of the publications claimed?

I think it was a daily mail piece, which began with their Trojan horse and ended up with Meghan Markel, and some wider theory about the New York Times. No, the New York Times doesn't have it in for Britain. I've seen a bunch of takes actually that kind of reflect on I think it's the same if you bring it down to a conversation, like about people like it's much easier for you to tell someone else what might be wrong with them rather than kind of have that self reflection to figure out what's wrong with yourself and I just feel like when the New York Times does pieces about Britain, Britain doesn't like it because it seems just like a foreign you know, kind of like country just commenting on your internal issues, but vice versa. I think like Britain probably does better reporting about America and the New York Times world is better reported by Britain. You know what I mean? It's just far easier to just like talk to the issues about someone else rather than yourself. So I think, yeah, the New York Times doesn't have it in for Britain. They're just a better place to tell you what's happening in Britain than some of the people who are there.

I don't know if I necessarily entirely agree but I'll take it would you if you do have questions for Hamza, you can, please feel free to use the q&a box to put questions in. And I want to just ask before we go to questions from the audience, and the fellows downstairs. Is there any part of you that feels like hmm, Brian and Sarah have been doing this for a really long time? And did they know what they were doing using me as a character?

I will used as a character. I feel like Brian had a I think, yeah, they're just more familiar with the medium. They know what podcast needs, you know. And I think one of the main things I remember when we're structuring the story, one of the main things we were trying to figure out is the Trojan horse. It had kind of goes through different layers. You have this very localized event. In Birmingham, you have the local government as a chapter but then you have the national government as a chapter you have the investigations that reports the journalism and we were struggling to find one character amongst the people we interviewed who could carry us through the entirety of that story, because each one kind of jumps in for like, two episodes, but then there are bits over and then we kind of move to a different set in a different situation and and as we're staring at that kind of like structure war. I knew where this was going. Because the only constant seems to be Brian and I were across it all. And I think with this project as well, like like it was apparent is that like, some of the biggest changes are happening between Brian and I, you know, like we we meet each other a certain people and by the end, it's undeniable, we're in different places. And so if you're looking at it in a way of like storytelling, like those are your characters you know, but even even up to the point when we started writing the series, it wasn't quite as deliberate as like, we're going to be, you know, a thing in this like, we obviously are going to be winning the rating. You have been investigating it and there's always going to be an element of that, but not to the extent that you guys hear on the podcast. Like I think that decision came about episode three. Okay, but um, we got episode three. Because Episode Three if you think about it, it's one interview and then about 20 minutes of Brian I walking around talking about it right. And that tape, the editors really liked there's a bunch of ideas and themes that came up but but the story and journalism and myself and, you know, it was all just recorded just on a hoof we just came out the building and I was just pissed and you know, just ranting and raving walking around and we had it all recorded and people heard that tape and they liked it. It's kind of hard for you to to spring that tape on and then just continue as you were, you know what I mean? That's a real thing. That you're doing and for a long time as advocating to just like, get it baby you know what I mean? Like I don't want this forget about it. We don't need this. This just keep focusing on the story. But it just it became an important element because it was kind of hard to decouple the story from that was happening especially because the Aslam event that happened, which we had to put on the story. And again, it's a very weird scene just as suddenly jumping to be like, Hey, let me tell you about this corner. Right. Exactly. So it just I gave up I realized that like, I had made some decisions. I've done some stuff, which meant that like I was going to be a character in this whether I was comfortable with that or not. Because it was beneficial to the story anyway because I think it was it benefited the wider conversations that

was great to subplots Yeah.

I literally said I will I will agree to impel myself for this investigation, you know, went for it.

Okay, what a question. I do see the questions in the QA q&a, but I also just want to go to ship prover downstairs from Bangladesh, who has a question for you. Yeah, we've got the room and we've got shipper takeaway.

Thank you for being here. I want to ask, in my experience post 911 mainstream Western media kind of started to put like all Muslims in one box and there was a very little acknowledgement of like our ethnic, cultural, linguistic diversity. So like when when I see a podcast or Muslim journalist, I'm always really hopeful that it will touch on that to some extent. So I'm in school that you mentioned in the Trojan horse affair Do you feel like they also kind of failed to really focus on the students diversity beyond their religion and like, do you feel there would have there should have been a bit more space in your podcast for that? Is that something you wanted to focus on?

That's the question. I mean, it depends on it's funny. It depends on what official report you consult as far as progress is concerned. In 2012, Parkview had an Ofsted inspection. So this is a year and a half before the Trojan horse went public. And they were given an outstanding ranking by Ofsted after the school inspectors go around and kind of independently kind of monitor schools and produce these reports. And they will rank outstanding and at that, at that time was a big deal. The Guardian covered a bunch of national press covered it because of the turnaround that happened apart for the school and also because they just recently changed like how often do do these inspections so the idea that the school got outstanding was made a big deal because it was like more stringent criteria. And part of the thing which Ofsted zeroed in on was the way the school was catering to its student body and how they were allowing space for the faith the culture of the student body and giving them you know, the opportunity I guess, to express whatever their backgrounds were, that's something Ofsted like commended in that report directly. Now, if you go to 2014, post Trojan horse, it's a very different story about what was happening in that school. But the idea there was it was restrictive and only kind of like dealing with a certain sub sect of Muslims or whatever. And so it's hard to know from two official reports what the reality of that school was, whether they were kind of like tunnel vision in the way they were approaching the student body or whether they were acknowledging diversity of it depending on again, which official report you read. From the interviews that we did from the students that we spoke to from the teachers that we talked to. We didn't get some generalized allegation that Parkview school was discriminating against people who weren't say mirpuri or Sunni Muslims. Like we didn't get that from anyone who was inside the school boy, yes, we did get it from others who'd gone in and investigate today. So it's, it's hard for me to say whether we should have spent more time figuring out the kind of the realities of that because you know, part of us makeup is also quite exceptional in the sense that like, almost 95 96% of the students come from that neighborhood that background. It is not quite as like, you know, a broader student kind of cultural makeup as you'd expect. It is quite a modulus. So we just relied on experience the people who were there teachers and students to tell us whether there was more to that. And I think whatever focus we gave, it felt fair to us. But I understand where you're coming from, like I think it is, it is, you know, especially with Muslims you just kind of assumed one size fits all. And, you know, like Parkview was certainly accused of that in 2014 but not so in 2012.

It probably would have been a vastly longer podcast, meeting considering the audience needing to explain the nuance before you got into those angles.

Yeah, I mean, what's funny also is that like, you know, we when you talk to kids at our school and teachers at our school, like the idea that the school was kind of like front loading, like Islam as like the way that they were figuring out all the schools issues and stuff. It seems to be the way people reflect on Parkview school now because of what's happened to Trojan horse. That's not the impression that like the students had at the time or even the teachers had at the time like yes, religion was the enemy at the school because of the daily active collective worship the you know, obligatory law that exists in England, like every school has to provide for that. So certainly religion played a role in those parts and for that hour or whatever, the kids are having the assemblies but otherwise the reflections it otherwise just sounds like a normal school. It's not like a regular school. Here's your class. Here's your lunch room. Here's your playground and go home, you know. And I don't know if like the teachers were gathered around to like specifically discuss theology and different students and what they believed and where we should. It didn't seem to be like a primary concern in that sense, because it was just functioning as a school, and given it the consideration like all schools are supposed to give it, especially in terms of their daily active collective worship. So yeah, I don't know how many kids apart from school felt that their religion wasn't allowed to be expressed, because that's certainly not something that we came across. But we didn't speak to or 600 students or however many attend Parkview.

Got a question for you from Tippie from Norway.

Hi, how are you sir? Thanks for being here. You actually answered some of my questions already, but I listened to that podcast some some Well, weeks weeks ago, and for me, like the idea was you yours and in my head year, more important than actually the Trojan horse letter like now that I think back of it like you're the kind of the main role,

but did you listen to the edited like the finished version of the podcast, when the editing was done, and were you happy with it? Would you have changed something? Like how you present it in the podcast or something?

Maybe the question could be paraphrased as how involved in the Edit process were you?

Oh, well, well, from the beginning right to the end. You know, like Brian and I, we wrote the series together. The editing process is substantial, but like, ultimately we are the authors of the story. And so we kind of make decisions. And like, kind of gather everyone's, you know, opinions and comments and stuff, but ultimately, we're executing them. There's nothing in a podcast which I didn't. Okay. I I sense that you're thinking about a specific moment that doesn't reflect well on me. Like, is there anything that you listened to and thought, Hmm, that, you know, how did that get passed in?

Is that fair to be is that what you're thinking?

Yeah, thanks.

Okay. There's a question. I'm going to paraphrase from Guillermo and Uruguay says, you kind of in that podcast, go right up to the line of saying, who wrote the letter, and then you don't without getting arrested? Do you want to tell us why?

I mean, the simple reason we didn't have the evidence to say definitively who wrote the letter, you know, so far for me to promote journalists giving you a conclusion without the evidence. So we didn't have the evidence that we couldn't say definitively who wrote the letter. We have a compelling theory. We have a lot of evidence that speaks to that theory and poses some serious questions about a certain score in a certain situation. But we are reporting that and allow us to be able to stake with absolute conclusion. Who wrote the letter? I wish it had. It was kind of what I was. Yeah, it was going in for

does anyone come forward since the release of the podcast with new information?

Yes, but like, too soon for me to say whether it's anything important on about a bunch of interesting DMS.

Did you have any DMS from Australia?

Not from the person who you might be thinking about nothing. I've had DMS from reporters in Australia. And, you know, I've encouraged anyone who reaches out to me to just be like, please do some follow ups. You know, like, we haven't like, kept anything behind like what we have is in a podcast, so there's so much of this that is remains left to be puzzled through. So yeah, anyone who DMS me has done the same thing. Please go to some reporting. Guys, go do some reporting.

I have a question for you from Robin. You're in the room. Should we take your question live? While we zoom in on Robin, let me just quickly tell you that Hillary Owens said when Hamza was really pissed I felt he was expressing my feelings. Thank you.

Where's that come from in the chat?

That's in the q&a.

I see. I see. Robin.

Hi. Thanks for being here. And I didn't want to kind of go over stuff that we've talked about already. But that that kind of mistake that was episode six that so much was made of that? Where I think I wonder like, basically the company kind of allowed you to make that mistake. You had experienced editors. It was the first story that you've you've ever worked on. You are, you know, effectively your training. I know. You're clearly a really smart and really capable guy to be able to do all that kind of reporting on your own, but any trainee makes mistakes like that all the time. And I know it might be a bit difficult for you to comment. And I know I get a sense of Brian is a friend of yours anyway. But it seemed like they didn't take any responsibility, you know? All the all of the conversation was Brian calling you and saying Hamza, you've made this terrible mistake and you've been like, I'm so sorry. I shouldn't you know, I shouldn't have done that. And nothing from them about actually, this is this. Well, not nothing but not very much from them about this is this guy's first story, and everybody makes these kinds of mistakes in the first story, or normally they're not even you know, they don't even have the space to do that because everything's you know, so the supreme oversight normally as an editor who's editing lots of, you know, people's first stories, I usually have a really clear clear eye on everything they do. And you know, show me they're showing us before you send it and so it kind of just strikes me actually more of their mistake than yours and I'd be interested to know what you think about that.

I mean, it's definitely my mistake. There's I don't doubt that I think the thing also to remember about the Trojan horses for a very long time, this wasn't with cereal. This wasn't with the New York Times. This was a Brian at the time was working at this American life when I approached him. And, you know, it was basically he and I for a while. And This American Life is hosted by Ira Glass and he was basically our editor. But in the time when I made that mistake, it was largely just Brian and I kind of consulting with with each other. So it wasn't a thing that for example, you know, had the whole new time CRO kind of like team assembled and I decided to go and do this thing. Without running it by them. It was a you know, it wasn't supposed to be a thing. It was just supposed to be just like writing a letter. To source and seen if they would speak to us now what happened is, you know, like, I think the day before whatever we called him, and you know, he was he wasn't happy. And it was, you know, very aggressive short phone call. And it just felt like it was clear that he wasn't gonna speak to us without something major. But you know, I was I just said to Brian, I'm gonna write a letter to him. And he's the only one I run it past. I didn't let him read the letter. I wrote it. I sent it. And he read it when when the courts received the I guess, so I would love to distribute the blame of that moment. But it's all me. And I didn't feel when Brian was called me. You know? The only thing that was confusing to me in our conversation wasn't like him saying, What have you done here like that makes sense to me, of course of, you know, messed up. It was the bit afterwards when he was like, Do you believe this? Like, is this what you believe? And that for me was a different question. Like I understood the tactical error, and I understand what this means. But I wasn't sure why he was so confused about what I thought about what happened with the Trojan horse and that's where I started. If you listen to the conversation back it's split into two parts. Part one is just me just in total shock and apologetic and just kind of mumbling and totally confused. Then I go to drink some water. And there must be something in the water in Birmingham, because when I came back on the phone, I was just a lot more it's like, yeah, yeah, okay, let's talk, you know, and it was because I was just like, Well, okay, like, I had contextualize the mistake. Like, I knew what I had done. And for me, it was just like, Okay, I guess it's a tactical error, which, which might be costly. But I didn't think it was beyond that. When Brian kept pressing on just like, Do you believe this? That's where I got a bit annoyed. I got to be confused. I was just like, Yeah, I do. Like if I didn't, why would I be doing this case? If I thought the official narrative of the Trojan horse is real, why am I investigating? Why am I spending all this time and resources on it? So the mistake was absolutely mine. And I think the only bit by Brian's phone call that I remember rubbed me the wrong way was just his was him inquiring if I believe that.

I mean, Hamza, I'll just say that you you might not know this because you haven't worked in a newsroom. Apart from this one, but it traditionally, the buck stops with you. You're not meant to let God bless you. For shouldering all the blame, but it's it's meant to be a collaborative process. It is meant to be a collaborative process. Not even the best investigative journalist in the world works completely alone. So yeah, I hear you I and to an extent I agree with you, but I don't know what happened behind closed doors and how much support you got behind closed doors, but I do hope that you got that support behind closed doors.

I mean, we made it as you know, we made it a central tenet of the podcast, I think we're all as a team me myself.

I was valuable, incredibly valuable. Yeah. And when I've got we've got time for I hope, just two more questions. The first is from Sarah Muhammad, who says, Thank you so much for the project. And she says unlike other people, you actually interviewed the Muslim woman and staff and students at the school, and you let them speak in their own words in their own voices about their experiences. Throughout the Trojan horse affair, it's been clear that other people were speaking over them. Why do you think it took so long for this to happen?

Yeah, I mean, that's a good question. I think that's a question that should be aimed at every other reporter in Britain. You know, one of the most shocking responses we had was when Brian emailed this teacher at Parkview called Amina, and there was a lady called Sue packer, who had been for years sharing the same story about this incident that happened at the school that involved Amina and you know the story. Reporter she'd met with she'd kind of share this anecdote with lawyers, legal proceedings and not one person to fit to call Amina and conduct demeanor and verify the details of the story. And when when Brian did she mailed vaccines the first she was hearing about this which you know, I think that speaks to something you know, it's I even point to a lot the criticism of the podcasts or in general about, you know, suppressing the voice or, you know, like, at least we spoke to Muslim women, you know what I mean, at least we went and did that. I can't speak too much of reporting in Britain that that can kind of, say the same, including the critics you know, like, who did you go speak to with the school? Like it? It's hilarious. The projection that happens, because, yeah, like you heard from Muslim women or poor preschool for the first time and it was it was a complicated picture. It was a nuanced picture. You know that didn't hold back about the criticism of the school. But it was helpful. It was helpful to hear and I think a lot of reporters could have done that before. Figured it out a bit more of themselves. Because yeah, that seems to be the central tenet of the Trojan horse was like the Muslim women at the school and go speak to them. Go speak to them, let them tell you what happened.

We're running slightly over time now. But Rihanna, Parveen and Achmed both have I think an important question to end on. What do you think we as Muslims in Birmingham in the UK, generally should do now to try to maintain pressure

Yeah, I don't want to I don't want to direct people's kind of outrage in that sense. Like I think I think there's there's put it this way, if I was gonna advise on one thing, maybe this is bad for me to say, and I'll probably get reprimanded for this. But like I would encourage people to get off the Twitter spaces because I've seen a bunch of Twitter spaces about the Trojan horse. That's all I keep seeing is two spaces, people talking about it. I would encourage people to consider actual things that you could do in response to it beyond just discussing it. There was an election that happened in May, in Birmingham and elsewhere. That could have been an important point where Birmingham Muslims decided to put some pressure on the political leaders in the city to do something about the Trojan horse they chose not to as far as I understand. You know, I think just follow up like follow up with your political leaders follow up with local reporters like I think the reality is that like until the authority responds to this, there's not much you can do. So. Have a think about how you can get the authorities to respond to the report and the Trojan horse.

Thank you. So thank you for your time. Thank you for your vulnerability. Thank you for creating a project that made the space for us to talk about the state of journalism and the concept of objectivity and 2020. Do. I know that you've said to me offline that it feels like nothing came of this, but I think a lot has come of this and we're very grateful to you and I hope you I hope you continue. Appreciate that. We haven't broken you take it. All right. Sounds like Oh, well. Thank you. Bye, everyone.