Tonight. Its actually one of the most isolated areas long the texasmexico border, and for miles, all you see is desert shrubs and mountains in the distance. Since i was a little kid, all i wanted to be was a rancher, that was my dream. Your mother taught you do this. My grandmother taught mow. This is a tradition, goes back how long. Thousandses of years. Why do you care . Why are you hear anchor i told my mother, any made it, i would never forget where i gam came from. This is holy cow. All of these boats in the distance, passing here on the river is illegal. Looks like theyre arresting somebody. Why with that weapon . Why not . Its my right to do so. Why are you so tenacious . People are going to die, and nothing is doing anything. My task is to set it up and make sure that the person is comfortable and they feel safe. And allow it to take hold. You lay down, and it starts coming in. Your concerned that youre inviting the devil into your house. If i did invite the devil, i would be like hey, lets party. You know, what remains remarkable to me, this was our opportunity to do stories that we never had the opportunity to do before. And was there something, adam that you wanted to report and got a chance to here. I wanted to do a lot more environmental reporting, changes across the country that are impacting families and health. And it was a great opportunity to do that. Which story really struck you . Which story really touched you personally . Oh, gosh. You know, i think a lot about some of the people that were facing insurmountable odds in her personal life. A woman fighting death. And fighting against a proposal for physician assisted suicide and just getting to know her beliefs. Im not afraid to die. Were all dying, and i think most people are afraid to talk about death. Whereas for me, its part of my life to talk about death. Is stephanie packers body isnt nearly as strong as her spirit. A mother of four young children, shes dying from multiple ailments. Although shes running out of treatment option, for this devout catholic, ending her life with a pill is unthinkable. Are you religiously motivated with this . Is this your primary reason. It is definitely part of my reason, but it most definitely is not my only reason. There are very real problems with this bill. Opponents say that this is a choice bill. That no doctor will make you take this pill ever, no Insurance Company can force you do it. No, but they can take away options for you. She was brave. She was very brave. We met so many brave people during the course of this show. So you all strike me as bringing people into your heart. It became very emotional for you, and very personal for you. Absolutely, part of that is we were given an opportunity here on this show to actually find the real people and go to them wherever they were, we were given that mandate. Find the voice that nobody else is hearing and bring it to you. Whose voice sticks with you . The one, trex, clarissa shields, the boxer. Going against all odds. What defines you . Overcoming my obstacles. Resilience is the word. It doesnt matter what your father s. Your mother is. Theyre not you. I didnt have the worst parents, but theyre pretty close, i think. And thank god he blessed them to change. But every young child, i think the more things that you go through, it builds character. I love a lot about boxing. She doesnt have a chip on her shoulder. She has this very very tough background that she comes from, but you would not know it. Lisa, what about you . There are some people that come into your heart because they give you so much life, so much hope. They do. I got to do a three part special on ebola. And it was such a pressing topic because it took thousands of lives, but i had the chance to meet two doctors who were working in west africa, who both got ebola and one nearly dialed. If you told me on day one that i would develop multisystem organ failure and ask me to predict my survival, i would have thought it would be zero. You had a brush with death and put yourself in harms way, and youve been back a couple of times and youre going back, why . Liberia is my second home. These are my people. Ive lived there a long time. And i really view this as my hospital and the place that god has put on my heart to serve. And they say when youre there, the dust gets in your shoes, and it makes it so you cant forget about it. And michael, reach out to g beyond any place that you normally have the opportunity to go. The one that stuck with me of yours was the louisiana sinkhole. You know what struck me about that, the fact that i had seen that story, as we all had on the other networks, and i dont want to disparage anyone, but the reporting on that was the connec spectacle of that vi. Seeing the trees sinking into this bayou and they would touch on that and they would be gone, and we decided to take another look and with that story, you met another hero, and for a lot of us, you saw the general in a completely different light. This is incredibly beautiful, general. Thats why i wanted you to see it. The natural tendency when you approach a law make, we cant live without this industry, we have to be nice to them, they might leave. Where are they going to go . Boston . New york . Miami . I dont think so. Christoph, i will always remember the first question of your story about the transgender children. The question you posed to that child. Lets get something straight, are you a boy or a girl . A boy. 100 . Absolutely. That is the question thats on everybodys mind that they dont understand, and the bottom line is, you have to hear it from the kid, because whats going on in their head and in their heart and the way they feel is who they are. You have the adults that cant seem to figure this out. The kids were so easy it talk to. This kid seems so mature. And thats true, but at the same time, they were speak from the heart and whats real with them and what their experience s. Lengths talk about tough questions. Because you seem to be in the business and always seem to end up in these situations. Youre talking from the mayor of ferguson. We have people from all over the world coming to this community, and theyre astounded by the Beautiful Community that they see, as opposed to what they watched on tv. I dont know, i wasnt there. As the mayor of the city, you never set foot outside . I didnt go down in the middle of teargas and grenades going off. Dont these people realize that youre about to ask them hard questions . I wonder myself, especially when it comes to flint, because we were there before a lot of the Large Media Companies had come in to cover who was going on in flint. And we got there, and i told them, im going to be asking these tough questions, and we sat down, and the gentleman was very nice. Has there been a public apology to the people of flint. Ive apologized to those who brought it forward because of our tone. Are you sorry that the people of flint dont have fresh Drinking Water . I am concerned, and certainly recognize that thats an issue for the city of flint. And so, yes, we are concerned. But you wont say youre sorry . I i recognize flint is anxious and concerned about t. One of the hardest and most mem prabble questions that has been asked on this program, you asked a man on the phone, it was a lawyer in miami. And this pair of lawyers actually, we had been tracking them for days, and we had left messages, and we wanted to talk to them because they were instrumental in buying up condominium complexes, and in buying up these complexes with this comma Miami Florida law meant that they could force people out with the laws that they set. They told me that the termination was done as of may of 2014 and they had owned the unit since then. Even though you didnt sign a piece of paper . I signed nothing. The question you ask. This may be legal, but the question from you is is it moral and the answer i got back from a these lawyers, theres no morality in business. Emmet didnt know there were certain things that he couldnt say, couldnt do. I dont think so. He didnt know anything about the morays of the south. We lived there and we didnt know about listening. Di lynching. Did you kng to be trouble after . I thought they would have hurt us, but murder never crossed my mind. You could never remember selma and forget the bridge. Here, where the Jefferson Davis highway leaves town and heads north to montgomery is where the first steps of the long last journey in the fight against jim crow began. Come by here, my lord, come by here and here, a local woman, barely known outside of her alabama hometown, became the image of bloody sunday, seen around the world. History is important and resiliency in communities is important. And some of the stories you reported really reached to that, when communities, when families try to bring themselves back together to try to heal in a way that maybe their own personal pain shouldnt even allow. And there was a family in chicago. There was a woman who literally turned her pain into her purpose. She lost her son. Her son was shot in front of a church, going to band practice. I try to protect him the best that i could, me and my husband and because of guns in our neighborhood, my baby is not here. Just like it happened to me, i found out it can happen to anybody, no matter how hard you try to protect your child. This kid did everything right, he was going to college, good kid, stayed out of trouble, had a longterm girlfriend. You do everything, and you do everything right and everything will be all well in the world. Well, it wasnt. And this crushed her. She attempted suicide twice. And yet she brought herself back. She survived her second suicide attempt, and she quit her job at a bank, and she went to work at the church thats a beacon of hope on the south side of chicago. And she helps at risk youth. So were here, and if you need us. And she really really tries to fight for peace, and helps people understand that this issue of gun violence is serious. Christoph, you spent a lot of time in chicago talking about where those weapons come from. Yeah, and you know and theyre willing to tell you that. Theres a lot of places in the world that i go, and i blend right in. Chicago in the innercity is not one of them. So we spend a significant amount of time just on the streets making our presence kind of known. I attend a lot of block parties, and so by the time it came about to do this one interview where we sat around with eight guys, they told us that the addresses was vacant. And we open the door and theres a guy wearing a mask, and we walk into a room and there are eight masks. So whats the game . Whats the product . What do you sell . Crack, dope, ex. If you see it, were going to sell it. What do you have here. Crack. 10 a bag. 10 a bag. Yeah. Where do the drugs come from . Colombia. This is how we eat, this is how we feed our families every day. Does it concern that you you might be selling a product thats hurting a lot of people. I started doing it to be a social worker. This is the only option. It was never a, b or c, but just a, this right here. When i asked how many of you remember the first time that you saw somebody get killed, the oldest one was 12. One of themed when he was three, and you just imagine the posttraumatic stress that these people grow up and live in. I think that the goal of a lot of our reporting, the viewer, and it starts ourselves as reporters, to connect and see theres a little bit of me in you and i can see myself in you. The helicopters flying over in the sky we have vehicles theres a huge place in the middle of the road where they have been punching over the top of the vehicles and slowly advancing down the middle of the road. Ive never heard or seen any of this kind of outcry, not knowing that its not out there in america, but ive never seen it in our community. Well kill yall do you expect to gain the respect and the hearts and minds of the people that youre killing their children . And their families . This moment, as america tonight came into being, also seemed to be a really seminole moment for this country, where we confront seriously the issues of crime and justice and race. And legitimacy of authority. This really came to happen at the same moment that america tonight was growing and doing our reporting, so we became very much part of this conversation, and we were in ferguson, and we were in baltimore, and we were in all of these places where these issues were coming straight to the fore. When you walk away from this, what will you remember about those nights in ferguson. When we were deciding should we go, was this an officer involved shoot org something more . And then going into this, we didnt know this was the start of a huge move. Nationally. And they said were going to send you in with gas masks and helmets, and i thought, this is silly, why would we need this . So we have been finding smoke canisters in the field. And this is a riot multiprojectile that came out of here. The other night that really sits with me is in november, when they announced that they would not be indicting the officer, and the chaos that happened after that. Turn your vehicles around and leave the city of ferguson immediately. Do not destroy property here in ferguson. Were refugees. Black lives dont matter. The police lives dont matter. No justice you live only blocks away from the parts of baltimore that went up in flames. It was unbelievable. I was shooting another interview the day the rioting broke out. I raced over to the epicenter of the riots, and im standing there and im watching the city that i live in burn. I mean, its burning in front of my eyes. An intersection that i had driven through hundreds of times in my life is being looted, there was glass everywhere, and it looked like a war zone. I just want to show them a better way of going about things, and a better way of protesting. A lot of police right there, lets clean up our community. You have a story with chicago, and really looking at the history of corrections, of Law Enforcement in chicago, which is brutal, which was tough, which was harsh. It was hard to believe it was in america, really. I mean this story, it was stunning. We read all about it, and we did our research, and we learned that there was a history of torture within the Chicago Police department, particularly in the precinct, and the guy, john burg was at the helm and he was prosecuted and convicted and he happens to be out of prison now, but long story short, everybody thought when the john burg era was over, it was over, but what we discovered when we went to chicago, they were like it never ended. He created a culture that still exists, and we interviewed guys, one in particular, he had been in prison 21 years, more than a dozen of those years, he was on death row, and he was innocent. He was given a certificate of innocence from the court. Its not like there was enough information or evidence to prove him guilty. This man was innocent. And he was tortured under john burg and his minions. So he tells me, stand up, nigger, stand up against the wall and he put the night stick between my legs, and he put it against the wall. And he lifts me off my feet. In america. In america, in chicago. And the more we heard the same story over and over, we just couldnt believe it, and we were having such a hard time putting our arms around the idea that this was happening in america, and potentially still happening. Why is even the Smallest Community so important, such a important part of the black community. In the black church, the church is the center of our community, its our social structure. We live in connection with the church. So we become the church. And that makes the small black significant to us. How do you describe attacks on churches . How do you categorize that . Well, what has been going on. You got to go from anger to terrorism. Because its trying to intimidate us to get back in our place. Christoff, you went to charleston after the horrific shooting at mother emanuel church, and that particularly heinous crime inside of that church, but you reached out to look at the community with race and slavery and how that touches whats happening now. We were flabbergasted when we went down there, not just of the incident that took place. But here you found a town that in recent years has experienced a huge economic boom around the tourist industry, based on the idea that it was a historical town. But there was no reference to the 40 or so auction houses that auctioned off slaves that the charleston that 40 of all slaves in North Carolina went through charleston. You would never know going on your history tour. Somebody just mentioned in passing as we were walking down the street that oh, look at these fingerprints. I found fingerprints right here. You would never know these are the fingerprints of the slave that made that particular brick. It could have been a female or a child making these bricks. Theres no reference that the place was built by slaves, you would oyo never know. Theyre all over the place. [ speaking spanish ] i came to brazil the month that Michael Brown was killed. I grew upright next to where he lived in baltimore. Most of the people here were for the people of baltimore. They were like congratulations, and we feel exactly whats going on. Thats Michael Brown and freddie gray on the wall here. I get to see people honor the black struggle in the state. Right now, were at the site where 13 young blank men were mass occurred during carnival. The misaligned them up against the wall and shot them. They were killed. Nobody talks about the police, we dont deal with the police, because everyone is afraid of the police. The police can kill you. The police come to the marches and take pictures of the people. Like were coming for you. How hard is this trip . This journey . We have by walking, were coming like ten hours. How many countries have you been through . Do you know . Have you lost track. No, i did not really know. But you have a long way to go. Yeah. The truth is that on this long road, many countries like macedonia dont want the burden of caring for these children. And so its not until they get to their destinations in austria, germany or beyond that child refugees actually come forward and ask for help. We tend to be the news media in general depends to simplify Something Like the immigration problem. Like refugees in europe. Its easy to be glib, and its easy to reduce the tragedy of peoples lives to 30 seconds or 40 seconds, whatever, the evening news can decide to convey, and how long how many nights in a row television is going to deal with that story. These people feel they have no choice, and they have no way to go by forward. And there is no going back. Yes, they want home. But when home is a pile of rubble, when there is nothing to eat, when there are bombs falling from the sky, when your children cannot go to school, when you cannot work, when you have no money, what do you do . We say that our program is america tonight. And we say thats our focus. Yet, we have done a lot of work. Laurie has been in central and south america, and ive been in europe. Similarly, youve seen the same emotion rise up in the community in a way that we have seen in places in the United States, and youve seen the same sort of emotion in other places, its shared, its the same. Paris in the last year, after the attacks in january. Charlie hebdo after the attacks in november, and that is a city that i love, that i live in, and for me, it was in a way so shocking to try to process that the second time. To try to understand that what was being attacked was not just specific sites, but it was a better way of life. People going to a concert. And people going out for a drink on a friday night after work or having dinner with a friend. Tell me about your friends who died. To me, every young people in paris, i know is nice, and full of life. You were here on friday night. What happened . They were shooting everywhere. There was no specific address, they were shooting everywhere, left and right. I ran to the back, and i switched the lights off. I was too frightened to go to the front and pull the shutter down. There are bullet holes in the windows of the hairdresser next door. At the entrance of the womens shelter across the road. In the windows of the japanese restaurant. And the keep, shuttered now and dark. Michael, early on, you began in japan, walking in the shadows of fuk shim a. Which has to be terrifying and terrifying to your wife and daughter that she would go into a situation like this. But really, you went to see what was really left after all of cameras had gone away. The very few experiences i had like walking through what has essentially become a ghost town, arrested in time at that moment. Was it scary. It was scary, and i cant lie about that. What kept me going, the fact that we were chronicling something that people had forgotten b. What do you make of the governments decontamination efforts . How do you change this most contaminated area into towns where people with live . Our towns have turned into chernobyl. And if people return, what will they do . This major crisis had occurred years ago, but the truth is, its an ongoing crisis. They still dont know what to do with this contaminated water that is building by the day. Its changed an entire generation of japanese. Lori, youve been to the border areas and beyond, where people as sheila talked about, were fleeing their histories, and giving up their homes to try something else. Its very interesting, you can only read it so many times. People fleeing the danger and trying to find a better life, but it helped to go there and bring it firsthand back to our viewers. We just got a call that there was another murder here. And from the moment we got to honduras, people are telling us how dangerous this place can be. Under the yellow tarp, thats the fourth murder today. I could feel, i could see why somebody would want to leave that extremely murderous city. What was the plan when you crossed the border . Were you going to turn yourself in . [ speaking spanish ] i think that they were just so desperate to leave and to make it to the United States, and it really didnt matter what they were going to encounter along the way. It takes a lot to drive people from their homes. Even under the most what we look at and say jeez, that is a desperate circumstance. It takes a lot for people to give up hope. Joie, i want to turn the tables on you a little bit. Because you recently reported from the southern border about people who were forced from their homes. But this is about history, isnt it . It returns to the question, history. We hear the political environment saying, we can solve the immigration problem by putting up a wall, by deporting everyone. You have political figures who will come out and make these bold claims, and its a new idea and thats what happens in this country and thats what you explored. Thats exactly what we looked at. Still seems like a family home, right . We talked to people, families affected by a 1930s decision to deport mexicans, ethnic descent. Some of whom were citizens of the United States and born in this country and forced to return. Under what circumstances do you think youre not american enough . Thats the question we asked. What is it that allows people to make a decision like this to force people back to a country thats not even their home. Thats not a deportation. Thats being forced out of your home to be sent back in that way. So when you hear again, history, history rings out and says, oh, yeah, we have been down this road before. Its like mayberry, mayberry usa here. Its like a one horse town. But this mayberry is deeply mired in allegations of corruption and cronyism. It appears they used the taxpayers dollars as an open pocketbook. Piggybacked and over time into large sums of money. Nobody rocked the boat, nobody paid attention. You say that cant be happening. I went to see another mayor last year as a reformer, hes living in what the sheriff likes to call, bradford countys only gated community. Its jail. Barrymore is awaiting trial on charges that he was dealing drugs. Did we mention that he was elected as a reformer . There was 20,000 spent at walmart on a credit card. And nothing to show for it. The city doesnt have a lawnmower, a shovel. Where did all of this money go. Turns out above he was arrested, the mayor was trying to clean up the town and follow the money trail. Is there a lesson here you think . Yes, very big lesson. Dont put blind trust in people. Just because you love them doesnt mean theyre honest. This is probably as close to the old west as youre going to get. For 43 years, cowboy bob landis has worked the annual roundup of a buffalo herd that roams the range, even as its species was nearly slaughtered to existence. And visitors have all over the world come to watch. And soon over the ridge top the first buffalo breaks the horizon. Barely visible at first, but then the whips crack, and the cowboys holler the way they always have. Get up there get up there. And the vast empty plains come to life. The ground itself shaking from the thundering hooves. I thought at the time i was doing the right thing. Its what the legislators wanted at that time and what my bosses wanted. Even the president of the United States. You trusted all of those people. So i went right along with them. 87yearold selia vandergrift remembers her time in the operating room, for those labeled e epileptic and feeble minded. Alcohols and others who the state considered socially inadequate. This is where victims were sterilized and taken from their homes and families. So every person that came here was considered to be feeble minded. Feeble minded or epileptic or criminal. The end was to develop a super human race. Something that we associate with nazi germany, but in fact, it was established here and ground zero for that. How many sterilizations do you think that you observed during your career there. Oh, my goodness. I couldnt begin to tell you. Theres so much that im going to remember from this program. All of you, the stories that we have had the opportunity to tell, but my own experiences in the philippines after super fief on a, haiyan, or walking across all of desolation there, and the dark roads where emmet hill met his fate. All of these moments will always remain with me and with you, what will you remember . I think its probably living in california, and hearing about the drought every single day, and sort of dismissing it because it doesnt affect me but actually going out and doing a special on it, and seeing towns where people havent had Running Water for five years. And these lakes that are completely dried up many. Im standing on the bottom of lake mcclure, at least whats left of it. And whats left of it is mounds of old dry dust, no doubt what used to be mud, debris that was long forgotten, and plant life thats making a home between the cracks at the bottom of this lake bed. Its a moon scape that extends for miles and miles and miles. But the most memorable image, going and seeing the salten sea for the first time, the largest lake in california, and its literally drying up as a result of the drought. And the incredible smell that i experienced when i got there and realized on further inspection that what i was seeing and smelling were literally tens of thousands of dead fish. Littered over the entire layup as far as the eye could see. Its just a searing image in this otherwise beautiful backdrop, with this Beautiful Lake and these mountains in the distance. Laurie jane, you traveled across the desert many times. Yeah, i think that there have been so many memorable moments for me, and i had the opportunity to report from five different countries, jamaica, honduras, mexico, guatemala, and one of the fun experiences, when we were getting to the small town in mexico and we were telling a story about the border and we had to cross in these little boats, and in order to get into the town, its so tiny, we took a donkey ride to get into the town, and the donkey ride is so slow, and there was a boy slapping the donkey on the butt and trying to get it to go. And it was fun, and there were really cool experience thats i got to have being on the show, and i really appreciate the opportunity. Christof, you had memorable experiences too. One of the most for me was in iraq, we got there after isis had taken over mosul. And there was the security line with the territory with the kurds. This is the security line, we have everything on this side in control of the peshmerga, and everything on this side, in control of the isil. And the soldier says that as long as the isil stays over there, theyre not going to engage them. I climbed occupy this tower, and if you looked over, you could see less than half a mile away, all of these isil vehicles and patrols and the flag, and people trying to get to where we were. Were so close to it, yet so incredibly far away. We cant really get in, theres no getting close to that. But it was right there in front of us. Us. Sheila, a lot of talk about that sense of isolation and immersion. One of the stories that we did this year was the advance of the paris climate conference, so we went to the marshal islands, deep in the pacific ocean, and its one of those place thats in the sea continues to rise and the Global Temperatures continue to rise, they will be under water. And they are already beginning to see that. When the king tides come as they come every year now, they flood. The islands flood. And youre talking about going from being a flat little coral atol, floating above the pacific sea and wondering how much longer can we stay here . The other part of Global Warming we saw there was underneath the ocean. Because of warming ocean temperatures, there is a huge coral dieoff taking place. Coral reefs across the pacific, and into the caribbean, and going up the atlantic coast. Its gone beyond bleaching into a fungus like a mold, and crumbling away. This should have been a spectacular coral garden, and theres still beautiful coral there, but you can see theres so much damage. And when the coral dies, all of the life thats dependent on the coral, all of the fish die with it. Thats something that well have to continue to watch for and worry about in our future. Yeah, Ocean Acidification is an issue. About onethird of the earths carbons are in the ocean, and its changing the ph, and its killing coral reefs and causing shellfish the inability to grow their shells, so lobsters, and oysters and clams, they cant overcome the acidity when theyre young, and they cant create a shell and they die. One of the pieces that i did, a family in puget sound. It was not only an inspiring place, but for this family, it was so much more than a business. They were the largest oyster family in the company. It was about the stewardship that they have for the land. And the responsibility to turn around the acidification. So they became activists, and they have a place on their property where they grow the oysters in a nonacidic brackish water, and when the oysters are able to live on their own, they put them out in the bay. Its very inspiring. Sarah, you too made family and community. Community. Some of the things that really stand out to me, whether if its in chicago, and being with a mother who never lost a child to gun violence, but took the extraordinary step to sit on a corner and collected other mothers to do this with her to stop the gun violence on the blocks. You are with her, deep in the south side, and sitting next to her in a lawn chair. Just as mothers control it on our own, i thinking that we could do it in the community as well. So this summer, i thought we would take moms and set upshot on some of the worst blocks, the most challenges, the most violent. Loved it. This was america tonight at its finest. And thats stuff that will stick with me. You learn enough is enough, and im going to do what i can even if it affects these small groups of people. The voices of people that need to be heard, adam. America tonight, thats the name of the show, and im so fortunate that i got to tell stories in 44 states during the run of this newscast. And i think sometimes its the places you go that really stand out in your mind. It was going on idaho and visiting a playground. The best playground in the country for disabled children. In idaho, a town surrounding one child living with a disability and that i will never forget. And then going back to my home state of minnesota, trying to figure out why moose are dying off. The Climate Change researchers are watching, and we got up to a moose that is tranquilized. And theyre taking samples from it. And i will never forget the smell of that moose. And then fun things too like in minnesota, showing people fun things that i got to do as a kid that most arent familiar with, and that is ice fishing, and how last night they r. These are the stories that we had the opportunity to tell. Stories that are not being told anywhere else in all of media that were seeing. And we had the opportunity to bring the voice to the voiceless, and the opportunity to bring american cancer america tonight. Good evening, im antonio mora. This is al jazeera america. As we prepare to wind down our operations here at the new york headquarters, we are revisiting some of the most compelling reports from the last 2. 5 years journalism that
comparemela.com © 2020. All Rights Reserved.