The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

JIM LEHRER: Good evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. On the NewsHour tonight: The news of the day; an update from Iraq on the violence against U.S. forces; a look at the deadly conflict in the African nation of Congo; the latest on the SARS epidemic from a World Health Organization official; and some thoughts about the impact of the "New York Times" crisis on the rest of journalism.

NEWS SUMMARY

JIM LEHRER: The U.S. confirmed plans today for a peace summit in the Middle East next week. A White House spokesman said conditions permitting, President Bush will meet with Israeli Prime Minister Sharon and the new Palestinian prime minister, Mahmoud Abbas. The meeting is set for Wednesday in Jordan. At the White House today, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice said the summit has a real chance of making progress.

CONDOLEEZZA RICE: I think that the president believes that the reason this is the time to go is that the Arab leaders with whom he will meet are all telling him that this is a historic opportunity for peace. And that historic opportunity for peace is only going to be delivered if there is, on the part of all parties, a desire to take up their responsibilities.

JIM LEHRER: The president's meeting with Arab leaders will take place in Egypt the day before the Israeli-Palestinian summit. The third-largest tax cut in U.S. history became law today. The president signed the bill in a ceremony at the White House. The ten-year package includes $330 billion in tax cuts, and $20 billion in aid to the states. Earlier, Mr. Bush signed a bill extending federal unemployment benefits through December. The government of Saudi Arabia announced new arrests today in the suicide bombings in Riyadh. Saudi newspapers reported one suspect was the alleged leader of the plot. The car bomb attacks on May 12 killed 34 people, including eight Americans. In all, the Saudis have detained about 100 people since then. And in the Casablanca bombings, authorities in Morocco announced a leading suspect has died in police custody. They said he was captured on Monday, but died of heart disease; 31 people were killed in the suicide attack in Casablanca, on May 16. Hundreds of U.S. troops in Iraq conducted a major sweep of western Baghdad today. There's been a series of attacks there in recent days, killing one U.S. Soldier and wounding at least five. In northwest Baghdad today, an Iraqi policeman was critically wounded in a drive-by shooting outside a police station. We'll have more on security problems in Iraq in just a moment. The president of Peru, Alejandro Toledo, declared a national state of emergency last night. With that, police and soldiers began moving against striking workers and farmers. They have been demanding lower taxes and higher wages. We have a report from Richard Vaughan of Associated Press Television News.

RICHARD VAUGHAN: It's demonstrations like this that the authorities say are paralyzing the country. They are hoping to stop them with a state of emergency, which suspends civil liberties. The order also limits freedom of movement and prohibits assembly. President Toledo announced the order late on Tuesday. He said the government had decided, in accordance with the constitution, to declare the 30- day state of emergency in order to maintain a climate of social peace and stability that assures jobs, investments, and economic growth. Soon after Toledo's message was broadcast, police moved in to evict striking teachers camped in front of the congress building. Many still groggy with sleep, they carried their bedding and tents, escorted by police vehicles. By Wednesday morning, armored vehicles and troops were stationed at key positions in the capital. The government also wants to stop roadblocks by farmers who are demanding protection from foreign imports and lower sales taxes on some crops. Now, as a result of the state of emergency, the police and the military will be able to use force to break up the roadblocks.

JIM LEHRER: The protests had turned increasingly violent, with thousands of farmers stoning police yesterday in the central Andes. Quarantines spread in Ontario, Canada, today, in a bid to stop a renewed outbreak of the SARS virus. Health officials in Toronto closed a high school late Tuesday. They moved to put 1,700 students and staff members from the school into quarantine. And officials in Russia confirmed the first case of SARS in that country. We'll have more on the SARS story later in the program tonight. On Wall Street today, the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained more than 11 points to close at 8793. The NASDAQ rose more than six points to close at 1563. That's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to the still-deadly conflict in Iraq, an even more deadly one in Africa, a SARS update, and a look at journalism reacting to the "New York Times" crisis.

UPDATE - IN THE CROSSHAIRS

JIM LEHRER: Margaret Warner has our Iraq story.

MARGARET WARNER: It's been a bloody few days for U.S. soldiers in Iraq. Yesterday, residents of Fallujah celebrated an attack that had killed two American soldiers. While the details are hazy, U.S. Central Command said two local men targeted a U.S. armored vehicle with rocket-propelled grenades and machine guns. The Americans fired back, killing the two attackers. A U.S. helicopter at the scene crashed, too, though it's unclear whether it was shot down. The incident is one of several that U.S. commanders find troubling.

CAPT. DAVID CONNOLLY, U.S. Army: Some of them were clearly planned attacks on our forces. However, yesterday's events alone do not necessarily indicate a trend as some may have reported.

MARGARET WARNER: Fallujah, 30 miles west of Baghdad, has been the site of several recent clashes involving American troops. Many Saddam Hussein loyalists still live there.

MAN ( Translated ): We will shoot down their aircraft with these small bullets. They come to Fallujah every day at 11:00, and block the road and they will not allow anyone to pass through, even sick and injured people. They insult and humiliate the people.

MARGARET WARNER: U.S. troops have also come under attack in western Baghdad. Yesterday, a rocket and grenade attack at a U.S.-controlled police station injured two American soldiers. And on Monday, a U.S. soldier on patrol in Baghdad died when his humvee hit an explosive, possibly a land mine, in its path. A U.S. officer on the scene called it a clear ambush. Earlier that day, in the western city of Haditha, Iraqi gunmen ambushed a U.S. Supply convoy, killing one U.S. Soldier and wounding another. The new attacks have prompted U.S. commanders to step up patrols in Baghdad; 20,000 additional soldiers have been sent to Iraq, bringing the total number there to 163,000.

For more on these attacks and the implications for the U.S. presence in Iraq, we're joined by Patrick Tyler of the "New York Times." I talked to him in Baghdad late this afternoon. Hello, Pat. Tell me, what do U.S. Military authorities think about these attacks in terms of whether they're connected, in terms of whether they're a sign of any kind of organized resistance?

PATRICK TYLER: I still think that they... the military doesn't think that there is a direct connection between, say, the series of attacks that occurred in the last few days. As best they can tell from the intelligence they're gathering, and I think that is spotty at best from the street, because some of the streets are hostile, there are unorganized groups, gangs, former Ba'athists, former military types, former Fedayeen martyrs-of-Saddam types out there with weapons, with these RPG's that are mounting attacks on U.S. military convoys. Now, they read the news and hear the news like everybody else, and the word has gone out to supporters of Saddam, defenders of the nation, and those who are in opposition to the American and British occupation to take on the American presence here, and to use what weapons they can. These are the same weapons we saw them use during the military campaign. They came at U.S. forces in pickup trucks, as you remember, with RPG's and heavy machine guns. And they were almost suicidal in their lack of effectiveness. The military thinks they are, and continues to refer to them as kind of harassment attacks. But, of course, U.S. soldiers are dying, they're getting wounded, and these attacks are creating and perpetuating the kind of instability and hostility in the streets that makes it very difficult to get life back to normal in Iraq.

MARGARET WARNER: But you're saying that, for now, at least, that U.S. authorities think that the people doing this, that there is a political motivation, these just aren't local folks who are unhappy with the living conditions under the U.S. occupation.

PATRICK TYLER: I think, in some cases, there may be some differing motivations. When I was out in Fallujah last night, I was struck by how many people who supported the attacks on that convoy, who were happy that there had been an operation against U.S. forces, said that this was vengeance for the residents of that town who died on April 28 and 29 in the clashes between U.S. Forces that had entered Fallujah, were based in a school there, and when local authorities tried to take it back, there was a crowd scene, there was some shooting going on, U.S. soldiers fired back toward the crowd, and as many as fifteen people died; about three dozen were injured. So there's hostility there. And in the clan culture of that area, it's blood for blood. And you hear that in the streets, that people are looking for vengeance. In other parts, you're just dealing with the Fedayeen, loyalists to the old Ba'athist regime, or as Secretary Rumsfeld has referred to them from time to time, "dead enders," people who are cashiered from the ex-Iraqi military that's now been dissolved, who are not going to get new jobs, who are not going to get a future in the new Iraqi military, who were part of the Ba'athist structure supporting the totalitarian regime. They have nothing else. And they have turned against U.S. forces. I think this is going to be an ongoing problem for security for those forces here, and for general stability in some places. In some parts of Iraq, it's quite stable already. For some reason, just west of Baghdad between here and the Syrian border, you have some knots of very hard resistance.

MARGARET WARNER: We've read reports here that the first armored division, which has gone into Baghdad now, that the commanders want these troops to be a less threatening-looking presence: To get out of their tanks; more in humvees; maybe even foot patrols. Are U.S. soldiers in more vulnerable positions now than they where, say, when they first came in, more vulnerable to these attacks?

PATRICK TYLER: I don't think there's any question when you take a soldier out of armor and put him on the street, even if he's wearing his helmet and flack vest, he is more vulnerable than he was inside that tank or armored vehicle. This new push to get out of the static positions and to get out and meet the people and patrol the streets on foot is something that comes with Paul Bremer, the new civilian administrator here. He's very keen to step up security. We hear that there are more than 50,000 troops in Baghdad now. And he's looking for a way to beef up the police function in a way that it connects with the population. And in some neighborhoods it's working. If you go out in Baghdad today, you can find humvees parked on corners with G.I.'s sitting on top of them with the neighborhood kids bringing them popsicles and coca-colas. The relationship and the bonding is going on in some places. It is successful, just as it has been successful in the United States. But where you're in a hostile scene, where you've got hardened Ba'athist or former Fedayeen or some kind of criminal element out to do violence against U.S. forces here, they're going to look for vulnerabilities, and that soldier on the street is more vulnerable.

MARGARET WARNER: So, what are U.S. troops doing to protect themselves in areas that are hostile?

PATRICK TYLER: Well, you're not going to see any foot patrols, I don't think, for a while in places like Fallujah and Ramadi and Ba'qubah, where a woman came up and tried to throw grenades at a building that was retaken by U.S. forces from the Islamic group, Syrie, that's under Ayotollah Hakim. In Fallujah last night, what was very conspicuous was that U.S. forces were behind razor wire on the business end of their machine guns, with the barrels pointing out toward the street in full battle dress. There was no interaction. It was rather tense. And when they move in convoys, they move with their hands at the ready on those machine guns, and there's not much meet-and-greet going on with the local population in those tense and hostile conditions.

MARGARET WARNER: So bottom line, do the U.S. commanders you talk to think they've got sufficient forces on the ground?

PATRICK TYLER: I haven't heard a U.S. military commander in public not say that there weren't enough troops here. And I haven't heard of a military commander who's had a private conversation with someone he could confide with not talk about his concerns about not having enough forces in the country. As I said, they've moved tens of thousands of troops into Baghdad to take over the police function, because there was that much alarm that the capital was slipping away from them into anarchy. Much of that is back under control now, because they are so many troops in the city. But it is a huge country, the size of Texas, and the number of forces here is still, if you allocated them out across the cities, as were the police forces under the regime, you still have a very lightly patrolled and garrisoned country. And where you have Saddam Hussein still on the loose, a number of key members of his revolutionary command council, a number of hardened Ba'athists, and all of these commanders and middle-ranking officers of the special Republican Guards and the Republican Guards, who were high- ranking Ba'athists and have nowhere to go, you have the makings for a lot of trouble and guerrilla attacks out there. They don't... as I say, they don't look systematically organized at this point. But when you see the string of them that we've seen in the last few days, you have to ask the question: Are they getting organized?

MARGARET WARNER: Patrick Tyler, thanks again.

PATRICK TYLER: You're welcome.

FOCUS - RAVAGED LAND

JIM LEHRER: Now, a conflict that is causing devastation in the African nation of the democratic republic of Congo. Ray Suarez has our story.

RAY SUAREZ: Violence flared again in the northeastern part of Congo earlier this month. More than 300 people died in fighting between rival tribal militias, some of them brutally massacred. The latest crisis comes as Congo tries to implement a peace accord bringing an end to nearly five years of war that killed more than three million people. United Nations officials have warned of possible genocide in Congo. Today, delegates to the Security Council said a new multinational force could be sent there as early as next week to restore peace. The additional troops-- better armed than those already in place-- would be stationed in the town of Bunia nearthe Ugandan border.

Tim Ewart of Independent Television News was in eastern Congo last week, and filed these two reports.

TIM EWART: Reporter: It is a war in which children are victims and combatants. In Bunia, we met these conscripted boy soldiers. How old were they?

SPOKESPERSON: 13 years old.

TIM EWART: The youngest was just 13. Had they killed people? Many, their leader boasted, "they have killed many." Bunia is Congo's latest hell hole, the latest battlefield in a seemingly endless war.

WOMAN: There is no security. People are floundering. They are doing... what they call, pillage. They are pillaging.

TIM EWART: It's out of the control?

WOMAN: Yes.

TIM EWART: Bunia's makeshift hospitals are crammed with the wounded and increasingly with malnourished children, who are weighed and measured. Hunger here is a weapon of mass destruction. (Baby crying) Thousands of Bunia's residents have become refugees on their own doorsteps, most camped around the airport perimeter. This has been one of Africa's ugliest wars and these refugees in Bunia are just a handful of the millions of people who have been made homeless by rival armies which have ravaged huge areas of Congo. Most of the civilian population have little understanding of what the fighting has been all about. Do you know why people are fighting and killing?

MAN: It's up to the politicians to explain to the people.

TIM EWART: But the people, the people don't understand?

MAN: They don't understand right now.

TIM EWART: A contingent of U.N. troops from Uruguay has been powerless to intervene. They are here to protect United Nations property. Two U.N. observers have been brutally killed. At the airport, there are more Uruguayan soldiers, and more refugees praying for a way out. The departure lounge is heavy with despair.

ROBERT DEKKER, World Food Program: They can't live in a normal life like we are living. The people are displaced three, four, five times in the period of two or three years, and they can't build up a social life, they can't build up social structure.

TIM EWART: One small group was finally taken out to safety. Those left behind may only be saved by foreign intervention. At this hospital, 50 of the patients are survivors of violent sexual attacks by soldiers. They wanted to tell their stories, they said, because they had already been raped in public. 17-year-old Maria was dragged away by seven men who first killed her father in front of her. Mamie has been in hospital for nine months; she was raped, beaten, and shot in the legs. Aid workers say it's a deliberate strategy encouraged by the commanders of rival militias.

GERTRUDE MODEKEREZA, Women's Rights Activist: In ways to fight, they want to frustrate the person, to make them fear so they can continue doing what they want.

TIM EWART: They're spreading terror?

GERTRUDE MODEKEREZA: Yeah. Spreading terror, yes.

TIM EWART: It is a terror that has no respect for age. The horrors of rape as a weapon of war seem to know no limits here. At this girl school in Bukavu, 36 of the 150 pupils have been raped by soldiers. Some are as young as eight. Staff at the school encourage open discussion of a brutality they believe must be made public. Patrice is one of the children who volunteered to tell her story. She is 12, her experience almost unbearably shocking.

HYUN-SUNG KHANG, World Food Program: There were six of them. They raped her, and after the rape was finished, four of them wanted to kill her. But the others took pity on her, and so they eventually released her. But she's still very traumatized by the event. She has a little brother and she told me, "even though I love my little brother, but sometimes, I don't know why, I just hit him."

TIM EWART: For most of the women in hospital, the physical wounds will heal, but the injuries now being inflicted in this war go far beyond the physical. Patrice and children like her have been left a lifetime of torment.

RAY SUAREZ: For more on what is behind the killing and violence in the Congo, we turn to Salih Booker, executive director of Africa action, an organization that works for political, economic and social change in Africa. There are horrifying levels of death and suffering. Historians are calling it Africa's first world war. What was the fighting all about? What were the combatant hoping to achieve?

SALIH BOOKER: This violence that's been taking place in eastern Congo, in the last several weeks, has indeed been horrific. But it's a consequence of a much larger war. And the irony is that larger war, in fact, was coming to an end. There had been a successful peace process under way. Now that larger war started five years ago, in 1998. It was when rebels mutinied within the army of the Congo, supported by Rwanda and Uganda, two eastern neighbors, and the government of Laurent Kabila, who had himself overthrown the previous government of Mobutu Sese Seko the year before, called on the support of Zimbabwe, Namibia, and Angola and the country was essentially divided in two in 1998, this fighting broke out and it was called Africa's first world war, because at different moments it involved up to nine different national armies in the conflict. And the country divided in two, then you had over the next year a very serious effort by African governments to create a peace plan, and that resulted in the Lusaka Accords in 1999. So you had a very ambitious peace plan that called for the withdrawal of foreign forces from all sides, it called for the disarming and demobilization of paramilitary outfits such as the Genocidaire, the people responsible for the genocide in Rwanda who had fled to Congo and other rebel groups who had come to Congo from neighboring areas, so there was a plan to address that problem, which had invited the external forces. And then you had a plan for a political settlement in Congo, to involve the government, the rebel armies, the unarmed political opposition and civil society. It was ambitious, it didn't receive the support it needed, particularly from the West, but the United Nations hung in there and provided a mediator and over the following four years or so, they finally did successfully negotiate a peace agreement. Last year, we finally had an agreement between Uganda and Rwanda regarding the withdrawal of their forces on the one hand, and the government of Congo meeting with all the opposition figures, and agreeing to a transitional government. So finally you have actually a success story, the possible end of Africa's first world war. But it was precisely when the Ugandans pulled out of eastern Congo, it created a power vacuum. And this violence that we were just looking at that's been occurring is a result of that power vacuum. All these external actors, their political and commercial ambitions in the region, have fueled this conflict between two ethnic communities, the Hema and the Lindu, that is now currently what's escalating and what many fear could result in genocide.

RAY SUAREZ: The UNICEF head for Bunia said there are almost no military casualties, either among the thousand dead who were found in April or the 300 dead found just this week. Whyare civilians bearing the brunt of this fighting?

SALIH BOOKER: Well, they're really the targets. And that's often why it is sometimes referred to as possibly reaching proportions of genocide, a direct targeting by one ethnic group of another. As was explained, rape is being used as an instrument of war. Some 50 percent of all the armed forces in the area of the various militias and rebel armies are children under the age of 18. And that's another reason why civilians are targeted and victimized. It's not a conflict where you have military bodies actually focusing on their military adversaries. It is, in fact, the civilians that are targeted in this fighting.

RAY SUAREZ: Are these two sides in eastern Congo actually proxies for armies that have already left for countries that are still interested in what happens in eastern Congo?

SALIH BOOKER: They are very much proxies. Obviously they have their own interests, and their interests in gaining access to resources, whether it's land or whether it's political power in the new dispensation that's emerging in the Congo. But they're very much proxies, for Rwanda and Uganda in particular, although the government also has its proxies fighting in the region. And what are they fighting over very often is access to the gold resources that are nearby. Congo is such a rich country that all these participating armies were also pillaging its diamonds, its gold, its coltan, a metal used in cell phones. And this has complicated everything. So as Rwanda and Uganda withdrew their troops, they want to maintain that kind of link that allows them to exploit these economic resources, and they do that by training and arming militias that are Congolese that remain in the country and that they hope will continue their access to the exploitation of resources and that continues to fuel the fighting.

RAY SUAREZ: But that armies that come and go over the border this way must mean that the government of the Congo is a weak one, not in control of its borders, not in control of the territory of the country?

SALIH BOOKER: That's right. It is a weak national government. And that won't change until this peace process is implemented fully. The government, the capital is in Kinshasa, in the far west of the country, and as I indicated during the war, they only control the western part of the country. Now under this new agreement, a transitional government, they have yet to extend a national army presence or a national police presence, to provide security for the towns and villages in the eastern Congo. And the eastern Congo has always been a volatile region because of the mix of interests and because of the aftermath of the genocide in Rwanda, where you had a great exodus of those responsible for the genocide who have become fighting forces throughout the region.

RAY SUAREZ: Well, it was highly conditional; when they made the announcement today-- it didn't sound very nailed down-- but the Security Council did say it was preparing, was ready to send a more beefed-up force than the one that's been there during the past several months. Can this stop the killing in a place like the Uturi Province?

SALIH BOOKER: Well, an intervention such as that can stop the killing, but it's not necessarily a solution to the larger problem. It first has to be pointed out that these massacres, this escalation of violence was predicted by humanitarian workers in the region, by analysts who were trying to get the United Nations to increase its presence to begin working on the security mechanisms that would be in place when the combating, the fighting forces withdrew. The French have agreed to lead and increase this new contingent. Other countries, South Africa and Nigeria among them, have agreed to contribute troops. They'll consider a resolution and likely adopt it later this week. But they've been very slow to act and I'd have to say they've been distracted by priorities in Iraq or in Afghanistan. And this raises the question of is there an international double standard. Are critical crises such as those faced in Africa, humanitarian crises of a huge scale, are they receiving the attention they deserve, and the resources from the international community necessary to solve them -- 1,200 additional troops can help stop the fighting in Uturi, but it's not going to be adequate to implement a successful peace plan in a country that's the size of the United States east of the Mississippi.

RAY SUAREZ: But should Americans be worried about an unstable fragile Congo? What does it mean for people watching from other parts of the world?

SALIH BOOKER: Right, well, I think Americans should care, for reasons. One, the United States has a huge historical role in the collapse of Congo, if you will. The United States was responsible for the earliest regime change in that country shortly after independence. But the United States has an interest in preventing another genocide. It can't allow what happened in Rwanda, in large part because of U.S. Inaction, to happen again. The United States also has a strong interest in the success of the united nations, in the success of a collective international effort to address a humanitarian crisis like this, and there are things the U.S. should and must do, such as financing its appropriate share of the cost of this mission, and getting much more involved in the political settlement that must follow.

RAY SUAREZ: Today at the U.N. they did make it clear they were going to provide some of the transportation, some of the equipment, and some of the logistical support. Salih Booker, thanks a lot for being with us.

SALIH BOOKER: Thank you, Ray.

JIM LEHRER: Still to come on the NewsHour tonight: A SARS update; and the "New York Times"- triggered journalism crisis.

UPDATE - COPING WITH SARS

JIM LEHRER: Gwen Ifill has our SARS story.

GWEN IFILL: We get the latest now on SARS in Canada and elsewhere. It comes from the World Health Organization's point man on the disease, Dr. David Heymann.

GWEN IFILL: Dr. Heymann, thank you for joining us again.

GWEN IFILL: Since last time we talked, the worldwide death toll is now at 744 for SARS. Tell us what's been going on.

DR. DAVID HEYMANN: Though the death toll has increased, we're seeing that SARS is actually coming under control in many, many of the outbreak sites. In Singapore, for example, we believe that by this weekend 20 days will have passed without a new case of SARS, which would mean that transmission has been interrupted in Singapore. So provided things go as they have been going, Singapore will have interrupted transmission this weekend. Hong Kong is down to less than five new cases each day, which is quite impressive from the number of cases that were occurring just two or three weeks ago. And Hong Kong, we believe, will soon also have controlled the outbreak. That leaves the big question in China is how can China control this outbreak? Will they be able to do it, and will they continue with the high level commitment that they have at present? We believe they will.

GWEN IFILL: In Toronto, we are hearing that it's been returned to the watch list. What's happened there?

DR. DAVID HEYMANN: That's right. In Toronto, there have been a cluster of cases, eight cases that have been reported to WHO, and 26 persons who are suspect cases. These are people who are in a chain of transmission which we believe began in the hospital after a surgical procedure on the index, or the first case. This case perhaps picked up his infection from some equipment or something in the environment in the hospital where the virus had continued to thrive and remain alive since the last known case, and as a result there are others infected now and we do have Canada back on the watch list.

GWEN IFILL: And there is now a quarantine in effect in Toronto involving at least one entire school, is that correct?

DR. DAVID HEYMANN: That's correct. There's been a suspect case in one of the schools. And as a precaution, they've put the students under a quarantine where they're remaining at home and making sure that they don't develop fevers.

GWEN IFILL: Now help us understand. In the areas of the world where the SARS epidemic is still growing but at a slower rate, what are they doing right, and in areas of the world like Ontario, Canada, where it had been thought they were in the clear and they are not, what are they doing wrong?

DR. DAVID HEYMANN: We had a meeting of epidemiologists, those people who study and try to contain the outbreaks from around the world here in Geneva about ten days ago. At that meeting, there were discussions of why some countries have succeeded in containing the outbreak earlier, made great progress, while others hadn't. And it seems this might be related to the sophistication of the equipment in the hospitals themselves. In hospitals where there are apparati which will nebulize patients or which are used for pulmonary treatment-- these are sophisticated equipment-- it seems that in these hospitals it may be that the virus is easier spread than in hospitals where the equipment doesn't exist, such as in Vietnam. So we're seeing that this might be a disease which is transmitted easier in better hospitals.

GWEN IFILL: And it's also a very sturdy virus. Is there any way to know whether Canada let down its guard too soon?

DR. DAVID HEYMANN: Well, it's not useful to go back and look whether Canada let down its guard. What's important is that they have a system still in place that could find a case when it occurred and due to contact tracing necessary to identify other cases or suspect cases, and they've also now put a whole series of students under observation. So it's very important to know that outbreak control is still working in Canada, and the system is still there to detect disease.

GWEN IFILL: We are also hearing today for the first time of the first SARS case in Russia right along the China border. What can you tell us about that?

DR. DAVID HEYMANN: Well, this has been a worry in Russia for quite a while. There had been reports of possible cases from all along the Chinese border. So this is nothing new. What's important is that in this area there be a good surveillance or detection system set up, and our regional office of WHO will be working with the Russian government to make sure that that does occur.

GWEN IFILL: And in China, on Mainland China, we've heard some reports of suspicions at least of animal-to-human transmission. What can you tell us about that?

DR. DAVID HEYMANN: Well, the Hong Kong University and the Guangdong Centers for Disease Control, which is based in Guangdong Province, have done some studies in markets. Now these are rather haphazard studies, they're not systematic studies, but they've taken some animals and they've looked in these animals to see if they could isolate the virus. And from a member of the cat family, the civet, they have been able to isolate the virus. They've also done some looking for antibodies, that is evidence of disease, in animal handlers and in the general population. They found the virus...

GWEN IFILL: And they have shut down the wild game market in China, Beijing as well.

DR. DAVID HEYMANN: That's correct. Throughout China, the government has shut down the wild game markets, and this is because the virus has been found in animals, but again it's not clear whether these animals are the ones who are transporting it to humans from nature or whether there are other animals involved in this transition chain.

GWEN IFILL: And finally, Dr. Heymann, we've heard a lot and reported a lot about SARS in the last several weeks. How, now that you've been watching this for a while, does this compare to other contagious epidemics, even the flu, in terms of the kind of damage it's done and the kind of precautions that people should be still taking around the world?

DR. DAVID HEYMANN: Well, in the last 30 years, there have only been two infectious diseases that have emerged from nature into human populations and been able to sustain their transmission from person to person. One of those was AIDS about 25 years ago, 23 years ago, and then the current SARS virus. Other viruses have come out of nature into humans-- many viruses, in fact, about 30-- but they haven't been able then to transmit from person to person. For example, the bird flu in Hong Kong in 1997, came from chickens to humans, but fortunately it didn't transmit from human to human very easily, and the epidemic was rapidly stopped.

GWEN IFILL: And this makes it a more difficult epidemic to cope with?

DR. DAVID HEYMANN: This makes it a very difficult epidemic. The SARS epidemic is one which is perpetuating itself. It passes from person to person by close contact, and the only way to stop this disease is to find all persons with the disease, isolate them, and make sure that their contacts do not become sick. So it's a very important job that we're doing with the world together, in great solidarity, trying to drive this disease back into nature so it didn't doesn't remain with us in the future.

GWEN IFILL: Dr. David Heymann, thank you again for joining us.

DR. DAVID HEYMANN: Thank you.

FOCUS - SHOCK WAVES

JIM LEHRER: Finally tonight, the ongoing fallout from the journalistic malfeasance at the "New York Times," and to media correspondent Terence Smith.

TERENCE SMITH: The troubles at the "New York Times" continue, most recently with the two-week suspension of Pulitzer Prize- winning correspondent Rick Bragg. Bragg, who has told interviewers that he intends to resign soon, was penalized for using an intern's reporting without giving credit. The turmoil at the "Times," sparked by the repeated plagiarism and fabrications of 27-year-old Jayson Blair, has caused upheaval within the paper and has had a ripple effect in newsrooms across the country. The "Times'" problems are also affecting public perception of the truthfulness of the media. According to a "USA Today"/CNN/Gallup Poll published today, 62 percent of people surveyed said the media is "often inaccurate"-- nearly an all-time high.

Joining me now to discuss the Blair affair, its effects on the "Times," and the repercussions in American media are: Greg Mitchell, editor of "Editor and Publisher" Magazine, an industry publication; Julia Wallace, editor of the "Atlanta Journal- Constitution"; John Temple, editor and publisher of the "Rocky Mountain News"; and Marvin Kalb, senior fellow at the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics, and Public Policy at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. Welcome to you all.

Greg Mitchell, can you explain what Rick Bragg's suspension is all about, and what it tells you about how reporting is conducted at big papers like the "New York Times"?

GREG MITCHELL: I think a lot of people were surprised at some of the details of the story. Rick Bragg is based in New Orleans for the "New York Times", was working on a story in Florida and he apparently had had what they're calling an assistant or an intern who was paid by him, not by the newspaper, who has routinely for quite some time done the major bulk of reporting in some of his stories, and they had a story based at the Apalachicola Bay about the oyster fishermen, and the intern actually did every interview for the story. And Rick Bragg went out to Florida for one day, and then wrote the story. When the story ran, it did not mention at all the reporting was done by the intern, it did not credit the intern in any way. They carried the dateline of Apalachicola and as far as the world knew, Rick Bragg had done all the reporting himself, all the writing himself. I think one of the most shocking revelations in the story was that Bragg said this was routine for him, he claimed it's routine for many people at the "New York Times," and it's routine in the industry. The other shocking thing was that the reporter that... the intern that he used was in his early 20s, and other interns have been used who were 20, 21. So people were very surprised that particularly a Pulitzer Prizewinning reporter like Rick Bragg would rely on a very untested, very young intern to collect all the information for a major story.

TERENCE SMITH: Julia Wallace, is that sort of reporting and relationship routine at the "Atlanta Journal Constitution"?

JULIA WALLCE: No. Our reporters wondered how they can get an intern like this. At our paper, our reporters do the reporting. I think a lot of this is unique to the "Times." They for years have had an extensive stringer system in which people file, and the correspondents tried to get to the scene as quickly as they, can, but I think this is really a unique "Times" issue.

TERENCE SMITH: What does it say to you?

JULIA WALLACE: Well, I can't speak for the "Times." Many years ago, too many to admit, I was a stringer for the "Times," and my understanding of the policy then was it was a privilege to get a byline, and that those would only be granted on rare occasions, and it really spoke to the aura of the "Times" more than anything else. Obviously the question is, what do readers expect and what do the people who read the story and say, "hey, the guy with the byline is some guy I never met," and it raises questions about readers and credibility.

TERENCE SMITH: Right, but Julia Wallace, I take it you did not function that way as a stringer?

JULIA WALLACE: I did. I would send files in and not get a byline.

TERENCE SMITH: But you would write the stories yourself?

JULIA WALLACE: No, they would be written by the "Times" person.

TERENCE SMITH: Okay, just trying to get it clear. John Temple, I wonder what questions this raises for you, this disclosure and this procedure, as someone who edits a paper that uses the "New York Times" news service.

JOHN TEMPLE: Well, this one is a lot... is a lot more difficult to grapple with for me than the Jayson Blair case. The issue here is that it appears that he's not doing any of his own reporting. I understand why a bureau reporter would need assistants to help gather information. It's a daunting task to be assigned to cover a region of the country and to provide work on the level that the "New York Times" correspondents do, and they do an incredible job for the most part. And so I don't think this raises the issues for us as much as the Jayson Blair and the whole issue of anonymous sources that emerged in the Jayson Blair case.

TERENCE SMITH: Marvin Kalb, what's your reaction to the way the "Times" handled this situation, both the Rick Bragg situation and the larger Jayson Blair situation and the ramifications of it?

MARVIN KALB: I have the feeling that the "New York Times" right now is like part of a government caught with its hand in the cookie jar. The "New York Times" in a sense has done something wrong, it is very large, it is very important to the nation, to the world, as a matter of fact. And it is trying to come back, and the way it's coming back, it seems to me, doesn't measure up to what the "Times" ought to be; there are no firings, nobody resigns. It's like the government in that sense. Right now if you want information from the "Times" you have to go to a spokesperson to get it. There is distance, and I don't think the "Times" ought to be handing it in this way. Right now, what I hear from talking to a lot of "Times" reporters is that the newsroom itself has a "poisonous atmosphere," that's in quotes.

TERENCE SMITH: That was a quote from Rick Bragg, in fact?

MARVIN KALB: It's a quote from Rick Bragg, and it's been picked up and used by a lot of other reporters. And what they are saying to themselves is that we work for a terrific newspaper, but somehow we're not acting like a terrific newspaper, and there's a great deal of disappointment. There's a feeling that something larger has to happen and it's not happening.

TERENCE SMITH: Greg Mitchell, what are the ripples of this, ripple effect through the industry, as you survey it around the country?

GREG MITCHELL: Well, they've been quite profound. Actually, I think when it first broke, there was a feeling that this was a New York thing or a "New York Times" thing, and instead newsrooms around the country have been reexamining their own policies. The two phrases I've heard more than any is... or are: "It can happen here,"; and "trust, but verify." And I think that's what newsrooms are trying to do, and they're holding meetings, they're sending memos, they're considering hiring ombudsmen. They are changing policies on sources or dusting off old policies. I think the problem with sourcing is that very often there have been rules in place that have been ignored because most newspapers have not had major scandals. And I mean, I think that's the wonderful thing about newspapers, if you look at the entire industry, is that most of them have not had these sorts of problems. They have routine corrections, they often make small mistakes; they all have their own things they have to look into. But most of them have stayed clear of this level of scandal, and I think that's to their credit. And I think that they are wise on the other hand to be dusting off the rules and looking at the many, many things they could do better.

TERENCE SMITH: Julia Wallace, are you dusting off some rules and looking at things?

JULIA WALLACE: Yes, actually this evening, we just had a staff meeting with about 100 people, and talked about some policies were clarified, and really opened it up to the staff. What questions does this raise for you, what are issues that we need to address? And it was a great conversation, talking about issues like anonymous sources, talking about how do you handle a big breaking story when feeds are coming in from all sorts of sources. And so I think the industry in a bizarre way will end up in a better place because of these conversations.

TERENCE SMITH: John Temple, when it comes to anonymous sources, you've introduced some changes at your newspaper on that. Tell us about that.

JOHN TEMPLE: Yes, I have. I was concerned after the appearance of the four-page spread in the "Times" explaining the Jayson Blair case, that I called the "Times" as the "Rocky Mountain News" subscribes to the "New York Times" news service, and has the right to print any of the material in the "New York Times." And I wanted to a clarification on the "Times'" policy on anonymous sources. And ultimately the policy as it was conveyed to me was there is no formal policy. And I found that to be of tremendous concern, because I had done the same thing with the Associated Press that day. And so effective that day, on Monday, we introduced a policy that any "New York Times" story using anonymous sources must be approved by the managing editor or the editor, and that is the same policy we have for our own stories. So in other words, we're putting the "Times' stories through our own filter, the exact same filter, and asking ourselves whether we should run this story, and in fact we have rejected already one page-one story that the "Times" offered and did run on their page one.

TERENCE SMITH: So as a subscriber to that service, John Temple, I gather, you're taking a more skeptical or questioning look at the "New York Times" product that is coming in to your office?

JOHN TEMPLE: That's correct, because I asked the "Times" news service, I said it would be my request that you acknowledge in the copy that you have verified the sources and that the editors at the paper know who the sources are and have decided, thus have decided it's worth publishing. But that's not the "Times'" approach, and my worry is that if the "Times" isn't going to do that, then I have evaluate it on a case by case basis. And when you get an entire story based on anonymous sources that's inflammatory, for example, a story saying that U.S. officials are saying they're going to shoot looters on sight, where they have quotes that there's no attribution in the entire story, I felt uncomfortable with that story and I did not feel it was necessary to run it without knowing more, and I waited and did not run that story.

TERENCE SMITH: And that story was later clarified?

JOHN TEMPLE: That story, well, I don't really know what it was. The Associated Press moved a story the following day, essentially refuting the story where... quoting of officials by name saying that story was not correct. At least that's my understanding. I think we would have known it was correct if people had been shot. You would think that if we have a new policy that we're going to shoot looters to send a message, we would have seen that, and we have not.

TERENCE SMITH: Martin Kalb, when you listen to this, do newspapers or news organizations, not just newspapers, need to change the way they do business in order to restore their credibility?

MARVIN KALB: Of course they do. But I'm astounded by what John just said. Let's face it, the "New York Times" is the journalistic standard, not just for newspapers, but for all news organizations. And for a serious editor to say "I don't fully trust the 'New York Times' now to give me the truth,"that is sadly a reflection of what many Americans are saying: That they don't believe that they're getting the truth from journalists anymore. If polls say to an average American right now, what is your reaction to the Jayson Blair thing, they say, "Who's Jayson Blair?" They're not even interested and when you press them, they come back at you and say, "Look, that's what journalists have been doing all the time." The idea that in the average American mind there is the feeling that the average American reporter is not telling them the truth is an extraordinary fact that must be dealt with. All of journalism has to address this issue now, and as seriously as possible.

TERENCE SMITH: I wonder, Greg Mitchell, whether when you look at those poll numbers that we cited at the beginning, what that tells you about public confidence, which the polls say is at a low point, and what has to be done to deal with it.

GREG MITCHELL: I think all the many steps that we've talked about here and are being talked about in newsrooms are all good ideas. But I think to an extent the newspapers are getting a bad rap, or a slightly unfair rap. I think the public today increasingly sees things through an ideological lens, and when they watch a news program or they read a newspaper and they see something that they don't like or is challenging to them, they may feel that this news is untrue, that the newspaper is biased, that the newspaper is spreading lies, and so their opinion of the newspaper the overall news industry becomes low. I think in many cases it's the case of the messenger bearing bad news. And that's often true with newspapers. What I'm afraid is that the public is increasingly looking for news that reflects their views, and they're going to find it on certain TV channels, they're going to find it in certain newspapers and magazines. So rather than opening themselves to the real truth and the complexity of news and varying opinions, they're going to turn to those sources and they're going to feel that the news from newspapers is somehow untrue or biased.

TERENCE SMITH: Julia Wallace, how do you think the public is responding to all this? Do they, are they very skeptical?

JULIA WALLACE: I think the public is not focused on this because they're not surprised. And that's really our issue. We've got to figure out ways to speak to them more, listen to them more, and pay attention. One thing we've done is we created a public editor, and every day his photo runs on the second page, page two, we encourage people to call. And he communicates with the staff, with the readers, and it's one step in helping open those communication lines.

TERENCE SMITH: John Temple, you were suggesting earlier that the communication lines certainly of the "New York Times" are not all that open, even for someone such as yourself, a paying customer, so to speak, of the news service.

JOHN TEMPLE: Well, I disagree with the others that I think the public is paying attention to this, and I think it's of great concern to them, and I think Mr. Kalb is right in the sense that the "Times'" response to the incident in terms of it's just a bad guy doing bad things and don't demonize us as editors, has hurt journalists because we need to accept responsibility. If we didn't learn from the Tylenol case and other cases that the best thing we can do when there's a problem is accept responsibility, and be out front on it, that's a real mistake on our part. And I think we need to learn that lesson, and the "Times" went part way, and don't get me wrong, I admire the paper.

TERENCE SMITH: All right. We have to go I'm afraid. Editors all, Marvin Kalb, thank you very much.

RECAP

JIM LEHRER: Again, the major developments of this day: The Bush administration confirmed plans for a peace summit in the Middle East next week. President Bush will meet with the leaders of Israel and the Palestinians on Wednesday. And the president signed the third largest tax cut in U.S. history into law. We'll see you online, and again here tomorrow evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.