Can you guys hear me . Can everybody hear me . Thank you for coming out. Can you guys hear me . Do i need to do this . So, good morning, everybody in thank you for coming. I know it is a busy time. [indiscernible] sorry, ok, we could not have done this without your assistance, thank you. We have an interesting and Informative Program today with speakers with deep firsthand insight into some pressing issues of the day. The Ukrainian Ambassador to the u. S. Will speak, general eric smith, a former commander, general joseph rosa be here to talk about what is going on in the middle east. Nbcs National Security correspondent has been at the forefront of a lot of these issues and will offer her insights, as well. We have a frank discussion with policy affair officials, the challenges in ukraine and afghanistan, and we have our own words terminate today and our first annual casing, so stick around for that. The first thing we looked at was journalist killed doing their jobs. 27 of them are covering the latest issues of the hamas war and the majority of the journalists are from gaza, like the journalist with a news website he was killed during the early bombardment. But other journalists were killed in lebanon and israel, one killed by hamas on the invasion on october 7. We joined the committee and the call to investigate the deaths, and we called for a full and independent investigation on the killing of a journalist by Israeli Soldiers last year. Nothing about that appears to be in action. Journalists have also been killed in ukraine, on what is a brutal invasion by russia, afghanistan, colombia, sudan, india, x ago, bangladesh. Here in the u. S. , dylan lyons was fatally shot while covering a homicide in florida on february 2. It is not just that journalists are being killed but they have been detained and held. One reporter was arrested in march and rush on the ludicrous charge of espionage. Russia, set him free. An editor for the u. S. Radio europe is being held by russia for failing to register as a foreign agent. Russia, set her free. A defense news correspondent based in india was arrested in midmay, accused of espionage. He is innocent. And there is a surge of troubling events in india under the press, set him free. And then a journalist objected for over 11 years now. We continue to call on the Biden Administration to bring them home. Dont continue to send a message to the world that we dont do everything we can to ensure that the freedom is our own. Allowing them to keep them this long is unconscionable. Set them free. Many of us will continue to risk our lives, to bring home stories, sounds that we need to see and hear and shine a light on dark places. Im here in the relative safety of the u. S. , disinformation and misinformation that just Bad Information provides stories, and this is why mre exists. We are here to advocate, defend, educate, so i implore anyone in the room who is not a member to join and sign up. There is strength in numbers and freedom of the press is not free. Thank you. With that, we will start our first panel. [applause] we have a great first panel covering ukraine. The journalist perspective. We have Vivian Salama from wall street journal and frank from npr, moderated by megan ekstein. Id like to let you both introduce yourselves to the audience. Can you just walk us through your first time going to ukraine, what you saw there, since subsequent visits, i guess how you have approached trying to cover the ongoing conflict . Vivian its great to be with you all. Lavers time as a journalist going to ukraine, i should say, it was just before the conflict started. I went in january of 2022 and things were very tense, but also , people were in a little bit of a state of denial at that moment. The u. S. Had been warning over and over again and the europeans over and over again that they had the intelligence to show russia was amassing forces with the intention to invade. And the ukrainians were very matteroffact about it. They didnt want to feel panic, they didnt want people rushing to the banks and china flee, so they were trying to have a sense of calm. They know our enemy better than anyone else and everyone has to stay calm. And i left unconveniently, a week before the invasion began and i went back and looked a few weeks later. Frank its good to see everybody here. Talking about pentagon correspondence it was an old friend of mine. Tom was giving me tons of information. It was extremely helpful in terms of reporting. I got there a couple of weeks before the invasion and i chide to time it to figure out, this was a tricky thing when we talk about covering these events. I talked to one of my editors who said we will send you in later and i said, there will be no later because the airport will get shut down and its going to be a mad rush to get over the border and get in, so i had to actually call them back and say, the olympics are going to end, this is what happened in 2008 with the invasion of georgia, its pretty much the playbook, so i was able to i pressure him and he said go, and that was fine. I had the same experience vivian had. I had never reported in ukraine, i just didnt know very much. I ended up on a panel discussion, which was embarrassing. I felt like a poster child for the reporter, and everyone was saying, you reporters from the west in the United States are fear mongering and towards the end, i was in odessa the night before the attack and i was actually at the ports because i was very interested, we were just talking a moment ago, megan and i, about the importance of the black sea and the economics. And i had a talk to people at the port to say, what is your plan and they said, there is no plan, this isnt going to happen. At that point i knew at 5 00 in the morning it would happen. Once that happened i had a challenging time talking to my fixer and my driver to convince them that the country was under invasion. I was there and similar experience being the american warmonger of thinking that something was going to happen, clearly there is not an acknowledgment on the ground that a war was coming despite the buildup of troops on the border, the ongoing russian exercises that led to another russian exercise that was constantly increasing troop levels. You two and your company is obviously were reading the tea leaves, having covered previous conflicts, i wonder what gave you that gut feeling that you needed to be there in january and in earlier february before the war started, and how was your past experience driving what you knew to be correct, even if there wasnt that acknowledgment on the ground of what may be coming . Vivian there were a few things. One never knows until it actually happens, but i wish i could read Vladimir Putins mind. But i cannot, unfortunately. We were talking to intelligence sources who, at that point, i teach a class in journalism and National Security and i tell my students, ever the government tells you, be very skeptical. Shes Good Practice whatever anyone tells you to be skeptical. The front door, communications people, spokespeople were telling us this. But our intelligence sources were telling us and that was enough confirmation to say, this is real, this is not just a messaging effort or anything like that. I remember being in ukraine that week before i was supposed to leave. I mightve just arrived back in the u. S. Days before the invasion and in intelligence source texted me and said, if youre still in ukraine, you need to leave now. Frank i got a lot of that. Vivian i went, im not, now i feel like i need to go back. Frank i had the opposite experience in that in the final 48 hours we had joe biden going on television saying, if you are american and you are there, you are on your own. So, my wife would call and say, i assume youre at the airport. I said, i cant be at the airport because the invasion hasnt started yet and i set i was going to come here. Then when i was talking to tom, our pentagon correspondent, he was talking to people very high up in the pentagon and he said, we got a guy in odessa and the answer was, get him out. As the missiles after the missiles hit, we were driving to get outside of odessa because they concern at that time was that there would be an air assault that would cut off all the roads, then you are surrounded and it will be a bad situation. So im driving north just to get out of that place and im on googles saying, writing something i never thought i would write on google, which is, can american citizens get into mauled overviews are free. Because its like, where you go. I cant get into trans mystery a , so you are kind of its a really interesting situation because nobody is ready for this, the Ukrainian Military wasnt ready for it, we werent entirely ready for it, and you are kind of thinking, what do i do now, where do i go, how do i cover the sting and also not run into a russian tank. Megan in year three subsequent visits each, how is it different . You were a little bit more familiar with the situation on the ground, presumably the Ukrainian Military was a little bit more thinking about Information Warfare has just been a big aspect of this. I think they were thinking more about press coverage, so walk me through your subsequent visits, what type of stories you were telling and how that was different from your experience the first time. Vivian for me, from the first time, the boss place i was before getting on a airplane, which you can into after that, and leaving ukraine was in a city where my friend alex was supposed to be and he couldnt make it today, but we were both in the city around the same time men if you follow the news closely, it was essentially wiped out, just super tragic and is occupied and no one can get there now. Thats a prime example of areas that we had been reporting prior to the invasion that we could no longer access. Obviously, just in terms of danger and the security protocol, i was rolling around with just one guy and hiring locals, fixers and translators everywhere i went in ukraine. That when we went back, we were on a security team, often times with armored vehicles. We would have a team where it was a reporter, me, security guy , we could talk about that and in a bit and then a fixer translator because i do not speak ukrainian or russian and a photographer. The audio folks have a different set up, but we were rolling with a bit of an entourage, which is great for danger purposes of danger and the purposes of understanding things, but we couldnt really access local fixers and translators, we didnt know who we could trust because a lot of people fled the country so we were relying on people in kyiv to travel with us. A lot of them were young guys that had no experience in journalism. A couple of them were tech guys. Because so many people fled. It was very different atmosphere in that regard. The first time i think i mostly focused on the online spot news, and define feature stories along the way. The legend bob reid has just walked in the room. This man is a legend. I mean it. We will talk about him in a minute. So, we basically would go just hop over, do whatever stories we could find along the way. Stories would pop up, but we were very focused on the incremental gains of the Ukrainian Military. City got hit in that city got one back. Was so word im looking for. We were basically just trying to do Human Interest features and that was partially a strategic approach because we want people to still be interested in the war. Its hard to keep on telling people many people died, the city was hit, that city was retaken. The broader public only had so much they could take, so we had to find new and interesting ways to tell the story and thats always true in wars. When were you in mariupol . Vivian i left a week and a half before the invasion. I had a similar experience. Vivian we were there right before that. We were at the palace. I was there about 10 days before, and it was funny because, one said theres going to be a dog and pony show on fighting russia terrorism, counterterrorism thing. These dog and pony shows often are pretty bad, but i remember ages ago when i first started as a foreign correspondent, a reporter that i knew, which was in china said, when in doubt, just get on the plane because you always learn something. So we go down there, its kind of a not terribly convincing enactment in which they have people playing russian saboteurs try note low up a dam, which the russians did a few days later, so it didnt stop them, but what was really interesting was zelensky showed up. It was a small town in zelensky comes out and they put a dash out and we put these microphones out and it was really striking because he did not do a good job, he was very defensive, he kept insisting. Nothing would happen and we all looked at each other and thought, this is going to be a disaster. Vivian i was there. Frank was the press conference on the street . It was on a street in a small town and we were really, really nervous about this and he got into an argument with a fox News Reporter who got the better of him, frankly, and it was really striking. What was helpful as a reporter was to see the president in the flesh, see what he was like 10 days before the invasion because two or three days after that, he was a completely different person than the person i saw on the street. I ended up using a lot of that to infirm and form along profile i did on him later. I met people who knew him when he was in high school, college and was just coming up as a standup performer, and it was just very helpful. It was a sort of thing i wasnt sure i was going to go see this dog and pony show and it up really informing, in terms of my next trip was in april and talking about the Human Interest story, what i was looking for first of all, i think theyre great protagonists was the citizen soldiers in the long term soldiers. We spent a week trying to get in touch with a colonel who had his own independent Reconnaissance Team that he had formed on facebook with his own old soldiers he saw vote with in the donbas. And he also happen to be chairman of the Defense Committee and the parliament, so he could talk to you at a personal level because he lived there, and the russians had taken over his house and taken his metals in his body armor, and at the same time, he would talk about the 35 thousand foot level, and because he had his own pickup or, since team, there was no military press or anything. So, it took a long time for him to agree, but we went and spent time with him in a safe house that they had. We went out to me his Reconnaissance Team, things along those lines. Speaking of what vivian was saying, trying to find those characters that can do a lot for you, i think weve all had this experience that can talk to the listener or the reader and explain the story at a very personal level and also a very analytical level, i found that really helpful. Megan i wanted to ask you about the human aspect. Its not Something Like an earthquake or an attack where you go in there is tragedy, then you move on to the next story. This is gruesome, its dangerous, its sad, there is just human tragedy on such a scale, i wonder how you both process that and keep yourself ok during repeated visits that also how do you bring your readers along. Its already get people to care about tragedy two years later, so how do you make yourselves ok and how do you continue to have that emotional connection for your readers . Vivian the jury is still out if we are ok. Again, hes covered more wars than me, so i would hate to put myself in this position, but you find i was having a conversation with a colleague of mine whos younger and is covering the israelgaza conflict and talk to me about the emotional toll it was having, and i said, think of yourself as a doctor, process emotions later, but you have to just do it now, go in there, operate, the patient might die, just do it now. Will process later. I think that is possibly how i have gone through a lot of the experiences. These are not my first rodeos. Im not very advanced in age but im advanced in age enough that ive experience iraq, afghanistan, yemen and libya. It takes a toll. Im not going to sit here and say, you will be fine, talk to a shrink, everything will be great. What you have to rely on the resources. Nowadays its talked about a lot more than it used to be, the idea of protecting your Mental Health in addressing ptsd. In the old days they called it shellshocked. The poor guys shellshocked, he will get over it. They push amount to the next war. Its changing now, but it doesnt change the fact that you will be impacted by what you see and stuff like that, i say to people, try to use that to your advantage, try to use that emotion to reach in and be compassionate and make a connection with people and empathize with the people you are talking to, those emotions could sometimes beer superpower. Try not to let them get the better of you in terms of biases and things like that. But i dont see anything wrong with you are human, you are seeing terrible thing sometimes when you cover wars, so would only make sense you would have a very intense reaction to it. That was a very rambling answer. Maybe you can be more articulate. Frank no, i just think its interesting to hear how you do manage it, for better or worse, i just compartmentalize. When im there, im always thinking, pierces fascinating character, and i really want millions of people to hear this persons perspective, this personal story, so they will get at least some sense of whats happening and so i just focus entirely on those people in the person im talking to, and then i agree with you, its like, address it later. I dont know, either no, i just kind of focus on the story and to the story and i do the best i can and sort of, i guess for like part of my job is to also and try to think of the right word, its early in the morning. Its not honor them, but sort of give them their respect and give them this platform. Ill just mostly focus on that. I think vivians right. People talk a lot more now about ptsd, which is great, because it can be really bad. At the beginning of the war, myself and eleanor beardsley, we were the oldest people there and had the most experience, and we were also working with a lot of young people who were terrified. I found myself in an interesting role because i dont have the experience covering conflict. And i thought, im like the dad now. I have to calm everybody down. I was like, oh, ok, this is the role i have to play. Im the one with the gray hair. Megan going on almost two years later, you get the sense your editors are still invested in the storyline and willing to support you telling it . Is the readership still there, are they still interested in finding out how this war is progressing . Frank i think our editors are committed to the story. Its a bit of an ether those. Part of the thing that drives our decisionmaking isnt something about what will be the public interest. We have a bureau in kyiv and we have a correspondent there in a team. We have security, fixer, somebody that runs the bureau as well. That is an openended commitment. I do hear from people that monitor shows and reactions that it has dropped off a great deal. I think that is a challenge. How do you keep people interested when the lines havent moved much in the last year . I am in touch with a number of soldiers that i have gotten to know and they send me information and we chat and not a lot has changed. I think its hard when you get into a grinding artillery war of attrition, its hard to keep people really interested in that. Vivian i was saying earlier you have to keep reinventing ways to tell the story to keep people interested. Our editors are definitely interested in it. There is a particular spike in interest in recent weeks because of what we have seen in congress. Everything is better now, everything is fine now. The last few weeks there was a lot of concern about whether ukraine was going to get aid moving forward, whether that was in jeopardy and what that would mean for the war itself. So, there was definitely a spike again in that from the policy perspective, but i think a Human Interest story as a Human Interest story and theres always going to be interest. I used to joke when i was based in baghdad and set im not a war person because the people want peace so badly so i find ways to keep telling those stories of people in the way that people have used the war to kind of thrive in life. If i give you an example its like, i went and did a story on the Baghdad National library, have you ever been there . Its a great place. Its amazing, its like a thousandyearold document stored away, dusty and whatever, but they were digitizing everything and partially it was because a lot of documents were either destroyed in the war or ransacked by whoever was colonizing iraq at the time. So they decided to rest the rush the effort to digitize and you could still see a lot of the scars of war around the library and things like that. So, those are the types of stories where i feel like theres different ways to tell the story of the war. I try to find those. And if you have audio or video, multimedia, its a way to catch people now. I always tell my students, when i came into journalism you are either a broadcast person or a print person. The irony being i was a broadcast person but i work for a newspaper now. That i do everything. In a given week i will do radio, tv, online and newspaper. I think thats an important way to keep readers and listeners and viewers interested to continue to find creative ways creative multimedia ways to tell a story and i think that will keep things going. Frank in terms of keeping the interest, im not sure this works but the framing of the story, all along, because i was based in london and i spent a lot of time in brussels and we would go back and forth between ukraine and then to nato. Talking to people there about what was happening. From sins perspective, the war in gaza is a gift in the dysfunction on capitol hill is a gift. So one of the ways to look at this, and im not sure whether this gets people interested or not, but this long game. We have a war in eastern europe. And what did his hoping is that in trussville wayne and support will wane and he will be able to consolidate his gains and sell it as a victory back home. I think that does raise the stakes a lot because obviously, the European Union was founded to prevent this exact thing, which is we dont reward people invading countries without provocation. So, its even more than just about what happens with ukraine, its about the rules of engagement on a continent that is very important, the United States in the western world. I like would vivian also said, i started off, as you can tell, im the oldest person here, i started off typing on mainframe computers. I guess we had little floppy disks, and i would but my floppy disk, save my story and then handed to my editor. He would edit it and we would sit there and move things around. Just like vivian said, i was 18 years in print, then i shifted to radio. Particularly in ukraine, we started doing these instagram videos, which are a great way to tell a story. I dont know what you are thinking, sometimes, i will always do something for broadcast for one of the shows, but i think, whats the story and whats the right medium to tell this in. For instance, one story, particularly in ukraine, you can be near the front lines and it looks like world war ii, then you are in downtown kyiv at a friday night and you cant tell theres a war going on at all. The best way to tell the story is to stand right in the middle of a boulevard, basically, in kyiv and say, and show you the Grocery Store i go to bank people was much better than any Grocery Store i went to in suburban london, in terms of what was available, then to be in a frontline village with Ukrainian Armor rushing down the roads. You do that in a one minute video and it really conveys whats going on. Vivian i did a short story about how the botox clinics were packed in key during the war. Because its always a good time to look good, even in the middle of a war and they were packed. Frank that sounds like a great story. Megan i was going to ask you about the role of social media working for you and working against you covering the war. Me watching from here, it seems like social media has played an outside world role in spreading propaganda, misinformation, whatever you want to call it on both sides of the war, but also you guys have to rely on that to figure out where in the country you want to go and finding the good information and not the Bad Information. How have you worked in this weird media landscape to cover the war and make sure your information is getting out and not getting lost amid a crowded social media space with misinformation . Vivian im a social media skeptic, generally. So im always a little bit tempered into how i use social media, especially after all the changes i dont know if we call it twitter, x or whatever, when the check parts went away im confused about hughes who. So i tend to approach with caution. With that being said, it has also been very helpful to us. Ukraine in particular i can even go back. Lets say over a decade ago i covered the arab spring process and much of those protests began with the help of social media, facebook and twitter. That was evading the authoritarian rulers of those countries and they couldnt really keep track of who was connecting with who. That was the way that they managed to pull off such mass protests like that without the crackdown. And so theyve been very helpful in that regard. Although i have lived in six different countries, i have reported from many, so i dont necessarily know people in the places i went to. There was one example in algeria where i was reaching out to people on twitter who are recommended to me by contacts of mine and kind of connecting them via twitter and facebook in a word of things like that. When i hit the ground, i hit the ground running and it worked out really well. In the modern context, ukraine the technology has gotten more sophisticated and that is both full and dangerous, you have to be really careful about misinformation, the u. S. Government, weve got now a bunch of gentlemen and uniform in the back, so they can probably confirm. Theres been a lot of talk about false flag operations that are going out. The russians pudding putting makebelieve videos online that showed that they are being attacked so would justify them attacking in response to things like that, so you have to be very careful with all that stuff. Ai is terrifying to me but you probably understand it more than i do. On the plus side, the ukrainians have been very good at using social media to get their message out. They use encrypted channels partially so that they are not hacked and things like that. If you heard of the apt telegram, which is similar to whatsapp and signal and things like that, they rely heavily on it. Everyone from president zelenskyy down. We as journalists are always told download telegram, follow the president , the armed forces spokespeople, the governor of every single old blast in ukraine. The mayor of the major cities in ukraine because they are constantly putting out platonic bulletins about whats happening any get alerts when something happens. In that regard it super helpful. So, pros and cons. Frank i would agree with vivian on the conservative approach. Which is, i followed a lot of people, but as you collect sources, you connect on social media and you know them personally. Still to this day, any opportunity, whether a war zone or somewhere else, i want to talk in person and i want to sit across from you for two hours so i can assess you. I just collected sources at the brussels, london analytical level, which is great, because you can follow those people and get that analysis. They were people i met in person and as say spent time with recon team teams in different teams, there were doing social media, they had their own youtube channels. I knew them personally, i spent time with them and save thousands and elsewhere, so i found that helpful. It was a very oldschool approach, which is, i want to see you in person, i want to spend a few days with you guys, then you develop a relationship and then you know that you can trust i felt like i could trust these guys because there was no filter and they were very blunt about the problems they were facing. All kinds of challenges, the mistakes they were making, so, i knew these were people that i could trust a lot and what they said because they had been so candid. Vivian another megan another defining technology has been drones. Its been an odd dichotomy because you have a tank war, trench war, its very world war i and world war ii, then you have drones. I wonder how you made sense of that, how you kept yourself safe . Vivian can we bring our military friends into this conversation. Megan it has real implications for your own wellbeing. Im wondering if you could purge that with intelligence you needed, imagery or anything like that . Vivian i know nothing about drones. Frank ive found drones fascinating. When i was trying to describe the war to ordinary folk back here, i would just say, its world war i with drones, which is exactly what it is. The drone part, i spent time with drone teams and i found those guys, they were hugely important. There were the eyes of the artillery. Without the drones, the artillery did not even know where it was firing at its heart to be accurate with artillery because of the nature of so much of the artillery. They would tell me really interesting stories about one thing, and i wish i would pursue this. Im sure vivian found the same thing, there are so many good stories out there, one story that they told me is they had these chinese drones. They had these chinese drones and they would put them up and they would send them off, and the chinese would going back doors and given the codes to the russians on the russians would just take their drones and they were frustrated because they were losing their drones. Their strategies are really interesting, they would have to go into some kind of a village as close as they could to the artillery they were trying to hit, but they wanted to be careful because they didnt have that much time before the russians would figure out where they were and would start hitting their position where they were hiding. Another story they told me is this was one of the scariest moments for them, when they sent their drones up and a russian drone went up at the same time and they saw each other. Now they know exactly where we are and we have to run. These particular guys, they spoke great english, they learn to speak english by gaming, so they were terrific, and they were very funny. They told me crazy stories about the first days of the war where they were asked to learn how to fire at russian tanks but they had never handled it so they had to youtube it on the highway outside of key. Kyiv. But the drone part of the story was fascinating. The colonel that i was mentioning early, he set up a drone factory, there were building their own drones because they cannot trust the offtheshelf stuff. Vivian ukraine is famous for being an i. T. Hub in the world so a lot of these young guys going on the front line where these tech savvy guys who have no infantry experience, but they know how to work drones. So that, by default, was making them fury highly wanted to recruit. Frank its interesting you mention that because i used to talk about who are the most valuable people and some of these teams and people would say , the russians really want to kill the Drone Operators because if you can blind the artillery, thats hugely entering changes. Vivian the whole thing about the chinese looking at the video, i remember having a conversation in a bunker with a guy who was like pulling out of just putting out a drone and showing me how it works. I would ask him, why are you buying a chinese drone and he said, i would much rather have an american drone but they are not making it to our front line. I dont know whos getting them but we have never seen an american drone, we would love american jones and i said, arent you worried about the chinese spying on you and he said, im worried about surviving today. We have to protect our unit. That was the reality of it. Megan i wanted to ask you both about your experience covering this war with the backing of a larger news organization. I know you both have done a oregon combat in a freelance basis. I wonder if you could tell the audience what has it been like having the backing of a major organization. Im sure youve encountered a number of freelancers in ukraine, what are they experiencing, from a safety and resources perspective . Vivian i can talk to you for three hours about being a freelancer in a hostile environment. Long story short is try to avoid it if you can. I was a freelancer and some pretty dangerous places, including afghanistan and yemen, places like that. I took a lot of major risks, not because i was some sort of a war, but because i wanted to get paid and the only way to stand out as a freelancer is to get the stories no one else is getting. Freelancers tend to put their lives at risk in different ways. I didnt have the backing of any major news organizations, i was a very lucky freelancer through most of my career and i was able to earn a living. I dont know how anyone makes a living as a freelancer in western europe or america, it boggles my mind. But when you live in pakistan and your rent is 250 a month and youre getting paid for a story for a days work, its very manageable. But i would just say, now, for the last decade, ive been associated with major news organizations, and its a completely different ball game. We are spoiled in that regard. We have security people traveling with us in some situations. Iraq was like that. Ukraine, now the middle east is becoming like that. Though it never used to be. So we have people traveling with us, we have Global Security networks, also tracking things on our phones to make sure we are ok. And a lot of other resources. We have ppe, the flap jackets, the helmets, as a freelancer you have to pay outofpocket. Either you are not doing it, youre not buying it or youre buying really cheap versions of it. And then theres the training. I just had an updated hostile environment training last month, which was interesting timing giving the were kicking off in the middle east, where ive done this multiple times. We learned a very valuable training on how to apply a tourniquet, responding to a bullet wound or any kind of trauma, cpr, how to reassess in certain situations. There is a simulation we had to do. Its helpful to do it, those of us who have a lot of experience we go, weve done this a million times, theres no Training Like the field, but it is really helpful. At the end of the day, nothing is foolproof. Im wearing my free seven pin. My colleague is sitting in a prison in russia right now and he has the major backing of a news organization, but unfortunately he was up against a regime that had no interest in the truth, which is that he is just doing his job and they could charge him with espionage. It is dangerous regardless and you have to take the best precautions you can. I rambled quite a bit. Frank you covered a lot of great ground. I admire vivian because i try to do freelancing when i first started out, i wouldnt have had the skill. Vivian my parents call it crazy. Frank but you did it. Which is very admirable. I agree with everything you said, which is, the risk when you are freelancing are considerable. I started off in Central America and my first couple of years and i was freelancing in guatemala to a series of unfortunate events i ended up getting abducted for a little while and i was in way over my head and i did not have a major news i was in a staffer at a major news organization, i was free net freelancing for the Philadelphia Inquirer and thought i would never do it again because i was lucky to get out of it and i realized how vulnerable i was. I came back to the United States tail between my legs and went working for suburban bureau of the Philadelphia Inquirer and work my way up in 10 years later i was with the Baltimore Sun and i went out to beijing. I felt much safer having the backing of the major news organization. Megan i have more questions but i want to make sure theres time for audience to ask. One last one for me before i handed over, we have students in the audience and other reporters who cover National Security but maybe not in a combat zone. I wonder if you had any advice that you would give to somebody whos going to a conflict area for the first time, anything, whether its looking for stories or keeping yourself safe, working the logistics end, anything you would suggest to somebody whos thinking of jumping into this type of work . Vivian i taught this on my georgetown class about how it is to work overseas. The only two things i havent covered is one thing ive been militant about you wont be fluent but at least pleasantries break barriers. Also, just go with an open mind. Dont go out there assuming that you know with the story is. Counseling approach people with an open mind. I guarantee you will be surprised over and over again. I am now 20 something years into my career and im still causally surprised by what i find, even just in the streets of d. C. Sometimes d. C. Surprises me too often, but thats another story. Just go out there and learn. Frank and if youre going to a place you havent worked before and you are not familiar, find the best assistant or fixer because in those situations, you are only as good as your fixer. You really dont know anything. I remember in 1998, i flew into jakarta when suharto was about to be toppled, and the economy was so in the tank that there were all kinds of very talented people who were actually available to help. In my fixture was fixer was an attorney who was also a publisher, and she had the country wired, and i can remember at points she would say things to me like, maybe we should do this story, why dont we go to the political prison because they are opening it up for the first time in the history of the country and i was like, i didnt know anything. We went in and suddenly i was talking to people that would become the president of east timor, it was me and two other reporters and i remember talking to Political Prisoners who i would say, when was the last time you talked to reporter and they would say, ive never talked to a reporter and ive been here for 25 years. So having a great translator or fixer in a place you dont know, i mean, she was telling me the stories to do and i just had to have enough sense to listen to them. Vivian sometimes the driver to because they know how to get you in and out of places safely. They know where to go and were not to go. Megan kenneth is my favorite driver. We have some microphone scattered throughout. If anyone has questions, raise your hand. Thanks for doing that, you were great panel. I want to ask you about what level of access the government in ukraine is allowing the front lines, and is it a problem and how are you overcoming that . Frank i couldnt hear that, access to the military . Is there a limit in the access to any of the front lines, units, is that an issue, has there been any censorship or problems . Vivian for access in certain sensitive operations i think, its understandable, obviously we want the access, but its been pretty good, ukrainians have been remarkable about providing access and wanting the media to witness there were firsthand. Their Media Campaign and push led by zelensky himself, who is a former sitcom star, i think they have taken it upon themselves to really promote and provide access in ways that a lot of places dont necessarily do because they want the world to see what they are up against. It has been so effective that you kind of see the israelis trying to pick up on the playbook now. Everything from netanyahus clothing to their efforts to put together videos about what just happened and promote it kind of get there spokespersons out and about to really do a media blitz. I think they saw how effective the ukrainian effort was and they are trying to do the same. Before the counteroffensive, i struggled because it was about to take off. As struggled to get really good access and there were places i wanted to go. Partly its because they were about to start the counteroffensive and they knew it would be difficult, i dont think they wanted us around to see it, but at i mostly done is, personal relationships with soldiers and team commanders, and its great. Its almost like reporting period. It is just having that relationship, its checking all the facts with them, sending them the stories, sending them the videos, all that very basic source development, and it has no connection to the military Information Operation at all. My name is angela, i am a National Security reporter here is the volume ok . Hi, my name is angela, im a National Security reporter at the new service. I actually come here on a daily basis. My question kind of pertains to your relationship with being with a larger news organization. Especially in the israelhamas war, there has been a critique that western journalists were journalists of western organizations are kind of dipping in and out. And i am just curious because you have both come across journalists of all different backgrounds, especially those locally on the ground. How has your interactions with them generally been, has there been an experience in which you mention your Media Organization and there was a lot of a little pushback, second question vivian who are we talking about, our interactions with whom . Local journalists on the ground. I could just leave that at that. Thank you so much. Megan any perspective being from a major western output . Vivian i dont know if you saw cnn they were in the west bank and there was a bit in an aggressive scene around her were they said you are not welcome here. I have not experienced that to that degree, just based on my affiliation. Actually, you know what, i did on january 60 are in washington, d. C. Thats another story. Another story for another day. Thats probably the worst ive ever experienced. But i dont know if ive ever really had someone be like, january 6 is the correspondent for the time, so i did experience that a little bit, but not in this context. Not the israelpalestine thing. Frank i cant stink to that, we had our correspondent who has been there for 15 years and i recommend the work hes doing now has just been fabulous, very human. Npr is not as wellknown overseas as the wall street journal, so you can show up and people might say, tiny desk concert. As they tend to like that. When i was working europe, that was helpful and they didnt even know we have a show called morning edition, all things considered. That worked for me. I hadnt really encountered that all that much. Vivian as frank was going on i was a correspondent for bloomberg raised in the middle east and i was going into countries and i would say work for bloomberg news, american and they would say, of course, and then they would introduce me and say this is vivian from bloomingdales. Frank whatever works. Megan any frustration from local reporters with americans coming and going as opposed to living on the ground . Frank in my case i lived in london for seven years. What was really fun was in the places where i worked and im sure vivian has had the same experience, to some degree you can become like a local reporter, but you cover it at the 35,000 foot level or as though you are an alien that just got off a spaceship and say, where you doing this and why is it such chaos, why did it vote for breakfast and breck brexit and things like that . I spent time traveling all over the United Kingdom after the brexit vote in 2016. I was an american political reporter working abroad and people would always ask me, it was very interesting whats going on in the United States because it was the first trump term. We would have good conversation. It was a terrific exchange. Vivian i would also like to say , people are angry and frustrated. For me, in the middle east, i have the advantage of speaking arabic, so that can break a lot of that barrier when you come in as a foreigner, but, i would say that in these 10 situations, the one thing ive done over and over again is to repeat im here to listen to you, tell me why you are upset, tell me why youre angry and its not full proof, but people are angry because they dont feel like they are being heard. They feel like they are being ostracized or whatever. They have grievances and thats whats kind of being conveyed in those hostile exchanges. So try to break that down and say, talk to me, tell me whats upsetting you, tell the world, im here to share your message, sometimes it works, sometimes you have to get the hell out of there fast. Megan what else do we have from the audience . Were you always asked to go into these conflict zones or did you have the experience of having to pitch to an editor. Vivian sometimes bag . Im sitting here not in the middle east so im obviously not very good at it. Sometimes ukraine is a good example because i never worked in the country. I dont speak the language is. There were two things that i had going for me and this is the best advice i could probably give students. Never lose a contact. You know because of the primitive technologies that we had when i was coming into the business. I have lost my contacts so many times, the list of contacts and my phone or my computer that just vanish and its cutting out a piece of my heart every time it happens. Do not lose a single contact you have. It just so happens that the Deputy Defense minister and the foreign minister and all these other people i have met over the course of my years in different countries, the military attaches a bad one. The ambassadors to this one. Change shows contacts and suddenly i was walking in, total newbie and had enormous access. It served me very well because i got the defense minister in the foreign minister at a very critical moment. My foreign minister interview went viral because it was hours after some very controversial comments President Biden had made and i got the first reaction and stuff like that, so that can help you. And having war experience help me. It was a nobrainer. I know these people, ive worked with them and theyre like, done. Frank youre only as good as your sources. In my case with ukraine, i had the lobby and part of it was more administrative. You get a roster in figuring out when you are going to go and i just cap saying, you really want to go cover this thing and its going to be in the history books. One of the things that ive really enjoyed about my career is witnessing history. If anything, im sure its at the same experience, you see things in real time that are changing the course of the history of a region or continence. Megan do we have anything else . Yes, please. Thank you very much for your great talk. Im curious and knowing if there are any stories that you found particularly impactful and important to you that you did as an individual, not as a cluster . Vivian having to choose favorites between our babies. Frank do you mean by that, stories that you did that were original and unique . Had impacts that were meaningful, that other people werent doing . Vivian too many. You are putting us on the spot, i have to think about it. Frank what i thought made a lot of sense when i thought about what coverage i wanted to do is i really wanted to just focus on the soldiers as people and strategists and bring them to life and i thought it was really important because the United States is funding this war. Without the United States, its over. And i wanted americans to understand who they were investing in, who are these people who are also risking and losing their lives. As vivian would say, there are a lot of those stories. One that was really sad, but really real, i spent a few days with foreign trainers, and i spent time with them as they were training conscripts in a gravel pit in the don bost. And this was a year into the war. So most of the best soldiers in the russian side and the ukrainian side are gone, theyve been killed, and these people are very reluctant and they are only getting three to five days of training and then being sent to the front and they are terrified. The trainers are really torn. Even the ukrainian man who was in charge of the training was pretty honest about it. And i just found that, to me, it was really poignant and scary, and i thought it was an important story to tell people because there is no bravado at all, this is the reality. Youre unprepared and your being sent up against a force that three times your size. Vivian this site for the marriott pole, like the steel plant in marriott, that was just incredible, and i think even though we all did it in different ways, it was a really big moment. For ukraine, sad moment but it was a big moment. Megan we have time for one more short one. I am a National Security reporter for the moldovan service. Thank you for coming to speak with us today. You touched on this a bit already, but when an area is too dangerous to actively report on whether its under attacker under an aerosol. How does social media play a role in how do you determine what is accurate or not . We rely on a lot of internal data. Our social media guides have ways of mapping things out. We have very specific maps on the front lines. If you do not have access to the best information, you always want to be aware of where the front line is on the date your tried to go there, where it is hot so you might want to stay away that moment and also relying on local units that you might be visiting or vetting. I know were probably going to go over. About an hour and a half close to the hotspot in the russian borders. I was watching a unit with the m triple sevens and they were firing them one after the other. They are allowed either way. We were chatting with them and we went back down to the trenches with them. It was probably 45 minutes after they had fired off the last of