Coverage of the pennsylvania governors debate between incumbent governor republican tom corbett and democrat tom wolf. Thursday at 7 30 p. M. Eastern on cspan, live coverage of the noi house debate for the 17th district between democrat cheri bustos and bobby schilling. Later at 9 00, live coverage of the illinois governors debate with democrat pat quinn and republican bruce rauner. And friday night, the wisconsin governors debate between republican scott walker and democrat mary burke. Saturday night on cspan at 8 00 eastern, live coverage of the Iowa Senate Debate between democrat bruce braley and state senator joni ernst. And sunday, the michigan governors debate between rick snyder and democrat mark schauer. More than 100 debates for the control of congress. Now, more about the relationship between the government and the press. In august, reuters news president steve add ler spoke about restrictions put on journalists by the Obama Administration. Whistleblowers, National Security and media bias, hosted by the National Association of black journalists. This is about an hour. Good afternoon, everyone. Here to host and moderate todays session is pierre thomas. 2012 nabj journalist of the year. He joined the network in november of 2000 and reports for several programs including world news, good morning america, and nightline. Thomas was also the key member of the Abc News Team coverage that won edward r. Murrow awards for the capture of osama bin laden, the assassination attempt against congresswoman gabby giffords, and the Newtown Elementary School massacre. He was a key member of the abc team covering the terrorist attacks of september 11th, winning a peabody award, a Dupont Columbia University award and an emmy. He also received an emmy for his coverage of president Barack Obamas inauguration. Please welcome pierre thomas. [ applause ] hello, everyone. Thank you so much for coming to the 39th annual convention of the National Association of black journalists. Revolution to evolution, shaping our future. This year nabj is focused on preparing and equipping members for the shift taking place in newsrooms across the country. This year, you can look forward to some great panels, workshops and seminars, including todays session, government and the media. Today we will address some of the challenges facing our industry, specifically access by the government, which appeared to infringe on a truly free press. Journalists subpoenaed to go to court and reveal their sources, the Justice Department secretly obtaining months of phone records from the a. P. The white house restricting access to many president ial events. How do we operate going forward. Fundamental challenges that stretch to the heart of what we do. Today we have some of the nations top journalists here to discuss these challenges. And they have confronted these issues firsthand. Well have some time for questions from the audience. But id like to first introduce our illustrious panel. First we have steve adler, editor in chief of reuters news. Before joining reuters, he was editor in chief for business week during the magazine and website won more than 00 major journalism awards. He served as editor of the american lordament. Please welcome steve adler. Next we have dean balke, the first africanamerican editor of the New York Times. He was the managing editor for news. After graduating from Columbia University in 1978, the new orleans native went to work for his hometown newspaper. In 1988 he won the Pulitzer Prize for his investigative work leading a trio of reporters who uncovered corruption in the chicago city council. Please welcome dean bakai. The final panelist is Vice President and managing editor for u. S. News at the Associated Press. He oversees coverage in bureaus and regional desks. From 2010 to 2013 he served as the Asia Pacific News director. He led the coverage of the earthquake and tsunami, and Nuclear Crisis in japan. Hes a graduate of Colby College in maine. Please welcome brian. Were going to get right to it. Thank everyone so much for coming. This is an important discussion. And we will try to move it along quickly. James risen is a New York Times reporter. In 2006, he published a book called the state of war and it contained a chapter that the Justice Department contends revealed classified information. The Justice Department has issued a subpoena for mr. Risen seeking information about his sources. Risen said he will not reveal his sources. The courts thus far have sided with the government and he faces possible contempt of court, possibly jail time, fines if he wont testify. Dean, give us a sense of how james is doing, and the impact on him and his family. Its had a huge impact on him as a reporter. Jim has built his whole career on anonymous sources, from the times he was at the l. A. Times to the time he was at the New York Times, thats his bread and butter. And its been a lot harder for him. Its harder for him to make new sources. His current sources are nervous about talking to him. Things get slowed down, because its not like he can Exchange Emails with them, or have phone conversations with them. That said, just as a plug to jim, who is a particularly tenacious reporter, i would say if you look at over the last year while he has worked up against this problem of the government going after him, hes broken big stories, he was one of the two or three lead reporters we put on the story when the New York Times had to catch up try to catch up with the post and others on the snowden story. Hes still in there hanging. Because thats what he does. Thats his bread and butter. But its certainly held him back. His mood is hes nervous. I mean, i dont think hes nervous because hes worried about going to jail, i think hes nervous because, if you imagine covering a beat, and suddenly all of the people you deal with are nervous about dealing with you in particular, i think thats sort of and this is the beat youve covered for a decade, i think thats sort of throws you off your game. Its at the heart of what we do in our profession. How has the paper sought to support him and keep him aggressive . You know, its weve actually helped support him in the legal arena. But i talk to him a lot. I make sure that he is deeply involved in washington coverage, that hes in all of our washington National Security meetings. And mainly, im sort of a pain in the butt to him to make sure that hes working on snowden. We throw big stories at him, we give him ambitious assignments. I mean it would be too easy to tell him to chill out until this plays out. That would be too easy for him and the paper. We make sure we throw assignments at him and they get good play. I think thats been helpful to him. Dean, i want you to answer this question, and dean and brian to jump in. When you have a reporter asked by the government, give up your sources, whats at stake for our entire industry . First off, i think the answer of any selfrespecting News Organization to that question is a strenuous no. Because whats at stake, its not only that particular story, whats at stake is our very relationship with the government. And our relationship with the government should be adversarial. I guess thats an old way of thinking of things, but it really should be. I mean, our role in this society is to ask hard questions, to try to find out things government does not want us to find out. And the moment you would accede and give the names of your sources to government, youve sort of wiped out one of the primary missions of the press. Which is, to find out things they dont want you to find out and to ask them hard questions. You lose that. Steve . Its interesting what ends up happening. You go out there and do a story. And the government doesnt like it. In this case, a story about the Stock Exchange commission. We were kind of inside the room when they made a ruling. And they didnt like the story. And it obviously seems to have come from someplace inside. Think about what impact that has on us. They went to our reporters and asked us what were the sources of that story. Of course, the reporters wouldnt tell them. They got their Inspector General to do a multimonth investigation where they interviewed 53 employees at the s. E. C. They went through the emails of 39 employees. They went through phone records. They checked ought visitor logs. And they couldnt figure out who our sources were. But the deterrent effect on that is the message that was sent never to talk to a reporter. Your job is in jeopardy. We dont want reporters to know about these things. The poisoning of the potential of getting transparency in government just from that one event, and its in all agencies everywhere in the government, it has a tremendously negative effect ultimately of doing our responsibility, which is sharing the information with the public of whats going on in our government. Brian . I think the risen case, and the case that steve just described and the phone records with the department of justice is all part of a troubling trend. Im sorry to say, im not super optimistic it will get better anytime soon. If you play it forward in the years ahead, it really calls into question the ability of journalists to do their primary function, which is to hold the government accountable for their actions to the people. You know, given the volatile state of the world, the war on terror and the covert actions that we see our government taking, has it ever been more important for journalists to be digging and finding out what the hells going on . Its never been more important. If you think about if you think about the state of Foreign Policy, for instance, the u. S. Is engaged in at least two, possibly three undeclared relatively secret wars in pakistan, where its running extensive drone operations, in yemen, and some can make the case for parts of africa, too. These are Dangerous Missions that have large implications for those countries, large implications for Foreign Policy in the United States. And they were embarked on with no debate. There was no debate in congress, or no debate or discussion about how the u. S. Should manage a war in yemen. And its our job to find out whats going on in yemen. And its more important than ever that we find out whats going on in places like yemen, so the country can have its own debate, even if government chose not to have it. It seems like weve reached a point where National Security concerns, whether they exist or not, seems to trump the First Amendment and the governments operations. In many of these cases the First Amendment is not even part of the conversation, except when were talking about it amongst ourselves. Right. I want to move on to a story that really struck me as well. A. P. Gets a scoop in may of 2012 about terrorists in yemen wanting to blow up a plane using a new kind of underwear bomb. The government wants to know how you did it. The Justice Department goes out, goes to court and secretly obtains two months of telephone reports from the reporters. Your reaction when the government had done this. My reaction was outrage, as i think it should be for all journalists, and all citizens, really. The Justice Department violated its own guidelines in doing this. There were guidelines that existed governing these types of investigations. And they had existed for decades. And the two primary ways this investigation violated them is these kinds of subpoenas were supposed to be narrowly drawn as possible. This was an absolute hoover operation in which they took phone recovers for 21 phone lines. Including our former Washington Bureau that the a. P. Hadnt even occupied for six years. And the hartford, connecticut, bureau where one reporter had worked for seven years before he transferred to the Washington Bureau and was involved in the story. And that gave the government conceivably insight into the actions of hundreds of a. P. Reporters, far from any stories that might have had anything to do with this particular scoop. And the government has no conceivable right to know any of that stuff. The second way it violated the guidelines was there was no prior notification. We found a year after that story had broken, that at some point in the ensuing year, they had scooped up all these phone records spanning 40 days. And there was no opportunity for us to challenge that. There was no process of judicial review. And they cited this loophole which turned out to be a gigantic loophole which was the prior notice was required unless doing so would substantially impair the integrity of the investigation. And they took a very broad interpretation of that, to say that the leaker would know they were being sought, if this had been made public. Actually, they announced the investigation about two days after the story actually broke. So the fact they were seeking Legal Resources was widely known. When you confronted doj officials with what they did, did you get an audience with the attorney general, and what was their reaction to your outrage . To the Justice Departments credit, they convened a highlevel group of media representatives and government officials. And the Justice Department had changed those guidelines. We think they had changed them for the better, so that the exception for prior notification requires the attorney general to sign off. And instead of a presumption of violating the integrity of the investigation, they have to prove that it will. Those guidelines are stricter now. But they havent really been tested yet. How striking was it that Something Like that could happen . Looking at your phone records, and the most senior levels of the Justice Department not signing off on it, it sounds like thats what happened. Yeah. Thats exactly what happened in this case. In some way, the revelations on the nsa and snowden, the a. P. Case seems kind of quaint now. We know the government is able to access everything for everyone, journalists or not journalists. And so i think that journalists who have operated in more restrictive countries overseas have always sort of assumed they were being watched. Now we should assume that the United States is one of those countries and we have to take the same kind of precautions as if we were operating in china or north korea or iran . Its a very interesting organization. Its focused for years and years on the violations abroad trying to protect journalists working abroad. Its really illuminating, where theyre starting a campaign called start the right to report. What theyre saying is, the timing problems that we at reuters are seeing, are current here. To put it in perspective, there are people in prisons around the world for being journalists. Way more in turkey and iran and many other places than there ever is going to be here. The fact that were thinking of the u. S. In somewhat the same category is rather troubling. And on a practical level, when you pick up your phone, in the a. P. Offices, do you now wonder . Sure. I think we should all wonder, whether were in an a. P. Office or other journalism shop. When you heard about this case, what was your reaction, and did you think my goodness, what was your reaction, dean . I find this case more troublesome than the risen case. Its the most troublesome. You know, just, first the shear audacity and scope of the effort of the investigation. But secondly, as he said, the fact that its sort of it didnt even have to get approval at the highest levels, shows that, i would argue, that and i would a tribute it to the post9 11 era, some people would a tribute it to other things, i think the view of government after september 11th, that secrecy was so important, especially on National Security matters, became so pervasive, became so powerful and so ingrained in a generation of government officials, that they felt comfortable doing something that 25 years ago even i think would have required a real discussion. Were going to subpoena were going to go after the records of a major american News Organization. I think the fact that that can be done at the mid level and even surprise eric holder says a lot of how entrenched that secrecy is in the government now. The white house has been restricting access to many president ial events, and distributing its own photographs. And then giving access to the photographs of the media, not letting us do the work ourselves. I think we had a case recently involving the astronauts that got some coverage. Steve, talk about why this is a particular problem. Well, i care about the photographs. We obviously take photographs and its important. Because you dont want the record of what goes on in your administration to essentially dpr. So theres been a blurring in our entire industry. And in the world, between whats independent journalism and whats kind of an institution going directly to the public with their own message. On some level, thats fine, and companies do it as well. And people are using twitter to disclose things. And up to a point thats okay. But on the other hand, you know, you do have to worry that theres not a respect and a value placed on independent journalism. So we were involved and a. P. Was involved in lobbying very hard with the white house to give us more access. Weve gotten a little bit more access. Did they get it . Weve gotten a little more access. But its not everything you would want. Did they understand why . Did they understand . Um, you know, i think only partly. One of the troubling things that were all facing is, this is the administration that said it was going to be the transparency administration. And theres been a lot of language around the importance of transparency. I think we all viscerally believe that the government belongs to the people and that were the representatives of the people, and i think were all fairly idealistic about that. And we think that the Government Works better when its transparent. That fresh air, transparency is the best disinfectant. It does not look like the government, or feel that way. You see it not only in the white house but all the executive agencies, where they just make it very hard. Its harder to get press passes, harder to get into meetings. You get handlers who sit with you more. And thats partly a practical problem. But i think its very important as a symbolic problem. Because we really do want to be in a society that believes its important for the public to know whats going on, and its important for independent journalism to exist, and to exist in a really robust way. It does not feel as if very often the administration feels that way. I want you guys to jump in. Is this administration more restrictive or less restrictive than past administrations . I asked members of our Washington Bureau before coming here what they thought. People have been doing it for a long time. And they do feel its more restrictive than it has been in the past. They think theyre a little more upset about it perhaps than they might have been. Because this Administration Bills itself as being more transparent. I think they feel a little deceived by that. I think theres been an increasing desire to control the news. Theres always been some. Look, we accept that. We understand that being a journalist isnt for the faint of heart. And there isnt a constant backandforth with any government. And thats fine. But i think we also believe the government should a democratic government should believe that a free press is important. And should at least try to facilitate that in a general way. Thats the kind of place we end up thinking, were not so sure thats true. Brian . Yeah, i think its part of a trend that began before obama was elected. But i certainly think its gotten more dramatic. And i think social media has given the Obama Administration and a lot of elected officials the plausible cover story that theyre going straight to the people with their message. They can manage the message very closely if theyre going straight to the people. Theres no reason to believe its an honest presentation of information. I also think that the way the Obama Administration has handled access, has given other governments, state and local governments a road map for how they think, quote unquote, to manage the media. We saw in new york with the bill de blasio administration, who also, by the way, said he was going to run the most Transparent Administration in history, that he tried to close his swearingin to the press. Our News Organizations and many others protested and they opened it. In the first 100 days of his administration he held 53 events closed to the press that were on his schedule, and 30 others that had restricted press access. And that was just in the first 100 days. Wow. Im not i think the Obama Administration is more secretive. But i think i agree that its part of a continuum. I think there was an amazing confluence of events starting with, and probably more forcefully led by september 11th. I think september 11th, i think the Bush Administration was more philosophically secret. I think september 11th told them that was okay. I think that the press didnt challenge it enough. And then along came a whole new way of covering candidates. I think social media made it easier for candidates to sort of or politicians to sort of communicate with people without going through the Mainstream Media, which is good and bad. I think all these things came together. A secret environment. The ability to communicate differently with people. And then the Constant Campaign that politicians go into. And even while theyre in office, behave as candidates all the time. I think all of those things came together. And i think theyve sort of reached their full flowering in the Obama Administration. But i think they began over time and built. One thing i would add to this, were not without our own resources. And nobody should feel sorry for the media. And some of the changes that have occurred actually benefit us. So the fact that theres so much more access to electronic information means we have more ways to get information. Thats right. Theres also lower barriers to entry in the media industry. So there are way more players. While on the one hand socalled Mainstream Media may be somewhat in decline, but youve got blogs, and youve got the guardian here because of digital, al jazeera here because of digital and television. Then you have all of the smaller organizations. So i do think that if youre out there trying to get information, and youre working hard to get it out, you have more ways to get it than you used to have in the past. In some ways its an arms race. The administration has more tools, but so do we. And more outlets to publish it. If you buy the argument, which i think everybody now buys, that the press wasnt aggressive enough in the buildup to the gulf war. I think today there would be a lot more places, including the guardian, which is more active as a News Organization, more blogs, more places where questions would have been raised. And i think that i agree with steve, thats healthier. I want to get to Edward Snowden in a moment, but as news executives, how are you trying to manage, deal with the social media, and also the fact that people can go around and talk directly to the public themselves, and how do you try to use the social media to your advantage . Theres so many different ways social media factors in the way we do our work. In that instance in particular, its interesting that when a public official takes to social media, often what they say on social media is news itself. And the reaction to that is news itself. And then, of course, we all use social media as a way to develop new audiences and broadcast content that our journalists are producing. Its also an incredibly news gathering material, where people have something to say about a specific event or topic. It is woven into the newsroom in so many different ways, that its, you know, its just part of daily journalism now. You know go ahead. I was going to say, i worry less about the ability of politicians to get around us, and use social media, because thats different than the sort of some of the secrecy issues were talking about. I think thats as much of that vexing for us, i think thats probably okay. Its a little weird for the media to make the case that politicians should not should have to engage with us to get to the public. So im not sure that would be a winning argument that i would be willing to make. Im not a big fan of handout journalism anyway. I think whats the most Productive Work we do is when we ask hard questions, and we try to get under the surface and find out whats really going on. The politicians are going to issue their handout photos and issue their Handout Press releases, and its not our job to just take steno graphy and provide them to the public. But go deeper anyway. There have always been whistle stop tours and fireside chats by politicians to engage directly with the electorate. This is just the way to do it from the comfort of your chair. In full disclosure, i think nabj did invite members of the administration to participate in this panel. As far as we can tell, they chose not to. Edward snowden. I think everyone in the audience knows was responsible for releasing a boatload, mountain load, whatever you want to call it, load of information about some of the nations covert activities. There are government officials who say not withstanding what he did was right or wrong, the notion that one person was responsible for releasing this information, relatively young person, they make the argument that it shouldnt happen. Question to the panel. Is he a criminal, or whistleblower . I actually dont im going to choose to answer it in a little bit different way. I think that he provoked an important discussion, that the country wasnt having, and could only have had with his disclosures. I think that snowden gets a tremendous amount of credit. I think the country barely knew the extent of nsa spying. I think there had been glimpses of it and stories over the years. But i think he provoked a very significant discussion and a debate that we should have had. I actually think the nsas position in this case is a little bit untenable. Somebody should have said, i would argue, that is the country ready for the giant amount of spying that the nsa can do . And without going into the nittygritty of it. I dont know what the result of that debate would have been. It might have been even more intrusive spying. But im not sure that answers it doesnt answer the question whether hes a criminal, or in a weird way as a journalist, i dont think that is my question to answer. But as somebody whose News Organization took advantage of some of the things he leaked, they were really important. I guess i dont object to the government making it illegal and attaching penalties to people inside the government to have sworn not to release information. Its reasonable for the government to consider it potentially criminal if they do. Which, again, as dean said, is a very different question from what our responsibility is. In my view, as long as we havent stolen the information or paid somebody to steal the information, our job is to inform the public. And so were in a different role. It may be the administrations job to protect certain information like this. Its certainly our job to release it. Being careful about not putting individual people in jeopardy. If we get it. Being a lawyer, im not going to convict him without a trial. But i think, you know, in these situations, sometimes it is civil disobedience, and the person chooses, knowing there are penalties which are appropriate, the person chooses to do it. But more important for our discussion, it is our responsibility that if something is newsboworthy and we didnt steal it, for us to present it to the public and let it be part of the public debate. Brian . Im also going to dodge the original question. You know, its not my place to say. Think about what we know now with these disclosures. What we know now is really important. I would argue that the people had a right to know that their government was doing that. Do you think the disclosures helped our cause as journalists or hurt our cause, in terms of trying to get more information out of the government . I would argue they help our cause. I would argue they help our cause, because for two reasons. The government has yet to offer substantial proof that they truly hurt National Security. Which helps our cause. Because thats always the argument. The second thing is, i think that in the case of wikileaks and in the case of snowden, the press behaved aggressively and responsibly. I mean, i have worked, you know, i mean, ive looked at the snowden disclosures in the course of our coverage of it, and there are things in the snowden disclosures that everybody, including Glen Greenwald has not disclosed. I think it proved that the press can be very responsible, cannot put things is not looking to just throw things up that jeopardize lives. I think it helps our cause. The government might argue otherwise, but i would make the case that we were, you know, we did what we were supposed to do, but we were careful. I guess my view is, you know, we in the media are never going to win any popularity contests and were sort of down there with congress in terms of the public approval. I think thats okay. I think that theres a real resistance to the power point institutions in our society right now. And were often lumped together with other powerful institutions in this populist resistance, you know, to people who have a lot of power. And perhaps the media does. But i would say that its our job to do our job well and responsibly, and not to worry too much about whether were popular as were doing it, as long as we think were performing a public service. I do worry, you know, about the Chilling Effect of depending on what ends up happening to snowden, which who knows what the future holds. The Chelsea Manning case, it certainly must discourage people who would be tempted to disclose that kind of information from doing it again in the future. So, you know, while i agree, you know, that media has credited itself with the way it handles itself, i do worry about the future whistleblowers, in the case that steve described earlier. One of the most common things you now hear from a government source is, im going to lose my job. You hear that a lot now. And to your point, i think thats a very serious concern. I want to take advantage of the years of experience, and your thoughts here, to give some of the young journalists and other journalists out here a sense of some best practices. What advice do you have for organizations or individuals who come under fire of the government, be it city hall, the state, or federal government in terms of protecting their sources . Ill start. Clearly were living in a world where you have to assume that your work is being watched. So you have to be very careful about use of email. There are encrypted emails that you have to be very careful about phone calls. Particularly in going places where you think youre being watched or followed. You know, at the very least, you want to turn off your phone. But thats not probably not enough. Often you dont want to have a phone with you. When we travel globally to dangerous places, well take a burner phone, well take an Electronic Device that has no sensitive material on it. There are a lot of things you have to do just in terms of basic selfprotection. There were recently reports by the aclu talking to journalists about essentially are you being deterred by this stuff. The main thing they said is they feel like theyre in the espionage business now more than in the news business. I do think you have to be careful about all those things. I think we all way overuse email. Whether its a Foreign Government or u. S. Government or perhaps even a local government looking at it, being careful about all those things is important. I think you have to really exercise best practices. You have to be very clear with your source whether youre protecting them, and under what circumstances. And you have to be very clear with your editors as to what rules youre operating under. Will the organization back you up if youre protecting a source. Its really important to work in an organization that will back you up. So to put in a personal ad for all our organizations, i think one of the virtues of large Mainstream Media, although we all have our faults, these organizations do really support journalists when theyre in trouble. That becomes really important in a world where that happens more and more. Yeah, i think steve just made two really key points at the end there. One is, i would hope anybody whos in that situation as a reporter can rely on the organization they work for to go to bat for them. And the other one is, and i think that this is more important than ever, is to make sure in negotiating the terms of disclosure with your source, that they understand that the risk theyre taking on as well as being aware of the risk youre taking on. I think those conversations in the past couple years have probably we need to have a much more detailed conversation with sources about that disclosure, because its gone up dramatically in the last couple of years. Theyre possibly risking jail time and other penalties. Its part of a journalists responsibility to make sure the sources are aware of the risk theyre taking. I would agree with both of you that best practices, making sure that your editors are behind you. And the only thing i would add is more of a cheerleader point, or just keep doing it. I think that what inspires me about jim risen is that he did not come to me and say, you know what, i would actually like to cover, you know, the Agriculture Department now. I just want to do something different. He remained in the realm of National Security. He continues to break stories. Hes hampered, but hes still in the game. I think that sends a tremendous signal to the people who want to chill his reporting. It also sends a tremendous signal to people who do that kind of reporting. For every jim risen case, there are dozens if not hundreds of subpoenas that are issued. And go through a process and end up getting quashed, or dealt with in some other way. Not every case ends up with a potential for jail time. Which is an important point. Thats always happened. It always will happen. Its rare it gets to this point. One thing thats really encouraging, speaking to this room, at least the younger journalists, and the journalists coming into the business whom ive been meeting, are amazingly intrepid, are very investigative. Theyre good at using social media, really good at searching on the web, and figuring out whats going on. There are people working for all sorts of organizations that are doing really exciting work. And i think thats a very positive indication of where the world is heading. And even if you can stifle some organizations, theres so many people out there trying to get information. Right. I think thats a real positive. Right. And the only thing i would add to that is, this sort of plays off what steve said earlier, the ability to get, especially for International Investigative stories, i mean, some of the best investigative work of any News Organizations over the last couple years have been International Investigative reporting. Some of it based on public records. Also, if youre trying to cover, you know, what amounts to war in yemen or pakistan, there are ways to report inside those countries, if youre a big News Organization, and you can behave safely to keep finding stuff out. So theres still going to be ways. In fact, lets not forget, for all of the restrictions, there have been some and i would include the two News Organizations on my left and my right there have been some remarkable disclosures in the last couple of years that show that the press is still in the game in a big way. This has been terrific. I want to thank you all again. I think we have time for some questions from the audience. So, please step up to the microphone, and ask your questions. I dont think its on. Someone help her and see if thats on. There you go. Okay. Hello. My name is alicia haysley from the virgin islands. An aspiring journalist. Research is hard, extensive, and requires Copious Amounts of indepth work. You did touch on safety. I have a question in regards to that a little bit more, a little more indepth. Youre talking about burn phones. But if you really are into a story, is there a way for you to be as careful as you can possibly be . Like what would you advise as tips . If somebodys out to find you and stop you, most likely they will do everything in their power, and sometimes thats a lot of power. So if youre on a case, a dangerous case, i say case, yes, because as you said before, espionage, thats what it seems like when were trying to get information, because you have connections with cops, government officials. And you want to protect yourself as well as your sources. Can you go and elaborate a little more on that . Im very intrigued when you listed burn phones. And im like, what else, what else . Well, again, there are all sorts of tools to encrypt things. But i think your point is, very often they wont work, right . Yes. So, you know, the question is, are you talking about being in physical danger, or somebody because as you said before, we are entering, as we excel in technology, we also excel in ways we can be caught. With social media, there are more ways to be caught through social media, just like they can track your emails, they can also track your facebook accounts. Whatever you post on facebook, you know, anybody else in the future can go in there and peruse and, ooh, thats what shes about, or thats what hes about. I operate under the assumption that everything i say somebodys listening to. I think thats a worthwhile assumption. So here and on television i know im being looked at. But when i talk on the phone, i assume that, too. When my parents who are 90 years old, ask me what i did this week, i tell them, i cant really tell you that right now on the phone. Im fairly confident whether its the Syrian Government or somebody in china, or somebody in iran, theres somebody listening. So a lot of it is changing your habits and thinking about the fact that there are people listening. But if youre doing journalism in this country, we dont want to overscare people. To my knowledge, theres one person in prison in the United States, in jail in the United States for doing journalism. So its very rare that it ends up that it throws you in jail. One thing ive always found helpful, particularly when i worked for small newspapers, was to write about it, when somebodys giving you a hard time. In other words, to make public what the problem is. If youre being investigated, write about it. Because again, we have a lot of power. We have tools. You know, we own the presses, is what we used to say. We own the ability to distribute. So if threatened, that threat becomes newsworthy, and frankly, i would report the threat. Just a couple of thoughts. Okay. Hello. My name is wanda brooks, i am a producer for the department of defense specifically covering intelligence. Boy, thats interesting. I take back everything i said. It is very interesting. These are the guys you want to go after. So, how do you decide when covering a story when to release a report, or not if the government says, hey, you know, this could potentially put someones lives in jeopardy . A case officer out in the field. How do you make that determination of, is this legitimate, or should we run this story anyway . And have there been moments when youve held off on an investigation, or report because of those concerns . My standard has become, you have to give me absolute detail of what you mean. It used to be, the government would say, if you publish this story, it violates National Security and somebody will get killed. Thats not good enough for me. I want to hear who. I want to hear the specifics. Obviously i dont mean, dont tell me how theyre going to get killed. Tell me what you mean. I really want to know. You mean a case officer in tehran . And tell me how. Second thing is, i always demand a request to hold Something Back comes from the highest somebody very high in the government. Never if the press person asks for it, i wont even take a call. Its got to come from somebody in the white house. Its got to come from the head of the cia. Its got to come from the head of the nsa. It cant come from the press person. Usually when you say that, by the way, half of all requests go away. Because theyre not quite willing to ratchet it up that high. So i always insist that they ratchet it up that high. Offer very, very specific proof. And i would say, still, most of the time we go with the story. But if somebody offers are there stories we have held over the years . That met that standard . Yes. Ill give you a classic one. I think thats now been written about. I think most News Organizations did not write corporal i think corporal,burgdahl and his disappearance. We knew a lot about tp there was a tremendous amount about in the wikileaks documents, which i was involved in. And we were in an awkward position. Right around the same time, a reporter for the New York Times, david rogue, also disappeared p. We were nervous about too much detail of his case coming up. So after burg dahl, i think there were cases where we made a mistake, i think there were cases where i made a mistake and was too cautious but by and large were those are the standards. Has to come from somebody high up. Has to be very specific. I dont want to hear, i have blood on my hands. I dont want to hear national i dont want to hear the vague, you will help the terrorists. I want very, very specific stuff. In the case of a foiled terror plot that led to the Justice Department scooping up all those records, that was held for five days at the governments request because their request was that the operation was ongoing and still hunting guys down. And it was only after the government said it would be it wouldnt jeopardize operations that the story was published which makes what happened next even more outrageous. Right. If it is an ongoing investigation, and they made the case and are very specific and it comes from somebody high up, that is a hoorder one to refute. Thank you. Hi. Professor libby lewis from ucla, former news anchor and reporter for cbs and nbc. I just have a pretty general question for each of the panelists. Im wondering, should we, as journalists, educators et cetera be concerned about relationship between the government and journalists when we see more and more in the news. We hear about journalists covering stories in other countries, being held as potential spies. Being accused of spying, you know, for the u. S. And among other things. Should we be concerned about the fact that the cia and usually the fbi have booths, recruiting booths, here at various journalism organizations. Not just nej, but doesnt that sort of beg the question, what are they here for . Being that, you know, these are journalism connen froms and what is the interest. And should we be concerned . Let me start on that. Weve got journalists around the world, almost 300 journalists. It is a fairly frequent problem where Foreign Governments accuse our reporters and accuse them essentially of being spies, and often for the u. S. And so any ambiguity, and we say we have no association with any government. We are entirely independent. You know, whatever accusation is entirely untrue. But any am ambiguity that any government has and reports to be journalist, puts life in danger. So im extremely concerned about it. Thats not to say that cia doesnt need people with journalistic skills to do things that they need to do. So im not saying recruiting people for other things who have journalistic skills is a problem. But any time an Intelligence Organization usees a journalistic cover it puts our people and journalists around the world in enormous jeopardy. Thank you. In many of the countries where our News Organization operates, this doesnt resonate because the notion of independence doesnt exist in a lot of countries around the world. You know, and particularly for news agencies. I think the standard definition of the news agency in most countries is something that is tied government. And the type of agency that ap and reuters are is sometimes hard for people to comprehend. When i was based in asia, i often had to explain that ap didnt stand for american press. I think intellectual, it is the difference between government and independent but there are countries in which every entity is controlled bit government and whether it is industry for education or media. Thank you. Andrew humphrey, wdiv if detroit michigan and founder of the Journalism Task force. Thank you for being here. My question is, and for all of the panelists, what other loop holes exist now in the law that you can enlighten us on. For example, from the patriot act, is it can electronic equipment be confiscated by reuters by customs and be searched without a warrant, things of that sort. Im not to be honest, im not actually familiar with them enough to sort of go through the list. I dont know if you guys are. Im not im not sure. I think we need a media lawyer on that panel. Thats the next panel. All right. I can speak specifically to the guidelines surrounding seizure of phone records. There is a loophole and the loophole is that attorney general needs to sign off and that there is a threat to National Security or that it would compromise the integrity of the investigation and they can still do what they did to ap. The loophole is small are, but it does exist. I think the federal law is that is broadly in the area of attacking surveillance. Sometimes it is wildly overused. There was an internet entrepreneur who downloaded a bunch of documents from mit store documents cache and he was indicted on very serious charges, and ultimately committed suicide under indictment. He was parallel to the way journalists would operate. He didnt plan on selling them. He just thought information should be free. There are draconian uses around electronic information that are still on the books. All right. There is more policy journal. Something ive noticed over the past few months, buzzing around social media. Especially more recently around the conflict in israel and gaza. Is this impression among the general public that somehow the u. S. Government or other governments are putting pressure on your organizations to color coverage in general, not speaking about specific cases. And about classified documents or operations but in general, to the state department or the u. S. Military or the Obama Administration is pressuring the New York Times that are Associated Press to run certain stories, ton run certain stories. To cover a hospital was hit or not hit for a u. N. Compound. Can you guys speak to that specifically . Because this is something which, you know, of course i try to correct among my colleagues. But maybe coming from your mouths, it may or may not be more persuasive. Can you talk about what contact you guys have from the administration or other dposts about your general coverage of certain issues or topics or conflict . And that doesnt happen, and i never had a i mean, i was Washington Bureau chief and i was managing editor and editor. I never had i have had many complaints about coverage. Usually complaints about profiles. People are too negative or the Obama Administration is very sensitive. But in terms of how to cover things, how to place photos, i never had a conversation like that. None at all with anybody in the government. I bet these guys have not either. No. I think if that were ever to happen, i think the obvious answer would be no. Subject to our own editorial decision making. There is almost no harder story to cover than israel palestinian. Views are so harder on both sides that each of us think the other is biassed on the other side. So there is an enormous increase in complaint when that story is flaring up from people on both sides. That leads to conspiracy theories about who is influencing the coverage but we havent experienced pressure on that either. Sometimes i wish we could take these the same way i could take the volume the emails from each side and just send them to each other. Because they are completely i mean, on both sides are completely unrelenting and not understanding difficulty of it or the fact that each side actually sides have very hardened views and dont see the other side at all. I wish i could Just Exchange nasty emails with others and just get out of way and watch the discussion. You know, today weve discussed a lot of issues facing our industry. Question for each of you, journalists done a good enough job of skprexplaining to the pu what it is we do and why we do it . I would argue no. That weve not. I think that we are much better now than we ever were. But i come from a tradition of when i work in a regional paper in the days when newspapers made so much money that you didnt have to court readers. If a reader called up, i just hung up the phone. I think were much better at it. I think we sort of tried it i mean, i try to answer emails from readers. We invite people into our page one meetings. We talk more at sessions like this about how we make decisions. But sometimes i think we take for granted, i think people are always stunned and in fact the federal government does not call up and say, is this a gaza picture. It amazes us that people think like that. I think some people do think like that. I can certainly do a better job of explaining how we make decisions. I agree. Even when we do, it is probably pretty hard to get an audience for it. Some people have to much information sfloeing out of them,some distractions, that the ideal role of the media is not one that interests many people outside of our right. Yeah i think we are much more interested in the public than anybody else. By and large, the best thing we can do is do our job vigorously. Over the last 10 or 15 years the industry is much less swelled and there was an arrogance in our ind truss try that we felt we could go out there and do what we wanted and the public would soak it up. So i do share the view that if we can be more transparent that thats helpful and consistent with who we want to be as organizations. Thats right. As we wrap up, i would like for each of you for some of the journalists out there to give a sense of how you try to inspire the people that work with you, your colleagues, who mine for the difficult stories and why thats important. Steve, just go left to right, please. And reuters, trying to encourage more and that is bigger and invest gettive stories. You can be tempted to chase every story that occurs. This enormous satisfaction in trying to get to the bottom of things. Find out why things happen. Whats really going on and what is going to. What next. I think as people have done more of that, they discovered both that it is enormously satisfying, challenging and that there is a big appetite out there for it. When i talk to customers, whether the financial customers or News Organizations or individuals, i think what they are saying is we have so much information, they are flooded with information. What they always say is helping make sense of the world and i think journalists get excited when they are helping people make sense of the world when they are backed by the organization and when they see the results. A lot of the journalism, best journalism we do has positive results in society. You see things happening and see people freed from forced labor camps. You see good things happening in the world so i think it just up to us to encourage us. Talk about it. Insent advi ininvent advise about it and do a job and do it very well. I think encouraging a bigger more probing pieces, im deeply involved myself in them. I think the best way to send a signal to the newspaper, so your stamp, that you really care about her, is to get involved in story discussions about the biggest stories to actually play a role in line editing. When we do big investigative stories, in the time ive been executive editor, i want to be in on them from the beginning. I want to pli on tay on the edif them. And i think people walk away with the sense of, okay this is important. You get time with executive editor. Think about all of the cases we talked about today. From snowden to the appoj thing. All of the revolutions were really important for people to know and hugely competitive stories. And theres an imperative do that because if journalists hadnt been doing that kind of work, we wouldnt know about it. These are disclosures that are important for the public to know about. There t is imperative do this kind of work because, we spoke earlier about how many different Media Outlets there are. And for some degree they all cover the same story everyday. For things that are exclusive and distinctive are that much more important because it is what you have that nobody else has. There is no bet are way to set yourselves apart and as someone that breaks news that readers and editors cant get from any other source. This was a great conversation. I want to thank each of you, steve, dean and brian for joining us. And thank you to the audience for coming. We will take a short break. But at 2 00, we have the news maker with dnc chair Debbie Wasserman schultz. Thank you. Thank you. [ applause ]