Coverage of the 2010 Edward R. Murrow Symposium with Robin Fields, Judy Woodruff, and Deborah Amos

Good evening and welcome to the thirty-sixth annual Edward R. Murrow symposium. I'm Glen Johnson. And with respect to our guests and our fellow attendees tonight, we ask you please turn off your cell phones or put them on vibrate or other electronic devices etc. And now if you'll please rise. Those who are wearing hats, please remove them for the posting of our colors. Thank the Army ROTC for the presentation of the colors. You may be seated.

I'd like to now introduce Dr. Lawrence Pintak, our dean of the Edward R. Murrow College of Communication. Dr. Pintak is an accomplished writer, teacher, broadcast journalist. He's worked on four continents, sought after as an expert in a wide variety of fields, especially America's relationship with the Muslim world. He was a CBS News correspondent in the Middle East. He also covered Indonesia. His columns appear in the New York Times, the International Herald Tribune, the Daily Star-Beirut, Daily News- Cairo, Arab News, and I could continue to go on. No, and I won't. OK. Thank you very much and here is Lawrence Pintak, the dean of the Edward R. Murrow College. I always feel very old when I hear those introductions. I can't thank all of you enough for being here tonight. I, I am so impressed with our turnout today, with the quality of conversations that have gone on today between all of you and all of our students,

and particularly our, our guests who were part of the sessions earlier today. Amazing, a group of people like this that have come all this way to talk to us, to help us share in their vision of where we're going, where all of this is taking us. And certainly as a, as the dean of a college that's trying to figure all of this out and prepare our students, I found it a really worthwhile set of conversations. This evening is made possible by more people than I can begin to name and certainly than you want me to name. But I do want to thank those who have provided the generous support that it made all of this possible. That includes Paul and Marty Casey of Casey Communications; Steve and Jan Lutz of Perishables Group, and particularly Steve as outgoing chair of the advisory board for Murrow. And I'd like all of the members of that advisory board to briefly stand

up for us, because you play such an important role. Others who've offered financial and other kinds of support include Pat Costello of King Broadcasting; John Schole of Big Inc.; Fred Finkinworth of KLEW TV and Fisher Communications; Bonnie Hilary of Saul and Dai-Ye Haas Foundation; D.J. Wilson of KGW Media Group; Jim Clayton of KOMO 4 News; Tim and Karen Pavesh, all of you here at WSU know them; Virginia and Mike McCarty; and Pat Patterson and Dan Gallagher. Thank all of you so much. And fresh from a 747 from Tokyo, I'd like to introduce, introduce WSU's president, Dr. Elson Floyd. Thank you very much, Dean Pintak. And thank each and every one of you for being a part

of this symposium. I would like to add my voice of congratulations to those honorees that we will recognize this evening. I thank you for your contributions to high-quality broadcasts in our country, in our world. You see, you make an indelible imprint on what happens. You influence public opinion, perspectives associated with our world and with our nation and with the communities in which we are part of. And it is to you that we bestow our trust and our confidence. But these are changing times. It's very confusing these days in which we can get on the Internet and have immediate access to the voluminous nature of information that's in this world. What's true, what's not, what's real and what's not real? Do we fact check anymore? Whose voice is the dominant voice? You

see, during the days of Edward R. Murrow, it was fairly easy. He was one of a handful of individuals who informed public opinion. We knew because of their presence, their professionalism, their persona, that what they said was indeed factual. These are different times and in fact, while there are an array of media outlets available, we have to wonder sometimes about the integrity associated with it. But you know, it is through the integrity of the panelists whom you will hear from this evening that we are comforted to know that those professional standards continue to prevail for our nation. And that's an important signature associated with our work and our involvement. The Murrow College is leading the way. It is one of the premier colleges in the world. It is that because of the huge foundation that you have laid.

And when I arrived at Washington State University, some three years ago, it was abundantly clear that we had a crown jewel in our communications program, and it was also clear that we had to polish that jewel, because we had a number of pioneers who set a very solid foundation. And so I thank Erica Austin for assuming the first Deanship and Larry Pintak for serving as our founding dean of your Murrow College. It is setting the standard for excellence in journalism, excellence in broadcasting, and it is because of you that we will make sure that that jewel is polished as brightly and as brilliantly as it possibly can. Thank you all very much for being here this evening. And now it's my pleasure to invite Dr. Ward Bailey, our provost and executive vice president to the podium. Provost Bailey. Well, good evening, everybody. It certainly is a pleasure for me to stand before

you this evening. I thank Dean Pintak for the opportunity or the invitation to do so. And as President Floyd just mentioned, at the corresponding occasion this time last year, Larry and I, I think, had yet to meet. It was my good fortune that we did. I hope he feels the same way. Because certainly we are very fortunate to have him serving as the founding dean of the Edward R. Murrow College of Communication. As many of you know, of course, this College of Communication did not just sort of originate last week, last month, or even last year. In fact it has its roots in the 1920s when Washington's, what was then Washington State College, first offered what was referred to as a concentration in journalism. Over the decades, communication, or this concentration, has grown and matured first into a department, then a school, and now finally a college with superb faculty,

degree programs, and facilities. The Edward R. Murrow Award and Symposium certainly epitomize many of the most important traditions of what is now Washington State University. The first of those traditions is that this symposium and award honors one of Washington State University's most distinguished graduates. Secondly, the award and the symposium advance the principles on which the Murrow College is founded, and certainly those for which Ed Murrow stood, namely truthfulness, integrity, and responsibility. And then finally, the Edward R. Murrow Award and Symposium create the opportunity for our students to learn from our nation's most influential and respected journalists, and, I hope, become imbued with the lofty and aspirational goals represented

by those journalists. So, as I said, this evening I'm delighted to help celebrate the lifetime achievements of two highly talented journalists, and I unabashedly admit I'm a big fan, Deborah Amos and Judy Woodruff. We also honor tonight the entrepreneurial accomplishments of Pro Publica, represented this evening by Ms. Robin Fields. Collectively, the work of Ms. Amos, Ms. Woodruff, and Pro Publica ensure that we better understand this complex world to which President Floyd just alluded. Things, it is getting harder and harder to really sift through the chaff if you like and get to the, get to the truth and know what to believe in. Certainly in keeping with knowing what to believe and this sense of trust, trustworthiness - I hope that's a word - I'd now like you

to ask me, or join me in watching a tribute to the Murrow tradition. Thank you very much. Edward R. Murrow grew up in a tiny northwest Washington town. He began honing his skills as the star of his high school debate team. As a student at Washington State College and while working in Europe, his leadership and ideals continued to take shape, developing a new standard for journalism. We have a lot to live up to in trying to emulate. Edward R. Murrow, who paved the way for epic broadcast journalist. Ed Murrow was an inspiration, not just to his generation, but to future generations of journalists to come. And for those of us who were lucky enough to work with him, he was our mentor. He was a reporter with a conscience, that accuracy, fairness, and the

courage to face down pressure from government, from big business, pressure from power, is the sure sign of a good journalist. His fresh eyes, his eloquence, and his willingness to go in harm's way made him a reporter's reporter, and I can think of no higher tribute. I think of Edward R. Murrow as the founding father of our profession. Murrow joined CBS in 1935 and was soon their European director in London. He brought World War II to American living rooms. Hello, America. This is Edward Murrow speaking from London. There are no words to describe the thing that is happening. He was a progressive. He experimented with television. I think the popular phrase is, he pushed the envelope. He did things that hadn't been done before, and he did them successfully. From Hear It Now on the radio to See It Now on television, Murrow expanded journalistic horizons, investigating the plight of migrant workers and standing up to Senator

Joseph McCarthy. I just happened to be the one guy who was the focal point for Murrow to go on ahead with confronting McCarthy, and I thank God for that. I admire most of all the fact that Edward R. Murrow was an ordinary man and as an ordinary man confronted with extraordinary evil and extraordinary challenges in his professional life, he and many of the Murrow boys came out on the right side of history. Murrow left CBS in 1961, becoming the head of the United States Information Agency for the Kennedy administration. He was knighted by the Queen of England and in 1964 was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom with distinction. A pioneer in education through mass communication, he has brought to all of his endeavors the conviction that truth and personal integrity are the ultimate persuaders of men

and nations. Murrow sets a standard. He says "that's the kind of bar you need to reach for." I find myself more and more asking, "Ed Murrow, where are you now that we need you to help us sort out the uncertain at best and dangerous at worst times we live in? We don't know where journalism is going right now but we do know that we must adhere to the standards that Ed Murrow stood for, that hi-, Ed Murrow in many cases virtually invented, if journalism is going to survive. And Murray said it best of all: There is a great and perhaps decisive battle to be fought, he put it, against ignorance, intolerance, and indifference. This weapon of television and radio can be so useful. Good night, and good luck.

... Again, as someone who worked at CBS and had that Murrow legacy steeped into his veins, I'm very proud to be able to stand here and say that I am the dean of the Edward R. Murrow College of Communication. I'm also very proud that this year we have moved our two public broadcasting stations and Northwest Public Radio under the college to help facilitate the implementation of that legacy and enable our students to better learn on the job how to follow in the footsteps of an Edward R. Murrow. I'm also proud that we have Robert Mott in the audience tonight who you were introduced to at the dinner. But I would like to because he is, his legacy and his model is so important for all of us who are faculty in this college, I'd like to once

more recognize him, and he didn't realize this is coming, but I'd like to invite Ellen McDonnell, McDonnell, excuse me, from National Public Radio, the head of news at National Public Radio up to present another little token. On behalf of National Public Radio, our more than 700 Navy stations, and more than 27 million weekly listeners, I'd like to present you, Robert Mott, with a token of our appreciation for the formative role you played in the earliest days of National Public Radio. Your work at NER, National Educational Radio, came at a pivotal time in the history of public broadcasting. We thank you for the role you played in the establishment of the long-term vision and structure of today's NPR. Your devotion to the

people and craft of public radio, indeed and all public broadcasting, are part of the fabric of our industry's history. In honor of your contributions, we'd like to present you with the NPR Livio Internet Radio, the first Internet radio designed specifically for the public radio audience. The radio features the live streams of thousands of radio stations, including more than 1000 NPR stations' streams and 800 public radio podcasts. As you listen to it, you'll hear that the vision you had more than four decades ago has taken root and bears fruit every day. Please accept it with our deepest thanks. This is a surprise. Thank you very much. Earlier this evening I made a few

comments, and I just want to reflect momentarily about the fact that educational institutions such as Washington State University are the reason that we have the communication system that we have. It's far from perfect. It needs to be improved. It can be improved. It will be improved by the students and the faculty and the staff at the Murrow College of Communication at Washington State University. Thank you again. Let me let that sink in. A radio, excuse me here, a radio that carries nine hundred stations. What was it, a thousand stations' streams, 800 public radio podcasts. Things really are changing, aren't they? And it's, for someone who used was staggered by the idea of a fax, it's quite something. Media is--

though media is transforming, microphones aren't. We have a floppy microphone here.-- That really epitomizes the way media is transforming, this idea of transformational media. And because media is transforming in so many new ways, we decided this year that it was time to acknowledge these changes and honor these changes. So this year we've created the Edward R. Murrow Award for Media Entrepreneurship. And that first media entrepreneurship award goes to the online and Pulitzer Prize- winning as of last week news organization, investigative news organization Pro Publica. Pro Publica, we have a brief video about what they are, where they've come from, and where they're taking us. Established in 2007, Pro Publica's independent nonprofit newsroom aims

to stimulate positive change through the tradition of investigative journalism. Led by some of the nation's most distinguished editors, Pro Publica adheres to the standards of journalistic integrity and upholds the Murrow legacy with its persistence in revealing intolerable practices and providing the public with important stories, stories with moral force. With multiple honors and awards, Pro Publica was recently bestowed a 2010 Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting on the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the first-ever online journalism establishment to achieve such an honor. Pro Publica's innovative enterprise truly represents journalism in the public interest. ...Fields representing Pro Publica senior ed... Microphone please. There we go. Please join me in watching a tribute to our

lifetime achievement awards, Judy Woodruff of public broadcasting and Deborah Amos of NPR. Deborah Amos has given voice to many of the world's events, large and small, for nearly four decades. NPR's business news starts with a heads up for credit card users. In that time she has worked as a correspondent for both television and radio, predominantly for ABC News and National Public Radio. Aleppo in northern Syria - it has prided itself on its food, and now it's a destination for adventurous food tourists, as well as for NPR's Deborah Amos. The romance begins at the outdoor food markets. Radishes as big as apples. This city, surrounded by olive, nut, and fruit orchards, is famous for a love of eating. Much of her life has been spent in foreign countries. My first foreign assignment, I was a producer for Robert Siegel. We went to

Israel. It was 1981, and it was a revelation to me, and I knew at that time that this was what I really wanted to do. By the next year, I was a producer and we did two months of coverage of the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982, and that was a life-changing event. Another two years went by before I moved to the Middle East, and that was the event that really shaped my career. We turn now to one of the most neglected consequences of the war in Iraq, the humanitarian crisis that's been unfolding since the American invasion four and a half years ago. Deb Amos is one of the few American journalists to cover this story. She's just back from Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan, her fifth trip to the region to report on the refugees. Welcome to you both. Thank you. Give me a human face to these people. Who are they? So many of them, Bill, are the doctors, the professors, the architects, the intellectuals, the poets. The

plight of Iraqi refugees is a story she has reported on since 2006. It has been a difficult story to bring to light. These people had run under death threats you know seen their children raped, had extortion threats, had guns pointed to their heads, and it took a long time for me to get in, to be able to tell the stories that I wanted to tell, to get people to trust me enough to to give me those stories. Those stories now fill the pages of Amos's recently published book, Eclipse of the Sunnis. Her years of covering international news give her a unique perspective on Americans' news consumption. It's hard for me to accept the fact that Americans don't pay attention. I know they don't. And so I'm trying to get out there and and shout and point and jump up and down. And say you really need to know about this. This is, this is important. Another concern is the effect of new media on international news coverage.

You can't blog foreign news. It costs money to put correspondents on the road. And, and the big newspapers are still spending that money. But for how long? And so that NPR can hold that line, can still send foreign correspondents out into the field, is, is a very good thing. You know, Google is an aggregator and can take all the best sources and put them in one place so that you can read them. But what happens when those news sources begin to fall apart financially? You can't aggregate nothing. You have to come to some resolution about this. Deborah Amos, you get the last word. Thank you very much. For nearly 30 years, Judy Woodruff has been a respected broadcast journalist on the national television news stage, working for NBC, CNN, and PBS. I'm Judy Woodruff. On the next NewsHour, rebuilding Haiti after the earthquake and bringing down Peru's high death rate for mothers in childbirth. That's

Wednesday on the PBS NewsHour. Getting to the co-anchor chair of the PBS NewsHour was not always an easy road. So I flew down to Atlanta in spring of my senior year, interviewed with several news directors, and was hired as a newsroom secretary. And I kept pestering the news director to let me go out on some stories. And the answer inevitably was, "We already have a woman reporter. We don't need another one." But I was persistent. In the anchor chair or in the field, much of Woodruff's career has focused on political reporting. The second day I was there sent me to cover the Georgia state legislature, so it was an incredible break for me to get to do that. After five years of covering Georgia politics, went to New York and interviewed with the networks and was offered a job at NBC and happened to be covering somebody I had gotten to know as governor of Georgia, Jimmy Carter. And because I happened to know these folks, I kept saying to NBC, "We need to watch this guy."

And then when he won, my boss called me up, finally, and said "You're going to the White House." It was baptism by fire. Judy Woodruff NBC News with the president near Santa Barbara. It is fire that gives metal it strength and its edge. That baptism by fire may have done the same for Woodruff. Since leaving NBC, she has often filled the anchor seat for both PBS and CNN. Thank you for joining us. Away from the camera, she serves on the boards of many philanthropic organizations and is a founding co-chair for the International Women's Media Foundation. One of the things I've tried to do along the way is to focus on opportunities for younger women journalists, especially outside the United States. It's all about making sure that as other countries wrestle with what kind of press they're going to have and what kind of free press they're going to have, that women are given an opportunity. Hello, I'm Judy Woodruff. Earlier this year we introduced you to the most diverse

generation in our history, some of America's 42 million young people between the ages of 16 and 25. Their hopes, dreams, struggles, and views about the world they will inherit. At the same time, she's very interested in young Americans and their opportunities. And I just want to make sure that young people who are interested in journalism know there's a place for them. It may not look exactly like it does today. Newspapers may not look the same. Television may not look the same. The internet isn't going to look the same. But that there will always be a need for reporters, for journalists who can go behind the scenes, ask tough questions, make it all clearer and more understandable. That's what it's all about. On stage for the presentation of your award. ...that we have the ROTC guy here because these things are really heavy.

...But as someone who has worked with Deborah for more years than either of us want to think about, this is a special pleasure for me to present this award today. And as someone who has been a fan of, of Judy Woodruff and the NewsHour for so many years, it is equally a pleasure to, to offer this very heavy plaque to you. Congratulations to all of you tonight. We're going to explore the ethics and responsibility in a world for journalism and media are changing very, very quickly. Our panel this evening

includes tonight's Murrow Award recipients Robin Fields of Pro Publica, Deborah Amos from NPR, Judy Woodruff PBS, along with Dean Pintak. So quickly, it's moving so quickly that no one's even sure where they are supposed to be. As you heard before in the tribute to Edward R. Murrow, the legacy of Murrow is alive in journalism, and certainly we'd like to think it's alive in this college. Ethics, responsibility, solid reporting, solid analysis, fairness, all of that is critical to journalism, but as journalism, the platforms that journalism is delivered on change, the standards and practices of journalism change. Certainly all of us over the years have seen various internal practices around journalism change. I can remember a time when we were not allowed to use music in stories on on network television. I can remember a

time when if you weren't in that town when you did your signoff, even though you'd been there all day, shot the story, and you've gone back to the hotel, you could not use that town as your signoff. Now music is a staple of network news. Now people are signing off and doing stories from the other side of the world about countries that they've never been to. I want to talk a little bit tonight about how these standards are changing, how the practice of journalism is changing, and the ethical and other kinds of issues that arise in that process. One of the things that has changed certainly is Twitter. I'm told at last count we have hundreds of Twitter posts about -- posts, is that the right word? twit, twitters, tweets, right. Sorry -- hundreds of tweets about the various sessions we've had today. Judy, I know that you do have a Twitter account. I

have a Twitter account. And one of the issues when journalists Twitter is personal biases. And I notice when I look at yours, your personal biases come through very clearly. Let me cite 8:42 p.m. April 5th. Duke and Coach K on top making all Blue Devils proud. Now where's, where's the independence and unbiased approach? I challenge you to find another tweet that betrays any personal preference. You're sure no other, no other is about the Blue Devils? In looking at your Twitter account, clearly you use this, and I want to talk about this. You use this in two ways. One, it would seem to give give a lead on what's going to be on the

show that night, to give people insight into what you're reporting, and to give them a little sense of you personally. How do you, how do you manage? How do you avoid, aside from the Blue Devils, how do you avoid letting your personal biases or even a little hint of how you feel about a story? Well, first of all I have to say how thrilled I am to be here. What a thrill. I know all three of us are absolutely thrilled to be here. This is an extraordinary honor for us to be named in connection with Edward R. Murrow at this fantastic university. And I know that that Robin and Deborah will speak for themselves. But it is, it's just we, we're all pinching ourselves because of the icon that this man is and rep- and everything he represents. But to answer your question, I'm still learning how to tweet. It, it is something that the, the, the NewsHour believes is an important thing for our, on our, our, our on air folks to do,

to talk about what we're working on and to, to, and frankly to bring attention to the work that we're doing. Why are we doing it? Because we look around and every medium, every news medium out there now is, is using the social, the social media. And so we're doing it for that reason. Some of us, it's taking us longer, it's not natural, that the tweeting, I will be candid with you, is the hardest thing for me to do, because what I'm told by our social media counselor, a young woman we've just hired who is wonderful, is that we need to show a little of what we think about a story, not personal view, but, but just something that, that, that if you will raises a little, shows a little leg, in a, in a, in the best sense of the term. We did warn them that there would be no desk. But that's not easy to do. In fact it's very difficult for me to do, because I've grown up I've spent my last

40 years sticking to the story, and to be told all of a sudden that now I'm supposed to say something that expresses who I am. And I tweeted from Pullman earlier tonight. I said how thrilled I was to be here and how much, you know, how exciting this is. But that's about all. I hope you used... That's about as personal as it gets. I hope you used hashtag Murrow Ted. Robin, a New York Times reporter last week tweeted Toyota sucks. Appropriate? Not at all. That's... I think in some... sometimes we forget that Twitter is publication. Email is publication. Facebook is publication. And I think that kind of editorializing really undermines your ability to circle back around and report a story with

somebody not feeling you've made up your mind before you went in. I, I personally would, wouldn't touch that with a ten-foot pole. I don't, maybe I'm behind the times, but I don't like that. I, I have to flag something because we were talking about new jobs for our students and new careers. Social media counselor. Now there's a career. Think about that. Well, that's not her exact title. Well. And she's counseling the older folks. And someday, social media therapist. Um, the close relation or perhaps the precursor to tweeting is blogging, and so many journalists these days have blogs. There are various pitfalls of blogs. One of them is showing, showing a little leg of course. The other is the presence of politically driven blogs and how those impact on journalism. Judy, you've been attacked by conservative Web sites. Newsbuster.org didn't like the

segment you did on the military's Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy. PBS's ombudsman, Michael Getler, said in his blog that that Newsbuster blog had a point: there were no voices of opposition on the panel. I don't want to get into that story. But how does it affect your reporting to know that there are people out there on blogs waiting to pounce if you have a misstep? You know, that's the history. As long as I've been in journalism there've been people who were critical and people, a few people positive, but a lot of people critical. That's the way it works. It used to be they would call you up. I remember taking calls from people at the station the CBS affiliate in Atlanta. Back in the early 1970s, people would write letters. They continue to write letters, and at some point it all became email, and now it's a flood of e-mail. And in my view you can't let that affect what you do. You, you focus on the story. You try to do the best job you can. You try to get the facts straight. You try to be as balanced as you can be to

represent all sides, depending on what the story is, and trying to represent all sides in that particular look at it. But at the end of the day, you can't spend all your time worrying and responding to each and every criticism. I think we need to be aware of who's out there watching and listening and reading us, but we can't be so hyper reflexive that we are, that we just become reactive all the time. We have to do our jobs. And I feel very strongly about that. Deb, you cover what, what has been called the third, the third rail of American journalism, the Middle East. And by that, it's a reference to the third rail on subways, where all the electricity is. Touch it and you die. Is that why your Twitter account has eight followers and no posts. No, because I don't have enough time. Although I'm, because I cover the Middle East, I'm actually very aware of what I do have. I, I'm, I'm pretty active on Facebook. I join nothing. I have recently heard

about the Republican Guard in Iran stopping people in cars and using you know a, a computer to actually look at their Facebook pages right there and finding out if, you know, if you have, if you are "I love Metasalten", if you're a follower of that particular page on your Facebook account, you are in big trouble. And it was a, a real sort of wake-up call for me about, you know, I have to be a little careful because of where I go. I did an interview in Turkey a while ago with a very suspicious group and when it was over, they said to me "You know, we Googled you." I said "Really?" And he said "Do you want to read it?" I said "No, thank you, I know who I am." And I think you do, I mean, where, where I report, I need to be very aware of my public persona and what that represents to people, because I know they are going to Google me, they are going to look

me up, and they will make judgments about whether I can get an interview or I cannot, based on how they perceive how I present myself in public, which is a wider array than it's ever been before. Robin, Pro Publica is a, first and foremost, a web-based organization. You work in partnership with newspapers and with television stations, but it is web based. How do you, there is a blurring of lines between what's a blog? What's a journalism organization? How do you, how does Pro Publica define itself and distinguish itself, and/or does it? I don't know that we define or distinguish ourselves by saying "we're a blog", "we're an online organization", or anything like that. I think where we try to distinguish ourselves is with the standards and type of work that we take on. The kinds of stories that we do

are instantly recognizable as Pro Publica stories. And I think that we are kind of platform neutral. And we do do a considerable amount of blogging now, but we do investigative blogging, and I think the standards that we apply, from a factual standpoint, from a credibility standpoint, they are worked into every single kind of piece, short, long, audio, video, any type of piece that we do. One of the other things that's changing in journalism is the injection of the journalist into the story, as part of the story. Years ago, you might do a television story that you didn't even do a standup, because it really didn't add to the story. Now, reporters are injecting themselves. I mean, examples like Sanjay Gupta in Haiti and Iraq. Is there room for this, do you think, Judy? Do you think this is a good development?

I actually think that started a long time ago. I remember when I was at NBC in 1970s and into the early 80s being told that I needed to do more standups. I think that's been with us for some time. And, and I think what we have today is just kind of a, you know, a super version of that, where reporters are not just doing a standup where they are maybe there for 10 seconds on camera, but you see them participating in the story and sort of involving themselves in the story. You know, I think there are some instances where that's important. If you're doing it, maybe if you're doing an investigative assignment on television and, and you're trying to pin somebody down in an interview, that becomes part of the story that you're telling. But then there are other instances where I think it's totally unnecessary and inappropriate. So I think you have to make these judgments, you know, as they come along. But I do think that something that's been with, excuse me, that's been with us for

a long time. Deborah, do you want to answer that? Well, it's, it's not such an issue in radio. It, it really doesn't belong. You know, we have our hosts and they have more of a personality than correspondents. I work for the foreign desk at NPR and we aren't allowed to use, you know, "I" in, in our pieces. Some other desks allow it. But, you know, these things are looked at pretty rigorously and I don't think that we've fallen victim, in the news programs. You know, we have the Car Guys. So there's a lot of personality on the radio, but they're not doing the news. You cover a lot of stories that are heart wrenching, are stories that move you as an individual, as a human being. I was at something like this at Berkeley a couple of years ago, and a Washington Post reporter who had just come back from Iraq was asked, "did your attitude toward Iraq change before you, from when when you arrived to where you are now?"

And her answer was "I have a very platonic relationship with war." Is that possible? Well, boy, I don't even know what that means. You know, I have been a war correspondent for most of my career, and you are always in a heightened reality. There's no doubt about that. There's something very seductive about being in war situations, because you see the worst of human beings, which is what you expect. But you also see the best of human beings, which is what you don't expect, and it's what draws you back, this, this heightened reality. So platonic, I'm not altogether sure. I think there is a moment where you think, OK, maybe my luck has run out, and I really should stop doing this, and leave it to, to other people to do. There's only so many years you can go on being in that heightened reality and come back whole. That it does begin to weigh on you, because you do, you

do take all of those, those traumas, you carry them around with you, there's no doubt about that. So platonic, not so much. For Murrow, some of his greatest work was driven by a level of emotion, anger, McCarthy, Grapes of Wrath, et cetera. How much does emotion, or at least the desire to get the guy, drive investigative journalism? Well, I think that there's a, there's a core of outrage that is at the heart of every great investigative story. I don't think you start out at the beginning having made up your mind that you're going to get anybody or anything. But I think that as you discover things, you know, the kinds of stories that we choose are the kinds that make our blood boil and make us think "gosh, somebody needs to talk about this as a subject ripe for change." And I think that that is what impels a, you know, a strong investigation forward, always, always,

always, is that feeling. Christiane Amanpour in the video before was one of our honorees in the past and certainly she is known for among, many things, taking on, face to face, President Clinton over Sarajevo. Should journalists, Judy, should journalists try to drive policy? No, I don't believe that, I, but I, but I believe there is a place they're... when we talk about journalists, who are we talking about? I mean there are journalists who spend their careers writing with opinion, and dri-, and trying to drive decision making through what they write. There are other journalists, I mean that the journalism I practice, we practice at the NewsHour is not that kind of journalism. I would, I would not at all be comfortable, I would not do the kind of journalism where I would try to direct or get some public official to be in a certain position, and I'm not going to, and I'm not speaking about Christiane, because I don't know the circumstance of that interview. But,

but the kind of journalism I do is not, is not that. On the other hand, there are people who are journalists who write columns, who do opinion for a living. And I think they're in a different position. Throw out a couple of ethical challenges. These days, not only is there an issue of what do we report, but what do we not report. We as journalists learn a lot of things that, for whatever reason, we don't report. When is it legitimate? Clearly Kennedy's liaisons was the classic example from the 60s. More recently, we have Tiger Woods, and it's both in bed but also on the golf course, throwing golf clubs, that kind of thing, that was never reported. When should we not report things? Deb? You know, I'm, because I'm, I'm not a domestic correspondent, these issues are, you know, entertainment for me, not something I have to think about when I go into the newsroom. As a foreign correspondent, as a war

correspondent, you're wrestling more with, you know, I know the troops are moving at X amount of time, what do I do about that? I think that there is a famous column by a New York Times reporter who said if I know it, the enemy knows it, I might as well report it, because actually that helps the military, rather than hurts the military. I think there is one particular case that I can imagine where a reporter knew when the Marines were landing in Mogadishu and all normal behavior would, would say to not report it. She did. Did that affect the operation one way or the other? You're given photos of a Marine unit involved in a massacre in Iraq, let's say, Afghanistan. That unit's still in the field. Do you use the photos? Well, we've had an occasion of exactly this case with Kevin Sites, who actually photographed a soldier

executing a prisoner. And in fact, and interesting enough, the commander knew exactly what he was photographing and allowed those photographs to be broadcast. Kevin tells the story that his problem was with his desk back in New York wanting to put sensational pictures on the air ahead of what he could report. So I think in some ways you have to watch out for your desks back at home if you're not comfortable. The military was perfectly fine. They may have come to regret that decision. But those, those pictures went on the air as those soldiers were still in the field. I'd like to bring a couple of our visiting experts in. Mike Shepherd, where are you? Mike, you, a right-wing militia group that you've been cultivating tells you to have a reporter in front of City Hall at 10:00 a.m. on Wednesday. What do you do? Show up.

We show up and see what happens. Tell me more. Do you tell the police? Probably not. Do you make sure you have a photographer there? Absolutely. And so you shoot whatever happens? Yep. Thank you. Rufus, do you agree? Absolutely. I would do, I would do the exact same thing. I mean it comes, it comes back to once again our role of speaking truth to power. So absolutely. Is there ever a time, Robin, when you get that kind of inside information that may lead to some act of violence that you do tell the police? I think that there have been situations where people have said I'm going to kill myself or I'm going to tell you that they're going to commit an act of violence, where, yeah, I think common

decency is a good rule of thumb in most cases, and would be the guiding principle there as well. I think that you're not ever going to be, wanting to be in a situation where you're withholding information that could save people. I think this is a, your case over there was a situation in which you don't have any information to either give or withhold. You have what might be vague suspicions floating around in your mind about what might happen, but if somebody tells you that they're, they're going to do something, then sure you act like a responsible citizen in addition to a journalist. Judy, in Washington, it's a city that's run by leaks. There have been a number of famous cases recently of self-serving leaks that got reporters in trouble, got people in the administration in trouble. When do you report that "I've been leaked to because this person has an agenda?"

I think you should do that every chance you get. I mean, I think, I have been trained to abhor the anonymous leak. We know it happens, it, you know it happens all over the place. It's worse today than it's ever been. But I don't think that it's to be celebrated. I think in every instance it's our job to try to get these, whoever it is who's giving us information to go on the record, to give us, or at least, which is what a number of news organizations have done, is adopted a policy of characterizing why that person won't permit their name to be used. Clearly though, Larry, there are instances where information is so important, it's, it's, it's important to disclose an activity that is, that is going on and that has happened for, for any variety of reasons. It's the overwhelming public good involved and that person needs to be protected for one reason or another. But those, those are special

instances, and you know we have to make, you know, that's why we spend years doing this and we've learned to use, exercise judgment in these situations. Pat Costello, President Clinton the other day said that careless speech is endangering the president. It's endangering other public officials. Do... you have a live mike in front of you. Do you not report hate speech? Is there a time when you say I'm not going to give this person a voice? Sure. I think you have an obligation to tell the truth. And so you have to vet what is being said. If it's just random hate talk, where's the news in that? You have to, you have to, you have to look for the truth. Now if there's a grain of truth in some of that stuff, report that. But I don't think we have to report just hate, vitriol.

New Jersey Teachers Union wrote a letter recently that said that it would be essentially, and I'm paraphrasing, essentially a good thing if the governor were dead. Steve Bass from Oregon Public Radio, you get that same kind of letter from the Oregon Teachers Association. Do you broadcast it? I certainly report on it, because I think it's newsworthy. I think it's putting something within context. It is obviously an important story. Is that a threat? I'm not exactly sure. Is it intemperate? Absolutely. But to me, it would be newsworthy. Blogs, other people's blogs, are increasingly, I, I, at one of the earlier sessions, I showed a Doonesbury cartoon where the reporter is saying "well, I checked the blogs and I checked the Twitter accounts and there's no truth to the story." Needless to say, that's an extreme situation. But when do you use

other people's blogs as sources of information? I think that you can use them, you know, all the time to inform you but not as sole sources of information. I think you have to do your own legwork and you, just as you can't trust what's, what you read on Wikipedia as, you know, as if it were handed down on tablets. You have to, you have to go do your own work. There's no shortcut because it's in a blog or because it's, it's been written somewhere else. I mean, I wouldn't, I wouldn't take it from a textbook, I wouldn't take it any, any more than anything else, so why would I just assume that a blog is right? Source, then source again. If you don't trust a blog, how do they trust an organization like Pro Publica that's getting money from a particular kind foundation, in this case progressive?

Well, I think that that's a good question and something that we are asked quite a bit, and that's, you know, how much do you reflect what may or may not be the agenda of your founding donors? And I think that we certainly were established based on the idea that we would be independent and that they wouldn't have a role in deciding what stories we cover and how we cover them. And that's certainly been the case. But ultimately our independence is something that we've got to prove every day and that you're going to evaluate every day by going on our site and checking us out. Our credibility is, you know, built brick by brick brick, story by story, just like everybody else's. The, the AP reported last week that, that right-wing foundations and lobbying groups have set up news organizations, have set up online sites that are reporting news and in many cases

not revealing their sources of funding. Does that make a difference? Where is one of our local journalists? Let me go back to Mike. Does that make a difference, that a right- wing organization is funding a news organization that is not revealing its funding? Would you trust that organization? My initial reaction would, reaction would be deep skepticism, whether it was right wing, left wing, or neutral. I mean you have to understand where they're coming from. Yet, you know, I publish a newspaper that has been supported by private advertisers for 100 years. So you, you also are going to have occasion to question how to what depth we're willing to cover things that may or may not be going well with an advertiser. And I think our panelists are right. We have to prove that independents every day. Fred Finkinsworth from KLEW.

Idahoreporter.com is one of these organizations, and they were recently banned from the press gallery at the Idaho state legislature by the news organization, those who run the gallery. Is that fair? Probably not. We had our own experience last week. We were banned from a Tea Party gathering because of our reporting on their prior meeting where they had called for the hanging of Senator Patty Murray. And so we were then banned from subsequent Tea Party meetings. And so, I've been...No, I don't think that's right. And we eventually did get into that particular meeting but without cameras, and we protested, we weren't happy about that. We have in the audience a lady who runs a Seattle-based blog. Where are you? I'm sorry, I'm forgetting your name. No. No she hasn't. She didn't join us. Anyone else in the audience do blogs, run a blog?

No one. Wow, that's amazing. OK. Never mind then. I was curious what the perception of a blogger is of this idea of of us deciding what's a journalist. Deborah, in the Middle East, there are a plethora of blogs. You've been studying social media in Iraq and in Turkey. The Egyptian blogosphere is very powerful, and journalism in that part of the world is emerging. What defines a journalist in that region? Well, it gets a little tricky, doesn't it? In places where the media has been constrained, you do tend to look at the blogs for more information. I think to be able to be a consumer of both blogs and journalism, you kind of have to know where each one of these places is in terms of, you know, media freedom.

I have just recently discovered that there is more than two dozen Syrian bloggers. If you, you know, look at global voices, you find there is more than you could imagine out there writing. I, I find, and these are new, new people for me to look at, I find the blogs in the Middle East more informative more important for me to read than the, the local press, because they tend to be younger, because they tend to be riskier in what they're willing to write about. You know, I have to make calculations on how accurate, how reliable I think they are, but they usually reflect something that I need to know. I've been out there long enough that I can make some judgments about them. But it's a very interesting new phenomenon. Blogger news organization, politically motivated Kaiser pharmaceutical company, or, sorry, Kaiser insurance company runs or funds something called Kaiser Health News, which is a major source of health news in the

U.S. The credentials of the journalists who run it are impeccable. The board of directors is impeccable. Can we trust something that is primarily funded by an insurance company? I think that they've sort of disclosed where their money comes from. They've laid out where all their funding is coming from. And I think that they've allowed a degree of transparency and then I think you're going to judge their work by their work. Again story by story. I don't know, what do you, what do you think? I, I, I feel exactly the same way. I mean, I, I happen to know a number of people who work there. Susan Dancer who used to be a regular on the NewsHour is now involved with that, with that endeavor. And she is of, as you said, highest, most impeccable journalistic credentials. But like anything else, you know, and as Robin said earlier, you

don't take one organization and say "well, that's the whole story, we're, you know, we're going with that." It's just not the way it works. I mean you, you get multiple sources until you're comfortable. You have to be comfortable yourself. You know, we're not in the business of just parroting what other people are saying. Ellen McDonald, I think you were trying to correct... Family Foundation, it's not run by Kaiser Insurance Company, which is removed from... Which is removed from, but needless to say the source of funding is closely aligned with... No, I think... The Kaiser Family Foundation is a separate wing of the family as... I'll grant you that it's fuzzy, OK? Pat, if U.S. Bank funds an entrepreneurial business news organization here in Washington State, does that make sense, is that the same as a PBS or, or your channel? Could be.

Everybody's owned by somebody, ultimately, and it could be. I suppose you just need to see whether or not they're following the basic precepts of journalism and that there's balance, there's not an agenda there, or there is transparency, I don't have an issue with it. The line has certainly become fuzzy, I think. ... That's the point. We, I'd like to take some questions from the audience. There are two microphones up there. If you'd like to ask a question, please go up to the mike. And on this, this topic of entrepreneurial journalism and the changes, Deb, you, you do some work for Global Post. I do. Reporters on Global Post are paid, not you personally, but those who are doing regular work. Oh, me personally. Are paid like a thousand dollars a month and a few bucks extra for a story and maybe a little bit of stuff. Are we moving toward a stage of slave journalism?

No, but what we are moving towards is experimentation in websites that, that pay for content. You know, we for the last hundred years as Americans believe that news is free. And the problem is that it's not, that somebody was always paying for our salaries and our travel and our ability to actually have a career. And so what Robin's working on, what, what Global Post is working on, is a different model. And actually, you know, a thousand dollars if you do four pieces in, in a month, the fee is 250 bucks. That's what I get when I write for them, that's what everybody gets when they write for them. So it's not that you're going to make a lot of money, but it's the principle of being paid to write for the Web. And that's why I support them. Question up in the audience? Yes. Do you think that Edward R. Murrow would tweet?

Very good question. Can I throw it to one of you? Look, if I'm tweeting, I think Murrow would tweet. Now there's a tweet, said Judy. But you know there's tweeting and then there's tweeting. So I'm doing, I'm doing the, shall we say, the more, the old fashioned kind of tweeting. I, certainly Murrow said a satellite has no conscience, and it all comes down to the, the way we get the information out there, whether it's through a mobile phone or television, doesn't matter, it's the quality of the journalism that does. So we've heard a little bit of criticism about fact checking. Is this because media, news media has become more reflexive in trying to scoop each other on the stories, trying to be the first one to have the story? And if so, should we try to bring more reflectiveness to news media and can we do that? Look, I think there are skills. Fact checking. I find often working with younger researchers, when you ask them to research a story, they'll give

you a pile of papers that they got from Google, and I want them to go call somebody. And that skill seems, you have to remind people that that's a skill. And if I could, I would just add that, I mean journalism, you know, we've taken some real hits in the last decade or so, and news organizations are down on resources. So in some instances, if there's not as much fact-checking, it's because there aren't as many people to do the work that there used to be. That's not to say we shouldn't do it. We absolutely should do it. We shouldn't be going with any story until we're certain of it. But you know, we're, there are fewer of us doing a lot of reporting, and at some point the quality is going to suffer. And that's why it's important to have the kind of conversation that we're having tonight. Gentleman up there. A couple of minor questions for Judy Woodruff. One, your transition from the

mainstream, NBC, ABC ,to PBS. What brought that about, from a mainstream profit-making journalism to nonprofit PBS? Were there any ethical, professional conflicts that led you to that? That's question one. Secondly, I've been signing a petition for the last few months against the PBS move to do away with Moyers', Bill Moyers' Journal and also the Now program. And Bill Moyers, as we all know, is the one who challenges establishment and also challenges establishment journalism. Why the move? Well, I'll take the second one first and that is I don't, I can't answer that question. Those are decisions that are made at Public Broadcasting and they don't survey the rest of us in the, in the public, in the PBS universe to ask us our opinion.

Clearly Bill Moyers has provided an enormous service over the years as, and has done extraordinary work. But I'm afraid I cannot answer your question about why. Why did I leave NBC to go to the NewsHour in 1983? It's because I had been at NBC then for nine years and I was working for the Today show, doing interviews out of Washington, and I heard that my good friend Robin McNeil and Jim Lehrer were expanding the half hour report to an hour and they were looking for a Washington correspondent. And, and I, after some long conversations with them, I decided it was just too exciting an idea to pass up, to be on the ground floor of this whole new thing in television, an hour long evening news show that nobody else was doing. And we actually thought at that time that the networks would follow us. Didn't happen. But, but it was just an, an exciting thing. A lot of my friends at the network told me I was crazy to do it. But in my mind, and I still

believe, it was the best decision I ever made professionally. Your colleague, Michael Kirk, Frontline colleague, he is a University of Idaho product, one of our former students. This gentleman is from the University of Idaho, a retired faculty...Yeah, I'm from the other university. Up there, in the back. Hi, my name is Cora, and I'm a current senior of the Murrow College. And I guess my question's for Miss Woodruff. You talked about, on the video, to show the generation, of getting the next generation to speak up. What is your opinion of getting my generation involved? Because from what I see, MTV is a whole lot more important than national or world news. Well that's a big subject and I won't I won't go on it at great length but I will say this, that in traveling all over the country, and we went to 17 states and 25 cities and interviewed ultimately over 500 young people in 2006, and then we went back last year and talked to young people affected by the recession.

I find your generation much more engaged, much more aware of what's going on in the world, much more focused on the future and thinking about the role that they are going to play in the years to come and thinking about the kind of world that we have left them. Sure, plenty of your generation likes to party and have a good time and watch MTV. But there is an astonishing number of you who are doing amazing things and working with AIDS babies in Africa, working with homeless families in dark corners of this country. I just, I'm, I'm astonished every day by the amazing and wonderful things your generation is doing. Gentleman up there. Good evening, Miss Woodruff. I remember in December of 2003 when you hosted Inside Politics with CNN. I was a big fan of the show. The day that Saddam Hussein was captured, you had a special show, because it was big news, of course, and I think, I'm paraphrasing, I don't have an exact quote, that you gave a strong impression that you thought the war was worth it because, just because Saddam Hussein got captured and

I was wondering if you can clarify that. And if so, did CNN encourage you to be, to give your opinion more, or is that the way you really felt, or...? Just clarify that, and if there's a different policy between the NewsHour and CNN, regarding your opinion. Well, I'll just... First of all, I don't. I, I absolutely cannot imagine that I would have said anything like that. That would be so unlike anything I would do or say on the air. I was never advised by CNN to express my opinion. If I had been, I would have left CNN, because that's not what I do. I can't imagine that I would have said, I don't, obviously I don't remember exactly what was said on the air, I'd have to go back and look at it, but in no way can I imagine having, you know, having done that. Hi, Tom Koch from Northwest Public Radio. I just want to say, we've got a trifecta of public personas here, and that just thrills me to

death. And how about three women? Amen, sister. And I just add to that... I was waiting for somebody to mention it. But can I also say, three women who were selected for their quality journalism, not because they were women or anything else. Earlier you were talking about stories that make your blood boil, and it seems currently that a lot of blood is boiling. In, uh, just in general, throughout the United States. I'm not sure about the world. But just your opinions on what stories that are most important now to showing how America is transforming itself in this very transformational age with transformational media.

Robin, why don't you start? I'm not sure that I can sort of pick out which stories I think are the most important, because in some ways it's what's the most important story to you. What strikes a chord with you. We sort of focus more on stuff that zags when everybody else is zigging So we're not really following the waves of news in the way that we would if we were dealing with breaking stories. I certainly have thought some of the explorations of the Tea Party movement are fascinating, and it is quite reminiscent of some of the stories that you saw in the early 90s about some of the anger bubbling up, and frustration. And it's, it's a hard thing to put your finger on, what, what's driving it all. And I think that I'll be very interesting, very interested to see how that coverage evolves over time. Anyone want to add to that? Yeah, I'm going to argue in the reverse. And

that's because I am a foreign correspondent and because I've been so involved in, you know, covering the Iraq war. I think in terms of international news, in fact there's been a blood cooling. The Iraq war is off most radars. Afghanistan, people follow, but not with the intensity that they did over the Iraq war. I find that disturbing because of the number of American troops who are involved there and are still involved in Iraq. It's, it's an extraordinary number. And those families who are involved in this conflict of course pay attention all the time. But, but I just find as, as a general rule these days, that domestic news takes precedence. And I think we are just in the cycle of that. We'll take a couple of more questions. We could go on all night, I'm sure, but take a few more and we will wrap it up. Good evening. As a, as distinguished journalists, I have a question about what your personal peak...

You as a distinguished journalist, or them? Them as distinguished journalists. I hope that KGW is seen as distinguished. As you guys are distinguished journalists and working for television, television media, I want to know what your opinions are on the channels they use, graphics, sound effects, all that kind of heighten their news more than actual hard news stories. Well I can say as somebody who works for a program that runs as fast as we can in the opposite direction from that kind of programming, presentation, production, I should say production values, that it's not something I'm personally comfortable with. But, look, what we have now, we have got choices. When you turn on the television, when you turn to the internet, listen to the radio, there's a huge variety of choices. A lot of them are not particularly I think enlightened choices, but they're out there. And some people maybe enjoy getting their news that way.

So... I think if, a rule of thumb should be, if you hear music and the heightened sound effects, it's not news. Good line. I, I have to ask, ... our local affiliates whether they agree with it. Absolutely. That's Pat Costello. And Fred? To an extent, yes. OK. Another question up there. Do you think that the anonymous nature of the Web help people give clear opinions or just make an excuse for making inflammatory remarks? The anonymous nature of the Web, does it help things, or does it inflame? Does it help people give clear opinions and otherwise they wouldn't give, as in a regime like Iran or just give people an excuse to give inflammatory comments? I suspect it's probably a different answer domestically and internationally. I think it's both.

I mean, I think some people use the Web in order to, they use it in a healthy way in order to get ideas out there, and other people use it in a, in a in a supremely unhealthy way. I guess there's, there's an ongoing conversation going on now about commenting on newspaper Web sites and so forth, about whether they'll let you comment anonymously. And then there's a lawsuit I think involving somebody who was unmasked recently. So I think that a judge, yes, a judge, who...Who was writing about a lawyer in his [unclear] court. I think that in our stories, typically one reason that we don't let people be, be quoted anonymously is that it's not right to let people take cheap shots at other people and not put their names to them. So you have no anonymous sources in your stories? We use them very, very sparingly. There are areas that we report on

where it's almost impossible to report on them if you completely bar the use of anonymous sources. But we use them on a prescribed, in a prescribed way and only very, very rarely. Sheri Fink story that won the Pulitzer Prize used no anonymous sources at all. I think that it's, it's an interesting thing that we're dealing with, that people can comment anonymously and can take those kind of shots at each other and you don't know who's making the comment, and you don't know why. But on the other hand, I think that unfettered speech is hard for for folks like us to be against at the same time. So it's a balancing act. Deborah, any different from the international perspective? I don't think so. Not so much, because there's a different relationship with blogs and comments. The more, you know, respected ones are pretty good gatekeepers.

The tweets, the blog posts et cetera coming out of Iran, for example, many of which were anonymous? Yes. But you know the people who were policing those Web sites for the most part knew who they were. You know, in the beginning there was a flood of them. But I know that they were policed, and I mean that in a journalistic way. Curated. They were also policed in another way. That's true. We'll take two more questions. So I've been sort of detecting this very, very subtle undercurrent over the course of today with regard to the news that it doesn't matter whether it's print or broadcast, that a lot of it's about the bottom line and what kind of news sells. So do you think that the notion that we need to make news sell ends up maybe damaging the product in a way and this applies probably more to do commercial radio or, and television than public television or radio. But does that zest to make money and

to make sure that you're appeasing the advertisers, do you think in any way affect the end product or the way that it's covered? You got that from today? Just a little bit. Just a very subtle undercurrent every now and again. You making a lot of money at NPR? Yeah. How about PBS? Pro Publica? I meant more in the commercial realm of broadcasting and less in the public realm. Look, it, it, it completely depends on the situation, because frankly, you know, I worked for years for a local station in a local market in Atlanta, CBS affiliate, where I was covering the state legislature. Nobody ever came up to me and said, you know, "you need to spice up your stories to increase the ratings." Fast forward 10 years. A lot of local stations around the country were being told they needed to increase the number, the story count in their newscast, and they needed to cover kinds of stories that they hadn't maybe covered before. So these are things that have changed, I mean, over, over

time. Absolutely there's more pressure. To, to, to appeal to the audience. Well we're in sort of a strange situation because we don't, at Pro Publica, we don't really sell anything, but we do want our stories to have impact, and to have impact you have to have an audience and a readership, and you have to get a story out. So we do have an interest in that. I don't know that we have any more interest than we would have had five years ago. I think you always have to have an audience to make a difference. Last question. I was just wondering what do you think the role of blogs and social media in that perspective is in with the fact checking, maybe not specifically here for the U.S. to where information and reporting is, is more free, but specifically overseas to where the media is more controlled by the government,

so for the real story you have to sort of rely on those who actually are willing to get out there and risk their necks and post them in a blog. I don't know, I, you know, I've been thinking all night about sharing a story that's not directly related to your point, and that is, I had an experience on Facebook today that I've never had before and that is, I pretty much say yes to most people who asked to friend me on Facebook, and I've thought of it as a professional site and I got an e-mail from somebody today that said "guess what, one of your friends is a fan of Hitler and you haven't, go look it up and think about unfriending this person." And I did. I looked it up and he's got "happy birthday, Hitler" and everybody on his site is saying "happy birthday" and Hitler was great. I thought, this one I didn't think about. And is this an NPR reporter friend? No, you know, it's somebody from the Middle East who has created a pro-Hitler site. But I, I didn't really think about that when I,

I friended him, and I immediately unfriended him for the very reasons that I spoke about earlier, which is in some ways your Facebook page says a lot about you. It's easy to look you up and see who you are. You know we are, we are actually, you know, self-selecting for intelligence agencies by giving quite a bit of data about ourselves, even if you don't put your birthday and, you know, your relationships on there, just by who you, who your, your sort of connections are. But I'd never run into a situation like that before, where I had to think, wait a minute, maybe it's not so smart to just open it up to, to anybody, because I would not have noticed that I was a friend with a Hitler fan ifs if somebody else hadn't told me to unfriend this person, which I did today. That didn't answer your question. But it's just been on my mind all day because I've never had anything like that happen. Why would that be? We'll take one last question. This is for Deborah. As the spouse of a

service member that's going back to Iraq, I would just like to know how we can get across to people the human face of the Iraqis. When my husband was over there, I listened to him more than I did the news because he, he became really close to a family over there. They love just like we do. And I just really think that, I think the media is going in the wrong direction. Not maybe NPR, I'm a big NPR fan, but, you know, I just I think that it's just, they're just pounding away at how much money we're spending, this, this, and this, and this, and you know we went over there and we opened up this can of worms. And I think that we really, we owe them. I feel like we owe them to, to rebuild them something that they can build themselves back

up with. But I, what I'm really wanting to know is how you think that we can get across to people, not that the blood, necessarily the bloodshed and everything, but you know the traditions they have, what these people are all about. Deb? Well, I can't say that I would disagree with you, because I wrote a whole book on this very, very topic, and I'd like to think that the NPR team who went to Baghdad tried their hardest to do exactly that. I have to say when I look at the list of books about Iraq today, I'm pretty much the only woman in the lineup, and you know the others are called Kaboom and, you know, Marines in Fallujah. There are hardly any books about civilians. It's a little bit better in Afghanistan just because it's been longer. But you know we, we haven't written enough. In Iraq it was partly because it was so hard to do, because it became so dangerous to get out

to do it, and it's hard. It's hard work. It's, in some ways it's easier to cover soldiers than it is to cover Iraqi civilians or Afghan civilians. You have to know a lot to be able to do it. So what can I say? I, of course I agree with you. It's the kind of thing that I try to do in my own reporting. With that, let me close. I can't say enough about this panel, how the three of you so embody the legacy of great journalism, of ethics, responsibility, and a view of the future of journalism that it is all, not all dark clouds and gloom and doom. There are some great things going on out there. There are some great new directions that journalism is going, and thanks to all of you for sitting through this, for being here tonight with the Edward R. Murrow College of Communication. I'm Lawrence Pintak. Worldgroup