war college in carlyle, pennsylvania. and these are legitimate questions. what would we have done or should we have done or both. i threw a lot of information at you tonight, but at least there were pictures, not totally words. but i must remind you that it is very complicated. i spent a long time trying to figure it out. it is a big puzzle, but a very interesting one. and there are several books, several blog sites and now we have the template from afghanistan being reproduced in iraq and syria. this is what osama bin laden wanted to do, take over afghanistan. i don't think he realized or believed this could happen. but now we have a caliphate deck lated in iraq and syria and it comes directly out of the model from afghanistan. so when we took our eye off the ball in 2003, on march 19th, went into iraq, that sent another signal to the world, that we weren't serious about afghanistan. and if you talk to a lot of -- many of you must have military friends or friends that are still serving or ex-military. now that they are not wearing the uniform, they might tell you how they really feel. and it would be -- it is an interesting conversation. yes, they were following orders. but now that they have the freedom to discuss it, what do they think? and it is interesting to go to west point or to annapolis or to the navy war college or to the navy post graduate college, which i did in monterey, california, and talk to them. they are not happy. but they are also tired. so with this challenge in iraq and syria right now, it is really exponentially more critical. but that 2001 question -- but thank you for having me. [ applause ] >> i'd be happy to talk later outside or whenever -- wherever possible. thank you, crystal. >> thank you. [ proceedings concluded ] tonight on c-span 3 in prime time at 8:00, women in congressment the historian of the house of representatives matthew wisniewski and curator ferrer elliott present photographs related to the history of women in the u.s. house, beginning with the election of janet rankin in 1918. and then the house ways and means committee, hosting chair paul ryan, ranking member sandra levin and cokie roberts whose father served on the committee. and after 10:00, another american artifacts, looking at the senate caucus room. donald richie describes several history hearings held there, including the trueman committee investigation of world war ii expenditures an the 1954 army mccarthy hearings. tonight on c-span, the security threat posed by isis and the recruiting efforts and the use by social media. here is assistant attorney general john carlin on how isis lures young people. >> isil and its business model, it is encouraging people to commit attacks wherever they are and whether or not they actually have any other connection with isil, they'll claim credit for the attack. and how does that reflect in terms of what we're seeing in the homeland? we've seen a dramatic increase in the number of arrests related to the shift in the threat. we've had over 50 arrests for criminal prosecutions in the last 18 months. in the beginning they tended to be foreign terrorist fighters, those wanting to go over seas to commit may ham on behalf of the terrorist groups but more recently we're seeing individuals inside of the united states that want to conduct terrorist attacks here at home and they are encouraged by isil to do so on social media. and linked to the fact that it is social media and who is on it, we're seeing a definite change in the demographics that we're arresting. it is younger. so we're seeing now of these arrests over around 80% are 30 years old or younger and of those about 40% are 21 years old or younger. >> the aspen security forum featured panels on intelligence, threats to europe and special operations. watch the program in its entirety starting at 8:00 p.m. eastern time. recently the senate aging committee held a hearing on the increase in the number of unwanted phone calls and scams aimed at senior citizens. despite laws allowing people to opt out of receiving marketing calls. we heard from someone who was a victim of one of the phone scams as well as a federal -- >> i think we're going to begin right away. thank you all for staying in place. we're going to move quite quickly through today's program. my name is jack gillis, i'm director of public affairs for the consumer federation of america and i would like to welcome you to today's panel on investigative reporting. for consumer advocates and those working with the media, investigative reporting is one of the most critical components in being in an effective advocate. today we're going to talk about something near and dear to the hearts of advocates and that is investigative reporting. the traditional, and as a result of the nnf, the increasingly difficult business channel and the increasingly difficult business challenges facing news outlets. we'll look at how this is impacting a key pillar in consumer advocacy. because the media is so critically important to advocates, there are new questions being raised that will effect the way we are able to change policy. who is emerging as credible news sources on the internet? do the new business models effect editorial content. what is the relevance of print and broadcast outlets to the internet partners? how do news recipients, how do we consumers address the concern that the internet content may not be as carefully edited as daily print content. our blogs, real competition to traditional news outlets. and what are the challenges in integrating blogs, social media, user-generated content into organizations like abc, nbc, yahoo, the "wall street journal" sand propublica who have new and blue chip reputations for unbiased and carefully researched content. the bottom line is we'll look at where investigative reporting is going in the next five years. as we ask these questions, the news about the news is kind of scary. a recent pugh report discussed that the continued erosion of news reporting resources combined with the new media opportunities present growing opportunities in politics, government, and agencies and corporations to take their messages directly to the public without a filter. here is a snapshot from the pugh report. newspaper newsroom cutbacks put the industry down 30% since 2000. in local tv, sports, weather and traffic now account for an average of 40% of the content. cnn, the cable channel that branded itself around deep reporting has cut story packages in half. across three of the major cable channels, coverage of live events and live reports during the day, which requires expensive crews and staff, have been cut by 30%. here is where it gets interesting. to combat dwindling resources, a growing list of media outlets such as forbes magazine uses new technology to produce content by way of algorithm. no human reporting necessary. this adds up to a new industry that is more undermanned and underprepared to uncover stories, dig deep into emerging ones and to question the information put in their hands. and all of this is happening at a time as howard kurtz said, that the average consumer can in effect create his own news, picking and choosing from sources he trusts and enjoys rather than being spoon-fed by a hand full of baked media conglomera conglomerates, is what we have here, the big media conglomerates. almost every year for 20 years we've examined the media from a variety of perspectives and we've had some incredible participants. without question, this year we are honored to have what could be considered the best collection of investigative reporters in the kurn. so thank you all very much for joining us. so what i would like to do today is ask a series of questions, encourage the panelists to interact with each other and most importantly encourage you to interrupt, ask questions and be part of this discussion. the first question goes to brian ross. brian is abc news chief investigative correspondent reporting for world news, niteline, good morning america and 20/20. he began his career prior to nbc where he was before abc in waterloo, iowa. while he's a chicago native, he's a graduate of the university of iowa which -- explains that waterloo, iowa, which i couldn't understand when i read his bio. he's received some of the most prestigious awards, seven duponts, six peabodys, six pullks and five overseas awards and five edward r murro awards and many more. i could spend an hour listing stories brian and his team have done to generate these awards. a couple of them are worth noting, however. exposing the dangerous conditions at factories in bangladesh, making clothes for tommy hilfiger and wal-mart. a toyota report that prompted one of the largest automobile recalls in history. pay to play grading systems by the better biz bureau and exposing wal-mart overseas child work for america. and in fact, i was just at wal-mart and there are pictures of brian all over the place. don't let this man in. there are many more stories. it must have been when he was 10 years old, brian broke what remember as a very important story and that is the ab scan story so i guess, brian, you can be credited with the great movie american hustle. in introducing brian, i have to acknowledge cindy galley who is in the audience today, probably one of abc's star investigative producers and someone who i know many of you know quite well, so cindy, welcome as well. so brian, one of your award-winning stories was done in cooperation with the center for public integrity. how did that come about, what was the relationship, what do you see as the future for joint investigative reports and if there is a future, what protections do you engage in when selecting a partner to avoid the appearance of bias? >> thank you, jack. it is nice to be here. we partnered with the center for public integrity on what is happening to coalminers applying for benefits under the black lung law and what we discovered working with a great researcher at the center, chris amby, is one doctor at the most prestigious hospital, john hopkins because the go-to doctor. and over the course of 10-15 years, in every single case he failed to find black lung. every single case. he thought it was a remote bird disease, he had a lot of explanations but never found blag lung. and what what ham by did was to go back and compile the medical records of 1700 or 1800 cases and examine the findings and some of those people had died and after they died, the autopsy showed they in fact, had black lung. so chris came to us from the center and with producer matt rosk, we worked together using the incredible research and frankly the kind of research that we probably would not spend a year and a half doing and that is what chris hamby did and putting that together with our ability to sit down at john's hopkins and interview this doctor. after our report, that program was suspended by hopkins. the department of labor since moved to reopen every single case where miners had been denied and again and again there were many miners who died who had been determined by their own doctors they had black lung, after this doctor at hopkins said they did not, the governor reached out to take back the benefits. some were in debt for $50,000 or a $60,000 because there was a claw back of the benefits. that for me was one of the most powerful stories in recent time and led to a number of awards but more importantly it led to real changes in how the law was administered and how that program is now being looked at again by the department of labor. and it was -- partnerships are not without their issues. we all seek to have credit and try to share the credit as much as possible. there are a number of awards. the center won a pulitzer prize. we won the goldsmith award and a number of other awards for it. and it was one of the more rewarding projects i think. but frankly, as i said, abc would probably not spend a year and a half as ham space by did and go through every file. and he did incredible work. and we brought the ability to shape the story and to give it as broad as possible broadcast and it went on every single program on abc news. >> so is this something that could happen in the future, and again how do you work out the issue of this organization may bring a particular bias that you want to try to avoid? >> well we don't want to work with any group with any bias and i don't think the center came with any bias. we worked with propublica on joint pros pecks. we are picky and there is management on who we would and would not work with, in that kind of joint effort. we are prepared to interview people and do stories about all kinds of groups. we're actually going into the trenched together as journalists, we're very picky. >> great. we have mike issicoff, the chief correspondent at yahoo and prior to that, with nbc, and with news week and a reporter for the washington post. mike has broken repeated stories and won numerous awards for his reporting on the government on terror, government's war on terror, u.s. intelligence terrors, abu ghraib scandal, and congressional ethics abuses, presidential politics and the coverage of the aftermath of 9/11. what is particularly -- mike is well-known for a couple of major stories. in fact his exclusive reporting on the lewinsky scandal gained him national attention and his coverage of the events actually led to the president bill clinton's impeachment. in doing so, he earned a whole series of awards for news week, the national reporting award, the headlining award and the edgar poe award. and white house correspondents award as well as the gerald r. ford award for journalism. he's the author of two new york times best-selling books and as a result, both of those books have chronicled much of his reporting. and in 2009 mike, along with brody, who you'll meet in a couple of minutes, was named as one of the 50 best and most influential journalists in the nation's capital. he graduated from wash u and received his masters degree in journalism from northwest. so mike, we're familiar with nbc and "newsweek," which maybe today we're not so familiar with. tell us about yahoo's news philosophy and how are they reaching the audience with news. >> well, thank you. and actually, this is sort of new unchartered territory for me in the digital space. but -- and it is evolving. yahoo has made a commitment to -- as to be a serious news player, it is invested heavily in recruiting people, katie couric is the sort of chief global anchor, matt bye is the political columnist, i came on board last year, we're hiring other people. and we're trying to basically -- although yahoo is a huge silicon valley player, it is in the news side, it is sort of like working for a start-up because we are inventing it, we are trying to see what works, exploring, experimenting with different ways of delivering news, both written and video. but a couple of things stand out. one is, the incredible reach that we have. yahoo has something like 8 million viewers globally. when i write stories for yahoo now, i rarely see numbers. there are people that track these things. but you get a rough gage by looking at comments. i don't -- i never read the comments on my stories. that's a true way to go down a rabbit hole. but i do look at the numbers to give you an idea of what is out there and the numbers of comments on what i do now at yahoo is 10-20 fold greater than anything i would get when i wrote for news week or -- or online for nbc news. there is a vast audience out there in the digital space that sees your stuff, that is one reason why a lot of major news organizations have wanted to partner with yahoo. in fact we have a partnership with abc that was just renewed and that was a sort of highly comments -- other networks wanted to partner with yahoo. we chose -- or yahoo chose to continue the abc relationship. and that is because to the extent that more and more people are getting their news digitally and mobile, this is where the audience is increasingly going to be. so in some respects, although in -- in silicon valley yahoo has a reputation of somewhat of a legacy company, it was one of the early internet companies, it is, i think, very much a pioneer in the -- in news on the web. and we've got resources and there is a commitment and i'm sort of very excited about the opportunities. >> thanks, mike. so you're famous for the in-depth investigative stories, penn state story comes to mind, you've spent hours and hours. how does that translate to two paragraphs on a yahoo page? >> well, the stories that i'm doing at yahoo are a lot longer than two paragraphs. maybe that is what people might see on their mobile or something. but it is all there. we've been able to do some pretty interesting investigative pieces. there is one that got a lot of attention last year. i've done a lot of reporting on the government's war on terror and particularly drone strikes and the effectiveness of those. and we discovered a drone strike in yemen last year that killed a bunch of innocent civilians in a town, caused a huge uproar in that village. anti-u.s. protests and backlash because one of those killed was a anti- -- was an anti-al qaeda imam who spoke out and denounced al qaeda. a police officer was killed. and this has led -- these sorts of errant drone strikes have led to a real question, because the whole drone program is cloaked in secrecy. what does the u.s. government do when it kills innocent civilians in a foreign country like this. when the u.s. military inadvertently killed civilians. there are procedures for condolence payments, and they will make compensation to the families. what happens with drone programs have been cloaked in secrecy. we found a guy who was the relative of some of the innocents who were killed who recounted an incredible story, this had been a cia drone strike and we tracked him down in yemen, interviewed him by skype and were able to get a whole bunch of records showing that after the drone strike, and after some human rights watch had written about this and human rights group had brought him to washington to meet with members of the white house, he gets called to a -- the national security bureau in yemen, it was still functioning then, they still had a government in yemen then, i'm not sure what would happen now, but basically he was slipped a bagful of $150,000 in cash. green bags sequentially numbered, but no paperwork. the deal is you take this money, take it back to your village, pay the families, but don't say anything about it and they'll be no record of it. fascinating account. we were able to actually get the records showing how the money was ultimately wired to an account in the guy's village, fully corroborating his story. we had others who were able to do it. and this was the first window into first the u.s. acknowledging that it was killing innocent civilians in the town of yemen and what it was trying to do to sort of tamp it down. there was a big debate in the village. some people thought it was hush money. they didn't want to take it. they ultimately took it. but it was a fascinating window into what happens in the aftermath of a drone strike that was something that we were able to do on yahoo. we spent a lot of time on it and we had some really gripping video and it got a lot of attention. so that is just an example of the kind of work we can do in this sort of new era of digital news. >> fascinating. so quick question before we go on to larry. >> yeah. >> so you invested all of this time, money and effort into this particular story, which could have been anything, including a consumer investigative story. >> right. >> and you put it up on the internet. do you have any concern that other reporters will just grab it after your investment and then repackage it? >> well you always have -- i have that concern. "the washington post," news week, people see your stories and don't give you credit and they run with it. but by enlarge, people sort of know you had it first and where it came from. and it is very hard to stake a story like that, that took a lot of time and effort and accumulating documents and interviews for somebody to sort of rip it off without it being clear where it came from, where the story is coming from. >> let's go on to lawrence roberts. a senior editor at pro publica. previously he was investigative editor at the republican, executive editor of the huffing pon post investigative fund, projects editor at the hartford currant and editor at large of bloomberg news. he began his career in seattle where he started an alternative weekly and became a reporter and foreign correspondent for united press international. as an editor, larry was a leader on the teams that received three pulitzer prizes, one for the currants investigation into the flaws of the hubble space telescope, another for the examination of the vice president dick cheney, and another for exposing the details of the abrahoff lobbying scandal. as a "washington post" business editor, he directed a series showing how aol misused accounting to fuel its disastrous merger with time warner, which won the gerald loeb award. he taught journalism at wesleyan university and graduated from franconia college in new hampshire. so first of all, pro publica is the hottest discussion among media analysts and research and polling communities, what is it, how are you funding and what is your overarching mission? >> thanks, jack, appreciate being here with the consumer federation and with this illustrious panel and as an editor i'm sort of the odd man out. pro publica is a nonprofit independent news program that started about six years ago and that was in the midst of the real upheaval in the way the internet was changing the news business. there was a fear of many of us at the time that the traditional news organization, because of the change in the business model, were not going to be able to devote the amount of resources and time to investigative reporting in the sense of long-term in depth work that takes reporters months to produce. and at that time, a lot of different kinds of elements of the news eco-system started to spring up. pro publica raised money from foundations, from individuals, and has built over the last six or seven years a newsroom of about 50 people focused only on journalism in the public interest. and that, of course, includes a big swath of reporting on consumers, on how, you know, abuses of unfairness, abuses of trust, fraud, and what pro publica brings to the table is a long-term commitment to working on stories, however long they take to do, a big commitment to data collection and analysis, and a feeling that every time we produce a story that is based on a huge amount of data, we try to extend that reporting to local communities by partnering with people across the country who can do their own versions of it. for example, we recently started a series on workers' compensation and took a reporter michael gray bell about a year to produce and he analyzed how workers' comp laws changed in all 50 states showing enormous disparities on how people are treated if they're hurt in oklahoma as opposed to new york and built this into a big data base and interactive chart, and now we're working with news organizations local and regional around the country where they would do their own versions of the story sort of based on the research that we've produced. and that has been replicated along a number of stories like how pharmaceutical companies pay doctors, which is up until now been sort of a hidden thing. so pro publica is like a couple of other nonprofit news organizations, some of which were mentioned up here before. the center for public integrity which is the one that brian worked with. the center for investigative reporting based in san francisco, as the internet changed things and produced a lot of problems for what we call legacy news organization, it has also opened up opportunities for different kind of news organizations to spring up and we're one of those groups. >> so larry, what -- in your reporting, does pro publica see as one of its roles the object to influence and change public policy? >> yes. that is right. as a much more sort of focused way, i mean implicitly in all investigative journalism that is done by anybody from the washington post, "the new york times," the "wall street journal," and there is implicitly this idea if you expose things that doesn't want to be known or abuses of power that may lead to change but we have a more explicit mission that when we tackle a topic we want to take it to the point if people want to act on reform or change, they can do it. so that -- what that mainly means is that in the choice of what we choose to pursue, we're looking for things that could lead to actual action. >> fascinating. well next we have brody mullins, an investigative reporter for the "wall street journal." prior to joining "wall street journal," he reported for the national journal and roll call. at the "wall street journal," he first covered tax legislation and then did investigative stories about congress, lobbying and the culture of washington. recently his examination about how wall street mines government for information to trade stocks helped inspire congressional legislation known as the stock act that banned members of congress and their aids from trading in stock based on inside information. in 2010 his series of stories on lawmakers traveling overseas on official government business exposed a series of abuses, prodded congress to cancel plans to spend $500 million on new luxury jets and led to reforms on how congress travel as broad. brody has received the award fon distinguished reports on congress and the best political reporter on age 33. reporter under age 33. i didn't know they had the age brackets. >> i think it is 34. >> okay. it gets older as you do. he also received the george poke award and a finalist for the gerald loeb award and along with michael is washington -- washington magazine called him one of washington's 50 best reporters. a true d.c. native and graduated from gonzaga and ultimately northwestern university. so brody, as a paper focused on business and business people, for many advocates, the "wall street journal" is somewhat of a mystery. yet much of the investigative reporting done by you and your colleagues has resulted in very consumer oriented reforms, sort of like the rachel maddow show resulting in less government regulation. so it's kind of an oxywho areon. but in terms of investigative reporting, how important is it to the fundamental mission of "the journal request? >> how important is investigative journalism? >> to "the journal" yes. >> well i think it is incredibly important because the problem we've had in investigative reporting overall is the decline in media and regional newspapers which created a vacuum or opening for people doing big broad stories about problems in the government or abuses by lawmakers. these type of stories were the broad and butter of the washington post and and the new york times and the bloomberg in the journal years ago and dozens of regional newspapers and the problem now is the regional newspapers don't have the money any more to invest into these types of stories. the issue is you were talking about putting reporters on -- or all three talked about putting reporters on stories for upwards of a year. if a regional reporter went to their boss and said a i'm going to work on a story for a year, they would be laughed out of the building. so that has created abuse. lawmakers know on a national level nobody is watching them and that is a real problem. >> so do you see the center for integrity or pro publica to be competition to your investigative reporting? >> i certainly do. i think there's enough out there people can stay in their own lanes. there's enough to cover. people who are doing this well right now are non-profits and we work in businesses. we need to make money. hopefully over the next few years, coming years, newspapers and journalism overall will figure out how to make one from these stories. the problem again if you invest in a reporter to cover a story for a year you can use the same resources to hire five people to write 500 stories. the challenge is how do you try to make money by investing in longer term stories. >> i think the wall street is somewhat unique in terms of being able to make money and i guess one of the first and continues to be successful at generating enough revenue from its online subscription to be viable. when you are proposing and developing investigative story, ideas to your editors, do you ever run into pushback that was often in the local press where that's a great story but i'm fotd sure our advertisers will be comfortable with that. >> i have not dealt with that at the "wall street journal." i'm sure regional papers have dealt with that for a long time. i think the journal has enough advertisers they're not dependent on one or two individual subskrishers to carry the paper, but that is a big problem also. >> so going back to brian, all right, so we've got a million story ideas in this room. how do you decide which story ideas you are going to pursue and what things are you looking for from advocates to get you started on a story? >> i start with am i interested, have i heard of this before. as a tv reporter, are there pictures associated with it? are there people who have been hurt? do we have some representation of that? what is going to make a story that will work on television is a key part of it. i think part of it, i think we have done well because we figured out a way to make almost any story, you know, visual. it's not easy, but it's a challenge, it's part of the craft but those are the questions, am i personally interested, do i want to spend the next three months on something interesting to me that hasn't been out there before, would have an effect on people or have an effect on policy. those are the threshold questions for me. >> so the big question many of us get is, are there any victims? do you know the victims, where are the victims, and i think, larry, this is where you come in, you seem to have the ability to pull together the data and how do you go about pulling together the data ta that shows that there are victims out there and it does affect "x" number of people? >> well it's sort of a very methodical process to collect data on a topic where we think there might be something new there and one of the things i wanted to point out about the interyet is that while it initially was seen by us in the news business as something that was disruptive to what we were doing, there's also, it also presents this enormous opportunity to reach people and have a two-way conversation with readers of the news, consumers, advocates, and judges and everything else. so once we sort of embark on a storyline, we often will put in our stories, you know, hey, if you know more about this, contact us and that's become an enormous source of stories as you say of victims, individual stories, examples of things that are happening in places that in the old days would have taken a lot more time and effort to reach. >> going back to brody the "wall street journal" is known for precision. its expertise, sort of a no-nonsense approach. given what larry said what do you think about the concept of crowd sourcing for information and somehow testing whether or not that information is real or legitimate. >> it's not something we've done directly. part of the information that goes on the internet and news, not these publications is credibility and i think that sometimes that's why you need a big name behind some of the information that depose out. i think if we're not there now or soon, people don't know what to believe, and in the 24-hour cable environment we live in there's constantly information even on television that turns out not to be true, i think yesterday there was a story basically turned out not to be true. i think readers at some point are going to say or have to look to name brands or brands they trust and say okay, so and so is saying this. i trust that that is true and that puts a burden on us to make sure that we don't, you know, try to follow a story by 30 seconds, we make sure it's right. >> that brings me back to you, mike. you are one of the more trusted reporters literally in the world. thinking about this trust and yahoo! and the internet, what kind of differences have you experienced? you've had amazing experience, "the post" nbc, "newsweek" and yahoo!. was there different editorial policies? were you under different guidelines and how are you going to create this credibility some people wonder about the internet? >> in terms of guidelines the short answer is no. there are standards in our profession, and standards of professionalism, and i pretty much had that in all of these experiences. actually my direct editor now at yahoo! danny kleinman, was my editor at "newsweek," former bureau chief and managing editor at "newsweek", the editor is megan lieberman, former editor of "new york times" magazine. so it is the same sort of professional ethos and standards and i think to a large extent, your work speaks for itself. people can read a story, and get a pretty good sense once they start, you know, delving into it, of whether the work is there, whether it is corroborated, whether the sourcing is good, whether the information can be trusted. now, i do think -- and so i think when you do good work, regardless of where it is, people do recognize and if you've got something that people haven't seen elsewhere, it will break through. there is a lot out there. and this is -- i think this is true for all of us. there is so many sources of news now, so many, you know, not just the traditional legacy and news organizations, but a whole range of, you know, ranging from nonprofits to blogs to regional news services, to ideologically driven news organizations, that it is -- that there is just a lot of noise. and a lot of stuff can sort of slip through the cracks of the this is my frustration as a reporter trying to keep tabs on everything that is out there, you know, have i missed something? somebody, you know, very often it is just word of mouth, did you see that? because then if i missed it on my twitter feed, i may not have seen it at all. brian did a great piece on human rights violations by the iraqi army. i happened to see it on twitter, watched it -- watched the whole video. it was really good. i didn't even know it was on "world news tonight." had to ask him. but that's the way we're getting our news these days. and while in one sense that's good, because i'll see a lot of things like that story that, you know, i wasn't watching "world news tonight" last night, i was traveling at the time, i was able to see it, but it also means that, you know, very often there is so much out there that good stories get lost in that way. >> i think it is very good because it gives huge numbers of new platforms. a story that might not make it on the world news, we will have on twitter, we'll have on facebook. apple tv. we have a whole sort of magazine stand there of investigative stories. i think it is a very exciting opportunity for all investigative reporters because there are fewer limits on space and time, and great opportunity. and, you know, in our company, and i think others, we partnered with yahoo! we're racing to be part of the digital future. we can see that's where -- that's where it is going. that's something we embrace. we're not afraid of. >> the other thing too, i think, as all this noise is going on, i think one other trend, i may be a polly anna about this -- that i'm starting to notice is that there's a growing sophistication among the news consuming audience about what is credible and what isn't, but i think that some years ago it was much more of a free-for-all where something would pop up and people would believe that for a long time or it wouldn't come from an investigation that no one ever heard of, but now i feel as though there is this sort of coalescing of some sense of what a credible source is and what isn't. and i think that's a great trend. >> brian said something to me as a former tv reporter myself, one of the frustrations, i was at nbc is to fit into the nightly news or the "today" show format, the stories got shorter and shorter and shorter, two minutes is like a huge takeout on tv news. i don't labor under the same encumbrances from yahoo!. two weeks ago i got back from cuba and was able to, actually it was a fascinating trip. i had the first interviews with the cuban five spies since they had gotten are he leased by obama and we were able to see a seven-minute video on the web, great stuff from both the interviews and walking the streets of havana with these guys who were celebrated as national heroes down there. if i had to do that at one of the network news if i had gotten two minutes, it would have been a real gift. but i was able to do something much more in-depth, and you know, much more satisfying actually. >> so brian, is that proliferation of what you're able to expose the public to one of the reasons why abc chooses to make a very large investment in your team? >> i this i so. >> if you just had the "nightly news" maybe you wouldn't, they wouldn't want to make that investment. >> i'm not sure about that, but i know that we are urged, you know, we are encouraged almost demanded of us that we for instance the story about the iraqi army and allegations they're committing war crimes just as bad as isis itself, that was not particularly the kind of thing that would be desirable, you know, at the breakfast hour as people are watching, having dinner, and so we had a shorter piece on "world news." tlefr nevertheless that was 9 million people watching and a longer piece that appeared online, on facebook, so that kind of reach i think justifies the investment that abc makes in an investigative unit and for us, there's almost no story we can't tell and find a place for. that gives us the opportunity to expand it. in terms of the business, they make a lot more money for television than what they do and that's something that will evolve. we figure you do good stories and they're available people will find them >> brody, following up on larry's comment about the increased and i'm not sure i agree with this but the increased sophistication and the news consumers, starting to be able to differentiate on the internet what is a legitimate source and what is an illegitimate source, how does the "wall street journal" deal with that in the sense that you know, like mike said, you don't want to go down the rabbit hole with all the comments about your reports, because that can be very, you know, hard to listen to in here. but the bottom line is, how does the "wall street journal" differentiate itself from first of all a myriad of trade association magazines starting to look like the "wall street journal" and sta starting to sound like legitimate public news publications as well as all the other stuff out there? >> we have a big advantage in that we have a brand name, been around 100 years. people know who the "wall street journal" is. lot of people trust the "wall street journal" and a lot of people don't trust the wall street journal. especially you can read an editorial this is come from a concerted point of view, i agree with t don't agree with it or it's bunk. on the journalism side of it as you said earlier we've written a lot of stories more pro-consumer stories that are intended to or you hope they affect public policy for good, find and route out wrongdoing and lead to policy changes that held that. i'm glad you mentioned that's our reputation, that's what we'd like to have. it goes back to my point about credibility, and being careful that you don't make mistakes or that you're a credible messenger and all you have is your brand name. as soon as you make mistakes or things are incorrect you lose that and not have the trust of readers. >> that goes back to you, larry. lot of people are concerned that much of the information on the internet and internet news sources is unfiltered. you're an editor. is it because of folks like you and editors that are starting to clean up some of this information that's increasing its credibility? >> i'm not sure it's a question of starting to clean it up. what's happened is the dynamic of the web is very, the sort of quick accountability and response and dissemination through twitter and other means of questions about something that popped up tends to kind of clean things up on its own a little pit. if somebody comes out with something that's not right or that's clearly provably wrong or from a source that's questionable the accountability of that happens much quicker and i think over time my sense is it's built up that or something comes from, say, you know, abc news or the journal or the "new york times," it's got a stronger bedrock of credibility than if it comes from someplace that no one's ever heard of, because people through experience have learned that a lot of these reports are, you know, built on very flimsy evidence. >> i'd like to open it up to all of you. we have an incredible opportunity to figure out what it is that these four gentlemen are looking for, from us. >> speaking about regional publication. >> if you could identify yourself. >> ted knutson, i was in chicago talking to old line investigative reporters over the weekend and they raised a question speaking about regional papers. "the st. louis post dispatch" is the regional paper for ferguson. do you think they have a strong investigative team, there would have been a ferguson? >> who wants to take that? >> i don't know enough about the "st. louis post patch" to answer that. i think they've done some good work in the wake of what happened. >> i think they got awarded the national press foundation for their coverage of ferguson matter. >> are you talking about prior to the event? >> prior. prior to that, [ inaudible ]. >> it's hard to know but i know for instance the "milwaukee journal" has done great reporting on their police department, that's a regional paper that faced its own struggles. it's hard to know whether that would have been the case. i would not be critical of the "st. louis post dispatch." they've shown themselves to be very tough on ferguson. >> jonathan harris, commissioner of consumer protection for the state of connecticut. i think you do great work and what you all do changing minds is really crucial part of our democracy. i want to flip that on its head, though, in particular when it comes to some of the regional papers, one example at our state there is a regular column that is supposed to be a watchdog on government. the journalist is top notch. he's excellent both in his investigations in general and in his writing. however, the fact that he has to produce every single week, i don't think always gives him the ability to drill down, one. there's a pressure always to have content on a regular basis, and it seems like at times one story that actually might have validity to it keeps on getting sort of twisted around with maybe a different little fact, a different angle, and i fear, and i've experienced that it ends up actually doing the opposite, and building mistrust in government, where it shouldn't be, that's something that we don't need now. is that a phenomenon you've seen? how do you deal with it? how does an editor of "the hartford currant" deal with something like this? >> is that the paper? >> perhaps. [ laughter ] >> there's no question, when we talk about all the advantages of the internet in terms of people having access to a lot more news, and news organizations being able to distribute their news much more widely that's all true. the downside has been since the beginning what you say, the 24/7 cycle, the need for quick updates, the competitive landscape, which means that any scrap of news or information you have, if you don't get it out quickly, somebody else is going to get out there if tirs and fi you'll feel behind the curve. all of it forces us from doing in-depth work and even on a beat reporting level, not just investigative sort of work. yes it's been a problem and i think what's happened as i was saying earlier as the ecosystem created some of these new kinds of organizations to try to fill some of these gaps, it seems like there's an adjustment going on that will preserve strong accountability and watchdog work, but it's still a work in progress. >> i just want to chime in, the tension between taking months and months to do the really in-depth investigative piece and between that and covering the news when you get it, and when you get a nugget that's of interest, putting it out there, is something i think we all face. i've faced it throughout my whole career, and you know, i'm not sure the answer is one or the other. i remember having this conversation with an old boss of mine, bob woodward, who actually first hired me when i went to work for "the washington post," and he reminded me watergate was an incremental story. they didn't take months and months to do the big takeout on watergate. they covered developments as they uncovered them, and that tended to lead to more tips, more sources, more stories, and so i think very often covering it as you get it can be just as productive and informative for the reader as spending a long time to do those kind of in-depth pieces. >> hi, jim gordon, president of consumer federation california. first i want to say it has been very, very interesting for me. i've heard about stories that you spoke about before, some of them. god bless you on that black lung issue, but my question, you know, the panel is the future of investigative journalism, right, about reporting, so i'd like to have your take or opinion on what about what i believe many americans now do not believe that the news media in general has much integrity or ethic or whatever, and my example is, examples are that you've got, you know, an anchor that tried to make himself a war hero, embedded war hero, you got the far right guy on fox saying that he was in the middle of a combat thing and wasn't even in grenada or the falkland islands. all this crap going on, they make their own news and then just a follow-up on the ferguson thing, my god, that's been going on for how long, and took the justice department to get to find out that they were a cash-generating speed trap in ferguson, and whatnot, and the media never got that. it was the justice department. so in that context, what do we do, what is your take on the integrity of the sources and the people that are presenting the news to us and whatnot? [ laughter ] >> 30 seconds. >> no comment. >> you know, whatever the shortcomings of individual reporters certainly nbc news is a place of integrity that's done great work over the years. i worked there for 20 years, you worked there. there are short comings, we all make mistakes, myself included but i think that's not fair to say that nbc is a place not of integrity and i think the viewers trust it, and we've seen that just, you know, they have a new anchorman there now, while brian williams is on suspension, lester holt is doing a terrific job and their viewers have not abandoned them. i'm not convinced that's the case, one flawed person, one flawed story suggests that the whole place is bad. i think that's penniless. >> it may be the producer [ inaudible ] and they knew about it. >> well, you know, i don't know the details of what happened there. i just say it's a place of integrity to this day i think. >> yes, i appreciate you all being here and thank you. i'm brian fetchell from breadwinners' insurance in new york, and i've got sort of two questions. one is about non-sexy stories that possibly need to be told okay to things that don't have some of the common attractive things, and sort of real good follow-up because some things can be so profound in the simple one news account that it does lead to change, but some, some of our social problems are huge and need multiple follow-up. i just mentioned gerrymandering, okay. that's a profound national issue, and yet where will we get the commitment from the media to look at something like that? i guess i'm wanting what one is nonsexy news and sort of real long-term things that need a real commitment from folks like you to follow them. would you speak to those issues? >> non-sexy news. that's what we specialize in at "pro publica." somebody comes says let's look at the workers' compensation system. sounds like a real tabloid headline. >> a real sleeper. >> we're not alone in this. as many news organizations do, you try to see this is a real social issue, a problem, something that needs to be look at in an in-depth way and that's why you do methodical data digging and once you do a nonsexy story becomes an important and sexy story in that you are seeing incredible disparities in the system no one's really accounted for before. i think a lot of good journalism starts from there, not just the big nonprofits that are doing it. >> dan, chicago consumer coalition. consumers are always concerned these days about the sources of our shirts and sweatshops and our shoes, but i've heard no discussion this morning and most of your articles are international, about the kind of news climate internationally that comes from the work that you do. my inbox just the past month and i counted them had 20 different requests for research and a journalist assassinated or in some ways injured because of stories they did. so my question is from the good work that you do abroad, what impact does that have abroad in terms of the kind of investigative reporting that could and should be taken place there? >> you've done a lot on the particular subject of sweat shops. >> certainly have. i wish i could say our stories had more impact on what's happened in bangladesh. it's a closed system there and the workers really are at the mercy of the coalition of the government and manufacturers and our stories have attempted to put pressure on the american companies that take advantage of the cheap labor, frankly. that's how we have had the greatest impact? i don't think we'll influence the bangladeshi government but if we can influence tommy hilfige reand other companies that have gone to bangladesh to make their clothes, that's the pressure point, and it's very dangerous for journalists in those countries sometimes to tell the truth, and you see journalists killed in mexico on a routine basis, who try to tell the truth about the drug cartels and certainly in the middle east and don't forget, americans who were killed, murdered by isis, tried to report on what was happening in syria. so it can be very, very dangero dangerous. i remember every single day i wake up what a great country we're in, where journalists are free for the most part to tell the truth and to not face the kind of retaliation they do elsewhere. it's a tough environment. we live in a country with a great first amendment that protects us and for those who don't use it to the full advantage, shame on them in terms of journalists in this country. >> good morning, eric friedman with montgomery county consumer protection office. we as consumers love hidden camera stories. they're inherently just so powerful. maryland, like other states, few other states is a two-party consent state, meaning you can't capture audio. what extent does that interfere with what you do and to what extent would you like to see those laws changed? >> well, we are very aware of those laws. you can do hidden camera, you can't do hidden audio in your state, and we have a whole list of, map actually when considering doing stories that involve hidden camera where can we and where can we not, you operate. sometimes there are ways around it, but it does have a direct impact on the ability to do, to catch people in the act so it is a challenge. the laws we are very cognizant and because in maryland, california and it's actually a felony to record somebody's audio without telling them. >> quick interruption. brody a request along the lines as a current reporter, do you find yourself getting involved in stories that need visual so you decide not to do it, and maybe vice versa, are there some great visual stories that just are too long so you don't do them. >> not as much at the "wall street journal." i don't think we had pictures until five years ago at all, and so, but -- drawings but there is more of an emphasis in recent years to have a more vibrant and colorful paper. they spent a lot of time on the layout of it. it's not quite like television where you approach a story looking for visuals to go with it. it would be, they encourage us to try to do online videos or online, you know, accompaniments with your story online that have video or interviews because apparently advertisers are really paying for those sorts of things right now, but at the beginning of his story, not something i set out to do. >> denise murray, asking this question as an individual, not representing my organization. so i'm going to piggyback on the gentleman's statement about this panel being the future of investigative reporting and i see that it's all men, it's all white, and the people who, and to his point about -- >> oops. >> and to his point about ferguson, the people who make the decisions on what stories to get deep on aren't the -- it may not be an issue that resonates with you but there are issues that are going on. if this is the future, what's the problem? i mean because for me, and what happens is, you talk about people sidelining off to other sources, it's because you all aren't telling the stories that we want to hear and the decisions aren't being made at the top level that are broad, so if you are talking about the future and you think about the future of this country and where the demographics are going, you know, this is a little bit disheartening. [ applause ] >> fabulous question. it would be great if each of you could kind of delve into that as you look forward and as you look backward to see who is coming up behind you. >> it's an excellent point

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