Watch part two

On the Listening Post this week, the new media offensive in Afghanistan and the Myanmar citizen journalists whose story has been turned into a documentary.

We start our show this week in Afghanistan. The war there is now in its eighth year and public support for it in the US and UK has never been lower. Perhaps its no surprise that as the latest offensive against the Taliban in Helmand Province continues, an equally vigorous media campaign is unfolding across the world's headlines.

Hints that Western governments are ready to talk to the Taliban have started to appear in the headlines in London and Washington. How are the governments of the NATO countries involved in the conflict getting their message across? How are the Afghan media telling the story of the latest fighting with elections there fast approaching? Our report will try to answer these questions by looking at the media, the war and the new narrative being created for Afghanistan.

In part two  the Listening Post's Meenakshi Ravi caught up with the key players of the new documentary on Myanmar.

It has been nearly two years since the monks of Myanmar led the pro-democracy uprisings that rocked the country and caught the world's attention. For the international media, reporting events on the ground was near impossible because of the clampdown by the military authorities. Despite the government orchestrated media paralysis, the demonstrations in Myanmar eventually became one of the most covered news events of the year.

The driving forces behind the coverage were amateur video journalists who were out on the streets filming events as they happened. But now - even with the trial of the high profile pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi - news from the country has again disappeared from the media – despite hosting a generation of technology-savvy and inspired citizen journalists willing to risk their lives to get us the pictures.

In this week's Newsbytes: The new law designed to protect journalists in Iraq. Media restrictions ease in Zimbabwe. Is it media repression or regulation in Venezuela? Retrial over the killing of Russian journalist reopens in Moscow and President Obama surprises a veteran journalist on their birthday.

Finally our video of the week has had millions of hits on the world wide web. It is the wedding entrance of Jill Petersen and Kevin Heinz in St Paul Minnesota choreographed to Forever by Chris Brown could give many happy couples some new ideas and certainly some new moves.

This episode of The Listening Post airs from Friday, August 07, 2009, at the following times GMT: Friday: 1230; Saturday: 1030, 2230; Sunday: 0300, 1930; Monday: 0030; Tuesday: 0630, 1630; Wednesday: 0130, 1430; Thursday: 0330, 2330.