officers whose whole job, full-time job is making sure we are in compliance with federal regulation the government has made the enforcement through state and private parties. >> host: what is the role of the federal register? in the old days a minute to century, they had the statute tremendously important statue the federal register is not as pages every year. the record is 80,000 pages back in the 1980s family recently broke that record. 100,000 pages of federal regulations. the important thing about that is even though the formally published regulations, federal regulators do so much by an informal number random but understanding that are not published, sort of subtle ways that don't leave any official footprints in the record. just the tip of the iceberg and no one could keep up with all of it geared the big companies hire people whose words and specialty do with regulations in some specific aspect of their business. >> interview, professor, the growth of bureaucratic state as you call it, could be attributed to congress? the unwillingness to the hard job of legislation to make the hard choices. they taken the easy way out out because they find the current system is increasing their power even though it would appear to people that the delegation of legislative power is congress giving away its power. it is not. congress is more powerful and more likely to stay in office under the new system. that's where the house of representatives incumbency rate higher than the house of lords. they've established themselves as a permanent class as well. in the 19 centuries when congress actually did its job, there is the concerted plan that is the concerted plan that congress is interfering too much in the day-to-day administration of government. we've had problems on both ends of this delegating too much power and also micromanaging too much. the constitution is meant to rely a healthy balance in terms of congress being primary but not the overwhelming part of the government. >> host: the book is called the pure cat kings -- bureaucrat came. paul marino until cell colleges the author. [inaudible conversations] >> welcome, everyone. under professor in the political science department at usc. it is my pleasure today to introduce our author and speaker, maria r. moody in. i must say i'm proud as punch to have her year because she is one of the former graduate student and many people in this room can share that honor. richard was here a minute ago. you can share it. we all want to take credit for you to address how well we think of you. maria is right my lecturer at the university of auckland department of politics and international relations and her most recent book, even though she's been out for a very short period of time is a book on more correspondence and it grows out of research she has done over a number of years because of her interest in foreign conflicts in various parts of the world. she is going to share with you today her most recent work interviewing correspondent. maria appeared >> thank you. [applause] >> hyatt. thank you so much. i'm so happy to be here. thank you for coming. i'm deeply grateful for what you've done. some of my favorite people in the room and that makes me extraordinarily happy, too. before i start talking about this book, reporting from the danger zone, the increasingly perilous future and i have to add the type is really small so if you are my age you have to get extra thick glasses. it makes the page count smaller. so that makes it easier. the title says a lot. it is about frontline journalist. more correspondence certainly, but also people who report authoritarian government, organized crime and what they have to go through to get the story, why they get the information we get, what are the considerations that they make in order to look into the situation and in the end, how they may get censorship and all the things that go on in this struggle, and information struggle which i sometimes call in remission were. let me put it into a context first. this grew out of my phd dissertation, also my first book was called kill the messenger the media's role in the fate of the world. i was interested in understanding what that role of media had been in all kinds of conflicts and situations around the world. but i decoded from not. they're 11 case studies. the main one i like to talk about is they used to be attached to one another. they have similar dynamics, similar ethnic groups and genocidal history. after the genocide of rwanda in which 800,000 people were rudely slaughtered, a lot of ncos, international organizations women to prevent that from happening again there. but they did is they set up media that would act as an ethical screen to change the messages instead of having the hate messages you heard about in rwanda, which people, galvanized people to help annihilate a group of people in multiple awful ways. but what they did is they change the whole equation. they humanize the other and try to help people understand the roots of the conflict. they refused to air statements from leaders that called for more killing. instead of what we see sometimes he says she's had been the most romantic and awful statement, they said were not going to put that on the radio. please come back with something construct it. it did help to change the dynamics in burundi. it worked for a while. ruby is one of the conflict began. the first thing that went after is the media of course to change the messages. i was interested in ethical journalism and i was interested in what is ethical journalism and the impact it makes. why do we get the stories we get them is for all the factors that went into the interviewing about ready to journalist to do this dangerous work. so where is a good place to begin here? lawmakers have soared a two planes in which they fight on. there is the real physical battle, but then there's also the framer or the information war where they want to persuade as many people as they can let their side is right and the other side is wrong. it is broadening an audience as much as they can come in telling their story the way they want to tell it. essentially their burst of propaganda on each side. was it changed a lot of ways. for one, they are not clear-cut. we don't have one state versus another anywhere. we have messy, chaotic conflict in that makes it hard for journalists to maneuver within this conflict zones. it makes it unclear what territory they are red and he's controlling the territory. but then there's also the communication factor, which has also changed the war and conflict. part of that is this thing that was supposed to democratize the world. all these wonderful things called the internet. the internet past done some wonderful things. it has democratized in a lot of ways. engineers can communicate with people all over the world. people who witness things can be journalist to communicate. there is an amazing array of things the internet given to us. but at the same time, the internet has also become a means for winemakers, rebel groups, terrorist groups to communicate. so what happens to journalist of the ethical journalists who want to go in there and tell what they see as the truth, a way that they see the situation accurately and as an example of something that came from the book about what these journalists do sometimes. some of you may have heard of marie colton in the news recently. she was killed a couple years ago in syria. she and alan little at the bbc for an iraq during the first gulf war. there were two sides of the story. there had been a bombing in the iraqi government said the u.s. forces had killed civilians. the american forces said no we didn't. these two journalists went in and physically counted bodies and that is part of what they do. then they set the world straight. we're going to physically go there and tell our audiences with the reality is. so with the internet and people being able to use to dreams in a propaganda and their own misinformation, what use is a journalist? they are kind of in the way of that story. they're a different phases of journalism. very phases of journalism and journalists went to end with their side of the conflict. and there's a lot of rebel conflicts going on and journalists will able to go from one side to the other side and ask each side for their particular interpretation of what was going on. what are your concerns? that was perfectly okay with everybody because the needed journalists to tell their stories. so they were targets. now they are in the way appeared to reproduce got the room media and so this is why we've been seeing increasingly irrational killing in places such as syria. they don't want to mutual voice. maybe not so neutral because journalists are very much divided what makes them human. it is their humanity, emotions, their deepest cares and concerns, the interest that drives the story gathering. so without journalists, what happens? we give one side or the other or two conflicting sides. we don't know what's true and they don't know where to put our faith. this is a troublesome kind of time in terms that those of us who both want to engage with our government and some democratic fashion, want to know what our governments are doing for others. private contractors, privatized military, lots of things like that going on. but it's also for the policymakers who don't have information. a guy named roy gutman was talking about how journalists miss the story in afghanistan didn't see developments going on and didn't report and then all of a sudden you have this sort of problematic area. people couldn't make decisions about good information. so what is happening today because it is so dangerous in parts of the world like syria, a lot of news agencies refuse to send their journalists in. one has said we will not accept freelance material. if you'd gone to syria and you've got photos and stories, do not come to us because they want to discourage people from going in and risking their lives to getting their throats slit. so to create sort of a demagogue. on one hand we want the information. we want to know what is going on. on the other hand, if they're not going to come out alive, what good is it? this is something journalist said over and over again. some of them still go, but it's interesting how they do it. one journalist interviewed remained anonymous because she does go back to syria and does not want her name in a book, but she is. american so she can fly under the radar as we speak. she is covered anyway because she is sincere and dissent and so she had a fake i.d. i don't encourage this for journalism students. she slips in and out of the check point. at one point during the uprisings and that the canadian bid they got to talking and said okay you will sit in the front seat. here's one place where sexism helped her because they didn't even bother to ask her anything. they assume she was his wife have they got in there and reported the best stories that of egypt. these are some of the ways they operate. we do it by the rules. they get past is stamped by the appropriate group whoever is in control of the area appeared to do as much much as we can because that is our ticket out. bettman said he had his stamp by jesus. he then pushes the envelope more come a little more and a little bit more and he's the guy that discovered the first discovery of the concentration camps in bosnia and wrote about it and mrs. getting in that this photographer giving him candy, cigarettes. cigarettes go along way in many parts of the world. and cnn the background what they were supposed to be seen but their head sheared like sheep from the skinny, i received have been for a long time bed malnourished. that was how they saw there was something going on. he went to refugee camps and started asking people and asking people and found other people who had escaped or have relatives that had been taken. so here you see this struggle. the government is trying to control the information. the journalists are trying to get the information but within this sort of one of the things michael parkes said that i was so important as the guys at the guides make the rules. he did this all the time by the way mike in south africa. he sometimes did and sometimes didn't. he might be mad at me at this point. but that is part of what happens. the rules are a little bit too unreasonable and trying to get information from the idea is. but i think i teach journalists often want to tell you something important. one example that i think of is a country that she cares deeply about. enormous amount of empathy for people and sympathy for people. she is truly a sad and angry and saddened by what his hat named and would like to see something happen to take care of the situation. almost invariably come up most of the journalists i talked to, this was on their mind. this is awful stuff and they want the will to act. most of them were very disappointed. why isn't anybody doing anything? they have resigned themselves to setting the story straight. at least there is a record and that in and of itself is a public service. remember alan little in a democracy and for my first book in and how they deal my friend does. the other aspect is local journalists and foreign course finance have two different sets of complications and half of the interviewees are local correspondents correspondents who live in the region where the problems are. i was struck by an enormous amount of courage first of all and both parts. these are their friends, families, communities in many cases. the editor of virginia in bosnia he put a newspaper at every single day throughout the bosnian war. where do we get water? is the international community going to do anything in the last five right now of his own journalist. somebody machine guns sprayed his office. he happened to not eat there. he sent his family away finally and continued to work. but he felt like he had to. this sense of duty was so important to get this information. another local journalists is a gentleman in pakistan who discovered to rezone informational documents that something like half of the parliament that never pay taxes. a different story than a foreign correspondent would cover. something that matters to their local community and something kind of outrageous. then he started to write about intelligence in pakistan and how they were behaving improperly at best. he got kidnapped and tortured and humiliated in shape and photographs taken and dropped off an hour outside of islamabad where he lived and put himself back together again. you would think that would be discouraging, rate? the guy kept doing the work and his family were late can you please stop doing mr. ellison thing now. we are a little bit concerned that this is going to get us all into trouble. he said there were several things he did because he felt committed to his country. he was offered jobs in the united states, jobs in britain. but this is my country and i would like to improve the good first of all in pakistan it's a little bit of a stigma to god through something like that. it's not like in the united states for you to go find your shrink. so he was dealing with himself. his friends were avoiding and annie said were designed to do was to focus on the present. so every time i fear would come up or the horror from the unix areas, he would focus on the present. in a few of the things that's important, he got just been so extraordinarily professional and generous with all of the people he was reporting on an all the agencies reported on, such that they like to. they didn't come after him again. you cannot misquote people. it is not at her. to be mean or rude. put it in context. you don't accuse people. you don't bring people that you give them a better contributor contacts. if somebody says i don't want to give you a quote, give them time. give them two months if you need it. he managed to keep reporting on pakistan's still. how am i doing on time? very good. some of the journalists were so discouraged they wanted to leave journalism. or just report on something else for a while. they had seen too much. they were guided emotionally by the lack of international community's response. as part of the harm done is the last really good journalists through this trauma they have endured. the different kinds had been kidnapped. the ones most traumatizing to them were not necessarily does things that happened to them. they are things like seeing my shower country shattered. the elderly couple living in a corner of a shutout hotel lost everything and asking the journalists if you go to croatia look at my daughters in time and we are okay. he took them out to the dodgers and saddened please no mommy and daddy are okay, everything is going to be signed and we are going to be sipping tea together very soon. they knew they weren't going to make a period he deserted to the daughters knowing in all reality it's very unlikely they are ever going to see the kids again. one of the things he pointed out is a guy wearing a tie. this is one of the things that was inspiring was the guy refused to let him take his dignity. you wear that tie. these are just remarkable stories and lies that i heard from people. it's a lot of things. one is access. access is key. they're asking for permission. sometimes they try to go in anyway. .. >> so the second thing is journalists' to own interests matter so much, and earlier when i said, you know, this sense of empathy. there's a sense of empathy, but there's also a sense of outrage. they are generally covering these things that are outrageous, that they are really angry about. this should not be. so while we talk about objectivity in journalism, there's this aspect that is not. it is humanity. that's the word michael parks used. it is their humanity that's guiding them, their emotions and their humanity. some of them did not intend to be covering things like human rights. they went in because they were interested in history unfolding before them, these big stories. wow, we're here, and we get to see it. but then they witnessed other things, and carol williams was one of these who she was, she was covering the bosnia conflict and met this young boy who had seen his teacher blown up in front of him. and this changed her perspective. and he was getting to hear all of the more militant people talking about shooting up the other side, and she said, you know what? we're going to stay here as long as we can, we're going to get the story, because she was just like this is not okay, these are young boys, you know, getting completely traumatized at a young age and propagandized at a young age. we're not leaving. so this happened over and over again, too, where they start out with one thing, and they get drawn in because of these very human kinds of stories. let me think if there's anything else i really -- i don't want to talk too long, because i want to take some time for questions. oh, yeah, i know what i was going to do. we talked about access, we talked about interests, but then there are always all these other aspects that are things like punishment and censorship. in some places you have to go through military censors, and those military censors, you're supposed to run your story through them in order to get it out the other side. and be they may ask you to take something out or put something back in. and most journalists would comply with that. one of my journalists didn't. and one of the places that they had to go through a censor was in israel. and he said, well, you know what? i'm from new zealand, i'm pretty far below their radar, so i just went with it. they didn't notice. so so much depended on things like that, where were you reporting from, who were you reporting for. if you weren't a big publication or a big tv station, you might be able to get through below the radar. and so there was this sort of struggle on that end too. then there's punishment. and they were very cognizant of being careful enough that they didn't get kicked out of the country, but could push the boundaries just enough that they could still get the material out to their audiences. and then, of course, there's the big safety issue. every time they had to make a decision about a story they were doing, am i going to get out alive? and in one piece? and if i'm going to take that risk, is it worth it? is there something that i really think is important enough for me to risk my life and limb? and some opted yeses, as i mentioned in the beginning, some still go. so why don't i open it up for questions. thank you for sitting and listening, and let's see what you guys want to know. [applause] anybody have any questions? >> i'll start. maria, i was really interested in the fact that you interviewed both journalists who were foreign correspondents and also local corps responsibilities. did you -- correspondents. did you see that their emotions got in the way in different ways? >> yes, not in the way. i would say not in the way, emotions acted more as a proto pell atlanta than a repellant -- pro pell atlanta than a repellant. as one journalist said, we had had it up to the back teeth with death and destruction in northern ireland. so once the peace process began in earnest, that's what they focused on. and they focused on it largely out of this disgust about the conflict and also this deep desire and sympathy for victims. they were tired of reporting on victims. they wanted an end to the conflict. that was one example. i would say that the other big example i talk about just a little bit is, you know, when this is your own family and friends and community that is getting ripped apart, it's a much more intense commitment that comes in this reporting what's happening. and the information that you pursue is different. it's not kamal, the bosnian journalist, i thought when he said, look, you know, yes, we care about these big human rights stories that are going to shock the world, but we care about these little stories too that mean something for people who don't have water and who are wondering when the aid is coming and who don't know where their kids are. so they drive different kinds of stories. they drive a different kind of intensity. and the focus is different. so like in northern ireland it was, yes, we're going to frame the conflict a little bit differently. and it wasn't like, like they said this is inaccurate. it's still accurate, it's just a different frame. we're going to focus on the peacemaking. doesn't mean that you don't cover the conflict. you might cover it in the context of a peace process. you might ask different questions. you might instead of asking who's to blame, for example, you might ask how is the progress going with the peace process. what is the potential solution for this conflict. so it's kind of a different set of questions going on all driven by, i would say, journalists' emotions and cognitions and their beliefs. yeah. thank you for that question. yes, sir. >> yes -- [inaudible] do you know how many -- [inaudible] >> how many carry? >> special contingency insurance? >> i know that the ones that work for the big newspapers, they tend to have the insurance. and it comes into play sometimes, but i know the freelancers don't always have that, and that's a problem because they're facing all kinds of risks too. but sometimes the insurance dictates certain things as well. flak jackets. some people don't want to wear a flak jacket, because it makes them a target9. i had several journalists say i don't want a flak jacket, i don't want anybody to know i'm a journalist, i want to blend in. that is my safety. but oh journalists went in -- other journalists went in with armored vehicle, and they had vested in the back of the car, and they had two cars everywhere they went in case one of them broke down. so i don't know if i can give you the percent or the numbers, but it's just -- part of that is just individual preferences for how much security they want. and how much the insurance was demanding. and in some cases, they just refuse to follow in that case. yes. >> so how do the journalists -- were there different ways by which the journalists decided what not to report? this is something you mentioned when you talked about burundi, right? part of what we would have considered good and humane journalism is not responding to the loudest and most extreme voice, right? and yet at the same time, i would think that would be a difficult thing for a journalist to do, withhold information, because the very ethic of the profession is if it happens, people should know about it. >> yes. >> so did they, do they feel conflict, do you think, and do they resolve it in different ways? yeah, just kind of whatever -- >> so this is kind of a framing question really, right? so when we're framing a story, all of us, because we're all framing all the time, it's what you focus on and how you contextualize it as well. so if somebody is a call for, like in burundi, calling to slaughter the other side, that's not the most responsible thing to put out there. do you even want to report that? he said/she said? it's a good question. would it make more sense to then instead report on the next answer to the question which might be, you know, why are we in this conflict in the first place, and keep going deeper and deeper into what this is. often times you end up getting to the question of power. power struggles, resource struggles, that sort of a thing. so it's like you may have a big transcript, and an article is really small, and so what you put in and what you take out is really discretion this in telling the story -- in telling the story that you want to tell. i would say it's more how they contextualize it. i didn't get the sense that anybody withheld information of something significant if they saw it, witnessed it. but it would be more of how they framed it, within what context. yeah. yeah. >> i was in the kind of net of journalists that's created. we talk about local journalists, you probably have local journalists each of the sides. do they share stories, i don't know, make friendships beyond and how it really works and how it affects their work. >> so let me make sure i understand your question. you're talking about how journalists from various types of conflicts? >> yeah. you know -- [inaudible] local journalists, how they work together -- >> oh, that's really interesting too. so i'll start with that. foreign correspondents, local correspondents, because that's an interesting thing. often times the local correspondents become part of a foreign correspondent's entourage where they are working together on some of these stories. there was also a time, and i think it still goes on, where foreign correspondents all go together and and sometimes even report together on these issues. and so especially if they're from two different countries or three different countries, they are not really in competition. and so they end up becoming, you know, friends, and the friendship becomes a source of information. so some people said, well, you know, journalists all hang around together because they all have good stories to tell, and they're always telling good stories. there is sometimes a concern that it can become insular, right? we can get always the same story over and over again. but they do rely on each other, and you asked the question about insurance earlier, right? so this kind of goes together too. terry mccarthy, who was one of my interviewees, longtime foreign correspondent for mostly big american tv stations and magazines, he said when he started, he would just buddy along with somebody from another big publication, and they helped him learn the ropes. he said today the insurance companies are not letting that happen so much. so if somebody doesn't have coverage, insurance coverage, they might say i'm really sorry, my insurance company won't let you come along. so that is kind of a new development as well. but, yeah, the camaraderie is, i think, a really important part of journalism. thanks. oh, rob. >> i read the book before, so maybe it'd be good to do it here as well with more time to reflect. and it was the case, and michael park's a member of this too. it was an event here at usc about two years ago in the heat of the ukrainian conflict. and a couple of young reporters, a team sort of capsulized, for me, this dilemma between there's the -- on the scene, humanity, emotion and traditional journalistic standards. this was a case where these were the best of the modern, these were people that had quick studies with visual technology, not trained in a journalism school, had not come up through a traditional organization but happened to have language contacts, intensely reporting with images and interview, great stuff. but at the same time, as they acknowledged on this panel, they were censoring themselves. they had decided there's one guilty party in this conflict. there's good guys and bad guy, and we are going to report so that people understand what we're understanding. we're going to slant from the very front lines. how do editors or anybody deal with that? because what an asset, to have people who can go there with these contact skills and immediately get great material but who might not have signed a pledge or been to a class in ethics or have any training in -- >> yes. this is also a problem with citizen journalism as well. so, and it's a problem now when people can't get into certain areas because they vilify one side. if they can't get the other side's story, right? if you can't fully understand the conflict from different sides, then you do end up not understanding a big part of it. yeah, so especially -- and also with the budge cuts that are going on, the inability to send journalists out as much as they used to. one of the journalists talked about how she wanted to go back to that conflict in ukraine. she'd covered it for years, she -- they wouldn't send her. and so they wanted her to report piecing it together from information she was getting, essentially, from ukrainian news outlets, right? and so that is one of these problems. we, this is, this is definitely becoming snag it's harder and harder -- something that it's harder and harder to check and you don't have people on the ground. obviously, journalists can't cover everything. so even though we have our emotions and it's our humanity that guides us as journalists, there's this fairness of being able to ask each person from each side of the conflict, you know, because people generally don't think they're going to be fighting because i'm bad guys. if i'm fighting, i don't think i'm the bad guys. this is becoming the bigger problem because of lack of resources. it's a big problem also because of social media and citizen journalists that are not trained, that are putting things up without really fully giving it the context that it needs. i hope i answered your question. >> devilishly difficult, and there was no easy answer. yes, you did. >> yeah. yes and yes. you first. >> you mentioned that journalists are being discouraged to, like, put themselves in danger and to be a foreign correspondent. is that more of like a passive discouragement, like don't go to this area or an act of discouragement, like you will get a pay cut? >> both. not like you'll get a pay cut, but we're not going there. we're not going there. there is a lot of that going on now. there are a few exceptions of people who can safely navigate, but they're increasingly -- if you go into certain regions, parts of syria is the best example, you're really taking your life into your own hands. and even so, umar who, my pakistani interviewee said there are surgeon parts of pakistan -- certain parts of pakistan i will not go into, because if i go in there, i'm not coming out. and you're not getting a story either9. so not only am i gone and dead, but you're not going to get -- no audience is going to get the benefit of knowing anything more because i'm gone. so and increasingly this is getting recognized. and some are saying, well, maybe we should train citizen journalists, but then are they racing their lives too? it's -- risking their lives too? it's just a very dire time in terms of what it is that we need to know and how are we going to know this material. yeah. >> what are some of the challenges that, like, freelance journalists face versus journalists -- >> much harder. yeah. so it's much, much harder for free lapsers. freelancers. journalist organizations have quite a bit of hostility training, and what to do if you get kidnapped. so so there are companies that actually train journalistsed to do this. freelancers, it's expensive. the other thing is, you know, insurance is one thing if you do want any kind of apparatus. if you do go and come back traumatized, and most of them did, most of them are very affected by the work they've done, big companies, they will usually help pay for you to go get some counseling and whatever else it is that you need. you're a freelancer, you're on your own. another thing is you work for a big company, you can get, you do get -- suppose you get imprisoned in a country that you snuck into. well, the company's going to work really hard the get you out. if you're on your own, it's much harder. your parents are going to be calling. your friends. so you don't have the same kind of leverage that a staff journalist has. and the same kind of ability to communicate with, you know, the government officials and that sort of a thing too. yeah. so if you can, go with a company. anything else? yes. >> do you think freelance journalists are more, can decide more what they choose to report as opposed to a journalist who work in the big companies? >> i think it's, i think it's a mix because even journalists at big companies have to make a pitch to their editors, and they have to persuade their editors about the newsworthiness of the story. danny gold, who was at vice news until today -- he just tweeted out that he's on the market, so if anybody knows a good job for danny gold -- but he wanted to cover burma. and he was looking for an angle because nobody was, he couldn't sell the idea of going in and covering burma. and so he framed it as asia's apartheid. and so that made it more interesting. and be then he connected it to hillary clinton. [laughter] because she had gone there, and, you know, so there are ways in which -- and so he was, you know, on staff, but he still had to persuade his editors that this was a worthy story. and it was what he was interested in. so the more you're interested in it, the more you're able to persuade it, but you might have to find several angles. roy gutman, pulitzer prize-winning journalists, he's a freelancer now, but when i talked to him, he was, i think, bureau chief in turkey for mcclatchy. he expressed enormous frustration with his editors from time to time when he knows he's got this story, and they won't let him go with it. so, yeah, i think it goes both ways. at least if you're a freelancer the only extra thing you have if your main be editor says sorry, you know, we don't want that, you can go to oh places -- other places. but, again, you do it with a lot more risk in doing that. yes. the gentleman in the back. >> talking about pakistan. next to pakistan in between india is kashmir, and it's actually a plait -- a place i want to go to. wondering, i've been hearing more about it lately, there's some conflict there, and i don't hear much about it. i don't know if it's being covered or how it's being covered. i don't know if you can address that. >> yeah. i don't know if i can tell you specifically about how certain regions are being covered now. are you interested in going? yeah. there are a few ways to go about this. there's something on facebook called vulture club. are you aware of it? find vulture club. vulture club is a place where foreign correspondents go, it's one of the places, and they talk with each other and find local journalists and local translators that can help them navigate a foreign territory. and these, they call them fixers. it's not a very nice word. but these fixers are generally the people who are from local communities who can tell you where you can go and where you can't go. sometimes they'll get you in trouble, so you have to be careful. i had one journalist whose fixer got him kid p napped, and he had to -- kidnapped, and he had to jump out of a moving vehicle to escape. so you've still got to be careful, but you can find your, you can at least find somebody who knows kashmir and who knows how to get in, where you can go, where you can't go, but just double check everything and can translate for you, can tell you about the culture, can help you understand the context. keep in mind again, these are local people, so they have a local perspective. that's what i can tell you about kashmir. really more about how to go into kashmir. yeah. one other thing that i didn't talk about, two other things that i just want to mention, one is that social media has become both good and bad. so journalists who cover mexico, for example, and the drug war, they found that friends and friends of friends were actually working for the drug lords and were following them on facebook. and so their lives were kind of at risk because of this. and it wasn't any fault of their own. it's just that in certain parts of the to world, you have to align with one or the other to survive. and so facebook and these social networks became a dangerous place. it became a place where whatever you say gets translated into potential danger for you as well. the other thing that with social media and citizen journalism, this is a lot of information -- there's a lot of information now that is getting put out there by people who are not necessarily trained, they don't have the norms of neutrality and of accuracy. there are organizations coming up now that are fact checking some of this stuff. and some of these videos that get posted on youtube, you can sort of see if they check out through these outfits that spend all their time seeing if these videos are really authentic. are they always right on? probably not, you know? but this is the world we live in now. yes. >> do you think that in the situation in armenia presently that the social movements that are going on, the movement for more human rights and more freedom and these things, can you speak a little about the situation and the coverage also of armenia and their present-day politics? >> i should have known you were going to ask that question, and i should have prepared better. [laughter] i can't say very much about what's going on right now other than that i know there is a very vibrant civil society and journalistic society that are working extremely hard to try to really start to protect the environment and human rights and other types of civil rights that have been oppressed in armenia for quite some time and that the government is not particularly friendly to these people. though i have heard recently that the citizens of armenia can be pretty strong and are standing up to law enforcement officers more than we can do here, standing up to government officials and arguing with hem, you know? -- arguing with them, you know? so i have great hope, i just don't know how long it'll take. anybody else? >> thank you very much. >> yeah, thank you. 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