previously it had been until the end of may, and so this was a request that was made by domestic intelligence officers in russia who were the ones essentially building the case against him. we know that he is facing charges of espionage, of course those are charges that he, the wall street journal, his family, vehemently deny. but it was really interesting today, wolf, that journalists weren t allowed into the courtroom, but the folks that we did see arrive at that courtroom with his lawyer were his parents, and gershkovich s parents fled the soviet union in 1979, came here to the united states, new york city, they rai raised their family in new jersey, so the fact that they made this bold step to travel to moscow to hopefully see their son in court, though we don t know the details of what happened in the courtroom because there weren t journalists is really really interesting. here s what the state department spokesperson matt miller said when responding to a question over if the u
know that something is different now in the leadership of xi jinping? well, my book assignment china is based on over 100 interviews i did with journalists who covered china from the late 19 forties, when the communists seized power to the present day, and the idea is basically the way in which most americans get their information about china is from the media and most media. consumers of media have no idea how the reporters on the ground actually did their jobs and so to get the people who told the china story. tell the behind the scenes story of how they did that. i think it s both interesting and valuable. the challenge has been been up and down, depending on the state of u. s china relations and domestic chinese politics. there were 30 years or so when americans weren t allowed, journalists weren t allowed into china at all. as china embarked on its program of economic reform in the late seventies, and then on into the eighties and beyond. conditions
griner facing drug smuggling charges after she was arrested on suspicion of cannabis possession at a moscow airport in february. she s scheduled to make her next appearance on thursday. russian officials detained the 31-year-old american after authorities said they found cartridges with traces of hashish oil in her luggage. the state department classified griner as, quote, wrongfully detained. joining me is nbc news foreign correspondent meagan fitzgerald. meagan, thanks for joining us on this. we haven t seen a lot of brittany. what do we know about what actually happened in that courtroom today? reporter: you re absolutely right, we don t see much of her. today we saw her in court in handcuffs, she was accompanied by officials from the u.s. embassy. journalists weren t allowed inside the courtroom with the exception of two, and cameras weren t allowed inside either.
watch of all the international media and the local media there. this is targeted intentional crime. because who. .. targeted intentional crime. because who. you know in a cross fire, you wouldn t target a journalist under his ears. you wouldn t target him in that area if it is a cross fire and why other journalists weren t. .. that area if it is a cross fire and why otherjournalists weren t. got wounded by these fires. what we are seeing now is a targeted, intentional assassination. i seeing now is a targeted, intentionalassassination. i mean, intentional assassination. i mean, 6am intentionalassassination. i mean, 6am in the morning, she was heading to an area to cover the news. to give voice to the voiceless. she used to do that. she is the second journalist was hired by al jazeera backin journalist was hired by al jazeera back in the days after the launch of al jazeera. more than two decade back, 25 years. and she has been great in reporting accurate and
social media played a factor. why this didn t escalate further is probably due to a variety of reasons but diplomacy being one of them. israel was beaten up in the court of world opinion. this is the first time they fought a fight like this in social media. i tried for days to get into gaza and every day turned around. we might get into gaza tomorrow but after the cease fire takes effect. but despite the fact that the media building in gaza was destroyed, despite the fact that foreign journalists weren t allowed to report on the ground there the word got out from gaza. the people were taking the