they'll kill you. and then you have the assad government, which restricts visas. right now, there are no visasç for u.s.-based correspondents. >> ifill: plus... >> the egos in this business! ( laughter ) >> ifill: ...a star-studded cast revives a play about the politics of broadway and theç comedy backstage. >> woodruff: those are some of the stories we're covering on tonight's "pbs newshour." >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> supported by the john d. and catherine t. macarthur foundation. committed to building a more just, verdant and peaceful world. more information at macfound.org >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. ç >> ifill: canadian police announced today they've found no connection between two fatal attacks this week on soldiers. that word came as parliament cheered the man who put an end to yesterday's shooting assault. ( applause ) a hero's welcome awaited sergeant-at-arms kevin vickers at the opening of the day's session of parliament. he was visibly emotional as lawmakers stood in thunderous applause. ( applause )ö it was vickers, a former royal canadian mounted policeman, who shot and killed the gunman stalking the halls of parliament yesterday.ç the incident touched off panic as police rushed in, and lawmakers and staffers scrambled to get out. >> the goal of these attacks was to instill fear and panic in our country, and to interrupt the business of government. >> ifill: today, just 24 hours after the chaos, prime minister stephen harper insisted canada will not be intimidated. >> we will be vigilant, but we will not run scared. we will be prudent, but we will not panic. and as for the business of government, well here we are in out seats, in our chamber in the very heart of our democracy and our work goes on. ( applause ) >> ifill: and in a chamber often divided by politics, unity was the message of the day.ç >> yesterday's events were a shared national tragedy. it is fitting that we have come together in this place immediately, to let the world know that canada's values are strong, our institutions areç resilient, and our people are united together. ( applause ) >> it only strengthened our commitment to each other, and to a peaceful world. now, let us not become more suspicious of our neighbors. let us not be driven by fear. because in canada, love always triumphs over hate. >> ifill: police now say the lone gunman, michael zehaf- bibeau, was a recent convert to islam with a long record ofç violent crimes. they released security camera video today showing the gunman running into the parliament building with a rifle.ç minutes earlier, he's seen entering the national war memorial grounds, where he shot and killed corporal nathan cirillo, a member of the honor guard. park benches near the site filled with flowers today as canadians paid their respects. back at the parliament, lawmakers paused for a moment of silence in remembrance of cirillo. >> ifill: family members of the shooter condemned his actions. in a statement, his mother, susan bideau said: >> we wish to apologize for all the pain, fright and chaos he created. we have no explanation to offer. i don't understand and part of me wants to hate him at this time. >> ifill: police now say zehaf- bibeau had recently applied for a passport, apparently intending to go to syria, but he was not under surveillance.ç >> i can confirm that zehaf- bibeau was not one of the 90 high-risk travelers that the r.c.m.p. is currently investigating. according to some accounts, heç was an individual who may have had extremist beliefs. >> ifill: his attack came just days after another canadian with islamist militant ties rammed two soldiers with his car near montreal killing one before being shot dead by police. it remained unclear if the two incidents were connected, but prime minister harper pledged aggressive counter-measures. investigators said they've found no connection between the two incidents, but prime minister harper pledged aggressive action. >> in recent weeks i've been saying that our laws and police powers need to be strengthened in the area of surveillance,ç detention, and arrest. they need to be much strengthened, and i assure you mr. speaker, that work that is already underway will be expedited.ç but the city of ottowa stayed on edge. at one point today, as the prime minister and his wife laid flowers at the war memorial police drew their guns and forced a man to the ground. he was later arrested for disturbing the crime scene. an in other news, six west africans who traveled to connecticut are being quarantined for possible exposure to ebola. officials said today the family arrived on saturday. planning to live in the u.s. they will be monitored for 21 days. there was also word a new yorò3 hospital is testing a patient who has ebola-like symptoms, and who worked for doctors without borders in west africa. >> ifill: in nigeria, suspected boko haram militants kidnappedç at least 25 girls in a remote northeastern town. it came amid ongoing talks aimed at freeing more than 200 other girls seized by the islamist group in april. the abduction also raised further doubts about the government's announcement last week of a cease-fire. >> woodruff: new questions surfaced today about the u.s. strategy to confront islamic state forces. "the washington post" reported moderate syrians will be trained to defend themselves, but not to try to retake territory. the report cited unnamed u.s. and allied officials. islamic state militants already control large swaths of syria and neighboring iraq. >> ifill: the maryland man whoç allegedly jumped the white house fence last night was ordered held without bond today. dominic adesanya was quickly arrested by uniformed secret service agents and their dogs. he was unarmed, but he's chargeç with punching and kicking the dogs, and making threats. white house spokesman josh earnest said today the challenge is to balance security with public access. >> i think the point is it certainly would be possible to build a multi story bomb proof wall around the 18 acre white house complex of the white house, but i don't think that would strike the appropriate balance that i described earlier. >> ifill: last month, another fence jumper made it past five layers of security into the white house.ç >> woodruff: california's prison system will end its policy of locking down inmates based on race. guards have frequently invoked the policy after racial violence among inmates regardless of whether they're directly implicated.ç the settlement would end a long- standing civil rights lawsuit. >> ifill: a batch of strong earnings reports sent wall street surging again today. the dow jones industrial average gained 216 points to close at 16,677; the nasdaq rose 69 points to close at 4,452; and the s&p added 23, to finish at 1,950. >> ifill: still to come on the newshour. innovations aiding the fight against ebola. what michael brown's autopsy tells us about what happened in ferguson. fake grades, fake papers, and fake classes at the universityç of north carolina. why it's hard to know what's happening in syria's civil war. and an all-star cast revives a comedy about the laughs behind the curtains of broadway.ç >> woodruff: the world health organization reported the ebola outbreak is still racing well ahead of efforts to stop it. west africa needs at least 4,000 more hospital beds and thousands more workers.ç and while drugs and vaccines are still being developed, there's a push to see if science can find new and different answers. the president's team had a meeting on that subject today.ç shortly afterward, our science correspondent miles o'brien sat down in the briefing room with the president's top science adviser, john holdren. go holdren, thank you so much for being with us. >> happy to be here. >> for people who are uninitiated, a little bit about this group and this meeting. what was the goal here today? >> well, the president's council of advisors on science and technology is a group of leaders from the scientific, engineering and biomedical communities from around the country who advise the president on a part-time basis, bringing perspectives from that widerç science and technology community to bear on the policy issues the president has on his plate. of course one of the big policy issues the president has on his plate now is the ebola challenge.ç and the idea of this meeting was to call together the members at the president's request to share their ideas with him, particularly about what capabilities, ideas and approaches from the private sector and the academic sector could be married to what the government is already doing on the ebola challenge, which is a lot, in order to amplify and improve the effectiveness of the whole effort. >> let's talk a little bit about technology here. are there technological solutions out there that are within the time frame of the current crisis that could ent, and one of the things we think about, of course, is protecting our health care workers is there a better garment, a better procedure that your group is seeing. >> in fact,e have been working inside the government on better personal protective equipment, they call it ppe. we had a two-day workshop october 10th, 11, with over a hundred innovaters, inventors, public health practice particular neses, doctors, working on how to improve these garments. of course part of the challenge with the garments we have, is making sure you put them on and take them off in a way that is safe. but a further problem with them is that they're not air conditioned. and a lot of those workers are going out in hot and humid environments. the workers can only stay in these garments for maybe 40 minutes to an hour. we're working on garments3 that can be cooled. we also have assistance from nasa in this space. this is very much inside the government, an interagency effort. nasa knows how to make protective suitsç that work in extreme environments. we're tapping that expertise along with others to end up with better suits so that the health care workers can work longer and safer. >> so if we can put a man on the moon, we ought to make them safe to deal with ebola. >> exactly. exactly. >> let's talk about another technological solution i read about. i was a little skeptical about it, the idea that robots could somehow be employed to deal with this crisis in a way that would protect human beings. is that realistic at this point? >> in fact, we were having a workshop, my office, the office of science, technology and policy and a number of other partners on november 7th on potential uses of robots in the ebolaç challenge. perhaps the best example of how a robot can be useful is cleaning up and decontaminating a room that has had ebola patients in it, contaminated stuff in it. obviously if you have a robot do that and do it effectively, it would be safer than having a human being dealing with all of that contaminated waste and mess. >> but robots are they really ready for that? >> i think they probably are. i mean, you would be amazed at what robots can now do. you know, we have robots being developed that can fight fires. and go into dangerous fire situations that you wouldn't want to send a human fireman into. we can certainly make a robot that can decontaminate a room. >> i suspect that's not within the time frame of the immediate crisis, however, right? >> i wouldn't be so sure. i think we could probably adapt someç existing robots to be useful in the current situation in a fairly short span of time. >> all right. let's talk a little bit on the science side for a minute. i know this is not your particular area of expertise and there are other peopleç in the government -- >> thank you for recognizing. you are a physicist and i get that. but there are a lot of people who have been working for some time on vaccines. >> absolutely. >> but ebola has been around for a long time and we're still waiting for a vaccine. is it still quite some time before one might be available? >> obviously, the current crisis has ramped up the interest and the effort in developing an ebola vaccine. there is a promising vaccine in what they call phase one testing right now. looking to confirm the imun logical response that one is looking for in a vaccine that would then, if it passes that test, go into what they call face two andç three testing where they are looking for efficacy and the absence of any unmanageable side effects. it is possible that we would have a vaccine by sometime next year. these time scales are challenging. youç have to do clinical trials to be sure that you are dealing with a vaccine that is going to do a lot of good and not a lot of harm on the side. and with luck we will have a vaccine in a matter of months, not in years. but then you have the challenges of ramping up the production. and one of the things that the pcast, the president's council of advisors on science and technology is looking at is how can the government and the private sector working to to make sure that we have the production capacity that would be needed the moment we have a good vaccine. >> i would be remiss if we didn't talk about the travel ban. much discussed, much misunderstood. the question is, you know, if you are trying to stop the spread ofç a disease, isn't it prudent to stop the spread of the people who might be carrying the disease, an wouldn't it be prudent to initiate a travel ban from people coming out of these countries?ç >> a travel ban is actually a bad idea in that it would make the american public less safe and our challenge of dealing with this epidemic. >> how so? >> the reason is, if you place a travel ban, first of all, you only catch a modest fraction of the people who are moving around. we have, for example, about 150 people a day traveling directly to the united states from these countries, that is not on a broken itinerary where they stop for a week in london or paris or brussels in between. about 150 a day. 55% of those are american citizens who have a constitutional right to another 10% are greenstates. cardholders who one is not sure their permanent residence. we're not sure that it would be a great idea to keep american green cardholdersç from returning. but the worst thing about a travel ban is that it would drive travel underground. right now we are able to identify and monitor the people who are coming in from these countries. as you know from the newspaper, we now have them all funneling into five airports. everybody who comes in from these countries is advised to monitor and report in every day on their temperature and whether they are showing any symptoms. you put a travel ban on, you're going to travel the travel underground there are lots of routes where people can get into this country without being noticed in the net you would have under a travel bew and will you have far less control, far less insight, far less monitoring than you have now. you would, in addition, of course, with a travel ban, make it much harder for health workers toç come in and out. make it much harder for us to control the epidemic there. if we can't control the epidemic there, the sources from which it could spread to the united states will propagate and again in that longer-term respect will also been worse off. >> to the extent that you are dealing with this country, an epidemic of fear more than an epidemic of disease, would announcing a travel ban to the extent that it might allay some fears would, it be prudent in that respect. >> i think placing a bad policy for reasons of optics is almost always a bad idea. in fact, as a scientist i would venture to say it is always a bad idea. if this is a bad hlicy, we shouldn't do it. and we should use our ability to communicate with the american public and to educate them to persuade them why it is a bad idea. it is a bad idea because it >> dr. john holdren, thank you so much for your time. >> my pleasure. >> so far the more immediate ebola threat domestically, at least, has been the fear and anxiety it has sparked. on-line we break down the impact this kind of stress can have on your health that is on our rundown. >> woodruff: protests continue in ferguson, missouri. 75 days after michael brown was shot and killed by police, the latest round last night was sparked by the leak of details from an autopsy report of brown conducted by the county to theç st. louis post dispatch. joining us now is dr. judy melinek, a forensic pathologist and associate professor of pathology at the university of center. she reviewed the autopsy for the post-dispatch. dr. melinek, thank you very much for joining us, so you were provided with a copy of this autopsy report. what did you take away from it? what did you learn? >> what i got from the report was that there was a gunshot wound of the thumb that is going from the tip of the thumb towards the wrist. and that particular wound they had microscopic section of. so this is new information. there's particulate material in that wound that is consistentç with gun powder. and we now know that there have been one or two gunshots in the vehicle. so that is most likely the shot that occurred while theç struggle was occurring in the vehicle. and it indicates that the hand was in line with the gun, meaning that the thumb was pointing towards the muzzle of the gun for the trajectory to make sense. >> woodruff: so what does that tell us about what happened? why is that significant information? >> it is significant only in that it's different from what we had heard from the second autopsy. remember, the second autopsy was done after the first autopsy was completed by the st. louis medical examiner. and that's done on a body that has been washed and em baumed and all of theç evidence has been taken off of it as part of the primary independent autopsy. so a second autopsy is to the going to catch trace evidence such as this.ç so this is different information because it confirms that a close-range gunshot wound occurred of the hand, probably during the struggle in the vehicle. >> woodruff: so the second autopsy report, that refers to the autopsy that was commissioned by michael brown's family. i think a week or two after the incident. >> that is correct. >> woodruff: can one conclude, then, dr. melinek from this, how michael brown died? >> well, we know he died from multiple gunshot wounds, that is not a question.ç the issues in the case pertain to what we call traject ory analysis and forencics. when you have multiple eye witnesses and there have been multiple eyewitnesses and they're all different stories or slightly different stories, the question then becomes for the forensic pathologist, do you look at the wounds on the body. and how do you line them up. and how do those line up with the stories that you are being given. that is the information that is going to be weren'ted to the grand jury. not just the witness testimony but the forensic evidence. and it's up to the grand jury to decide whether the forensic evidence is matching with the witnesses statements or not. >> so just to be perfectly clear about this, listening to what you have just said, what questions are answered by this autopsy report. and whatç questions have yet to be answered? >> well, what's answered is we know that he died from multiple gunshot wounds. it confirmsç the number of gunshot wounds to a minimum of six, a maximum of eight. it also shows us that there is a downward trajectory at the top of the head which really makes sense under these circumstances if mr. brown is leaning forward or moving forward with his head down. so that way the top of his head is exposed to the bullet, and to the officer who is shooting at him. so that can be interpreted in lots of different ways. it defends on-- depends on what the witnesses say. it could be that some people would perceive that as he is collapsing or that he is surrendering and bending down. or others could say that he is lunging or moving toward the officer. you can have multiple interpretations that match up they're also going to be multiple witness statements that don't much up with the trajectories. and it's really up to the grand jury to get all that information and synthesize it and make a decision.ç >> woodruff: so the questions it that cannot be answered by this are several. it's, as you said,-- it's not so much how far away the gun was but what else was going on at that time. >> it's also questions pertaining to what else is at the scene. we don't have the scene data. we don't have the police reports. we don't have all the witness statements. there's other information that hasn't been gleaned, for instance, where were the casings. how distant was the officer actually from mr. brown when the shot started and when they ended. and then also how high is the weapon off the ground. how tall is the officer and the height of the muzzle when he is pointing it. so all of these are data points, allç of this is information that we still don't have. and that should be presented in order to get a more nuanced picture, a more complete picture of what happened here. >> woodruff: you have obviously dealt with a numberç of-- many cases over the course of your career. is it possible to say from this what the grand jury would take away from this? >> at this point, we can't say what the grand jury is going to do. and it's going to depend on what they see. and they are sequesters. they are going to be seeing evidence that we done see. all we have been given is what was apparently leaked. so it's not a complete picture by any means. and their determination is going to be based on the complete set of data, not on just snippets of what we are seeing here. >> woodruff: . >> woodruff: last question, michael brown's family said that they do not accept the results of this autopsy the st. louis county medical examiner or, they said, any account that comes from an officialç account that supports what the police officer darren wilson has said. my question to you is, how credible, how much can one count on the accuracy of this autopsy report or any autopsy report? >> i want to reiterate that medical examiners, forensic pathologists are not police. we're not cops. we are independent practitioners, we're physicians in st. louis the medical examiner is an independent agency and part of the department of health, not the police. they're not in the business of covering up for the police. they're in the business of collecting evidence and documenting it. you have toç understand that all that evidence event lyul-- eventually becomes public record. so whether a family trusts it or distrusts it. and it's perfectly understandable that people will distrustç public agencies when there has been a death in the police custody or an officer-involved shooting. that is understandable. but these are physicians at the medical examiner's office, and they are collecting the evidence and that evidence will be presented to the grand jury. and whether they indict or not, it will eventually all become public. so there will be complete scrutiny, there will be access to all that information. tand will eventually come to light. we just have to let the justice system do its thing, take its time, and be cautious and understanding as that happens. >> woodruff: dr. judy melinek at the university of california at san francisco, we thank you.ç >> thank you >> ifill: for many years, theç university of north carolina has been a powerhouse in the world of college sports, enhanced by a reputation as an institution which cultivates student athletes. but yesterday, an independent investigator provided the most detailed look yet at academic fraud that lasted for nearly two decades and included bogus classes where students did not need to show up. earlier this year, the hbo program "real sports" examined what was happening there. here's an excerpt. the correspondent is bernard goldberg. >> at the university of north carolinaç learning specialist mary willingham was baff emed by what she was seeing from the athletes arriving at one of america's most prestigious schools.ç >> they're coming in with reading levels of 4 to 6 grade, there is even some who are reading below a fourth grade level. >> you are saying that some kids who were admitted to the university of north carolina, one of the best public colleges in america, with a fourth grade or even in some cases lower than a fourth grade reading level? >> that's correct. makes it pretty hard to go to college, doesn't it. >> reporter: you would think. and for many years the ncaa incoming athletes couldrance handle college work. requiring them to score a certain level on standardized tests likethe sat or the act. but in 2003, that rule was revoked. colleges could now put athletes on the football field or basketball court no matter how they did on the tests. and soon the term college education began to take on a whole new meaning. >> i worked with letters and sounds with some basketball players and some football players. >> reporter: give me a demonstration, letters and sounds. >> so i start to just show you cards, like a deck of cards and i hold up c, and i say to you, what is this letter. and you say.ç >> c. >> and i say what sound does the letter c make, and you say. >> ear ca or ca and let's move on. >> but the kid'sç in college. >> one particular player said to me, please teach mimi to read well enough so that i can read about myself on-line. >> how about this letter. >> teaching fonics to college students may sound absurd but at unc and many other big time sports schools it was suddenly very important business. because the ncaa's new policy that eliminated minimum sat and ac t-scores for athletes came with a catch. roughly half the athletes on each team would have to graduate or the schools wouldn't be allowed to compete in the postseason andç would lose out on millions. that's one of the reasons mary willingham says big time athletes at unc from funneled intoç custom made no-show classes they couldn't possibly fail. >> they would just have to turn in a paper at the end of the sell tess-- semester. there was no class. >> reporter: when you say no class, you mean no class. >> no klatt. >> reporter: they didn't ever go to class. >> they never went to close. >> they never took a test. >> they never took a test. >> they wrote a paper. >> not really wrote a paper but maybe copy and pasted a paper from a book or from an internet site. >> reporter: this is a bad joke what you are describing. >> it was a horrible joke. no learning took place. >> i was like hold up, you know, iç got a class, i'm getting credited three hours and i never have to go. >> reporter: that's not all that surprised mike mca do when he arrived at u inç, c to play football. >> when i got there they already had what we were going to major in. >> reporter: you're not suggesting, michael, that somebody handed you a piece of paper and said here are your classes. >> that's what happened. >> former federal prosecutor >> ifill: former federal prosecutor kenneth wainstein led the investigation that unearthed the new details. he's a partner at the firm of cadwalader, wickersham & taft. i spoke with him from chapel hill earlier today. for joining us. could you first of all start by describing the scope of the thought in years, numbers of students andç types of students involved. >> well, what we found in our investigation is this is a scheme that went back to 1993, from 1993 to 2011,ç there. there were about 3100 students that took the paper classes. the paper classes were chralss though many were designated as lecture classes they never tal tall-- actually met for lectures, they never met with professors no professors or faculty members involved. the class what competely managed by the office administrator and the office administrator did the grading of thesch. of the kids who took those, about 51% of them were nonathlete students. so regular students. but a good 48, 49% of them were student athletes which is striking given that only 4% of the student body were student athletes. >> ifill: let's start by explaining jut just the student athlete part of tp]his. was this designed to help them remain eligible to keep playing on tarheel teams? >> interesting question. this is one thing we looked very carefully at. why did these classes get established and why were they minute takened. we found thatç really they were established by the office administrator in the african studies department. she did it because she, frankly, she had had a tough experience as a student here in chapel hill, felt she wasn't supported, and felt that she wanted to do something to help kids who are troubles, who were having difficulty getting through their curriculum. so she is the one who set up these classes, made them available to students and student athletes and nonstudent athletes. and then you had a number of counselors with who were the counselors for the student athletes who saw these classes and saw them as an opportunity to boost the gpas of their players and maintain their eligibility to playç ncaa sports. >> ifill: describe what you mean by paper classes, boggus classes, we keep hearing the term shadow curriculum. how does that work, specifically? >>ç another important part of our investigation was to find out what these classes really were. and what we determined is that these were classes where the office administrator in the african studies department would sign kids up for a class, sometimes designated as a lecture class, but the class would never meet. the student wouldn't have any work that he or she would have to do other than a single paper that would have to be turned in at the end of the year. that paper would get turned in, but it wouldn't get graded by a faculty member it would get graded by the office administrator,ed studies department and she would basically give an a or b plus to any paper that got turned in no matter how good it was. we saw some which were strong papers, kids did a lotç of work. others which were terribly subpar and filled with copied material which meant that a kid got a high-grade for a three-hour class for doing nothing more than just turning in a paper that had a bunch of copied material in it oiz mr. wainstein we have been hearing about this scan $at unc for some years now. but it's kind of shocking how long it went. how was it allowed to go on for so long. >> that's another part of our investigation i think that has got people's attention. here you have a university which really is one of the finest universities, always has been and is now one of the finest universities in the country. and is one thatç is completely committed to the highest ideals and standards of academia. and the question is how in the world could this go on for so long,ç about 19 years, in a school like that. and what we found is that there just simply wasn't the oversight that was needed. you had a university that i think was populated by people who were high calibre academicians an administrators who trusted each others to do the right thing by the students and the vast majority of people did. and you know, so they didn't think that they really needed to look. there was a bit of a blind spot there. in addition, i think you saw this attitude that if we have too much micromanagement, maybe that's going to undercutç the independence and creativity of the professors and the academics. and so because of both those reasons, they just didn't have a tradition of havingç strict oversight. and as a result you have a department and this office administrator and her department chairmen who were able to carry this on for all those years. and it wasn't detected at the highest levels of the administration. and i can tell you that that has been changed over the last few years. the university has put those oversight mechanisms in place so this can't happen again. >> you mention a bit of a blind spot. along the way did any of the sports coaches or any of the professors object? did they raise the red flag? >> well, you had limited knowledge around the university ofç exactly what these classes were. you had a lot of people who knew that these were easy classes, that you didn't actually have to show up to class. they were being taught as anç independent study. but you had only a limited number of people who really knew that these classes, you know, didn't involve a professor at all. so you had no faculty member and that they were absolutely being run and the papers being graded by an office administrator. but of those people who did know about that, a number of them were counselors over in the athletics, in the program that provides academic advising to athletes. and they did not raise their hand. they did not say that these problems existed. and in fact, they took advantage of them. >> and finally, unc is not alone in this. a lot of universities have been implicated in theseç kinds 6 question-- questionable activities and it makes you wonder if the term student athlete say little bit backyard at this point. >> well, there have been other schools that haveç had some problems. and those have been reported and the ncaa has dealt with them over the years. and i think if there is one positive outcome to this whole episode, and i think there will be several, but one of them is i think any university around the country that reads-- reads this probably going to step back and think boy, we better go look and see if there is something like this here. that lookback didn't happen with unc. and they regret that greatly. because had they looked back, looked in their own, onç their own campus to see whether this kind of problem existed, they would have found it and hopefully would have prevented a couple of kids getting deficient >> kenneth wainstein, thank you for your investigation and your report. >> thank you very much. good to talk to you. >> ifill: university administrators say they've already started taking several steps to make sure similar abuses don't happen again. that includes spot checks to make sure classes are indeed taking place. real reviews of an athlete's eligibility. and the creation of confidential channels so employees can report potential problems. nine employees have been fired or disciplined so far. >> woodruff: now to covering aç horrific conflict in the world's most dangerous country for journalists and the limitations that's placing on what fhe world finds out about. hari sreenivasan reports. >> sreenivasan: the newshour's margaret warner, reporting outside aleppo, syria in november 2012 when journalists routinely operated in a war zone with few clear battle lines. >> warner: we traveled into the rebel-liberated areas of northwest syria to see what 20 months of conflict had wrought. >> sreenivasan: just days after that report was filed, journalist james foley, who had done work for the newshour over the years, was kidnapped in a location nearby. 40-year-old foley and fellow captive reporter steven sotloff were beheaded by islamic qtte militants within weeks of each other recently. they are only two of the 70-plus journalists killed covering the syrian war. pá!ich has claimed the lives of nearly 200,000 syrians since 2011. the very act of telling their stories, as the conflict rages across syria and iraq, has become prohibitively difficult, and dangerous. the newshour and many other news organizations have decided not to send in staff or freelancers inside of syria until the security situation improves. today, the few international journalists who are going rarely travel outside areas controlled by the syrian regime. cbs news' clarissa ward is a recent exception. she interviewed western jihadis fighting in northern syria earlier this month.ç >> after months of negotiations we met a 26-year-old dutch fighter named yilmaz. >> sreenivasan: and over the summer, a cameraman from "vice news" embedd with islamic state fighters. "vice" has not said what, if any, restrictions were placed on its coverage. >> islamic state press officer, abu mosa, said he would take "vice news" to see the frontlines. but in large measure, much of the reporting on syria is done from outside as reporters rely on sources inside the country on social media and extensive, but hard-to-vet video posted online by rebels and islamic state sources.ç so as furious fighting and american air strikes continue at the syrian town of kobane, the closest most viewers and readerç will get to on the ground reporting is just across the border, in turkey. newshour is a subscribe tore to the ap. you have covered this con income and the region for quite some time. how difficult is it to cover syria versus anywhere else in the region? >> it's very, very tough. and it has gotten tougher over time. you are up against two problems. one is the so-called islamic state. they'll kill you if you cross the border and they catch you. and then you have the"ao]:pb government that restricts visas. right now there are no visas for u.s.-based correspondents, people who makes sure that you cannot come into the country. so the problem is, you have two main groups who do not want you to be there. and have it in their power to keep you out. it is dangerous not only inside syria now, but also on the border. my last reporting trip for the first time ever in my career, i was not allowed to say where i was. because i was there for three and a half weeks and it was considered by my company that it was dangerous to say. and that has to you become a policy. it is very unusual to do that. >> john, youç are in a position of deciding when to send reporters and when not to. what is so specifically challenging, beside was deborah just said, about coveringç this conflict, given that the ap covers conflicts all over the globe. >> yes, well, i think every conflict involves making difficult choices. we try to very carefully weigh the risks against the advantages of going to any certain place. and right now we consider syria to be at the top of the most extremely dangerous places in the world to report from. and that has been a problem. >> so deborah, i want to ask, what stories are we missing from there whenç we have such limited access for western reporters or any reporters to get in and find the story? >> i think we're actually missing a lot. it's obvious that we aren't eport the bad news. but we also can't report developments. i will give you an example. in my hotel, the last time i was in southern turkey, theres with a contingent of police officers from aleppo, a town that has been under siege for more than a year, split between the regime and the rebels. the police officers came from the rebel side of the city. and their programs are being funded by the united states, by norway, by the dutch government, there were three dozen aleppo police including women in my hotel for the training programs. now iç would love to be able to go to aleppo and follow them on the beat for a day. i can't do that. so i really can't report on if thisç u.s.-funded program is going well or not inside aleppo. i think that we are missing nuance that is always important. and that we've always been able to report on any conflict zone. and it's just not getting reported inside syria. >> john dan is ze-- daniszewski, are you hearing similar from your reporters. >> we get report approximates from things going on inside syria, and they are' very difficult to verify. in this conflict, to a greater extent than ever on user-generated content,;0@v social media, the-- that people there send out. but we have very high standards, which of those we will use and how we verify them.ç so you know, in the middle of the night last night we were chasing one particular report in the city of kobane and we were never able to satisfy it, to satisfy ourselves that it was very find that we could report it. in fact, we do have means. we do have contacts inside that we can reach out to. we do have very experienced journalists in the area who are picking up reports and sifting through them. it is a sort of pillar of conflict coverage to talk about what is happening to those caught in the middle. and that is a really a bit of what weç are missing now. >> so with all that said, how do you do it? your assignment is still to get stories from syria. who do you talk to? what videos are you watchingç to be able to core ron rate these facts on the ground. >> i think we are like foreign corrs-- correspondents of a hundred years ago, where people would stand at the docks and they would intervow people as they got off big ships. so what we do is we're at the borders of turkey where we can talk to people when they come across. you can go to hospitals on the border. you can interview people who have been wounded in some of the fights inside. and you can piece together, if you do enough of this, what it is like in a particular battlefield. you can interview people who are coming out where the so-called islamic state is ruling. andç you can ask them details about what is life like. and you can eventually build a picture. but that is really what we have to do. piece by piece by piece, to build a picture of what is going on inside syria. it's not impossible. and you can see from both the ap point of view and mine that that is what we are doing. it is painstaking work. we are watching the videos. you have to verify all those videos. it is doable. but i just wonder what we are missing. >> john daniszewski, what about the market incentives or disincentives when it comes to freelancers.ç a lot of time they will end up risking their lives and going places because they might be more nimble than a large association. what does the associated press do to tryç to keep people out of harm away by trying to go in and get that one shot? >> well, first of all, we won't send a freelancer to cover something that we wouldn't ourselves go to do. and we have rules about not taking material from people whom we don't know, who are not assured, who do not have proper protection. and so we have sent reporters into syria in the past. we're not doing it right now because of the dangers discussed earlier. and we're not sending freelancers sg right now either. and i think across all news organizations in the industry, there is a very robust discussion going on right now.ç what can we do, both in the established news organizations and how can the freelancers organize themselves to better protect themselves and be better prepared to face a hostile environment. >> all right, john daniszewski from the associated press and deborah amos from npr, thank you very much for your time. >> thank you. >> ifill: finally tonight, it's "only a play," but one with an all-star cast and a lot of laughs. it's also one of the hottest tickets on broadway.ç jeffrey brown went to see why. >> all my life i dreamed they'd yell, "author! author!" when i walked into a party. they did but it was for tom me. ( laughter ) >> brown: the actual play is called "it's only a play." a rollicking show within a show about the craziness, pain and ultimate thrill of theater life. matthew broderick is the writer of a fictional play, titled-- and you know this can't be good- - "the golden egg," awaiting the first reviews at a celebrity- studded party after opening night. >> all of broadway and half of hollywood are down there. steven spielberg asked me if i wanted to write a screenplay for him. "sure," i said, "what about?"ç "good point," he said, and he walked away. ( laughter ) in "it's only a play," broderick has been re-united with nathan lane, who playa his old friend, an actor now working in television who is, let's say, less than supportive. >> of course i would've been wonderful in the part, it was written for me. thank god for my series or i might have had to tell peter the truth about his god awful play. but do you think i got so much as a mention in the program? i only created the lead in his one and only hit, and no mention. the egos in this business! ( laughter ) >> brown: the actual writer is terrence mcnally, and for this revival of his 1980's play he's updated references to celebrities and technology while keeping the behind-the-scenes back stabbing and name dropping. >> i said to one woman, you look just like hillary clinton. she said i hope so, i am hillaryç clinton! ( laughter ) >> brown: it's all helped along by what is itself a celebrity cast that includes f. murray abraham as a vicious drama critic, megan mullaley as a loony first-time producer, andç stockard channing as an aging actress who knows her way around pharmaceuticals. this afternoon i sat down with the writer and the actor as writer, terrence mcnally and matthew broderick. this afternoon in new york i sat down with matthew broderick and terrence mcnally. >> waiting for the review, especially from "the new york times", is it as close to a near-death experience as it looks. >> yeah, i think sort of it. i don't usually like to admit it but this play admits how frightened we all are. >> really? >> yeah, maybe not everybody. we're the only art form that does that. novelists don't wait in one hour, to be fold if their book is good or no(9 >> but you have put him as your sort of alter ego on stage. >> my surrogate. >> that you watch, feeling his pain, your pain. >> yes, it's very public what we do. and so are the reviews.ç but you know, a novelist isn't there when you throw the book on the floor and say this is terrible. the playwright and the actors are there. we know that night. >> yeah. >> and then we go back the next night and do the play again. and pretend it was well-received. even if it wasn't. fortunately this play was well-received, so we don't have to do that part of the make believe. >> but even, you can recover. i mean if you have a bad night, with your reviews, a week or two later, the play comes back to you. >> you know, i saw it yesterday. i was wondering, is it a love letter to broadway or almost a hate letter. there is so much skewering going on ofç what broadway is today. >> i think it is a love letter. but i think we do some things that are absurd. we can look at critically. and but iç do love the theatre. and i think these people love the theatre. and i think new york audiences love the theatre. broadway ain't going away. right now it's doing better than ever. >> but the references to, and some of them come out of your mouth, right, the references to brits taking over, disney films made into movies, movie stars trying to ref up their careers by coming back to broadway, irish dancers, i could go on and on as you did. it's not a pretty picture. >> no. well, he tries to evenly attack everyone, i think. >> including the people on the stage, including myself. >> absolutely. >> that are, we let our self-worth beç defined by other people. it's a very bad way to live your life. >> is that what it is as an actor. >> it can be. it's something to avoid. i mean if is aç danger that you start to just live through what the people think of me. you have to try to somehow not do that. >> if you have been doing this since you were quite young. have you always felt that? or have you got-- found ways to get past it. >> my memory is it didn't used to bother me. but i bet it did. my way, you know, i don't really actually read reviews, if that is what we are talking about. i try not to. but there is no avoiding every audience i'm asking them to like me in some way. so that is part of the game. but i don't know how to deal with it. >> why don't you read reviews in. >> well, for one thing, i don't want my feelings hurt. but also-- i think that isç the reason. but even when they are good, they can make you self-conscious about something that you might not want to be. maybe you could learn from them. but i have given itç up. >> i finally stopped reading them at five, six-- three or four plays ago. but what is bad about reviews is the good ones are never good enough. and the bad ones are like just emblazoned like branding iron. i can quote, the review on the play about wish the parents of the playwright had smoth erred him in his cradle, about my first play. >> you don't forget that. 30 years later, i'm still quoting it. >> and are you putting if into a play. >> the i forget the good reviews. >> you both had successesç and you both have had some bombs, right. have you figured out what makes a show work? >> no, i don't think -- >> no one has. >> for a while it seemed neighbor neil simonç had, like six hits in a row. but-- shakespeare didn't figure it out. he has a very up and down career if you look at what are considered the great plays and ones that aren't maybe so great. it's how it should be. >> so what makes you keep going. i watched this play. and you see the pain and the kind of horror. what makes you keep coming back? >> well, there's a lot of joy in it too. there are the horrible moments. but there are also the times when things are going well. you know, half the time, well, more than half, we love doing it. we just started the play. and iç can see it in the eyes of my cast mates, we are extremely happy, a lot of the time. and when the audience is with us and his beautiful words, it's a very fineç time. >> and i can stand at the back and say i wrote that. and they're performing it well. there's a thousand people laughing. or being moved, at the moments when the play gets touching at times. i can take pride in that. >> and then there are those nights where maybe they're not doing exactly -- >> and you want to shoot everybody, like last night. >> starting with yourself. >> but we do it because i think we want to entertain. we want to be heard. i think we have something to say to people. >> terrance mcnally and matthew broderick, thank you so much. >> thank you.ç >> woodruff: again, the major developments of the day. canadian police announced they've found no connection between yesterday's attack inç ottawa that left one soldier dead and the killing of another soldier this week. and the world health organization warned the ebola outbreak in west africa is still racing well ahead of efforts to stop it. >> ifill: on the newshour online right now: should the u.s. extend more visas to foreign making sense science and technology workers? a new study from the national bureau of economic research suggests it could help boost american wages. all that and more is on our web site, pbs.org/newshour. >> woodruff: and that's the newshour for tonight. on friday, we talk to legendary singer, tony bennett, about performing with pop-star lady gaga. i'm judy woodruff. >> ifill: and i'm gwen ifill. we'll see you on-line and again here tomorrow evening with markç shields and david brooks. for all of us here at the pbs newshour, thank you and good night. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by:ç ♪ ♪ moving our economy for 160 years. bnsf, the engine that connects us.çç >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions and... >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. captioning sponsored by macneil/lehrer productions captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org this is "nightly business report," with tyler mathisen and susie gharib. brought to you in part by. the street.com, feature stephanie link who shares her investment strategies, stock picks and market insights with action alerts plus, the multi-million dollar portfolio she manages with jim cramer. you can learn more at the street.com/nbr. rally mode as stocks powered higher on one of the busiest earnings days of the year, driven by stwo old and blue staid chips. red is the new black, amazon still is not making money reporting a wider than expected loss and the outlook for sales is not much brighter. and life in the clouds, does microsoft's strong quarter show the company's

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