put this in perspective for us. who are these people and what do they want? >> it start eed largely as a domestic threat. they have shown an intent to strike abroad. this is the biggest attack and it's worrisome. al qaeda affiliation. some americans in their membership which makes american authorities worried about using americans to attack inside the u.s. but also american interests abroad. here's the other thing. african union forces have had a lot of success pushing al shabab out of strong holds. this is a sign that they are coming back. ambitious attack and memories of mumbai, that style assault on a high profile target. >> i'm not sure -- we're trying to get zain verjee. i'm not sure whether we have her or not on the scene. i'm sorry? okay. we're having trouble bringing her up. we know the outlines of this and one of the things we know is that there are israeli special forces on the ground. can you interpret that for me? >> they have a history of helping kenyans on counterterrorism. to some degree that's natural. they have tremendous experience dealing with similar situations to this hostage situation. i imagine the kenyans are happy to have the help. there was israeli ownership of the mall as well. >> in sense of working together, there is a history between kenyan military and israeli military? >> there is. because there have been other attacks in kenya against israeli interests. you may remember a couple years ago they tried to shoot at an israeli airliner trying to come in. they missed thankfully. they've tried this before. now they've had some success. >> we do have zain verjee on the ground for us in nairobi. can you tell me what's happening on the ground right now? >> reporter: everything has become so tense in the last five or ten minutes or so, candy. i don't know if you can hear but there are military police helicopters that have been going around and around west gate mall for the last one hour and in the last 15 minutes or so they've started to fly very, very low. i am at the center which is about five or ten-minute walk to west gate mall which is on my left-hand side. we've all been moved away from that. this is where the medics are. the red cross set up here and they have a triage center. all of a sudden there was some kind of warning and they were told to clear the passageway and do it quickly. we were moved from our position. everyone is in standing position. we're not allowed to leave these gates. definitely israeli special forces working alongside with kenyan counterparts and are inside west gate mall from senior kenyan sources i heard that shabab group is relatively isolated inside the mall but i know that mall really well. i go there multiple times a week. my family is there almost every day. and it's a mall that takes about 3,000 people so it's huge. the government officials and security officials are saying the first and second floors are secured but there's also three and four and that's a question mark. >> cnn's zain verjee in nairobi. we'll hear from her throughout the day as cnn continues to cover the story and we'll have more news out of kenya at the bottom of the hour. until then, we'll go to "reliable sources." >> thanks, candy. welcome. i'm david folkenflik. much information that news organizations provided on air and social media platforms proved wrong. the most haunting mistake involved an identification card found at the scene and was named as a suspect. it's important to note the reports were quickly retracted but they spilled elsewhere. you worked for the united states navy for 24 years. after that you worked in civilian role for several years. you went on administrative leave last october as i understand it. when you got that call from a producer from abc news asking you that question, what was that like? >> surreal. i thought it was a hoax and someone was joking with me. and before i know it, i realized it was real. it was real when the fbi showed up at my door. the emotion i felt, i was watching the story unfold because a lot of those guys i knew and were friends and co-workers. to be accused as shooter when i'm an hour away in virginia watching the whole thing unfold. it was frustrating. a lot of my immediate family, siblings, mother, mother-in-law thought i was dead and to find out he's not dead and alive again. okay. now he's someone of interest of being involved. i can't begin to tell you the amount of people impacted besides myself. one of the biggest things that bothered me is when you are go in there and i put my name in and image of my name in, the picture that comes up is of aaron alexis and that's linking my name with the incident president. >> what would you tell reporters about the consequences of getting something like this so very wrong? >> well, i would tell a reporter the human factor. if you get this wrong how will it impact their lives of the individual who was identified wrongly? >> identified wrongly. and unjustly. on monday often relying on officials, news organizations reported other elements wrong about the number of shooters and weapons involved. several news outlets reported that the shooter committed the mass murders with various guns including an ar-15, a type of semiautomatic rifle. >> sources tell us that alexis was armed with three weapons. an assault rifle, a shotgun and also a pistol. >> they do believe most of the gunshots were fired from the ar-15. >> he was able to get an ar-15 and other weapons on location. >> the ar-15 was used in the aurora, colorado, and newtown, connecticut, mass murders. some gun owners complained that reporters don't know what they're talking about when it comes to guns. one "washington post" reporter has helped to lead seminars to educate other journalists on what to avoid on the topic. david, thank you so much. we know that aaron alexis did not use the ar-15. why does that matter? >> when you talk about writing about guns because it's an inflammatory issue, the more outrageous or explosive the claim, the higher the burden is on the reporter to verify that stuff. when you have a 24-hour news cycle opposed to old news cycles of once or twice a day, you are put under incredible pressure to verify that stuff instanto instantaneously so it ratchets it up higher. his name is out there and linked to this. >> when you talk to reporters in your newsroom and other newsroom, stories go gun, gun trafficki trafficking, other incidents. what pit falls do you tell them to avoid? >> a lot relies on the makes and models of gun. people confuse fully automatic with semiautomatic. why it's not a mistake as catastrophic as linking his name as a suspect, it undermines our reporting. many are gun owners and they say if you don't understand the difference between a fully automatic and semiautomatic weapon, why should i believe the rest of your reporting? >> when you think about it, is there a gap as has been claimed by some gun owners and some conservative critics of the media between the class and people they cover who are law abiding gun owners? >> gap might be a little bit of a strong word. i do think that you probably have more gun knowledge in newsrooms generally when you talk about in the heartland. i'm from oklahoma. grew up there. a lot of people i knew hunted. >> worked at the tulsa tribune. >> now defunct. rest in peace. i grew up with guns in the house. we always had a .38 special sitting on my dad's dresser. it was always there. i think that when you get into densely urbanized areas, you know, you have less reporter experience with firearms in the newsrooms. the seminars that you talk about, it's clear. there's a thirst for knowledge and understanding and it's easy to get it's just that reporters don't find themselves in sort of a position of informing themselves ahead of time because they are reacting to these events. it's a classic example on monday you have massive shooting and you have instant sort of response and a lot of reporters are writing about this and don't know what an ar-15 is or why implications of reporting something erroneously is like throwing a rock into a pond. >> a lot of events like catastrophic are complex and detailed. i can imagine someone who is roughly half of americans who have concerns about gun ownership and they might say that's terrible but guns were used to kill someone. why this? why is it so important to get this right? >> it's critical to get this right because this is in many ways an issue unlike many others. it's a constitutional issue. it resonates with people. there's a huge amount of cynicism about the press. i get it. i understand it. i hear those concerns all the time. all the things we do, little mistakes, they undermine our credibility over all because it calls into question if we get these things wrong. >> what would you advise people doing things to try to get things right. >> we have all been sort of in that moment where you are is this right? is this wrong? you are going back and forth and torquing in the wind. i think the biggest that you can do is you have to sort of in your mind leverage against how controversial is this claim? ar-15 claim that some news organizations went with, we fortunately held back. we didn't have enough information. i was not involved in daily coverage of this. my colleagues did an excellent job of holding back. you recognize that if you leak suddenly and in everyone's mind with a shooting in newtown, here we go. another discussion about ar-15s. not the case at all. when you have those kind of claims, you have to step back and say how do we really know this? we've seen the information can be wrong. we have seen this gets out and takes on life of its own. you have to put the brakes on. you can't just go with something unless you have enough evidence. >> david fallis of "the washington post," thanks for joining us. >> an asian american talk show host talks about racism and sexism in the tv news business. we'll look at what a young julie chen did years ago and what it might mean today. how much protein does your dog food have? 18 percent? 20? new purina one true instinct has 30. active dogs crave nutrient-dense food. so we made purina one true instinct. learn more at purinaone.com clean energy is creating good jobs all across our country. like here, in california, where we're creating more jobs and getting more power from the sun and the wind. i'm tom steyer. each week, we're taking a look at the keystone xl pipeline proposal -- separating fact from fiction. this week -- the truth about jobs. today, america's energy sector is growing stronger as we diversify, creating hundreds of thousands of clean energy jobs here at home, while reducing our dependence on oil from abroad. but foreign oil companies like transcanada are pushing the other way. proposing the keystone pipeline through america's heartland, promising us jobs if they get their way. but here's what they don't say... a state department analysis found that keystone will create just 35 permanent jobs once the pipeline is built. 35. as a businessman, i don't devalue any job. but 35 jobs maintaining a foreign oil pipeline -- one that comes with real risks to the farms and towns and water supplies it would run through -- that's not gonna grow our economy. and it would undercut the kind of clean energy jobs that are repowering america. next week, we visit the big apple, where climate change isn't an abstract notion, it's the test for our times. see you there. it's the test for our times. make my mark i wawith pride.ork. create moments of value. build character through quality. and earn the right to be called a classic. the lands' end no iron dress shirt. starting at 49 dollars. i got this. [thinking] is it that time? the son picks up the check? [thinking] i'm still working. he's retired. i hope he's saving. i hope he saved enough. who matters most to you says the most about you. at massmutual we're owned by our policyowners, and they matter most to us. whether you're just starting your 401(k) or you are ready for retirement, we'll help you get there. you know who you are. you can part a crowd, without saying a word... if you have yet to master the quiet sneeze... you stash tissues like a squirrel stashes nuts... well muddlers, muddle no more. try zyrtec®. it gives you powerful allergy relief. and zyrtec® is different than claritin® because zyrtec® starts working at hour one on the first day you take it. claritin® doesn't start working until hour three. zyrtec®. love the air. julie chen talked about her experience as a reporter early in her career. chen did undergo the procedure. chen's story prompted a backlash. some critics accused her of selling out and others claim she had other surgery too. this week chen addressed the question again. >> i do not have cheek implants. i did not take out fat over here to make my cheeks look more -- i did not have chin surgery. i did not have a nose job. i have not done my teeth. nothing. nothing else has been done. >> in an effort to quiet chen's critics, the talk showed a sequence of the application process. at a time when they are not just anchors but news division chiefs many television journalists are under a double standard. joining me is kelly mcbride and wendy is a former anchor for a station in orlando. wendy, how much pressure did one face back then? what do you make of julie chen's story? >> if you talk about pressure specifically as an asian american woman, i didn't really feel anything particular, anything stronger than i would have as a young reporter or a young anchor in large market like orlando. i didn't feel any pressure ever to not appear asian or look asian. i will say in my first job i was asked to change my name which i did shorten because my given birth name is difficult and longer. >> are these subtle clues in which you are to appear more western or white or more approachable to a nonasian, nonjapanese audience? >> or maybe so my last name would be pronounceable in west texas where i started television. it could be that too. >> who are you talking to here? kelly, you talked to a lot of professionals in the business. women in particular about how their careers progress and you talk to television journalists about this. do you find issues of ethnicity matter and do you findparamount? >> absolutely. many people would be surprised at the effort and the energy that television stations and television networks put into discovering how the audience will respond to a certain person. so they do screen tests. they do focus groups. and then they allow that information to inform who they put on the air. so our standard of beauty has always been one that's based on the white ideal. thin nose. certain shape of eyes. a certain shape of mouth. and to the extent that we have become more diverse in television it really has been initially to have people of color who look more white be the first ones to plow that pathway. and to a certain extent, it ends up being a chicken and egg question. because if i'm going to put someone who looks very different on television and then run it by a focus group and the people in the focus group react negatively because they've never seen anyone like that on television, who is going to go first? >> you know, you also wrote this piece this week about what happened with miss america when she was crowned the first miss america of indian american dissent. and the response that she got online turned into a piece that went viral on buzz feed. why was that piece so noteworthy? >> an hour after she was named miss america, buzz feed puts up a piece that describes a dozen or so racist tweets that people have asking if she's really an american implying that she's a terrorist. by the next morning more than a million people had shared that with each other on facebook and twitter in social media environment and the reason they were sharing it was because they didn't agree with the sentiment that was part of -- that was the reason for that original buzz feed piece. for the most part people were appalled that there was a conversation about whether she was really american. however, in the conversation that we had in journalism subsequently, we really narrowed it down to are we racist or not? are we ready for a woman of color, an indian american woman to be miss america? we missed a really good opportunity because we framed -- we allowed that buzz feed piece to frame the question when that was meant to go viral and it's very easy to share things that are negative that you're route y outraged by. >> there is this entertainment show business element to what happens in television news. when you think about that, in your experience as a woman television news professional, to what extent did people look at women journalists, women anchors, women colleagues, women friends differently than their male counterparts? >> you have to believe there's for sure a double standard. women are looked at more critically. >> even now? >> i believe so. trendy. clothes. hairstyles have to be cutting edge. they can't just go with the suit and tie. men's appearance on television over the last 20 years hasn't changed that much. women's definitely has. i'll also say that what has changed in the last few years, i did get out of regular television a couple years ago is how -- when the internet started rising and social media started rising how critical your rank and file viewer has been able to get and how vicious some of the tweets and the e-mails and the communication has come from regular viewers. they hold a lot more power anymore and they can get directly to you. you're popping up your phone and reading what joe blow down the street has to say about what you've done with your hair that day. >> people that once screened at their television sets can do it online and share it with friends and followers. thank you so much for join usins on this topic. we'll let the latest news from kenya and reporting on state secrets on how they used american traditions to get along restrictive laws they face at home. rk with pride. create moments of value. build character through quality. and earn the right to be called a classic. the lands' end no iron dress shirt. starting at 49 dollars. guys, you took tums® a couple hours ago. why keep taking it if you know your heartburn keeps coming back? 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[ male announcer ] break with tradition, take pepcid® complete. it works fast and lasts. get relief from your heartburn relief with pepcid® complete. get relief from your heartburn relief make my mark i wawith pride.ork. create moments of value. build character through quality. and earn the right to be called a classic. the lands' end no iron dress shirt. starting at 49 dollars. hey, buddy? oh, hey, flo. you want to see something cool? snapshot, from progressive. my insurance company told me not to talk to people like you. you always do what they tell you? no... try it, and see what your good driving can save you. you don't even have to switch. unless you're scared. i'm not scared, it's... you know we can still see you. no, you can't. pretty sure we can... try snapshot today -- no pressure. i'm david folkenflik. the guardian and its u.s. website have documented the reach of the nsa into the digital activities of american and british citizens and institutions. high stakes national security reports that initially stirred outrage against the paper but led government officials from president obama on down to call for a debate over balancing national security and civil liberties. earlier speaking from new york, the guardian's editor in chief alan rusbridger proved how important american press freedoms are. thank you so much for joining us. you had such a head start on this nsa story. yet you collaborated with "the new york times" to help produce a number of stories of late that not only revealed what was happening with the nsa but with also its british counterpart, the gshq. why embark on that collaboration? >> there came a point we thought this would be a difficult story to report from london alone. so there were two reasons. one was that it was good to have a separate set of eyes on these documents and the reporters and "the new york times" brought expertise and depth to our own reporting. the other was that it was becoming impossible to report from london. there are a different set of media laws in london. there is a concept of prior restraint, ie the government can interfere to try and stop you for from publishing which just simply doesn't exist in the u.s. there came a point where it made more sense to move the reporting to america and to do it collaborateively. i saw a picture tweeted recently. an event held in new york to celebrate "the guardian" where you held up a hard drive you dismantled and destroyed at the direction of the government. they said they might take it over. what does it mean about high stakes reporting on national security in your country as opposed to ours that such directives are issued and actions need to be taken? >> this is the hard drive with the holes in it destroyed to satisfaction of the british state. it was a curious thing this destruction of the material in london because in the world that we live in now, you can destroy one company in london but one of the reporters on this story has a copy in rio and "the new york times" has another copy in new york. it was a piece of symbolic theater you could say to destroy a copy in london. i think what it reflects is that this is a story which on one level is being governed by the old rules to do with spying and on another level is about the mass surveillance of entire populations and these two things have collided and the state is playing it by old rules and trying to use criminalization of this kind of reporting and using an injunction or threatening to use injunctions and it's simply not going to work in this new world in which information is universal. >> in this country it sparked quite a bit of competition. you partnered with "the new york times" which also has reporting from mr. snowden. the associated press and bloomberg news have been chasing it as have others. in our own country it seems like you are doing this single handedly. why do you think that is? >> there may be a cultural element here. this is a big story in germany for reasons you don't have to go far back into german history to understand why the germans would be anxious. and i think in america mccarthy, nixon, hoover, so on, a real suspicion of the state and potential of the state to do harm. maybe in britain we're a little bit complacent and we believe an englishman's home is his castle but we don't appreciate the police through the front door of the castle and they're inside everybody's home potentially through the use of this technology. and i think the penny is beginning to drop among ordinary citizens, business people, journalists, that you can't weaken the structure of the internet itself just on behalf of the nsa. this will let criminals, chinese, russians and other people in as well. >> a remarkable and twisty path to a remarkable and often twisty story. alan rusbridger, thank you for being here. there's more of that interview available online. go to cnn.com/reliable. up next, pardon the interpretation but espn's long running sports show may have found the secret formula for accountability in television reporting. in does your dog food have? 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[ marge ] fiber the fun way, from phillips'. i'm on expert on softball. and tea parties. i'll have more awkward conversations than i'm equipped for, because i'm raising two girls on my own. i'll worry about the economy more than a few times before they're grown. but it's for them, so i've found a way. who matters most to you says the most about you. at massmutual we're owned by our policyowners, and they matter most to us. ready to plan for your future? we'll help you get there. make my mark i wawith pride.ork. create moments of value. build character through quality. and earn the right to be called a classic. the lands' end no iron dress shirt. starting at 49 dollars. you know who you are. you can part a crowd, without saying a word... if you have yet to master the quiet sneeze... you stash tissues like a squirrel stashes nuts... well muddlers, muddle no more. try zyrtec®. it gives you powerful allergy relief. and zyrtec® is different than claritin® because zyrtec® starts working at hour one on the first day you take it. claritin® doesn't start working until hour three. zyrtec®. love the air. vo:remember to changew that oil is the it on schedule toy car. keep your car healthy. show your car a little love with an oil change starting at $19.95. espn's sport show "pardon the interruption" has made all kinds of errors and admissions. i would like to introduce you to tony kornheiser who calls them out after every show. we went to the office to see how it works. >> i got hired to be the research department. a week before air that i first heard the idea that tony and mike wanted a side kick and somebody there to correct errors. this made perfect sense that tony and mike coming from a place in newspaper where they had a correction page. they are 32 and 35. since '08 they are under .500. what our show tries to do is have barroom discussion on air. so first off the show is on autopilot. secondly, we want to make sure they can feel that comfortable when they are doing the show and one way to do that was to have some accountability at the end should they make any mistakes. >> he's not as big as that. >> he's not 6'3". he's not big. >> i want to make sure our lead in sentences are correct before we even get to air. just so we start from a place of complete accuracy. at that point once the conversation goes on for next two minutes they can make any mistake they want. god willing i'll catch them at this point. tony keeps his research note pad that he looks at. as we have on the show now called going into the glasses. he has to read something and put glasses on and take them out of his pocket and put them on his head. look down at the pad. there was a trade last night in the nfl which is rare to begin with. >> we begin today the cleveland browns at 0-2 seeming to thank their 2013 season already by trading the number one running back and number one overall pick in the draft. >> the number three pick in the draft being traded is a big deal. 22-year-old running back. played 17 games in the nfl. >> he's really good in pass protection. and he can catch it. he caught more than 50 balls last year. he scored 11 touchdowns. >> i remember the first error i corrected for the show was with a soccer mistake. i think tony said that they were playing on a court. >> trying to find out remewe me up. >> chuck pagano called him a rolling ball of butcher knives. thought you would like to hear that. you brought up herb washington. never mentioned his 1974 world series appearance. picked off in game two. >> a fun element for our show. guys enjoy the ability to get called out and that says something about the guys. i think not everybody is like that. tony and mike certainly are. >> not only errors but omissions. you don't see that too often. i spoke with tony kornheiser earlier. thank you so much for joining us. tell me, why does "pardon the intermission" need a fact checker to come on the air? >> when we first started the show, we were newspaper guys. we were used to the notion of corrections all the time. in the newspaper of course they came out the next day and we figured we couldn't wait until the next day and it was our idea to get somebody to correct us. we knew that we were just going to be spouting off fact after fact after fact after fact and we were bound to get a few wrong. we had no research in front of us. it was television. we knew we would get something wrong and we thought it would be good for the audience that we acknowledged we got something wrong. there are guys watching us saying hold it. wait a second. that's wrong. that's crazy. so we thought a self-correcting mechanism would work. >> it sounds like it's crazy to think you would need one. think of all of the guys who cover all of the sunday football shows and the number of things that they say based on statistics or on gut instinct a lot of which is not well-founded. you play in an erraierair -- are it is sports talk. why did you think you needed the immediate self-correction? >> they may not need precision in sports talk but when you put yourself out there as an expert and the people you're trying to attract are people that want to do the very show you're doing, guys standing around sitting around arguing with each other over sports, if you make a mistake, that lights up like a flare in the if you make a mistake, that lights like a flare in the middle of the night. you think why do these dopes have a show? >> twitter or wikipedia or something. >> mike and i have the advantage that we have been sportscasters for a million years and we've got all this stuff imprinted on our brains. you're never sure about dates, you're never sure about names or context or circumstance. so having tony here, knowing that he's always going to correct us when we're wrong and we love him to death, that adds to the comradery of the show. >> it's as though he's become an incredibly popular character on a sitcom. >> virtually every time we make a mistake, we feel stupid, but virtually every time you're on or off the air, we feel stupid. i have had the wrong cities. i'll try to re-create an event and i will get every single part of it wrong, except possibly the main character. >> it's better for tony to call you out on the same day than the dead guy to call you and say, hey, i'm still breathing. >> it's always better -- it's always better to correct it. >> what lessons do you think there are from what you guys do? i mean after all, you're not seeing a real-time fact checker appear on any of the most known television shows in the country. what was it that you think the main stream news programs and main stream news outlets think you guys are doing in sports talk? >> if you look at the pti show and the genius producers that we have, you will see that everybody has borrowed a significant amount of elements either from us visually and they should borrow or steal somebody like tony on a live news show. if you get something wrong, you owe it to your viewers to correct it on the spot. and if you have taped it, you shouldn't ever get it wrong because you can correct it. >> you think of the clock, you think of the roster of subjects that you're going to address in rapid fire pace and this really isn't one of them. jake tapper now here at cnn did a version of this when he was a substitute hosting over on abc's this week. you've got folks from politifacts come in and correct certain things. but you're not seeing that. why do you think that is? >> i mean it occurs to me that sports has always been called the toy department of newspapers and maybe now the toy department of television and people don't take it so seriously, so they don't mind if you have a self-correcting mechanism, the talent doesn't mind. somebody coming out right then and then and attacking their lack of facts right on the same show. but, i mean, weather men for example, they keep their jobs and they're wrong 70% of the time. so i don't think that it would be that terrible for an anchor to look around and say, you know what? thanks, we got that one wrong. nobody's going to take our job away. tony a tony -- >> a slightly less defensive posture, if you feel there's anything wrong with this segment you're welcome to tweet at me. tony kornheiser, thank you so much for joining us. >> you're welcome. you got to get off twitter. everybody on twitter is going to lose their jobs. >> thank you so much, tony. up next, a much more serious topic, a terror attack in kenya and the reporter who is run toward the danger. but finally, it happened. perfection. at progresso, we've got a passion for quality, because you've got a passion for taste. see who does good work and compare costs. it doesn't usually work that way with health care. but with unitedhealthcare, i get information on quality rated doctors, treatment options and estimates for how much i'll pay. that helps me, and my guys, make better decisions. i don't like guesses with my business, and definitely not with our health. innovations that work for you. that's health in numbers. unitedhealthcare. make my mark i wawith pride.ork. create moments of value. build character through quality. and earn the right to be called a classic. the lands' end no iron dress shirt. starting at 49 dollars. one final note, sometimes like first responders, journalists are faced with situations where they run toward a crisis instead of way. tyler hicks of the "new york times" was shopping in nairobi, kenya when a gunman started to kill people at a mall. they darted into the mall with a team of security agents. hicks spoke to cnn's new day earlier this morning. >> it's really amazing to see, you know, even after being there an hour, hour and a half, two hours, people continued to suddenly come out of shops, they had barricaded themselves inside either by locking the doors or by pulling the metal