[House Hearing, 108 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
COMBATING TERRORISM:
THE ROLE OF THE AMERICAN MEDIA
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
SELECT COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED EIGHTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
SEPTEMBER 15, 2004
__________
Serial No. 108-57
Printed for the use of the Select Committee on Homeland Security
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/congress/
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__________
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SELECT COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY
Christopher Cox, California, Chairman
Jennifer Dunn, Washington Jim Turner, Texas, Ranking Member
C.W. Bill Young, Florida Bennie G. Thompson, Mississippi
Don Young, Alaska Loretta Sanchez, California
F. James Sensenbrenner, Jr., Edward J. Markey, Massachusetts
Wisconsin Norman D. Dicks, Washington
David Dreier, California Barney Frank, Massachusetts
Duncan Hunter, California Jane Harman, California
Harold Rogers, Kentucky Benjamin L. Cardin, Maryland
Sherwood Boehlert, New York Louise McIntosh Slaughter, New
Joe Barton, Texas York
Lamar S. Smith, Texas Peter A. DeFazio, Oregon
Curt Weldon, Pennsylvania Nita M. Lowey, New York
Christopher Shays, Connecticut Robert E. Andrews, New Jersey
Porter J. Goss, Florida Eleanor Holmes Norton, District of
Dave Camp, Michigan Columbia
Lincoln Diaz-Balart, Florida Zoe Lofgren, California
Bob Goodlatte, Virginia Karen McCarthy, Missouri
Ernest J. Istook, Jr., Oklahoma Sheila Jackson-Lee, Texas
Peter T. King, New York Bill Pascrell, Jr., New Jersey
John Linder, Georgia Donna M. Christensen, U.S. Virgin
John B. Shadegg, Arizona Islands
Mark E. Souder, Indiana Bob Etheridge, North Carolina
Mac Thornberry, Texas Ken Lucas, Kentucky
Jim Gibbons, Nevada James R. Langevin, Rhode Island
Kay Granger, Texas Kendrick B. Meek, Florida
Pete Sessions, Texas Ben Chandler, Kentucky
John E. Sweeney, New York
John Gannon, Chief of Staff
Stephen DeVine, Deputy Staff Director and General Counsel
Thomas Dilenge, Chief Counsel and Policy Director
David H. Schanzer, Democrat Staff Director
Mark T. Magee, Democrat Deputy Staff Director
Michael S. Twinchek, Chief Clerk
(II)
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
STATEMENTS
The Honorable Christopher Cox, a Representative in Congress From
the State of California, and Chairman, Select Committee on
Homeland Security.............................................. 1
The Honorable Jim Turner, a Representative in Congress From the
State of Texas, and Ranking Member, Select Committee on
Homeland Security.............................................. 28
The Honorable Norman D. Dicks, a Representative in Congress From
the State of Washington........................................ 1
The Honorable Jennifer Dunn, a Representative in Congress From
the State of Washington........................................ 3
The Honorable Jim Gibbons, a Representative in Congress From the
State of Nevada................................................ 36
The Honorable Jane Harman, a Representative in Congress From the
State of California............................................ 4
The Honorable Sheila Jackson-Lee, a Representative in Congress
From the State of Texas........................................ 64
The Honorable Nita M. Lowey, a Representative in Congress From
the State of New York.......................................... 52
The Honorable Ken Lucas, a Representative in Congress From the
State Kentucky................................................. 55
The Honorable Christopher Shays, a Representative in Congress
From the State of Connecticut.................................. 52
WITNESSES
PANEL I
Mr. Scott Armstrong, Director, Information Trust:
Oral Statement................................................. 14
Prepared Statement............................................. 19
Mr. Marvin Kalb, Author and Senior Fellow, Joan Shorenstein
Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy, John F.
Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University............... 5
Mr. Frank Sesno, Professor and Senior Fellow, Critical
Infrastructure Protection Project, George Mason University:
Oral Statement................................................. 8
Prepared Statement............................................. 10
PANEL II
Mr. Gregory Caputo, News Director, WGN-TV, Chicago, IL:
Oral Statement................................................. 45
Prepared Statement............................................. 47
Ms. Barbara Cochran, President, Radio-Television News Director
Association:
Oral Statement................................................. 39
Prepared Statement............................................. 41
Mr. Robert Long, Vice President and News Director, KNBC, Los
Angeles, CA:
Oral Statement................................................. 48
Prepared Statement............................................. 50
FOR THE RECORD
Mr. Randy Atkins, Senior Media Relations Officer, National
Academy of Engineering, The National Academies................. 71
COMBATING TERRORISM:
THE ROLE OF THE AMERICAN MEDIA
----------
Wednesday, September 15, 2004
House of Representatives,
Select Committee on Homeland Security,
Washington, DC.
The committee met, pursuant to call, at 10:46 a.m., in Room
2318, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Christopher Cox
[chairman of the committee] presiding.
Present: Representatives Cox, Dunn, Shays, Camp, Gibbons,
Turner, Dicks, Harman, Lowey, Andrews, Norton, McCarthy,
Jackson-Lee, Christensen, Etheridge, and Lucas.
Chairman Cox. [Presiding.] I want to thank all who have
joined us this morning and particularly our witnesses. There is
a great deal of business going on simultaneously in the Capitol
because we are down to our last few days of session. But I
understand that our ranking member is going to join us shortly
and that Mr. Dicks is going to join me in a brief opening
statement.
In accordance with committee rules, those who are present
within 5 minutes of the gavel and waive their opening statement
will be allotted 3 additional minutes for questioning. Members'
written statements may be included in the record.
The Chair is going to recognize first the gentleman from
Washington for any opening statement he wishes to make.
Mr. Dicks. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am going to give Mr.
Turner, our ranking member's statement.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman and thank you to our witnesses for
joining us today. As we have said many times, this country
confronts a new type of war. It is a war where the lives of the
American public hang in the balance. It is a war that may
depend on a well-informed citizenry. Above all, this hearing is
about how to educate and prepare the public.
There is little doubt that Americans are more familiar with
the faces of the men and women in the press corps than they are
the men and women fighting Al-Qa`ida at our borders and ports.
We welcome the media into our family rooms as trusted agents in
delivering critical information to keep us safe.
The media's ability to broadcast the events of September 11
as they unfolded armed the passengers of Flight 93 with the
information they needed to take action. Because these brave
passengers knew what was happening in New York, they risked
their lives to save others.
Americans joined together 3 years ago to watch in horror as
the planes hit the Twin Towers and then the Pentagon. Men and
women trapped in the upper floors of the World Trade Center had
access to information that the fire fighters below lacked. Had
the first responders, government officials and media been able
to quickly share information and communicate a clear message,
perhaps more lives could have been saved.
Clearly, the media has a vital role to play in emergency
response. To do it well requires planning, cooperation with
government agencies and a clear set of rules and guidelines.
While some progress has been made, more work needs to be done.
Although personal responsibility must be part of the
equation, Americans should be able to trust in what their
government is communicating to them. We can always do a better
job of letting the public know what is going on. In addition,
we all agree that the press plays an important role in making
sure we have an honest public discourse about this country is
preparing itself to protect against other terrorist attacks and
how it is going about winning the war on terror.
Today, we get to turn the tables and members get to ask the
media or its former members the questions. In particular, I
would like your input on three areas that are critical to how
the war on terror is communicated to the public.
First, DHS's method of communicating the terrorist threat
to the public, the Homeland Security advisory system, still
remains confusing. The color-coded system is not helping us
secure the homeland, in part, because it has not been precise
in educating our citizens and public officials about what they
need to do in the face of a terrorist threat. Our law
enforcement, security and emergency personnel and the press do
not need a color; they need the facts.
I would like to know how helpful this system is to the
media being able to do their job. Is it helpful or does it
distract us from the facts? Do you find that focusing on a
color leads us to miss the bigger picture?
Second, we also need to do a better job of communicating
our message around the world. The America that we know is not
the one portrayed in the Muslim world, on TV, on the Internet
and in the Madrasas. We must devote more attention to public
diplomacy to educate the international audience about the
United States, to further explain our policies and improve our
public image. I would like to know how you think it is best to
go about this task.
Finally, we all understand that if we sacrifice the
freedoms we have in this country, the terrorists win. We must
preserve the transparency in government by allowing the media
as much access to information as is allowable given national
security concerns.
In the Homeland Security Act, this Congress called for
greater emphasis on sharing information with local and state
first responders and with the public at large, yet it is my
understanding that the administration and DHS are planning
actions that threaten to limit the ability of local officials
to share information with the public and to force them to sign
nondisclosure agreements to receive essential terrorist threat
information from the government. We cannot forget that in the
post-911 world, sharing information, not withholding it, is
what will protect us.
I would like your views on this and on your interactions
with the Department of Homeland Security. We have a long way to
go to making this country safer, including better ways to
communicate with the public.
I look forward to your input and thank you for your
continued efforts in the war on terror.''
Ms. Dunn. [Presiding.] I thank the gentleman.
Are there other members who have opening statements?
Let me make one on behalf of Chairman Cox who had to run
downstairs. He is juggling a markup and a hearing today, so he
has got votes, and he will be back immediately.
The terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, affected
Americans in many ways. In one morning we were all forced to
grasp the enormity and complexity of a worldwide terrorist
network of Al-Qa`ida operatives. This horrific event played out
so dramatically, so terrifyingly before the cameras that it has
become a defining moment in the American psychology.
In a matter of minutes, this defining moment was translated
into breaking news, demanding instantaneous information that
both the media and the government had to quickly process and
explain to the American public.
During a crisis, broadcasters must be credible without
further sensationalizing what is already sensational. They must
not provide terrorists legitimacy by becoming participants
rather than observers or otherwise aid and abet the terrorists'
goals. They must avoid coverage that might endanger hostages or
thwart government efforts to deal with terrorists.
Yet in the moment of a terrorist incident with competition
by multiple television outlets and multiple media sources,
television coverage has the distinction of being incendiary
almost by definition. How can we avoid shocking the public
while still reporting the news?
America's multifaceted campaign against terrorism
highlights the complicated and vitally important relationship
between the broadcast media and the government. The federal
government charged with the duty of defending the nation from
attack is under intense scrutiny by a news media whose primary
roles include delivering a broad outline of information to the
public while fact-checking the gatekeepers in the United States
government. It should come as no surprise that these competing
roles can often create an acute tension, especially in the
modern 24-hour news cycle.
The media relies on the government for accurate
information, and the government relies on the media to
translate this information to the public. This hearing will
examine this relationship in an effort to ensure that the
public interest is served and supported.
How terrorist acts are framed as well as what is emphasized
in reporting can have a critical effect on terrorist behavior.
In addition, these factors also influence government responses
and the views and responses of the public. The recent Russian
school tragedy and the release of last week's Ayman al-Zawahiri
video are the most recent examples of the power and
responsibility of the broadcast media in reporting terrorist
events. These events so close to the third anniversary of our
own tragic attacks in 2001 are also a poignant reminder of the
ability of terrorists to affect our daily lives.
Realizing that the media plays an important role in
combating terrorism does not and should not ever give license
to government to control the information they provide. That
said, the independence of the media should never be used as an
excuse to avoid responsibility. In this spirit, the media and
the government can and must work constructively without
necessarily working collaboratively, effectively providing
uncompromised information to best serve the public.
From both the government and broadcast news standpoint, the
war on terrorism has resulted in intense national and
international news dissemination not seen since the height of
the Cold War. News reporting has changed as new technologies
have shrunk our world. The relatively new phenomenon of a wired
globe and the instantaneous coverage that is accompanied it has
affected and will continue to affect world opinion and regional
decisionmaking. It is inevitable that the tactics and the
strategies of all actors in the war on terror will continue to
adapt to this new normalcy, and all Americans must realize the
heavy responsibility that comes with this new knowledge.
I do not envy today's panel as they face a responsibility
unseen since the days of World War II; namely, how can the
media maintain its position of objectivity in a war with so
many front lines? And how can the media avoid being used by
terrorists to help achieve their objectives?
I thank our panel for attending today's hearing, and I look
forward to our discussion. We are indeed fortunate to have such
a distinguished panel, all of whom are either current or former
members of the media with expertise in dealing with the issues
before us today. I welcome our witnesses. We look forward to
hearing your perspectives on this important matter.
And I now recognize for an opening statement the
congresswomen from California, Mrs. Harman.
Ms. Harman. Thank you, Madam Chair, and welcome to our
witnesses.
I decided to make a brief opening statement so I could put
another issue on the table that perhaps you would address in
your opening statements. Welcome to some good friends in this
room, an immediate neighbor who is one of the witnesses today,
Mr. Armstrong, and to folks who have enormous talent and
responsibility in the event of a terrorist attack.
I often joke that I get more information from you than I do
from the classified briefings that I attend regularly in the
Intelligence Committee, and I am glad that I get it from you
since I am not getting it from the witnesses who testify before
us.
The issue I want to put before you is the role of the
broadcasters with respect to interoperable communications. As
you probably know, some years ago, 1997, Congress promised that
by the end of 2006 there would be dedicated spectrum in the 700
megahertz band for interoperable emergency communications. That
promise had a loophole. That loophole had to do with the
transition to digital spectrum, which, as we know, has not
occurred, at least not occurred in any substantial amount.
And now it is 2004 and that spectrum in the 700-megahertz
range is substantially empty, but there is a number of
broadcasters in pockets around the United States who are
saying, ``We are not leaving. We are not going to vacate that
spectrum, and we are not going to make it available for
emergency interoperable communications.''
So the message I want to communicate to all of you folks is
that it is critical that we free up that spectrum. It is
critical that we find a compromise, and you need to buy into
solving the problem, not just to being the problem. I think it
is a question of life and death. There is a bill in Congress
called H.R. 1425, co-authored by Congressman Curt Weldon, a
member of this committee, and it has lots of cosponsors and it
has the endorsement of every public safety agency on the
planet.
So I do want to put it out there that we need to solve this
problem immediately, and as part of our effective threat
warning system, we need to have this band available to our very
talented first responders.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Ms. Dunn. Are there any other members who wish to give
opening statements? Thank you very much.
I want to introduce our panel, and the first of our
witnesses today is Mr. Marvin Kalb, who is an author and a
senior fellow at Jones Schwarenstein Center on the Press,
Politics and Public Policy at Harvard University's Kennedy
School of Government and a former moderator on NBC's ``Meet the
Press.''
Frank Sesno is professor of public policy and communication
at George Mason University and former senior vice president and
Washington bureau chief for CNN.
And Mr. Scott Armstrong is here. He is the director of the
Information Trust.
Gentlemen, if you would begin your testimony. Please try to
stick to 5 minutes.
And we will begin with Mr. Kalb.
STATEMENT OF MARVIN KALB, AUTHOR AND SENIOR FELLOW, JOAN
SHORENSTEIN CENTER ON THE PRESS, POLITICS AND PUBLIC POLICY,
JOHN F. KENNEDY SCHOOL OF GOVERNMENT, HARVARD UNIVERSITY
Mr. Kalb. It is an honor for me to be here and to share
this opportunity with my colleagues, Frank Sesno and Scott
Armstrong. This is my first congressional testimony. I have
declined many previous opportunities. I accepted this one
because your staff person, Ken Johnson, was so charmingly
persuasive and because I felt that even if I could make a
modest contribution to our understanding of the
interrelationship between government and the media, that would
be a good thing, and I would feel good about it.
I have been in this business now for 50 years as a reporter
and teacher. So that you understand, I am an absolutist on
First Amendment issues. To me there is a clear separation of
church and state. In my universe, it is a clear separation of
journalism and government.
In my judgment, from the very beginning of our Republic,
journalists have been installed as players in the drama of
democracy for their ability to observe the functioning of
government and to report on its failings or its successes, to
report truth to power, as ``Professor Nestadi'' once said, and
never to be afraid to report truth to power. We already have
three branches of government; we do not need a fourth branch,
as journalism has so often been described.
Shortly after 9/11, I got a call from the editor of the
Columbia Journalism Review. He had an assignment. ``Everything
has changed as a result of 9/11,'' he said. He wanted me to
write about how 9/11 had changed journalism. I thought 9/11 had
in fact not changed everything but I said I would think about
the assignment.
I did long and hard and for a time I was almost ready to
accept his premise that 9/11 had indeed changed everything,
including the functioning of journalism, meaning at its core
that 9/11 had changed the relationship between journalism and
the government, that a new set of rules ought to be
established, that new areas of cooperation, even collaboration,
ought to be created and understood by both sides. If we had
indeed entered a new world defined by the overwhelming,
undeniable need to fight global terrorism, then journalism,
which is so important in our lives, so central, had to get into
the act and had to find a new way of functioning. That was the
logic as it hit me at the time.
I decided, no, I would not do this assignment. Who would,
after all, create the new rules? Would it be the government or
the journalists, and what role would the public have? I
remember a quote from Thomas Jefferson, a famous quote: ``If I
had a choice'', he said, ``between a government without
newspapers and newspapers without a government, I would choose
the latter.'' Of course he said that after he had left office.
In office, he would have happily done without the carping
newspapers. But that is the point. Free newspapers or free
press, as the Founding Fathers believed, became synonymous with
a free government and our free society.
My point with respect to today's hearing is rather simple,
or so it might seem at the beginning. If there is news about
homeland security and about terrorism, journalists will
obviously cover it. If the news is embarrassing, even
devastating to the government, journalists will cover that too.
If the news is glowing and wonderful, fine. But the story will
be covered just as any other story will be covered.
I can hear some of you think the struggle against terrorism
is different, and I agree with you; indeed, it is. We have
never faced such a threat before. And a perfectly legitimate
question might be raised at this point, if the threat is so
special and so dangerous, shouldn't journalism get on board and
help the government fight this common menace? Here we enter a
dangerous gray zone.
Remember the coverage of 9/11. It was magnificent, I think.
Journalists did their job, and the public was well served.
There was even a degree of unplanned cooperation. My
understanding is that the bridges leading into Manhattan were
blocked, and to distribute the New York Times the publisher
called Governor Pataki and asked him to open the bridges just
for the Times, and the governor agreed and some could say,
``Well, that was not so dreadful a precedent, was it?'' No, I
do not think so.
But let us say for a moment that we are in the midst of
another terrorist crisis. A bomb has exploded, people are
dying, incipient chaos. What should a journalist do on both a
national and local level? My answer is that he or she should
cover the news as best they can, and I hope that that does not
sound terribly pedestrian.
So where is the gray zone? Unfortunately, it is everywhere,
in many guises, complex and rather daunting. For example,
suppose a reporter in Baghdad, like many other reporters there,
has been trying to get an interview with the Jordanian
terrorist Zarqawi. Suppose he gets word one night that he can
meet Zarqawi. Show up at a corner, get into this car, he gets
the interview, reports to his paper, it is a huge exclusive.
Let us be clear: Zarqawi is a murderer. Can a reporter be
neutral when it comes to murder? Shouldn't he cooperate fully
with the U.S. government? Shouldn't he have tipped off the U.S.
Embassy before he even left for the meeting so that agents
could follow and locate Zarqawi?
Is your responsibility as a reporter simply to cover the
news without any thought to your role in allowing a known
terrorist and killer to get his views out to the world using
the free press to do it? Can you really be neutral in the war
on terror?
Remember the ABC reporter years ago who allowed terrorists
in Lebanon to set the terms of his interview with them even
after they had hijacked a plane or killed or threatened to kill
the passengers? And in fact the reporter let them get away with
murder. He argued later that he was only doing his job as a
journalist.
Remember the CNN executive who acknowledged last year that
CNN might have held back on the coverage of Saddam Hussein's
brutal regime because of fear for the lives of Iraqis working
for CNN? Was CNN wrong for being human?
Remember that exchange many years ago with Mike Wallace
concerning Vietnam? The Hypothesis was that Mike was with enemy
forces surrounding American forces and about to attack the
Americans. Question: Mike, should you have alerted the U.S.
troops? Mike's answer was, no, he was a reporter. He was there
to cover the news, not to tip off his government. He changed
his mind later.
These are not new questions, but the presence of anti-
American terrorism poses new challenges, without doubt, for
American reporters, many having to do with their relations with
the U.S. government and with the enemy.
During World War II, American reporters wrote and broadcast
about the enemy; they used that word. Not now. Many news
organizations do not even use the word, ``terrorist.'' They use
only the word, ``militant.'' Our standards have clearly
changed. Our yardsticks, in my judgment, have become blurred
and even eroded.
I think one large reason stems from journalistic feeling
that they were had during the Vietnam War; it does go back to
that. Lied to time and again at the so-called 5 o'clock follies
in Saigon or at the State Department or the Pentagon here in
Washington until they began to distrust everything that the
government said.
And then add to this growing sense of national journalistic
distrust the Pentagon papers and then the Watergate crisis
itself, one example after another of government deception,
leading to one example after another of reporters trying to
``get'' the government, to ``catch'' politicians who lie and to
be the Woodward and Bernstein of their day, to the point where
now as a result of the war in Iraq, not just reporters but many
others in our society are not sure whether they have been told
the truth.
Even if reporters wanted to believe the government, wanted
to cooperate in some areas, especially now in an age of
terrorism, many of them feel they cannot. They feel they must
remain skeptical--in their own professional interests, but
also, they feel, in the longer-range interests of the American
people.
Perhaps a new kind of patriotism is emerging. Perhaps the
new patriotism can be merged with the old kind of patriotism
and that is for journalists to hold government to the old
standards of truth telling, to hold announcements and
proclamations up to the sunlight for confirmation of their
inherent truth. For only the truth in the long run, even in
this age of terrorism can really keep us free. Thank you.
Chairman Cox. [Presiding.] Thank you very much for your
testimony, Mr. Kalb.
I would like next to welcome Frank Sesno who is professor
and senior fellow at George Mason University where he is
responsible for the critical infrastructure protection
projects, and he is of course a veteran of broadcasting and
journalism himself with a long career at CNN.
Welcome, Mr. Sesno.
STATEMENT OF FRANK SESNO, PROFESSOR AND SENIOR FELLOW, CRITICAL
INRASTRUCTURE PROTECTION PROJECT, GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY
Mr. Sesno. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank you and
the committee for inviting me here today and for this
discussion of one of the most important challenges relating to
terrorism and the terrorism threat in America, and that is the
need for clear, accurate, fast and responsible information. I
want to speak very practically today about some of that.
The landscape has changed fundamentally in the post-9/11
world. As we have seen here and around the globe, events can
take any number of sinister forms: Planes flying into
buildings, bombs set off in trains, anthrax sent through the
mail, children taken hostage and brutally killed. Weapons of
mass destruction take the menace to an almost unthinkable
place.
Now, getting information out and communicating clearly with
the public assumes, in the midst of this, a new, even
unprecedented urgency. And it is a challenge that confronts all
of us: The media, certainly, because they will be the conduit
for that information; the public because citizens must take
responsibility themselves to be well informed, and of course
government officials and first responders because they will
decide what information to release and when, how forthcoming
they will be and how much faith they will place in the media
and in the public to handle that information, some of which may
be very disturbing.
Some say, and Marvin has mentioned this and I have heard it
mentioned by the congressman a moment ago, some say this new
normal requires a new arrangement, that the news media and
government should pursue some kind of partnership to get the
job done. This is neither practical nor wise, and it will not
happen.
The news media have a job, and Marvin expressed it
eloquently, that requires them to stand aside. They should
inform, they should investigate, they should hold responsible
officials to account, and to do this they must remain
independent from those they cover, even against this glib
backdrop of terrorism.
But that is not to say, however, that there are not common
interests and even common responsibilities. Journalists and
government officials both serve the public. Both need to be
sure the information they disseminate is accurate, credible,
timely and relevant, and both must know that they will pace a
price if they fail to do their jobs well.
News media in this country face a new and a big challenge,
and here are some questions that I think we can commonly pose.
How many news organizations have personnel who are
knowledgeable about homeland security and can explain what to
do in the event, for example, of a bio attack, plague, anthrax,
tularemia?
How many news departments have people who understand the
dangers and the behavior of a radiological device, a dirty
bomb, and could convey rapid nuanced information to the public?
How many newsrooms have a comprehensive current list of experts
who could address the crucial specifics of biological weapons?
You will hear later in the day from my friend and
colleague, Barbara Cochran. Hers and other groups are working
in this direction, but the questions, it seems to me, are
relevant and not by any means universally answerable in the
affirmative.
The politics that is us and you deliver the goods correctly
and swiftly. Yet while citizens say they want more information,
they remain largely uninformed about preparations very close to
home.
According to a Hart-Teeter poll conducted for the Council
for Excellence in Government for a project called, ``We the
People: Homeland Security from the Citizens' Perspective''--and
I am quoting from the report now--``Despite publicity about new
or improved preparedness plans, Americans are largely in the
dark about plans for terrorist attacks or other emergencies.
Just one in five say they are aware and familiar with their
city's or town's preparedness plans; just one in five familiar
with their state's plans.''
Mr. Chairman, the challenge of informing the public is
ongoing. If there is terrorism, the news media will be a
lifeline. Here are the questions that will be asked
immediately: What happened? What is the danger? What is the
risk? Where should I go? Where are my kids? What route should I
take? Will I need medicine? What about my elderly parents?
This underscores that this is a life and death
responsibility, and it underscores the need for elected leaders
and government officials, first responders and spokespersons to
understand how the media operate and why.
We are in an era of the never-ending news cycle--you know
that. It exists in an always-on, real-time world where news is
delivered in many ways now--on television and radio, in
newspapers and magazines, on cell phones and wireless devices
and blast emails and over the Internet.
In the event of terrorism, officials will have to take all
of this into account and provide fast and reliable information
for a variety of platforms and for a variety of audiences, both
down the street and around the world. They will not be able to
wait to hold news conferences at convenient, predetermined
times. They will have to respond instantly to what is happening
on the ground to quickly knock down the bad information, the
rumors and the misinformation and the speculation that
inevitably sprouts like an unwelcome weed.
Mr. Chairman, in this environment, events and information,
as I mentioned, play out in real time, live, 24/7, non-stop,
and so we get news by increments. Each little development
becomes the latest breaking news piece set into the mosaic of
the larger story. Now, this can be helpful or it can be a
terrible distraction.
One of the challenges for news organizations is to make
sure that incremental news is proportional and provides
context. It is why news organizations and public officials
alike need to learn and appreciate what I call the ``language
of live.'' The ``language of live'' recognizes that you are on
the air all the time, that you are in a 24/7 world. It is a
transparent language that is deliberate and clear, it
explicitly states what is and what is not known, confirmed or
corroborated.
It directly attributes sources of information. It labels
speculation as such. It quickly doubles back on bad information
to correct the record. It is a language that requires public
officials to be forthcoming and responsive. It is a language
that many journalists employed fluently in the days after 9/11.
There are some things the language of live should not be,
especially when we are talking about the coverage of terrorism.
It should not be breathless, it should not be hyped, it does
not need to be accompanied by sensational graphics or ominous
music. The facts will be ominous enough.
I see my time is out, so let me just skip ahead and touch
on a few points that I think can and should be taken in
summation. News organizations should be sure that they have
assembled, are familiar with and can access relevant
information from professional organizations, public health,
academic and government sources and Web sites. They should know
the emergency plans and the responsible officials in their
community. They should develop and keep current before an
incident a list of sources and experts who can provide accurate
and responsible information and/or advise the news
organizations about the facts relating to it.
They should impress upon their sources, especially elected
and public officials, the need for rapid information in the
event of a terrorist incident and why that will benefit the
public, to understand this language of live so that information
relating an unfolding and confusing situation can be conveyed
clearly and calmly. They should train reporters, photographers
and staff in matters of personal and family safety. In the
event of terrorism, they will be first responders too, facing
all the risks and personal pressures that implies.
And these news organizations should consider conducting
exercises and drills similar to what government does, not with
government, quite apart from it, but to simulate a terrorist
attack to test the readiness of staff, the editorial vetting
process, the reach and redundancy of their own communications
equipment and the coverage plan that would be implemented in
the event of the real thing.
The public will be well served by this, and the medial will
be rewarded by doing it right. And the backdrop against it all,
I want to echo, is a need for public officials to recognize the
need both for the separation of media and those public
officials and the need for the information to be ready,
accessible, credible, clear and not choreographed. Thank you.
[The statement of Mr. Sesno follows:]
Prepared statement of Frank Sesno
Mr. Chairman, I want to thank you and the committee for inviting me
here today, and for this discussion about one of the most important
challenges relating to the terrorism threat in America: the need for
clear, accurate, fast and responsible information. The landscape has
changed fundamentally in our post-9/11 world. As we have seen here and
around the world, events can take any number of sinister forms: planes
flying into buildings; bombs set off in trains; children taken hostage
and brutally killed. Weapons of mass destruction take the menace to an
almost unthinkable place. Getting information out--communicating
clearly with the public--assumes a new, arguably unprecedented urgency.
It is a challenge that confronts all of us: the media, certainly,
because they will be the conduit for information; the public, because
citizens must take responsibility to be well informed; government
officials and first responders because they will decide what
information to release and when, how forthcoming they will be, how much
faith they will place in the media and the public to handle that
information.
Some say that this 'new normal' requires a new arrangement. They
say the news media and government should pursue a 'partnership' to get
the job done. But that is neither practical nor wise. And it won't
happen. The news media have a job to do that requires them to stand
aside. They should inform. They should investigate. They should hold
responsible officials to account. To do this they must remain
independent from those they cover, even against the prospect of
terrorism.
That is not to say, however, that there are not common interests
and even common responsibilities. Journalists and government officials
both serve the public; both need to be sure the information they
disseminate is accurate, credible, timely and relevant. Both must know
that they will be pay a price if they fail to do their jobs well. Both
must understand that terrorism is not just another issue or talking
point; it is not just another' story. ' It is our new reality. And it
is a reality where many thousands of lives--and whole communities may
depend on rapid and responsible information.
Mr. Chairman, I would like to discuss the role that the news media
will play in the event of a terrorist attack, what we've learned and
what we should be doing--now. I will touch on the challenges public
officials face. And I will offer some suggestions for the media with
respect to covering homeland security and terrorism.
As we discuss the 'media' here today, we echo similar discussions
that are being held among journalists, homeland security officials,
governors, mayors, police, public health and others around the country.
I have been a part of some of these conversations. They are helpful.
But they often include a discussion of what it will take to 'manage the
news.' I will say here what I have said there: focusing on 'managing
the news' is a mistake. It implies a certainty and a choreography that
do not work in the real world. The news media are too numerous,
information is too abundant, the public's appetite to know what's going
on right away too powerful. And uninformed speculation is too
dangerous. Officials do have a responsibility to 'get the story
straight,' to disseminate information in a coordinated way, as rapidly
as possible.There are processes that need to be put in place to assure
a streamlined information flow. The bottom line should simply be this:
get important information to the public in a crisis.
When it comes to the high stakes business of terrorism and getting
vital real time information to the public, the media should not be
viewed as impediments or as adversaries to be managed or manipulated.
They should be seen as the critical pipeline to the public, as an
extension of the public itself. The public, like the media, will need
information, instructions and guidance, often in real time. The public,
like the media will be susceptible to incomplete information and even
rumors. The best way to deal with all of this is through quick and
responsive information. Lives and public order itself will be at stake.
New responsibility
Having said that, the news media in this country do face a new
level of responsibility and public service prompted by the threats we
face. This is a big challenge. And while many news organizations,
especially where there is believed to be a real and present danger,
have taken steps to meet the challenge, many have not. News
organizations--especially in broadcasting--need to do more before an
incident takes place. They need coverage plans so they'll get the story
right; they need emergency plans to look after their own personnel;
they need contingency plans to continue broadcasting if their
broadcasting, publishing or server capacities are damaged or destroyed;
they need ready access to expertise, critical in the event of an
attack. This is particularly true for local television and radio since
that is where most people will turn to get practical information and
instructions.
An example here will be helpful. A television station that sits in
hurricane territory knows that it will be judged by its news coverage
when disaster looms. It knows that viewers will want to know when the
storm will hit, how severe it will be, what they should do. The station
knows its coverage will require personnel who are prepared, know how
hurricanes behave, and how to speak clearly and responsibly.
But how many news organizations have personnel who are
knowledgeable about homeland security and can explain what to do in the
event of a bio attack--plague, tularemia, anthrax? How many news
departments have personnel who understand the dangers of a radiological
device--a dirty bomb--and could convey real time information to the
public? How many newsrooms have a comprehensive, current list of
experts who could address the crucial specifics of biological weapons?
The problem, of course, is that news organizations generally know if
the live in hurricane alley. They're prepared to invest in hurricane
coverage because it's a common occurrence. Terrorism is different.
Public expectations
Still, the public expects us to deliver the goods--correctly and
swiftly. Citizens want rapid and accessible information. According to a
Hart Teeter poll conducted for the Council for Excellence in Government
for a project called We the People: Homeland Security from the
Citizens' Perspective, when asked where they would look first to
prepare for a terrorist attack, learn about the latest threats or
receive guidance on security precautions, 53% said they'd turn to
television; 31% said they'd go to government or independent news web
sites. Nearly four in ten said radio would be a first or second choice.
Not surprisingly young people are more apt to go online--45% of 18 to
34 year olds said government or news web sites would be their first
choice.
And yet: The Council's poll, taken last February, revealed that--
and I quote from their report--``despite publicity about new or
improved preparedness plans, Americans largely are in the dark about
plans for terrorist attacks or other emergencies. Just one in five
(19%) Americans say that they are aware of and familiar with their city
or town's preparedness plans, and likewise, just one in five (18%) are
familiar with their state's plans.'' The challenge of informing the
public is ongoing.
The most critical timeframe, of course, is the immediate aftermath
of terrorism.
In the event of an attack, traditional broadcasting will bear the
burden of public expectations. The Council for Excellence in Government
poll revealed 51% would first turn on the television, the clear second
outlet is radio--where batteries and portability make it accessible and
dependable. Only 5 percent said they'd go to a website.
If there is terrorism in the community, the news media will be a
lifeline. Regardless of where people turn, they will be looking for
some basic information: what happened, what is the danger and the risk,
where should I go, what routes should I take, will I need medicine,
what about my kids, my school, my elderly parents? News organizations
will have to answer to those questions in a hurry. And what they
report, what they air--whether it's their own local correspondent or
some 'expert' who is booked for an interview--will likely shape
behavior and, quite possibly, broader rescue efforts in the community.
This underscores this responsibility that the news media have--a
life or death responsibility. And it also underscores the need for
government officials, first responders and spokespeople to understand
how the media operate and why. This is the era of the never ending news
cycle. We exist in a an always-on, real-time world. News comes to
people instantaneously and in many ways. On television and radio, yes.
In newspapers and magazines for sure. But also on cell phones, wireless
devices, in blast emails and over the internet. In the event of
terrorism, officials will have to take this into account, and provide
fast and reliable information. They may not be able to wait to hold
news conferences at convenient, pre-determined times. They will have to
move information as they get it. They may have to respond instantly to
what is happening on the ground or quickly knock down bad information
that sprouts like an unwelcome weed.
Layers of media
We must also appreciate that, in the event of terrorism, different
media will be focusing on different things. This is an important
concept because the community and its leaders have to understand and be
prepared. If there is a serious incident, local reporters,
correspondents and crews from national networks, photographers and
newsmagazine correspondents, international news organizations will
descend on a community. They will be covering the same story, but
they'll be talking to different audiences and covering different
angles. Local news outlets will be directing their coverage to the
people in the community, focusing on practical, front-lines
information. National networks will report the community's incident to
the country. They'll weave the events into a larger, national picture.
International news organizations--from the BBC to TV Asahi to Al
Jazeera--will view events through a different, global prism. Each layer
of news media will be conveying information to an important
constituency: the community resident who needs to whether she should
take her children to the local hospital for an antibiotic;the citizen
two states away who has a relative in the affected area or who wants to
volunteer to help; the global citizen or the national leader who is
watching half a world away. All the constituencies matter. All may
adjust behavior in response. Again, it underscores the professional
responsibility of both the journalists and the public officials
involved in this process.
Learning language of live
And the events and information will play out in real time. Live.
2417. Non-stop. It goes with the territory, thanks to technology,
legitimate journalistic considerations, competitive ratings pressures
and, yes, public expectations. As a result of the non-stop news cycle,
we get news by increment. Each little development becomes the latest
'breaking news' piece set into the story mosaic. One of the challenges
for news organizations is to make sure incremental news also provides
context, that events are reported proportionally.
The advent of incremental news brings with it the danger of
`information lag.' That is the time between when the media asks a
question and a responsible official can answer it. That time lag can be
minutes or it can be hours. In some cases--such as some types of
bioterrorism--it may even be days. This truly is the most precarious
time in the story process; it is the time when uninformed speculation
and rumor can fill the information void. And this can be a very
dangerous thing. We saw this play out during the anthrax attacks of
2001. Confusion was pervasive with respect to the dimension of the
threat, who was in charge, what needed to be done.
It is why news organizations and public officials alike need to
learn and appreciate what I call ``the language of live.' The
``language of live'' recognizes the 24/7 world, and permits real time
communication when some facts are not known. It is a transparent
language that clearly informs the public. It explicitly states what is
and what is not known, confirmed or corroborated.It directly attributes
sources of information. It labels speculation as such. It doubles back
on bad information to correct the record. The `language of live' is a
language that most journalists employed fluently in the days after 9/
11. Mayor Guiliani spoke it as well. Throughout his many public
comments, he avoided offering more information than he had; he
acknowledged the media's and the public's need to know; he did not
overpromise; he made it clear when he was answering a question based on
incomplete information--or when he couldn't answer at all. Yet he
responded to facts and 'reports' as they developed.
Similarly, news organizations were broadly praised after 9/11 for
their measured and purposeful work. For the most part, speculation was
kept to a minimum. There was a responsible attitude of professionalism,
and questions were asked and answered in a measured way. The
information and the tone were straightforward and sober.
There are some things the 'language of live' should not be: it
should not be breathless, it should not be hyped. It does not need to
be accompanied by sensational graphics or music. Nor should it be
overly or unrealistically reassuring. Words should be carefully chosen.
We should talk to the public straight. Give them the facts. Citizens
will understand that answers aren't always instantaneous. They will
understand the situation and they will feel the information they are
getting is credible.
Generalist vs. specialist
This brings me back to an earlier point. News organizations need
expertise. Trained, knowledgeable journalists or access to experts
should be a priority for every news organization in America.
Communities will be terribly served by news organizations that 'wing
it' after the fact. No community in the country--no matter how remote--
should consider itself off the hook. A biological attack on the east
coast can spread to virtually any town or village because of the way
people travel. A cyber attack can affect any home or business in any
place. For larger news organizations in major and moderate sized
cities, there should be knowledgeable personnel on staff. They should
know and quickly be able to get to appropriate websites, resource
books, contacts and phone numbers. Smaller news organizations in more
remote communities, may not be able to afford specialized staff, but
preparation should still be part of the plan. Having access to
information along with contacts in law enforcement, public health, the
academic and expert communities is vital.
9/11 and the anthrax attacks taught us this, too. News
organizations, especially those in high risk areas should conduct
internal terrorist exercises and drills. They should test their
systems, determine how they will deploy their personnel, be sure they
have systems in place to protect their people, and they should make
certain they have a chain of command capable of .vetting information
and assuring the accuracy of what is to be reported. In this
environment, leaving coverage of a story such as this could be purely
to chance is unnecessary and possibly irresponsible.
Call to action
Mr. Chairman, few people realize how much thought and debate news
goes into coverage decisions such as these. My colleagues in the media,
for the most part, are acutely aware of their responsibilities and the
power of the information they convey. They take professional and
personal pride in making solid, well thought out editorial decisions
and in informing the community. They understand that what they report
has consequences. They want to do the right thing.
But it's not easy. Many news organizations have experienced deep
budget cuts. In a lot of communities, radio stations have no news
department at all any more. Television has too few experienced beat
reporters. Local newspapers have been bought up and pared down. The
homeland security beat is no one that can be learned in a day.
There are steps that can be taken. News organizations should:
Be sure they have assembled, are familiar with and can
access relevant information from professional organizations,
public health, academic and government sources and websites
Know the emergency plans and the responsible officials
in their community.
Develop and keep current before an incident a list of
sources and experts who can provide accurate and responsible
information and/or advise the news organization about facts
relating to it.
Impress upon sources, especially public officials, the
need for rapid information in the event of a terrorist incident
and why that will benefit the public.
Understand the 'language of live' so that information
relating to an unfolding and confusing situation can be
conveyed as clearly and calmly as possible.
Train reporters, photographers and staff in matters of
personal and family safety; in the event of terrorism, they
will be first responders, too, facing all the risks and
personal pressures that that implies.
Consider conducting exercises or drills to simulate a
terrorist attack to test the readiness of staff, the editorial
vetting process, the reach and redundancy of communications
equipment, the coverage plan that would be implemented in the
event of the real thing.
The public will be well served--and the media will be rewarded--by
doing it right. After 9/11 public approval of the news media soared,
according to the Pew Center for People and the Press, which polled on
the subject.
The trend was relatively short lived. Within a few months after 9/
11, a majority was again expressing doubts about the media's
professionalism and patriotism. But while the public often criticizes
the media for being overly negative, sensational or biased--they still
value the watchdog role that the press is meant to play. Pew found that
most Americans believe that press scrutiny prevents public officials
from doing things they should not.
The media have a critical but complex role in this new era. They
are expected to responsibly inform the public of new and unpredictable
dangers. They are expected to be knowledgeable, responsible and
versatile. They are expected to be accurate but they are also expected
to be fast. They are supposed to provide the scrutiny that will keep
public officials responsive and accountable. It is an enormous, perhaps
unprecedented challenge. And it can only be carried out with
forethought, a genuine respect for the public and with proper planning.
Chairman Cox. Thank you very much, Mr. Sesno.
Our next witness is the executive director of the
Information Trust, Mr. Scott Armstrong, who is also an
accomplished journalist and author, also hardly a newcomer to
the field. He was a Democratic staff member during the
Watergate investigation. It was his interview of Alexander
Butterfield that revealed the Nixon taping system.
Welcome.
STATEMENT OF SCOTT ARMSTRONG, DIRECTOR, INFORMATION TRUST
Mr. Armstrong. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Congressman Turner
and distinguished members of the committee. I do not have any
news as dramatic as the existence of a taping system to discuss
today, and I appreciate the opportunity to talk about the role
of the media in combating terrorism at a time when so many
proposals and so many implementation plans are in flux.
At the founding of America, the news media was keenly
focused on homeland security. While occupying European armies,
Indian wars and territorial uprisings of the 18th century are a
far cry from the current terrorist threats, I have not the
slightest doubt that today's news media, broadcast and print,
will respond as nobly to the threats as did the early town
criers and one-sheet papers.
Journalists understand their priorities. They are prepared
to work on the public's behalf with government agencies
throughout blackouts, natural disasters, terrorist threats and
even the most severe of incidents. It is less clear, however,
that governments, particularly the federal government,
understand how to satisfy the public's need for information
before a terrorist event.
Under the current overlapping, rapidly expanding systems of
national security secrecy, virtually all relevant homeland
security information is either classified or can be withheld
because it is classifiable. Part of the current problem is in
fact that tension between the open society in which information
flows freely and the secret society in which much, if not most,
of the relevant government information remains secret.
You may recall that in October 2000 without any hearings or
public debate in the House and with only one short public
hearing in the Senate, both houses of Congress passed America's
first Official Secrets Act. The new media was caught dozing. We
recognize this was a serious threat to our long-established
system whereby elected, appointed and career public officials
were forced to discuss nearly all national security information
on a background, anonymous basis.
As you know, professional journalists would not be able to
adequately cover even a public press conference by the
Secretary of Defense were they not able to put it into context.
Under the new law, that law that was passed at that time, any
such conversations about the Secretary's comments that were not
officially offered by the Department would, by definition, be
unauthorized disclosures of either classified or classifiable
information and thus would then have been a felony. The new law
applied not just to present but to former officials. Virtually
all knowledgeable sources would be cut off.
The law presented a fundamental challenge to the
established manner in which national security journalism had
been doing its business for over four decades. For the first
time in my memory, the news media actually lobbied against
legislation that would preempt their First Amendment
prerogatives. At the very last minute, President Clinton signed
a veto, although only hours earlier his chief of staff had
indicated that he would likely sign the measure into law.
After this close call, various members of the major media
decided it was imperative that we would better understand the
concerns of the intelligence community. With significant
assistance from the chairman of the House Permanent Select
Committee on Intelligence, Porter Goss, and Robert McNamara,
the then CIA General Counsel, we began an informal dialogue to
clarify our concerns on each side. The events of September 11,
2001 increased the urgency of that effort.
On one side, we had convened well known, experienced
representatives of the media, reporters, editors, anchorman,
even the anchorman to my right, publishers and owners, those
who had served in the front lines in providing the public the
limited information it can receive about national security
matters.
At our invitation, the government, in turn, drew on the
participation of the general counsels and representatives of
the directors of each of the major intelligence agencies, of
the National Security Council and the Attorney General, and the
point of contact person who deals with reporters who call about
urgent intelligence matters on deadline.
Representatives of respective House and Senate Intelligence
Committees attended. Others who attended sort of the off-the-
record meetings included officials from the White House
Homeland Security Office and the Security Council, a former
counsel of the President and a former White House Chief of
Staff.
By taking the concerns of each side seriously, the dialogue
had proven to be beneficial in a number of ways, not only in
demythologizing the issues of leaks but by giving an
appreciation for both the news media and the government
officials on the need for secrecy in appropriate circumstances.
Reporters understand secrecy. They protect their sources by
guaranteeing the secrecy of their identities. Compromising that
secrecy is very rare. By the same token, the news media came to
understand that there were important reasons for the United
States government to protect certain secrets that could damage
national security.
As we became more familiar with the professional
intelligence individuals' view of the sensitive aspects of
their operations, we began to understand the practical and
concrete side of the sources and methods concerns and in fact
began to realize that we could avoid publishing certain details
in a gratuitous, occasionally even casual manner that might
cause genuine damage to the national security but by editing
include virtually all the details by doing such things such as
bifurcating certain stories so that between the two parts the
whole story was told but the danger to operations was removed.
There was a gradual appreciation that developed on both
sides, that there are certain stories the intelligence
community will always assert are damaging and that the news
media still believe warrant publication. But there seemed to be
an agreement that the instances are better dealt with by mutual
discussion than by criminal statute. And in fact the Attorney
General's Task Force on Unauthorized Disclosure released a
report in October of 2002 concluding that while the
administrative measures could strengthen the investigative and
process of punishing leaks administratively, an official
secrets pact was not appropriate.
As with most dialogues, not all issues could be resolved
and many continue to be pending, but we come back to the center
questions that are facing us today: How much information about
terrorist threats can the media provide? How can the government
best partner with the media to ensure that the public is
properly informed?
In the course of our dialogue, we began to address, with
the assistance of the White House Homeland Security Council,
the nature of the federal government's concerns about the news
media publishing information about homeland security
vulnerabilities. There was a difference of opinion, to be sure,
about whether or not certain critical infrastructure
information could be withheld or should be withheld from the
public or published.
With nearly 85 percent of the nation's critical
infrastructure in private hands, questions arose about access
to previously public information and the ability of the media
to warn the public about the existence of and responsibility
for vulnerabilities, particularly those which could endanger
larger numbers of citizens in metropolitan areas, such as
chemical plants.
As we proceeded, we became aware of section 892 of the
Homeland Security Act, co-authored by Congressman Harman.
Section 892 had the commendable purpose of allowing the sharing
of a great deal of important information with local and state
officials as well as first responders and certain industry
representatives. The thrust of the provision was to supplement
the information available to non-federal officials who did not
have security clearances by making available sensitive but
unclassified information to as many as 4 million individuals.
The underlying concept would classify information by
removing the classified features. The notion of the tear line,
with information below the tear line is unclassified because
the sources and methods have been removed, is a metaphor that
is easily understood by a journalist. That in fact is what we
get when we get a background briefing from a public official.
They withhold the sensitive information and tell us the gist of
it for publication. That is our established tried and true
proven method of proceeding.
Journalists generally support the notion of sharing
additional information, but in this case we began to recognize
the possibility of a de facto new security control system. The
ability to create sensitive homeland security information,
which we call SHSI, and their disclosures within broad
categories of information would be dispersed across many
federal agencies, would be broadly delegated to many federal
officials who were not required to keep careful records to find
out what had been distributed or to home.
Yet by the same time, the prospect of nondisclosure
agreements with specific criminal and civil penalties,
including potentially Draconian liquidated damage features,
began to be recognized as a possibility of really cutting off
access to the media. Responses back to the federal agencies
from the local, state, first responder and private industry
recipients of SHSI information were, in turn, required to come
back under this compartmented system, if you will, these same
safeguards that would then be required by the federal
government to be incorporated into the federal files, often in
classified form.
In order for federal, state, first responder and private
industry recipients to act on this issue they received, they
would inevitably have to recruit many more people, and those
would have to sign nondisclosure agreements, making it very
likely that the number of individuals probably would grow
dramatically and that the amount of information available
publicly would be severely reduced.
Because the information was never classified, there would
be no systematic way to request this declassification and
release. Once designated as SHSI, the information distributed
by the federal government could not be released by local,
state, first responder, private industry recipients or by the
governments under the local or state freedom of information
acts.
After informal discussions with many officials, we began to
get some encouraging responses. I am told, for example, that in
the most recent drafts of the proposed regulations,
nondisclosure agreements is not anticipated to be a part of the
system. On the other hand, I do not have anything concrete to
indicate that that will be the case.
And in a situation in which the Secretary of the Department
of Homeland Security is charged with the responsibility for
implementing it, we fear that a very substantial new system
could be created, creating a shield from responding to
intermediate news inquiries and using the excuse to deny
citizen access to traditionally available information at both
the federal and state level.
The worse consequences of such abuse or of unjustified
overbroad use by federal officials will be the discrediting and
abandonment of a valuable information sharing initiative. The
recipients of the information at the state and local levels
will find themselves confused and frightened by the
requirements, unable to sustain their credibility with the news
media and prevented from accounting for their actions to
colleagues in government.
But also stressing part of this is that the Department of
Homeland Security is the one organization that has been most
unwilling to engage us on this issue. Fortunately, others have.
We urge, therefore, that while a prospect remains of the
system conceived by Congress to facilitate a broad sharing of
information could instead become the prevalent mechanism for
the controlling of information. We urge that Congress spend
careful attention to the implementation of these requirements,
in particular that Congress tend with the pending SHSI
safeguarding arrangements with the same degree of attention
they will inevitably have to give to the current classification
system.
Recent congresses have been regularly--
Chairman Cox. Mr. Armstrong, if you could summarize.
Mr. Armstrong. I am just going to sum up with two more
observations. Recent congresses have been regularly exempting
government information from public access and have not
conducted a careful oversight of actions in the last four
administrations, which further remove public access to
information. Much of what is known about homeland security is
known only through the activities of this and similar
committees.
It is therefore important, in our view, that the potential
ruling of Congress should establish the criteria and baseline
for executive branch sharing of information on the SHSI and
other requirements. It is congressional oversight that will
have a direct and significant impact on the media's ability to
get and disseminate important homeland information.
Armed with such relevant information, the news media will
vigilantly examine and document potential threats to the
homeland as well as effective government responses. They will
be in fact the ultimate first responders, able to be a reliable
conduit of accurate and pressing information to the public. The
result will be the very thing which Tom Kean and Lee Hamilton
referred to in their testimony before the committee in August
when they said, ``An informed citizenry is the nation's best
defense.''
Thank you.
[The statement of Mr. Armstrong follows:]
Prepared Statement of Scott Armstrong
Good Morning, Chairman Cox, Congressman Turner and members of the
Committee. I appreciate the opportunity to testify today on the Role of
the Media in Combating Terrorism, particularly at a time when so many
new proposals and implementation plans are in flux.
I appear today as an individual journalist, formerly of the
Washington Post, now employed writing books and articles on national
security matters. I was the founder of the National Security Archive, a
repository for declassified information, now located at George
Washington University. In my capacity as executive director at the
Information Trust, I have been involved in encouraging the maintenance
of ever-higher standards of journalism and the process of making
government information as publicly accessible and relevant as possible.
At the founding of America, the news media was keenly focused on
Homeland Security. While occupying European armies, Indian wars and
territorial uprisings of the 18th century are a far cry from current
terrorist threats, I have not the slightest doubt that today's news
media--broadcast and print--will respond as nobly to threats as did the
early town criers and one sheet papers. Robust disaster recovery plans
and redundant backup system will assure we can live pictures on
location. Timely professional reporting and analysis by national and
local news media in print and broadcast will rise to the challenge of
explaining events to the public and reassuring them about the course of
events. Journalists understand their priorities; they are prepared to
work on the public's behalf with government agencies through blackouts,
natural disasters, and terrorist threats.
It is less clear that the government, particularly the federal,
understands how to satisfy the public's need for information before a
terrorist event. Under the current overlapping and rapidly expanding
systems of national security secrecy virtually all relevant homeland
security information is either classified or can be withheld because it
is classifiable.
It is difficult to envision the Department of Homeland
Security and other agencies becoming sufficiently flexible to
share information on a real time basis among federal agencies
with a newly defined ``need to know.''
It is even harder to anticipate DHS and other agencies
complying with Section 892 of the Homeland Security Act in
order to create broad sharing of homeland security information
with the state, local and private first responders who need it
to thwart terrorism.
It is even more daunting to see how the DHS can meet
the challenge to provide information to the public through the
media, the battle proven process that over centuries has been
able to rally citizens and prepare them to participate in the
demanding preparations that we hope will forestall or render
ineffective attacks against our country.
An Official Secrets Act
The heart of the current problem is the tension between an open
society in which information flows freely and a secret society in which
much--if not most--of the relevant government information is secret. In
2000, more than a year before September 11, the intelligence community
asked Congress for criminal statutes to prosecute those responsible for
what they saw as recurring leaks to the news media that damaged their
operations.
You may recall that in October 2000, without any hearings or public
debate in the House and only one short public hearing in the Senate,
both houses of Congress passed America's first official secrets act.
The news media was caught dozing. This we recognized was a serious
threat to the long established system whereby elected, appointed and
career public officials were forced to discuss almost all national
security information on a background, anonymous basis. Professional
journalists could not adequately cover a public press conference by the
Secretary of Defense if they were unable to put the Secretary's
comments in context. Any such conversations about the Secretary's
comments that were not officially offered by the Department of Defense
would almost assuredly be an ``unauthorized disclosure of classified''
or classifiable information and thus a felony under the new law.
Moreover the new law applied to former officials. Virtually all
knowledgeable sources on US national security policy and developments
could be silenced. It presented a fundamental challenge to the
established manner in which national security journalism had been
routinely conducted for over four decades.
For the first time in my memory, news media organizations lobbied
actively against legislation that would preempt their First Amendment
prerogatives. At the very last minute, President Clinton signed a veto;
hours earlier his Chief of Staff anticipated he would be signing the
measure into law.
After this close call, various representatives of the major media
decided it was imperative that we understand and engage the concerns of
the intelligence community. With significant assistance from
Congressman Porter Goss, the chairman of the House Permanent Select
Committee of Intelligence, and Robert McNamara, the CIA General Counsel
at the time, we began an informal dialogue to clarify the concerns on
each side. The events of September 11, 2001 increased the urgency of
that effort.\1\
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\1\ For the past three years, I have had the pleasure of co-
chairing with Jeffrey Smith, the former general counsel of the CIA,
periodic meetings of the Dialogue and participating in an often
spirited debate.
T2The Dialogue Between the Media and the Intelligence Community
On one side, we have convened well-known, experienced
representatives of the media--reporters, editors, publishers and
owners--those who have served the front lines of providing the public
with the limited information it receives about national security
matters.
At our invitation, the government has drawn on the participation of
the general counsels and representatives of the directors of each of
the major intelligence agencies, the National Security Council and the
Attorney General, and the ``point of contact'' person who deals with
reporter calls for comment on a pending stories dealing with
intelligence or other sensitive national security or homeland security
matters. Representatives of the respective House and Senate
intelligence committees have attended. Others, who have attended our
off-the-record meetings, include officials from the White House
Homeland Security Council, a former Counsel to President, and a former
White House Chief of Staff.
Benefits of the Dialogue Between The Media and the Intelligence
Community
By taking the concerns of each side seriously, the dialogue has
proven to be beneficial in demythologizing the issues of ``leaks'' in
several ways:
Both the news media representatives and the government
officials share an appreciation of the need for secrecy in
appropriate circumstances. Reporters protect their relationship
with sources by guaranteeing the secrecy of their identities.
Compromise of that secrecy is very rare. Similarly the news
media understands that there are important reasons for the US
government to protect certain secrets that could damage
national security.
The media representatives have become more familiar
with the nature of what intelligence professionals view as the
most sensitive aspects of their operations. An understanding of
the practical and concrete side of ``sources and methods''
issues (as opposed to the rhetorical side so often publicly
referenced by intelligence officials without documentation) has
allowed the news media to avoid publishing certain details in a
gratuitous, occasionally even casual, manner that can cause
genuine damage to national security. Often the details can all
be reported to the public, but careful editing, such as
bifurcating certain stories into two or more parts, can remove
the danger to operations.
The government representatives have been willing to
acknowledge that the public's understanding may often benefit
from certain ``leaks,'' particularly where the media's excision
of a small detail removes the major danger to their operations.
Both sides have learned that many of what were
originally believed to be damaging ``leaks'' by American
officials actually came from on-the-record comments, often from
foreign intelligence officials and had already been reported
overseas.
A gradual appreciation has developed on both sides
that there are certain stories that the intelligence community
still asserts are damaging and that the news media still
believes warrants publication, but there seems to be agreement
that the instances are better dealt with by mutual discussion
than a criminal statute.
The Attorney General's task force on unauthorized
disclosure released its report in October 2002 concluding that
while administrative measures should be strengthen to
investigate and administratively punish leaks, an Official
Secrets Act was not appropriate.
Both sides generally recognized the importance of
establishing a single responsive point-of-contact for reporters
at each intelligence agency to deal with sensitive stories
about to be published. In certain instances, these contacts
have corrected details of stories; in other instances, the
stories were withdrawn.
Homeland Security Dialogue Between the Media and the Administration
As in most dialogues, not all issues can be resolved; many are
pending. But generally, the dialogue has focused productively on the
types of issues before you today.
How much information about terrorist threats should
the media provide?
How can the government best partner with the media to
ensure that the public is properly informed?
In the course of our dialogue, we began to address with assistance
of the White House Homeland Security Council, the nature of the federal
government's concerns about the news media's publishing information
about Homeland Security vulnerabilities. There was clearly a difference
of opinion about the White House's desire to increase the amount of
information about Critical Infrastructure Information to be withheld
from the public. With nearly 85% of the nation's critical
infrastructure in private hands, questions arose about access to
previously public information and the ability of the media to warn the
public about the existence and responsibility for vulnerabilities,
particularly those which could endanger large numbers of citizens in
metropolitan areas, such as urban chemical plants.
Sensitive Homeland Security Information
As we proceeded, we became aware of the pending implementation of
Section 892 of the Homeland Security Act of 2002, responsibility for
which was assigned on July 29, 2003 by the President to the Secretary
of Homeland Security. Co-authored by a member of this committee,
Section 892 had the commendable purpose of allowing the sharing of a
great deal of important information with local and state officials,
first responders and certain industry representatives. The thrust of
the provision is to supplement the information available to non-federal
officials who have security clearances by making available sensitive
but unclassified information to a target group including as many as 4
million individuals.
The underlying concept is that the federal government would
declassify information by removing the classified features. The model
of a tear-line, where by the information ``below'' the tear-line is
unclassified and can be widely shared is intuitively obvious to
journalists involved in national security reporting. The tear-line
metaphor of accurate information devoid of the most sensitive features
so it can be shared is in essence a formalized version of what
reporters do every day. In background briefings--authorized and
unauthorized--our sources edit out the potentially damaging details and
share their knowledge of the underlying facts and policy issues which
can be made public without damaging sources and methods. This in fact
is the basis for what you read about national security matters in the
newspaper and on broadcasts everyday.
Most journalists deem such efforts to share information more
broadly to be a positive development. But as we talked further with the
government officials involved, we began to identify the prospect for
the development of an entire new system of Sensitive Homeland Security
Information, SHSI, an aggregation of ``Sensitive But Unclassified''
information that would require its recipients at the local, state,
first responder and private industry levels to protect it from
disclosure virtually indefinitely.
As first envisioned by the Administration such a system--
particularly as it encompassed significant portions of the estimated 4
million possible recipients--would de facto become a new security
control system, potentially rivaling in size the current system of
national security classification. We understood from our informal
discussions with the White House that the first two drafts of
regulations provided a series of problematic elements:
The ability to create SHSI sharing disclosures within
broad categories of information would be dispersed throughout
many federal agencies and broadly delegated to many federal
officials, who were not required to keep careful records of
what had been distributed and to whom;
In order to receive SHSI, the local, state, first
responder and private industry recipients would enter into Non-
Disclosure Agreements, which it was anticipated would specify
criminal and civil penalties, likely including draconian
liquidated damage features, and that in the event of
unauthorized disclosures, recipients would be required to sign
affidavits disclosing their contacts with the media;
Responses back to the federal agencies from local,
state, first responder and private industry recipients of the
SHSI information were required to come back under the same
safeguards, but would then be required to be incorporated into
federal files as classified information in many instances;
In order for local, state, first responder and private
industry recipients to act on the SHSI they received, they
would often have to ``recruit'' other local, state, first
responder and private industry officials to become part of the
system and sign Non-Disclosure Agreements, making it very
likely that the number of individuals covered would grow
dramatically;
Because the information was never classified, there
would be no systemic way to request its declassification and
release. The suggested holding time for information as SHSI
before review would be 15 years. While SHSI would be subject to
the federal Freedom of Information Act--if anyone knew it
existed--SHSI would be denied almost routinely as inappropriate
for release.
Once designated as SHSI, the information distributed
by the federal government could not be released by the local,
state, first responder and private industry recipients or any
other local or state agency or official under local and state
Freedom of Information Acts or other public access statutes.
After informal discussions with various administration officials,
there have been some encouraging responses to the questions raised.
Although I have not seen the most recent version to see if these
changes are memorialized in the draft regulation, I am told the
originally anticipated regime of Non-Disclosure Agreements will not be
a feature of the system as presently intended.\2\
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\2\ There is also some indication that existing information sharing
mechanisms may facilitate the implementation of a less elaborate
system. At the federal level, information sharing involves coordination
between DHS, the Department of Justice, the Federal Bureau of
Investigation, the Department of Defense, the Central Intelligence
Agency, the State Department and others. There are in fact information
sharing mechanisms which accomplish portions of the task now but need
to be made more compatible and interoperable, including systems which
transmit classified information the Homeland Security Information
Network (HSIN), Law Enforcement Online (LEO), and the Regional
Information Sharing System (RISSNET). At the level of sharing with
local, state, first-responder and private individuals, there are also a
variety of mechanisms to share actionable but unclassified Law
Enforcement Sensitive (LES) information including criminal records and
grand jury records. At present this is accomplished without Non-
Disclosure Agreements. One question for Congress to address to DHS is
whether it attempting to build an elaborate new system in order to fix
mechanisms which are not broken and which could be expanded and
formalized as they presently exist.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
I do not have answers to other troubling questions raised by the
potentially massive size and scope of the system, by the lack of
accountability for the designation of SHSI or for the anointment of its
eligible recipients, and the indefinite duration of the system. In
particular, there remains a significant prospect for abuse at the local
level, where officials or private industry representatives may attempt
to use incoming SHSI information as a shield from responding to
inconvenient news media inquiries or as an excuse to deny citizen
access to traditionally available information.
While I have no doubt that the media and civic groups would
eventually destroy such obstruction, there remains the very real
prospect for extended and painful battles over information in instances
where public corruption or private liability are being hidden. The
worst consequence of such local abuses or of unjustified and overbroad
use by federal officials will be the discrediting and abandonment of a
valuable information-sharing initiative. The local, state, first-
responder and private recipients will find themselves confused and
frightened by the requirements, unable to sustain their credibility
with the news media and prevented from accounting for their actions to
their colleagues in government.
The Role of the Department of Homeland Security
The most distressing aspect of the pending implementation of the
SHSI system is that Department of Homeland Security has ignored the
repeated efforts of news media representatives to discretely discuss
these issues. Fortunately, DHS is the only department in the
administration to have taken such a position, and individuals in other
departments have maintained a dialogue. But since the Secretary of DHS
is charged by the President with responsibility for the implementation
of the statutorily mandated SHSI system, the prospect remains that a
system conceived by Congress to facilitate the broad sharing of
information will instead become the most prevalent mechanism for the
control of information to keep it away from the public.
The record of DHS on other related issues such as the
implementation of the regulations for the control of Protected Critical
Infrastructure Information (PCII) has not been encouraging. DHS has
ignored the media and public interest community on important practical
considerations that could have reassured the public that private
industry would not be allowed to ``hide'' otherwise public information
in the PCII system.
DHS has actively sought the cooperation of the leaders and owners
of the broadcast media in order to assure that they are prepared to act
as a voice to reach the public in times of a terrorist incident. It
would appear that DHS understands the reach of the broadcast media for
government information outreach but does not comprehend that working
journalists and editors see it as their obligation to inform the public
on the full range of matters before, during and after such incidents.
Our experience has shown that a meaningful and cooperative dialogue
can develop a balance between the news media interests in important
issues of national security and intelligence reporting and the
intelligence community's concerns for leaks of highly sensitive sources
and methods. I am concerned senior officials in DHS may wish to forge
ahead with a SHSI system without such meaningful discussions on SHSI
and the variety of other issues about what information can and should
be provided to the public under particular conditions. I do not believe
that the government can shape and control domestic news about Homeland
Security issues for long. Such attempts will ultimately fail because
the news media--to use Pentagon parlance--is already embedded in
American communities.
The few months have seen repeated recommendations in myriad
reports, legislative proposals by congressional leaders and testimony
by several cabinet officials all emphasizing the problem of improved
information sharing in the face of the systemic overclassification of
national security information. A bi-partisan consensus in Congress has
lamented the inability to even appeal the denial by the Administration
of access to classified information. The haphazard creation of a
massive new SHSI system to control unclassified information would only
compound the problem. In fact, in the case of SHSI, it is likely that
no one will know for years how much information collectively has been
created in that category. It is as important for Congress to tend to
the pending SHSI safeguarding arrangements with the same degree of
attention it will inevitably have to give the current classifications
system.
Demonstrating Good Faith in Keeping the Public Informed
Appropriate information-sharing initiatives should also be able to
publicly demonstrate that they are part of a good faith effort to
increase--at least eventually--public accountability by making
information available as soon as possible within the confines of
national security dangers. Recent Congresses have been regularly
exempting government information from public access and have not
conducted careful oversight of actions in the last four Administrations
which have further removed public access to information.
For example, this week the House/Senate conference over the Armed
Services bill will likely rubber stamp a provision by which government-
licensed commercial remote sensing data--satellite photos, radar images
and infrared data--are being exempted from disclosure under the FOIA.
This is precisely the type of information which allowed the dramatic
real-time weather predictions by which Floridians were able to track
the paths of hurricanes Charley, Frances and Ivan. While future
improvements in image resolution and detail may require some
restrictions on the distribution of information received by the
government under contract, this instance stands as an example of how
casually the Congress can treat the systemic erosion of public access
to important information. Apart from holding sufficient hearings to see
if the exclusion makes sense, members with Florida and Gulf Coast
constituents may wish to examine the issue sufficiently to answer
questions next year if insufficient information is available to provide
detailed weather coverage during hurricane season.
Understanding Congress's Role
In so far as we can approach expectations about what the news media
can and should tell the public about terrorism, I wish to emphasize the
potential role of Congress in establishing the criteria and baseline
for executive branch sharing of SHSI. The congressional oversight of
these decisions would have a direct and significant effect on the
media's ability to get and disseminate important homeland security
information.
Paraphrasing the words of Woodrow Wilson in Congressional
Government, the job of this committee and its sister committees in the
House and Senate, indeed of the entire Congress, is to discusses and
interrogate the administration on such topics. Wilson insisted that
``the informing function [of Congress] should be preferred to its
legislative function.''
This suggests the appropriatenss of returning to one of the
traditional relationships between the Congress and the news media. Over
the past four decades, some of the most important periods of
congressional oversight were often coupled with effective journalistic
inquiries into matters of serious public consequence--particularly
national security crises. The two institutions often relate to each
other as hammer and anvil, alternating the roles. The Congress can
request information, issue subpoenas and hold hearings under oath with
ranking figures in the administration. Without the advantages of such
formalities, the news media takes advantage of private briefings, often
on background or off-the-record, in which, without fear of exposure,
senior, middle level and even front-line personnel can speak more
candidly.
These two mechanisms together have proven to be among the most
effective manner by which the American people are informed and prepared
to deal with the contingencies of national security and homeland
security. Such parallel activities can dramatically increase the
public's confidence that it is getting necessary information. I recall
in fond memory congresses which fulfilled their responsibilities for
appropriation, authorization and oversight of Executive conduct in a
spirit of cooperative collaboration across party lines. This may be
impossible in the countdown to an election, but it seems that the
public has the right to expect such cooperation in the matter of
Homeland Security. The news media will take advantage of the baselines
of information you develop.
An Informed Citizenry
If properly briefed and regularly engaged in dialogue with the
government officials who are responsible for homeland security threat
assessments and responses, the news media will perform as your ultimate
first responders. No major attack will ever occur on our homeland to
which the news media will not respond front and center. Armed with
relevant information, the news media will also vigilantly examine and
document potential threats to the homeland, as well as the
effectiveness of the government responses. They will be the most
reliable conduit of accurate--and trusted--information to the public.
The result will be the very thing to which Tom Kean and Lee Hamilton
referred in their testimony before the committee in August, when they
said ``An informed citizenry is the nation's best defense.''
Chairman Cox. Thank you very much, Mr. Armstrong, for your
testimony.
The Chair now recognizes himself for 8 minutes for purposes
of questioning, and let me begin again by both welcoming and
thanking all three of our witnesses whose adult lifetimes and
professional careers have been devoted to thinking about these
questions.
This is a difficult hearing to convene if for no other
reason than that we are not interested, any government interest
or at least the interest of this congressional committee, in
adjusting let alone regulating the ways in which the media
ought to conduct its professional responsibilities.
At the same time as the testimony of each of our witnesses
has made abundantly clear, there is a need from journalism
itself in order for journalists to do their job to cooperate
with government to get information, and all of us have to
recognize because it is so abundantly clear that when seconds
count, as happens after a terrorist incident easily imagined
involving biological weapons, that information that is imparted
in the private sector by the media is going to trump everything
else. It is going to determine the success of our nation.
Rather than try to begin the questioning with my own
thoughts or my own advice on this topic, I thought I would
consult someone who like each of our witnesses is well
respected in journalism but even better yet is esteemed because
she is no longer with us and therefore cannot be questioned at
all. That is Katherine Graham, who wrote on this very subject
rather presciently in my view many years before September 11.
She made several points which are relevant to today's
hearing. She said, first, and I think our witnesses would all
agree, that if terrorism is a form of warfare, as many
observers now believe, it is a form in which media exposure is
a powerful weapon.
That said, terrorists are impossible to ignore, and the
question is not whether to cover them or whether to restrict
coverage of them but rather how?
Terrorist acts for journalists and I think for the public
they serve are impossible to ignore. Rumors rather than facts,
which would abound if journalists did not do their job, would
be even more threatening to the public, nor is there an
compelling evidence that terrorist attacks would cease if the
media stopped covering terrorist events. It is even to imagine
in fact that terrorists would just up the ante until they got
the attention that they deserved.
So Katherine Graham offered several pieces of advice, which
I would like to toss out for your consideration here this
morning. ``First, observe the necessity for full cooperation,''
and I am quoting word for word, ``the necessity for full
cooperation wherever possible between the media and the
authorities. Second, prevent terrorists from using the media as
a platform for their views. Third, minimize the propaganda
value of terrorist incidents and put the actions of terrorists
in the perspective.
Recognize that terrorists are often remarkably media savvy
and can and do arrange their activities to maximize media
exposure and ensure that the story is presented their way. We
decided the case of one terrorist who reportedly said to his
compatriot, ``Do not shoot now; we are not in primetime.''
Recognize that there is a real danger that terrorists
hijack not only airplanes and hostages but the media as well.
Avoid bringing undue pressure on the government to settle
terrorist crises by whatever means, including acceding to the
terrorists' demands. Recognize that media coverage can indeed
bring such pressure on the government.
Finally, never forget that intense competition in the news
business raises the stakes even more. The electronic media in
the United States live or die by their ratings, the number of
viewers they attract. As a result, each network wants to be the
first with the most on any big story. It is hard to stay cool
in the face of this pressure. This has created some unseemly
spectacles and poor news decisions, I think we could all agree.
In order to satisfy the national interest in getting that
fact out, which is completely harmonious with journalism's
interest in getting the facts out, there has to be cooperation
between government, which possesses a lot of this information
at times of crisis, and the media who cover them.
My question, to open this hearing, to each of you is
whether or not the exercises that Mr. Sesno suggested
journalists themselves conduct that are now being conducted by
the Department of Homeland Security, it is the famous TOPOFF
exercises, most recently in TOPOFF 2 conducted in Seattle and
Chicago with simulated dirty bomb and biological weapons
attacks, are these exercises, which have drawn worldwide
private sector participation and the government participation,
whether or not there is a role for the media to participate in
those?
I know, Ms. Sesno, you have directly participated as a
professional journalist but also, in my view, unfortunately, as
a retired journalist and an academic, technically speaking. I
believe, although I may be mistaken, that that was due to some
reticence on the part of media organizations to participate
directly.
I would like to understand whether that is a considered
view, whether we are still feeling out this territory, what the
risks are and what are the opportunities.
On the face of it, I will say, having given considerable
thought to this myself, that because each of you in your
testimony pointed out that it is vital for people to have
sources, to have these things checked out in advance, to not be
scrambling in the moment of truth, the topoff exercise can
provide that kind of an opportunity to show off your rolodex.
Who is the emergency first responder I need most to be talking
to were this to happen and so on? I mean there is a lot for
journalists to extract from these exercises.
And when that dirty bomb was set off in Seattle in the
exercise and a lot of the information that was being provided
by the government was in conflict, we had different information
from EPA than we got from the Department of Energy, for
example, and the mayor of Seattle was beside himself about what
to tell the public about which way that radioactive plume was
going and what the hell they should do. Wouldn't it be nice if
the journalists had gotten in deep into that same problem and
thought about what they would do and were not inventing it on
the fly.
So I want to lay that before you and I will ask each of
you, Mr. Kalb, Mr. Sesno and Mr. Armstrong, to give me your
thoughts.
Mr. Kalb. Mr. Chair, I think we should recognize in the
very beginning that there already is a great deal of
cooperation between the media and the government. There are
many illustrations, and in Katherine Graham's book she
enumerates a number of them, of information that The Washington
Post had, which it checked with the government, the government
said, ``Please do not report that. It is bad for the national
interest,'' and The Washington Post on almost every occasion
agreed and did cooperate with the government.
Chairman Cox. That is a different track, if I may say so. I
am not talking about, and I want to be very explicit about
this, the government withholding information. We are talking
about the best way to get the facts out.
Mr. Kalb. I was hoping to get to that point. But just to
make the general point that there is cooperation that already
exists. Therefore, I myself see nothing wrong with journalists
cooperating with the government in these exercises to try to
work out ways in which if something dreadful happens, the press
will be able to handle it in a more effective way, and the
government will understand its responsibility to get the
information out to the public as quickly as possible.
I think both sides understand, with a proper sense of
responsibility and dedication to the country, that there is a
requirement before both sides to do it as effectively as
possible in the interest of the people.
So I personally have no problem with that at all. I wonder
only about the effectiveness of that kind of an operation.
However, if it helps even to a modest degree, I, for one, would
say go right to it. I think it is a great idea.
Chairman Cox. Thank you, Mr. Kalb.
Mr. Sesno?
Mr. Sesno. I think that participation in these exercises,
as I mentioned, exercises of a variety of sorts, is crucial for
news organizations. There is an explosion in, heaven forbid,
downtown Hartford. You are the assignment editor. Do you send
your crews? Do you send your producer? Do you know whether it
is a radiological device? Do you wait? Who do you talk to? Do
you know who to talk to? Is there a conduit of information?
What do you tell the public? When do you tell the public? As
you say, who is in the rolodex, in the front of the rolodex? Is
it purely alphabetical or something different than that?
I will tell you that there was interest in being on the
inside of TOPOFF 2, and it was the Department of Homeland
Security and others who were overseeing the exercise who were
reluctant to open it up to the media, because they and other
first responders across the country did not want their practice
and their mistakes chronicled.
So there will have to be a very unusual arrangement, an
off-the-record arrangement, essentially, if it is going to be a
real exercise.
Chairman Cox. That goes back into Mr. Kalb's analogy or
circumstance of government cooperation where information was
withheld.
Mr. Sesno. Yes. I do think that there are other ways for
news organizations to drill and to exercise without being
inside the government exercises. And they can and they were
able in the case of TOPOFF to cover them and look at them from
the outside. There were open events. They were public events in
those cities and elsewhere.
Chairman Cox. Mr. Armstrong?
Mr. Armstrong. Mr. Chairman, I think the difficulty here is
that while many news organizations and many journalists would
like to participate in a variety of interactions with the
Department of Homeland Security, the perception is that the
Department of Homeland Security understands the use of the
broadcast media and has solicited the cooperation of the
leaders and owners of that media as a way of providing a
megaphone for public information if they need to communicate in
a time of crisis and considerably sensitivity to the needs of
journalists, particularly non-broadcast journalists, for an
understanding of the fundamentals behind homeland security
decisionmaking, the kinds of things that would raise questions
about the adequacy, as Frank pointed out, of their preparations
themselves and their responses.
And until they adopt that, and I have to say that the
Department of Homeland Security is almost singular in its
unwillingness to allow journalistic inquiry within its bounds,
there are other departments that discourage it, to be sure, the
CIA and the Department of Defense from time to time, but as a
practical matter, they understand the need for it and
cooperate. The Department of Homeland Security is, to the
contrary, by and large, only available through public forums of
their making and has not provided the kind of background
briefings that are otherwise available.
And so I think that working out a working relationship is
difficult when the other side only wants to have it on their
terms. And I think this is an important issue for Congress to
raise, because it is going to be a limited amount of
information, not as accurate as it should be and certainly not
as perceptive or useful to the public in creating confidence,
restoring confidence on issues like evacuation plans.
They simply do not want to ever talk about how evacuation
plans are solicited and prepared and what they are. Well, no
local journalist should rest until they understand if they have
a likely terrorist incident in their locale how it is that they
would communicate on that issue. Where are they going to go
except to federal, state and local sources on this?
And when federal sources discourage it and are largely able
through the system I discussed earlier to enforce a certain
restraint as safeguarding of the information that they provide,
it makes it difficult for journalists to proceed. They will,
and we will get the information, but it is just more difficult.
Chairman Cox. Thank you. My time has expired.
The gentleman from Texas, Mr. Turner, is recognized for
questions.
Mr. Turner. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I want to thank
our distinguished panel for being with us today. I think all of
you said it best when you concluded with the words, ``Only the
truth can truly keep us free.''
I share some of the concerns that Mr. Armstrong has spoken
to today. I think it is so very critical that information
regarding the activities of government be made available to the
public, particularly in the area of homeland security where it
is so vital that we take whatever actions we need to take to
ensure the safety of the American people.
If information is withheld from the public, the prospect
is, and I think the current tendency is, for the public to
believe that we are safer than we really are. And I have looked
at a few documents that were the work product of the Department
of Homeland Security the last few weeks and months, and I think
it raises the issue very well for us that you raised, Mr.
Armstrong, about the use of designations that keep this
information from the public.
Just to give you a flavor for it, and after I show you
these, I am going to ask you for your comments, each of your
comments, about the use of these various designations of
material is not classified information but that is released by
the Department of Homeland Security with some type of
designation, the purpose of which is to limit its distribution
to the public.
As examples, here is a Department of Homeland Security
congressional advisory of TOPOFF 2 program and after action
summary of the results of a congressionally mandated national
terrorism training exercise. This document is designated, ``For
Official Use Only.''
I would be interested as we go through these as to what you
think that designation means to the media and what restrictions
you think that imposes on you, if any, ``For Official Use
Only.''
Here is a report of the Science and Technology Directorate
prepared for the House of Representatives, an overview of their
activities. It is designated, ``For Official Use Only.''
Here is a document that is labeled not only, ``For Official
Use Only,'' but bears the designation, ``Sensitive Security
Information.'' This document, which I assume is so sensitive
that I would be in violation of the regulations if I were to
tell you what is in it, but I will take the liberty to glance
at the cover and to tell you it relates to a study of the
sensitivity sterile areas at airports and the degree of
security contained there.
Here is another document produced by the Department of
Homeland Security with a cover sheet, ``Sensitive Security
Information.'' It is a document that on its face says it is an
evaluation of the Federal Air Marshal Service--sensitive
security information.
Here is a report from the Office of Inspector General. That
is one organization within every agency that supposedly
operates with some degree of independence and accountability to
the Congress and the public. The cover sheet on it says,
``Redacted Report for Public Release.'' It is a document that
is entitled, ``Evaluation of the Federal Air Marshal Service by
the Office of Inspector General.''
Here is another document, a recent document, entitled,
``Sensitive Security Information, For Official Use Only.'' It
appears to be report on screening operations, program
improvement report issued by the Transportation Security
Administration, a division of the Department of Homeland
Security. It shows on its cover that it was submitted by two
private contractors who are under contract with the TSA, giving
a report, as I said, on program improvements within the airport
screening program.
Here is another document produced by the Department of
Homeland Security labeled, ``For Official Use Only.'' On its
face, it is another report from the Office of Inspector
General, entitled, ``DHS Challenges in Consolidating Terrorist
Watch List Information.''
And, finally, a document again entitled, ``Sensitive
Security Information,'' from the Department of Homeland
Security, an Office of Inspector General report, entitled, ``A
Review of the Use of Alternative Screening Procedures at
Bradley International Airport,'' which, interestingly enough,
was produced at the request of Senator Lieberman who received a
letter from one of his constituents questioning an alternative
screening procedure that the constituent had observed, called
batching, which is a variation of explosive trace detection
sampling designed to adapt to a higher volume of passenger
traffic moving through the screening system.
Frankly, there may be some pieces within these documents
that properly should be protected for some reason or another,
but I seriously doubt if the information in these documents
have any justification in whole from being withheld from the
public. And in fact if we were to have congressional hearings
on any one of these subjects, I am sure every member of this
committee would feel free to make inquiry about anything
contained in these documents.
So my question for each of you, and perhaps we should start
with Mr. Armstrong who addressed the issue initially, what is
your reaction to this type of practice, its impact upon the
public and the ability of the public to understand what, in my
judgment, is serious security gaps that I know remain in
homeland security and I think many who deal with this subject
understand and the lack of opportunity for the public and the
press to gain that understanding with the designations placed
on these type of documents?
Mr. Armstrong. First of all, Congressman, I hope that your
official use will be to enter these all in the record of this
hearing. It sounds to me like a perfectly sound use.
By and large, we distinguish these types of reports as ways
of controlling information, to control the discussion or
comment or criticism usually about the failures of government
organizations to do their jobs. Office of Inspector General
reports are routinely ``For Official Use Only.'' It is usually
to preserve the embarrassment.
All the designations that you listed should have been
preceded by a review of the information to remove all
classified information. I mean they have been derelict in their
duty if they left classified information in.
Most of us can distinguish between broad policy concerns,
the ineffectiveness of, say, the Air Marshal Service, in
general, or the fact that it is too thinly staffed or what not
in general terms, all of which is important public information,
from an observation that might appear in the report that if a
terrorist were to put a bowling ball in the compartment above
the guy in the first row who has the heat on in the middle of
summer and a big thick cuff on the right side of his pant leg
and you drop the bowling ball on the head of that person, that
is a very effective terrorist technique. That might well be
left out of a report, the identification of how people are
distinguished as air marshals, or any of the other things that
you mentioned.
But that is easy to distinguish from the fact that these
are general reports that deserve to be in the public domain and
deserve to be discussed.
Chairman Cox. Mr. Sesno?
Mr. Sesno. I would like to answer this easily and say we,
the public, should trust those in government to keep
confidential that which should remain confidential or to say it
should all be released because that is in our interest, and,
obviously, this is a much more nuanced thing than that. Some
information does need to, and I think everybody in the media
understands, that some information does need to be closely
guarded.
However, I think I would like to answer this from the point
of view of a journalist and the point of view of a citizen. If
there is something in a community that is not working, that is
not safe and secure, don't the citizens have a right to know
that? Do we think that the terrorists do not already know that?
I recall after 9/11 there was great controversy over some
reporting about easy access to airport tarmacs, and wasn't that
information being given to the terrorists? Do we not think that
the terrorists already knew that? Do we not think that those
who are going through those airports, innocent civilians, have
a right to know that, and then they put public pressure and
political pressure to lean on those authority to do something
about it.
It is in our DNA, I suppose, to err on the side of
releasing more information to the public to give the public
credit to understand what is going on, and clearly there is a
great challenge and problem with overclassifying and over
secretizing, if I can make up a word, this information that is,
in many cases, readily available, common sense and in some
cases, actually, duplicative of that which has been done or
published either in academic or other private sector circles.
Mr. Kalb. Congressman, many years ago, for a brief time, I
worked at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow, and I learned then that
the rules of classification are exotic devices. I never
understood them then, and, in truth, I am not sure that I
understand them now.
Obviously, you want to keep information out of the public
domain that might do damage. But in those days articles from
the New York Times were clipped and stamped secret and
sometimes top secret. I did not understand it then, and I am
sure that some of these ``For Official Use Only'' documents
ought to be made public. I certainly associate myself with the
comments of my colleagues.
However, there is today a psychological need, as a result
of 9/11, to be extra cautious and to be extra careful. So there
is the extra danger of overclassification, of denying the
public information that it ought to have, and that is going to
rest with you and other parts of the U.S. government to come up
with the best way of finding that proper balance. But a proper
balance in that respect and in so many others is going to be
the way in which we are going to address many of these issues.
Ms. Dunn. [Presiding.] I yield myself 5 minutes for the
purpose of asking the panel one question.
And my interest is in the area of, how do you prevent the
news media becoming a pawn of the terrorists?
We all know that Timothy McVeigh was absolutely totally
satisfied with the Murrah Building bombing in Oklahoma City. He
said it was a blast that was heard around the world. He also
said that he selected that building for the attack because,
``It had plenty of open space around it to allow for the best
possible news photos and television footage,'' and that is his
quote.
He wanted to ``make the loudest statement and create a star
qualifying image that would make everyone who saw it stop and
take notice.'' That is also his quote.
We also know that terrorists have ways of easily getting
information into the hands of the media. Al Jazeera has been
listed as one of those open and accessible media sources that
can get that information quickly out to people in the rest of
the world.
I would like to know how great you think the danger is that
we are preventing propaganda designed to encourage and recruit
new members to extremist organizations, to get out the success
of the operations that they have concluded? Do you think that
the text of some of these releases includes secret messages to
terrorists around the world?
But, most importantly, how do we make sure--how do you
develop that balance that is so delicate between what needs to
be said to the public and offered to the public versus what the
terrorists will grow and become broader-based based upon?
Mr. Kalb. I do not know how that balance is to be struck. I
think that is a very central question. There is absolutely no
doubt that terrorists around the world are now super
sophisticated in the use of the media. It is part of their
strategy to get the greatest impact, to get it on television.
If it be in primetime, so much the better. That is part of the
strategy. In other words, the use of terrorism is a weapon in
the terrorists' hands to achieve a certain goal, and there is
no question that the use of the media is one devise in that
pursuit.
It poses for the media a critical challenge, particularly
in an age of terrorism. If you know you are going to be used by
the terrorists, do you allow yourself? I gave an illustration
in my testimony about the reporter getting this great interview
with Zarqawi. That reporter when he gets that interview will
know in advance that he is giving to a known killer the front
page of any newspaper and any wire service and the evening
news.
The balance that we have been seeking, do the American
people have a right to know what it is that the number one
killer, as we have defined him, in Iraq, what that person
thinks, what sort of person is he, aside from the large
statement that he is a killer?
My own judgment, as a former journalist, would be, yes, the
American people have that right, but there is that balance, and
we have got an awful lot of time in a 24/7 world for
journalists to provide not only the headline but the context,
how it happened so that the American people have the whole
picture rather than just the inflammatory image that comes to
mind and that is projected.
Mr. Sesno. I think you touched on perhaps the central
challenge that we in the media face, in particular those who
are disseminators of real-time information and in the global
context face up against this challenge.
In one sense, none of this is new. Terrorism, whether it
has been called terrorism or not, it got its name from the
reign of terror where guillotines were set up in public squares
to be clearly visible and to publicly express the terror, has
always had as part of its objective disseminating information
in imagery to frighten and to terrorize.
What is new, obviously, is that we are now talking about
real-time and a global reach, and in our context and in our
lifetimes, one of the things that is new and very vexing is
the, if not the demise, certainly the diminution of the role of
the gatekeeper in journalism.
There was a time when a Marvin Kalb could stand and say,
``No, we should not put in this paper or on the broadcast,''
and there were two or three other people in the country who
would make similar decisions and that would determine whether
that information is out.
When I was at CNN right after 9/11, there were certain
decisions we made about things we were not going to broadcast,
but some of those things were broadcast over the Internet from
Pakistan. So you touch on a very difficult issue, because we
cannot control it in quite the same way as an industry.
I would say, however, that the determinative factor here is
experience. We have learned. I mean over the years at CNN we
have been 24/7 since we went on the air, and we learned the
first Gulf War and we learned with subsequent terrorist and
crises situations some of the nuance of reporting. I think that
is something that Al Jazeera has not yet learned.
And there is an appreciation for the impact of this
information of terrorism and the clear and deliberate strategy
of terrorists to use media to disseminate their propaganda and
to mobilize their followers. And, by the way, they are going to
do that whether we want them to or not.
Mainstream media did not publish these horrible beheadings.
They went out on the Internet, didn't they? So they were
available for people to find. That is a troubling thing.
Mr. Armstrong. The terrorist act itself is the message. It
is what is communicated directly, and except in the rare
instances where an image like the beheadings is withheld, it is
has a significant impact. We acknowledge that.
Putting it in context and giving some proportionality to it
is what journalism does, and that has a major corrective
effect. Timothy McVeigh--and it is an easier thing for us to
understand because it is our homegrown terrorist--Timothy
McVeigh's activities, as reported on and elaborated on in the
press, is credited a widespread militia movement. It did not
dry up entirely. I cannot say that there were not people
recruited to it by the act, but, by and large, it had a
deleterious effect on that movement, which I think was a
healthy development.
On the question of secret messages, inspirational messages
that are broadcast by terrorists and when the public should
broadcast them, it is my understanding that the intelligence
community, in general, feels that the balance is that they
should be broadcast, that it keeps more of them coming, which
gives more information to the intelligence community about
where they are coming from and how they got there and increases
the likelihood that someone will find some anomalous connection
with a fact or a piece of backdrop or whatever else, that some
information will come forward which will in fact solve the
problem.
You recall the sniper incidents in D.C. and the police
withheld the fact that after they leaked the white van they
never bothered to say there was another maroon, smaller car
until in an act of desperation when the public was totally
panicked they announced it, and that very evening someone
called in and said, ``Oh, you mean one that is like the one
that is parked in the rest area up just north of Baltimore,''
and the person was arrested that night.
The million eyes that our public can provide, people who
are thoughtful and perceptive and what not, is far more
valuable as an asset than the fear that we are going to spread
other panic or the prospect that we are going to somehow
flatter the terrorist movement itself.
Mr. Sesno. Madam Chairman, may I just make one very brief
additional point because I think this is very important to
realize and in particular for the public to realize.
This question is one that is discussed and debated in great
detail and at great length at every news organization I know.
No news organization, no journalists wants to be used,
especially when it comes to something as horrible as this. I
think it is very important for the public to understand just
how committed and serious news organizations are when it comes
to this topic, and it is a point I just wanted to make.
Ms. Dunn. Thank you all.
The Chair yields 5 minutes to the gentleman from
Washington, Mr. Dicks.
Mr. Dicks. I appreciate the testimony here today. I want to
go back to Mr. Armstrong on this issue of the effort to
classify or designate things as sensitive but unclassify law
enforcement sensitive and create this gray zone. It used to be
if it was classified, you could not publish it; if it was
unclassified, you could publish it. How do you deal with this
new gray zone that has been created by these attempted
regulations?
Mr. Armstrong. Well, I know of no restraint on the press
that would be observed as questionable to whether something was
classified or unclassified in terms of publishing it or whether
it was considered sensitive homeland security information, top
secret or just plain old routine information, except the
content of the information.
If there is something there, and you should be in a
dialogue, and most journalists are, we have tried to establish
a point of contact arrangement with most of the agencies so
that if there is something to be published that has sensitive
information in it, the government knows about it and is in a
position to make an objection or--
Mr. Dicks. And you have said in your statement that the
Department of Homeland Security is not very cooperative in this
respect.
Mr. Armstrong. They are devoid of a point of contact.
Mr. Dicks. And that is unusual. In other words, you have in
other agencies CIA, Defense, State, there is somebody you talk
to about this, and Homeland Security has refused to cooperate
to discuss this.
Mr. Armstrong. I would not quite put it that--I think part
of this resides in a particular assistant secretary who
believes that her boss's interests are best served by running
them as if he were in a campaign rather than the director of an
agency, and that is part of it. But part of it also is this is
a fast--this has just recently been staffed, people are very
new, procedures are not carefully worked out. It is a practical
implementation problem.
You want to share the information. There is sometimes truly
sensitive things in it, but declassifying it does not mean all
sensitivity is there. You do not want the terrorists that you
are on to to know that you have asked the Portland Police to
look around and find out what is going on in local bodegas or
local stores that they might be frequenting that you want to
get feedback about. And you do not want to create a
classified--you do not want to have to give everybody
clearances to do it.
By the same token, it does not have to stay in that
category in perpetuity. There could be life span that is very
limited, and that is the difficulty is that there is going to
be a tendency to put almost anything in this and then use it.
And we have been told while it is available under the Freedom
of Information Act, technically, what SHSI or law enforcement
sensitive or any of the rest of these things, for official use
only, means is that it is designed to be denied under the
(b)(2) exemption, so-called high (b)(2). It will not be
publicly released. This will be carefully handled and not
released.
Mr. Dicks. We are in a very highly political season right
now, and I would just say this: The ranking member has just
pointed out all of these documents. It is my opinion--I have
been up here for a long time, 28 years--that this story about
the ineffectiveness of the Department of Homeland Security in
terms of doing what Congress told it to do and putting the
resources up to protect us and then you have got all kinds of--
you have got the Council on Foreign Relations led by Gary Hart
and Warren Rudman--you have got all kinds of outside groups
that have looked at this but for some reason the press has
chosen, I think, to not give this the coverage or to really
look into how effective the administration has been on this
issue.
And in my experience, I have never seen anything quite like
this on a major issue that is so important to the American
people where there does not seem to be the coverage that would
be warranted by the record.
Now, is there any way to explain this based on your
professional experience about why this story has not been more
thoroughly covered by the working press?
Mr. Armstrong. September 11 has left the press somewhat
shell-shocked. There is a concern that government deserves a
degree of deference.
I do think the reporting that you are looking for is
occurring. I think that it is dependent somewhat on the kind of
hammer-and-anvil effect of the press reporting on certain
things, Congress holding hearings, press reporting more. There
is a kind of way in which you get the official account, the
press goes behind the scenes and gets more that works.
There are portions of this that have been traditionally
there that work quite fine, and it is not clear why they want
to change them. ``Law enforcement sensitive'' is a designation
that has been informal, but what it amounts to is things are
shared. Grand jury materials, drug information, what not, are
shared with local law enforcement on the understanding that
they will not repeat it. That restriction is not codified in
law but is, generally speaking, observed. There have not been
complaints about it. If it is not broken, what are we fixing
here? And that is the concern that we have.
Mr. Dicks. Would either of the other two gentlemen like to
comment on this?
Mr. Kalb. I would just like to say that I share your view
and share the idea of raising this question about where is the
media on this issue, but one could say where is the media on a
number of other issues as well?
I agree with Scott that 9/11 had this dramatic effect on
everybody, including the media, but the media ought to get over
that, and in many respects it has not. In many respects,
including something as important as the coverage of the war in
Iraq and the buildup to the war, the media, among many other
aspects of this society, failed to get the message out and to
dig deeply, because it still wanted to give the government
every benefit of the doubt. One would have thought by now it
would wake up, and I think it has to a degree but not to the
degree that is, in my judgment anyway, professionally
laudatory.
Mr. Sesno. Let me just take this on from a very direct
point of view. The issues you raise are allegations and
assertions that carry an extra dimension of reporting to them
if they are going to be brought to the public; therefore, they
require access and they require digging and work that take more
time and require more investment by news organizations, many of
which who have gone through terrible budget cuts themselves and
are stretched too thin.
They require a degree of fortitude and backbone because you
have to stand up in society, raise your hand and say,
``Something is wrong here,'' at a time when the consumption of
news has been politicized as well, and this is often not
welcomed reporting.
I am concerned that at some point, terrible point in the
future, after something terrible happens, we will see yet more
stories, like we saw on the front page of The Washington Post
some weeks ago that said, why didn't we ask different
questions? Why didn't we give this greater public scrutiny? And
so the stakes are high, not just for how we respond after a
terrorist attack but the questions we ask before a terrorist
attack.
Mr. Dicks. And the Congress has a responsibility here too.
Mr. Sesno. It is not just media and media assertion. You
are the guys who call the hearings, you are the guys who ask
the questions, you are the guys who have access to this
information. So do something with it.
Mr. Dicks. We are trying. Thank you.
Chairman Cox. [Presiding.] The gentleman's time has
expired.
Mr. Dicks. I would like to ask a question.
Chairman Cox. Sure.
Mr. Dicks. Some people got 8 minutes, and some people got 5
minutes. Is there any reasoning behind who got what?
Chairman Cox. Yes.
Mr. Dicks. This is not a feeling of discrimination, but I
am worried about it.
Chairman Cox. Well, to assuage the gentleman's concerns, I
will remind him that under the committee rules members who are
here within 5 minutes of the final gavel if they waive their
opening statements, they are entitled to an additional 3
minutes of questioning.
Mr. Dicks. I see. Thank you.
Chairman Cox. Gentleman from Nevada is recognized for 8
minutes of questioning. He is the chairman of the Subcommittee
on Intelligence.
Mr. Gibbons. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
And to each of our witnesses, welcome and thank you for
being here today. We do appreciate the fact that you have taken
time out of your busy schedule to help us better understand
this issue before us.I have a series of questions, which I will
ask and allow you to answer in seriatim, whichever you prefer,
but I do want to get these points across.
It seems sitting here, listening to you, and I certainly
appreciate and value the wisdom, the experience and the
knowledge that you bring to this committee, but there are some
things that perhaps that we in this Congress and perhaps the
American people do not understand. And it is one which perhaps
you have looked at internally.
My first one, is there a written code of ethics or is it an
individual conscience about balancing national security with
the public's right to know? For example, if you were given
information which defined a newsbreaking story but yet if it
were broken would result in the loss of an innocent life, is
there a written code of ethics that you follow or is it
individually judged by each of the editors or by the reporters
in that situation?
Second question: You talk about the public's right to know,
you talk about the oversecretization, the overclassification,
if you will, of information by the government. What standard is
there about the oversecretization about reporters' information
by the media?
Does not the public have the right to know sources of your
information, early reports, edited reports, et cetera, that are
produced, which may have information which you or an individual
editor might want to exclude from public knowledge based on
your presumption of how the story should be viewed or portrayed
to the public?
Finally, let me ask this one very difficult question for
each of you to answer. In today's dependency on the media, the
expectation of the public to learn the information that you
have to give, why does the media have such a low public
opinion?
With that, I will ask each of you to respond. Thank you. It
matters not which who starts first.
Mr. Sesno. In deference to the class I teach called, ``Bias
in Media,'' I will go first.
These are very, very difficult questions. Is there a
standard written code of ethics for all journalism? Is there a
constitution for all journalism? No, and there should be.
Do most news organizations, most major news organizations
have some kind of written standards and practices? Yes, they
do.
Is there specific guidance? I can speak from my experience
at CNN where we were, and expressed it and discussed it and met
about it, always sensitive to any information that would
jeopardize lives or ongoing operations. Information that would
jeopardize lives or ongoing information was not reported.
Is there a standard for oversecretization in the media?
Look, we are going to discuss and probably always disagree on
the value and the necessity of sources and protecting sources,
but that is a fundamental cornerstone of journalism and of free
press, and Scott would not have done the work that he did
during Watergate, and the country would not have found out
about a whole host of things, from unsafe food to horrible
working conditions, to corruption in government were it not for
sources who asked for and are granted secrecy.
That being said, I believe strongly that news
organizations, especially today, are not nearly transparent
enough, and they operate at some, often, too often, at some
lofty level. I believe every major news organizations should
have an ombudsman or some public liaison with the public to
explain what, why and how where they can.
Why in such low self-esteem? It is an epidemic in many
ways, but it also comes from the screaming matches and I think
what some very thoughtful people in journalism and academic
journalism have called the argument culture that in many cases
those in the news media have helped to spawn, which I think
drives a spiral of cynicism in this country.
Mr. Kalb. Congressman, on the first issue about whether
there is or should be a written code of ethics, I do not think
there should be. I do not trust the person who would write it.
Point number two, I think you were suggesting should the
public have a right to know where the journalists got their
information, how reliable is that information? I think after a
while the public has a good feeling for the reliability of a
reporter and the news organization a reporter works for,
whether it is reliable or whether it is not.
I do not believe that journalistic organizations should be
in a position ever to be forced to disclose sources. The news
organization may choose to disclose sources after a while under
a good bit of public pressure, but they should not be forced to
do so.
The third question is for me one of the most difficult ones
to answer and one that I have tried to answer in a classroom
and before students now for 16 years and I think I have failed.
Frank touched on this a moment ago. We are in a culture
where everything is on television, where people are prepared to
tell the most sensitive secrets of their private lives on
television. I do not understand that, I truly do not, but it
happens all the time.
And I think the public may be a bit fed up with the
appearance of casualness the way some anchor people by the use
of the change of voice can go from a report on terrorism to a
weather report by just saying something like, ``Something
terrorism,'' and then, ``About the weather.'' And it does not
seem to matter that we are talking sometimes about life and
death and sometimes talking about nothing of any consequence at
all.
The news business today is driven by the need to make
money. This is a fact. The news business today is driven by a
desire to increase circulation, raise ratings. Is this new? No,
it is not, but it has never reached the point of fanatical
obsession that it has reached these days, so that it affects,
quite literally, the product that goes out on the air. And if
the news media is held in low esteem, in my judgment, for a lot
of good reasons, maybe it ought to be.
Mr. Gibbons. Mr. Armstrong, I know that you want to answer
these questions in great detail and depth. We do have to recess
shortly, so I have been advised that if you could sort of just
shorten your answer to my long question, we could recess for
these votes and be back in time.
Mr. Armstrong. It is easy to be third. First question, no,
obviously no written things, but journalism does not take place
in a vacuum. Good journalism is engaged with the government. It
is the balancing that is done is because of what the government
says is sensitive. You are in a dialogue with them, you are
getting additional sources, you are checking things, you have a
point of contact.
On the issue of sources, sources are meant to be kept
secret. We understand why sources and methods are sensitive to
the government. They, I think, understand that, generally
speaking, we have the same requirements. That can lead to
abuses. Therefore, it is responsible journalism to try and give
the reader the best idea they can of the perspective and
background of even the anonymous source.
And, thirdly, the question of why we are in low esteem,
much of what is in the media, and we have used the word,
``media,'' is not news media. A late-night talk show, that is
not a journalist any more than Jay Leno is a journalist,
although there are times when I think that the John Stewart
Show comes closer to journalism than the evening news. But
having said that--
Chairman Cox. I thank our three witnesses. We are going to
recess, and we are just now inquiring whether we can dismiss
the panel.
I know, Mr. Kalb, you need to leave by pre-arrangement at
12:30, and we are in the middle of votes on the floor. I think
better judgment, which you will appreciate, is that we can
dismiss this panel. You have been enormously gracious with your
time and more importantly with your knowledge and your
experience and your expertise. Thank you very much for helping
us tackle these difficult problems.
For my part, I will say that I hope that you will continue
to work to encourage these exercises, that the government and
the media both participate in these, because I think the health
and safety of the general population depends upon it. Thank you
again.
The committee stands in recess until the conclusion of
votes, and we will resume subject to the call of the Chair.
[Recess.]
Mr. Shays. [Presiding.] I am going to call this committee
meeting to order and to announce our second panel: Barbara
Cochran, president, Radio-Television News Director Association;
Gregory Caputo, news director, WGN-TV, Chicago, Illinois; and
Robert Long, vice president and news director, KNBC, Los
Angeles, California.
And, Ms. Cochran, I am grateful you are here and we would
like to hear your statement. And so you have the floor.
STATEMENT OF BARBARA COCHRAN, PRESIDENT, RADIO-TELEVISION NEWS
DIRECTOR ASSOCIATION
Ms. Cochran. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the
committee. My name is Barbara Cochran, and I am the president
of the Radio-Television News Director Association and
Foundation. And I guess I should add here that I was also
Marvin Kalb's producer at ``Meet the Press,'' so there is a
connection between the first panel and the second panel.
RTNDA represents 3,000 television and radio news executives
and journalists. Our mission is to promote professional
excellence and the First Amendment rights of electronic
journalists.
Our members bring the news to the American public
instantaneously. And especially in an emergency the public
relies on electronic media.
A survey for the Council for Excellence in Government
showed that television and radio were the number one and number
two sources of information in preparing for a terror attack and
in the event an attack occurs.
Our members take very seriously their obligation to serve
the public interest. Right now, television and radio stations
from Louisiana to Florida are giving life-saving news about
Hurricane Ivan. Commercials, formats, schedules, all go by the
wayside to serve the community in an emergency.
That was exactly what happened on September 11, 2001. The
networks were still broadcasting their morning news shows when
the first plane struck the World Trade Center.
From that moment on, the networks and local stations stayed
on the air for six days straight, working to the point of
exhaustion to provide the most factual, informative reporting
possible.
Dianne Doctor, the senior vice president and news director
of WCBS-TV in New York, described what went on inside the
newsroom that day.
She said,
``When the first word came over the police and fire
scanners, the assignment desk swung into action, dispatching
scores of reporters, photographers, and micro-wave transmission
trucks toward lower Manhattan.
Then came a barrage of terrifying, conflicting reports.
None of this information could be officially confirmed. Every
person of official capacity was involved in combating the fire,
evacuating the towers and securing the neighborhood.
With cell phone service interrupted, we lost the ability to
communicate with field crews and reporters. All of the local
stations lost contact with their transmitter sites. Their
broadcast antennas were located on top of the World Trade
Center.
Six engineers manning their posts lost their lives when the
north tower collapsed. Only WCBS-TV, which maintained an
equally powerful transmitter on the Empire State Building, was
able to return to air within a few seconds.
As a result, New York area television viewers without cable
or satellite television had only one major broadcast news
outlet to watch for all their vital information.''
Her description encapsulates the challenges television and
radio journalists would face in a new terror attack.
Information is scarce and confused. Official sources are busy
and hard to find. Technology fails. And yet, stations do their
best to stay on the air and provide the best information
possible.
After September 11th, television and radio news executives
asked themselves, ``How well prepared are we, if a terror
attack occurs in our community?''
To help find solutions to that question, RTNDA and our
educational arm, RTNDF, have made it a top priority to help
stations prepare to deal with the possibility of new terror
attacks.
Now, in association with the National Academies and the
Department of Homeland Security, RTNDF is producing workshops
in 10 cities to help newsrooms and public agencies prepare.
One goal of the workshop is to establish a dialogue between
news organizations and public health and safety agencies. It is
the sort of thing that Chairman Cox was talking about.
When a crisis strikes, spokesmen for public agencies should
be accessible and provide a flow of accurate information to
dispel rumors and false reports. Disseminating information
through the media is the best way to keep panic from spreading.
Each workshop participant receives a copy of a checklist
that we have developed for stations to help them evaluate and
improve their disaster plans. And I have included that
checklist in my written testimony.
These plans deal with covering an attack, but journalists
also have an obligation to keep the public informed so that
attacks can be prevented or minimized.
Citizens need to have enough information so that they can
evaluate the risks in their community and the effectiveness of
protective steps being taken by public agencies.
That kind of reporting has become much more difficult. As
you have heard already from the first panel, our members and
other journalists are very disturbed by the dramatic increase
in government secrecy since September 11th.
Information has disappeared from government agency Web
sites. And, in fact, whole agency Web sites have been taken
down.
New rules regarding sensitive security information, some of
the other things that have come up, or hiding information about
the safety of chemical plants, water supplies and other
infrastructure.
The Freedom of Information Act is being attacked on many
fronts. If journalists are going to be able to keep informing
the public, public officials, such as yourselves, must closely
scrutinize new demands for secrecy to see whether those demands
truly serve the public interest.
Thank you.
[The statement of Ms. Cochran follows:]
Prepared Statement of Barbara Cochran
Thank you--to Chairman Cox, Rep. Dunn, Rep. Turner and other
members of the House Select Committee on Homeland Security--for the
opportunity to testify about the role of the news media in informing
the public about terrorism.
My name is Barbara Cochran and I am the president of the Radio-
Television News Directors Association and its educational arm, the
Radio and Television News Directors Foundation. RTNDA is the world's
largest organization representing electronic journalists. We have more
than 3,000 members, news executives and journalists working at networks
and local stations in television, radio and the Internet. Our mission
is to promote professional excellence and the First Amendment rights of
electronic journalists.
Our members bring the news to the American public instantaneously.
Whether through the immediacy of television, which allows viewers to
witness events directly, or the ubiquity of radio, which serves
listeners even when other sources have failed, or the accessibility of
the Internet, which supplies news on demand, electronic journalism
gives the public the news they want and need when and where they want
and need it.
And the public turns to television and radio and, if they have
access, to the Internet, for news. RTNDF's most recent survey shows
that local television is the number one source of news for 49.9 percent
of Americans. In an emergency, the reliance on television and radio
becomes even more pronounced. A survey prepared for the Council for
Excellence in Government showed that television and radio are the
number one and number two sources of information in preparing for a
terror attack and if an attack occurs.
Our members take very seriously their obligation to serve the
public interest. That duty becomes most urgent when crisis or disaster
strikes the community. In recent weeks we have seen television and
radio stations playing heroic roles for the victims of Hurricane
Charley, Hurricane Frances and now Hurricane Ivan. This is nothing new.
For years, television and radio have provided life-saving information
to their communities in an emergency. Commercial considerations, format
restrictions, normal schedules all go by the wayside to serve the
community in an emergency.
That was exactly what happened on September 11, 2001. The networks
were still broadcasting their morning news shows when the first plane
struck the World Trade Center. From that moment on, the networks stayed
on the air for six days straight, calling on all staff, pooling
material, working to the point of exhaustion to bring the entire
country the most factual, informative reporting possible on an event of
heart-breaking tragedy. Local stations, too, went into 24-hour mode. In
New York and Washington and Pennsylvania, stations gave their
communities vital information about what steps were being taken for
recovery and where to go for help. Because this was a tragedy that
reached into every part of America, stations in all communities
reported on the local impact and told their viewers and listeners what
they could do to help those who were hit hardest.
In the weeks that followed, journalists felt an obligation to
answer the many questions triggered by September 11. How could this
happen? Could it happen again? What steps were being taken to prevent a
recurrence? What other tactics might terrorists use? What would a
chemical or biological or radiological attack look like and how would
it affect our community? What vulnerabilities are there in our
community? What protective measures exist for the water supply, the
port, the refinery? How well prepared are our public safety and public
health agencies?
All these questions became subjects for stories, and the reporting
continues to this day.
One obstacle to such reporting, an obstacle that deeply concerns
RTNDA and other journalism groups, is the dramatic increase in secrecy
of government records. Information has disappeared from government
agency web sites. Rules for new categories of information, such as
critical infrastructure information and sensitive security information,
are placing important data out of public view. The Freedom of
Information Act is being attacked on many fronts. If journalists are
going to be able to keep informing the public, public officials must
closely scrutinize new demands for secrecy to see whether they are
truly serving the public interest.
After September 11, there was another line of questions television
and radio news executives were asking themselves: how well prepared are
we, if a terror attack occurs in our community? Three years later, a
lot of planning has been done, but we need to do still more to prepare.
In 2002, the Federal Communications Commission convened the Media
Security and Reliability Council, an industry group whose mission was
to examine how the media infrastructure of our nation can best be
protected and restored in the event of new terror attacks. A survey
conducted for the Council showed that 71 percent of cable operations,
47 percent of television operations and only 15 percent of radio
operations said they have a disaster recovery plan. Fifty-eight percent
of cable, 36 percent of television and 11.5 percent of radio operations
said they had updated their plans after 9/11. And when asked whether
they had rehearsed their plans, 58 percent of cable but only 17 percent
of television and 7 percent of radio operations said they had
rehearsed.
As FCC chairman Michael Powell said, ``If you haven't rehearsed
your plan, you don't have a plan.''
As electronic journalists, we need to plan and prepare on three
levels. First, as journalists, we owe it to our communities to help
prepare them in advance by reporting honestly and independently on
risks and disseminating information about what citizens can do to
safeguard themselves.
Second, because we work in electronic media, we need to be ready to
report factually and comprehensively immediately after a terrorism
attack occurs. The public will depend on radio, television and online
news to provide information instantaneously. Information communicated
quickly can keep a crisis from turning into a catastrophe.
And, third, because television and radio stations are some of the
highest-profile institutions in any community, they may be the targets
of a terror attack. So we need to make sure our facilities are as
secure as possible and to be prepared to get a communications system up
and running after a devastating blow.
For the past three years, RTNDA and our educational arm, RTNDF,
have made it a top priority to help stations prepare to deal with the
possibility of new terror attacks. To help journalists understand the
nature of these new threats, RTNDF has conducted several training
sessions and published the ``Journalists' Guide to Covering
Bioterrorism,'' with support from the Carnegie Corporation.
Now, in association with the National Academies, a group of private
science, engineering, medical and research institutes, and the
Department of Homeland Security, RTNDF is producing 10 workshops in 10
cities to help newsrooms and public agencies prepare if disaster
strikes.
One goal of the workshops is to establish a dialogue between news
organizations and public health and safety agencies so that community
emergency plans do not overlook the crucial role of the media in
responding to a disaster. When a crisis strikes, spokesmen for public
agencies should be accessible and provide a regular flow of accurate
information to dispel rumor and false reports. The first instinct of
health, safety and law enforcement officials may be to attend to the
crisis and ignore the demands of news media. But disseminating
information through the media could be the best way to keep panic from
spreading.
Using a hypothetical scenario, workshop participants from the news
media and health and safety agencies will find out what works and what
doesn't as they respond to the simulated terror incident. Later in the
day scientists will share information about the new kinds of weapons in
the terror arsenal--biological, chemical, radiological and nuclear.
Finally, news participants will leave with a checklist to help them
evaluate and improve their disaster plans. Here are some of those
suggestions:
Put your plan in writing. Store it in the computer system
and keep it in hard copy, both at the station and off-site. Every
department head should have a copy at work and at home.
Learn as you plan. Meet with local experts who can help
you imagine what could happen in your area. Get together with emergency
managers, public health officials and others in your area to learn more
about their plans for dealing with emergencies.
Anticipate disruptions. How will you stay on the air if
the transmitter is affected? Is there an alternate site you can
broadcast from? What will you do for emergency power? Will that source
power your computers, or should you have a backup plan for scripts?
Organize contact information. Make sure your assignment
desk has up-to-date contact information for your entire staff, both on
computer and in hard-copy, on- and off-site. Ditto for outside
contacts, from your station group to local emergency responders,
including after-hours numbers.
Review your routines. When and where do you refuel your
news vehicles? When are batteries put on charge? Make it a station wide
habit to refuel and check gear at the end of each day. Make sure your
staff knows how to switch incoming phone calls and two-way audio to air
if necessary.
Stock up. During a disaster, employees are likely to spend
long hours at the station. Do you have cots and blankets? Food and
water? Foul weather gear, flashlights and batteries? What about first-
aid kits? Cash? Decide who will check the inventory and how frequently.
Spell out the plan. Detail how station personnel will be
notified and what is expected of them. All of them, not just those in
the newsroom. Use an all-page system to get in touch with those on
pagers. Give everyone a special phone number to call in case they can?t
be paged, or create a phone tree to get the word out. Give everyone an
assignment and a place to report in the event of a disaster. Create on-
call schedules to cover your newsroom at all times.
Prepare personnel. Assign reporters according to expertise
and coverage areas, like medical, consumer and public safety. Include
sales and traffic department employees in your planning-they can answer
phones, plan meals and so on.
Practice the plan. Review the plan every six months or so,
and update it as needed. Discuss it at meetings, to be sure it's fresh
in people's minds and that new staffers are aware of what it entails.
Then, practice it on a regular, unannounced basis to find out what
works and what needs work.
Look beyond the plan. Your staff may see a lot of death
and destruction. Plan to bring in counselors, or offer outside
counseling. Encourage people to talk about what they've been through.
Think about how the newsroom will get back to normal when it's all
over.
As you will hear from the news directors on this panel, many
stations, especially those in cities that have been the subject of
terrorism warnings, are making these kinds of plans. Let me share with
you a note I received from Dianne Doctor, senior vice president and
news director at WCBS-TV in New York City.
She wrote: ``On September 11th, 2001, WCBS TV was the only major
television station with a back-up transmitter high atop the Empire
State Building in New York City. Early that morning, no one here
imagined how fortunate we were--and how millions of viewers would be
dependent on our station for a lifeline.
That morning, it was business as usual at the local television
stations in New York City. Some of us were busy covering the day's big
story: a primary election. Crews and reporters were deployed at various
voting precincts throughout the city.
The first word of the attack blared through police and fire
department radio scanners at assignment desks. At 8:46 a.m., a plane
had struck the North Tower of the World Trade Center. The picture,
first shown on the network of fixed traffic cameras, showed black smoke
billowing from a hole in the side of the building. There were few
flames, and the initial report was this was a single small plane.
Television station assignment desks swung into action, dispatching
scores of reporters, photographers, and microwave transmission trucks,
towards lower Manhattan. Newsgathering helicopters launched from the
New Jersey airports and landing pads where they'd set down after their
early morning duties. It was a MAJOR story--but in those first few
minutes, none would imagine the horror that was to follow.
When the second plane struck the South Tower at 9:03 a.m., there
came a barrage of terrifying, conflicting reports into the newsroom.
The Pentagon was under attack. The White House had been struck. There
were more planes headed into New York City. They would be shot down.
None of this information could be officially confirmed. Cell phone
service in the city was spotty, or nonexistent. Every person of
official capacity was involved in combating the fire, evacuating the
towers (and ultimately much of Lower Manhattan), securing the
neighborhood. There were panicked phone calls to newsrooms from people
trapped inside the towers. Was it better to break the windows--they
asked--as their offices filled with smoke? We struggled to find the
correct answers for them and coherent facts for our viewers.
Mostly, newscasters reported what was on the screen in front of us
and the rest of the world; two giant towers were burning--showering the
streets with fiery debris.
At 9:50 a.m., when the South Tower collapsed, the wall of dust and
debris formed a huge cloud that blocked our view of the unfolding
chaos. But when the North Tower went down shortly afterwards, there was
no confusion about what had happened.
With cell phone service interrupted, we lost the ability to
communicate with field crews and reporters. They were all somewhere in
the area of the giant black cloud. All of the local stations lost
contact with their transmitter sites--their broadcast antennas were
located on top of the North Tower. Six engineers manning their posts
lost their lives, including Isaias Rivera and Bob Pattison from WCBS-
TV. [Gerard ``Rod'' Coppola of WNET-TV, Donald J. DiFranco of WABC-TV,
Steven Jacobson of WPIX-TV, and William V. Steckman, Sr. of WNBC-TV
were the other engineers who died that day]
The over-the-air signals of all New York City's major broadcasters
were gone. Only WCBS-TV, which maintained an equally powerful
transmitter on the Empire State Building, was able to return to air
within a few seconds. As a result tri-state television viewers without
cable or satellite television had only one major broadcast news outlet
to watch for all their vital information.
As the crisis continued, Manhattan was `locked down' by police. We
could not move our crews in or out of the city. Moving around within
the city was slow. Large parts of lower Manhattan were off limits.
Despite all these obstacles, we prevailed. In the hours and days
that followed it was apparent that during the World Trade Center
attacks, all of the local news media provided a vital public service.
We were a calming voice in a nervous city, a lifeline, a resource for
frantic relatives, rescuers and the rest of the viewing public.
We provided phone numbers for counseling agencies, a schedule of
prayer services, a list of places where blood could be donated.
We broadcast Mayor Giuliani and Governor Pataki's frequent press
conferences updating the progress of the search--advising us of other
terror alerts.
Our web pages became a massive community bulletin board filled with
pictures of the missing.
Gradually, we recorded New York's return to the `new normal.'
We learned much from those first few hours after the world's worst
terror attack. Our fragile communications system which relies primarily
on cell phones is extremely vulnerable. Official information is scant.
Rumors are rampant. Power and other vital systems are often affected.
Our ability to broadcast may be impaired by unforeseen circumstances.
Our crews and reporters, who instinctively rush towards a breaking news
event, may be unknowingly putting themselves at risk. The anthrax
attacks that followed 9/11 brought this point home again.
Three years later, we have worked to put contingency plans in place
that reflect some of these lessons. WCBS has a back-up broadcast
antenna that would continue the station's over-the-air signal in the
event that the Empire State Building transmitter was not functional. At
our station, we have a fully tested back-up generator-based power
system. We maintain broadcast bureaus in Westchester and New Jersey
that could become a base for many employees if our New York City
newsroom became inaccessible. We have a two-way communication system
that could be used if cell phones are inoperable. There is a direct
fiber communication link between City Hall and the city's television
stations. We have reinforced our relationship with our radio partners,
to pool our resources if necessary. Some of these changes also come as
a result of the August 2003 blackout, which forced us to rely on back-
up power systems for sustaining coverage. We have also worked with our
employees to review emergency procedures, and continue to revise and
update these plans.
We have taken the lessons of 9/11 seriously. While no one can
predict when the next terrorist incident will occur, there is no doubt
that those of us who managed newsrooms during those months are better
prepared to cope with the next emergency.''
The planning Dianne Doctor describes is beneficial to news
organizations in dealing with any kind of emergency-weather, earthquake
or power outage. But since September 11, we have all had to think about
preparing for a new kind of disaster. With any luck, these plans will
never need to be used in a real crisis. But since that terrible tragedy
three years ago, we know no one can afford to risk going without one.
Mr. Shays. Thank you very much.
Mr. Caputo?
STATEMENT OF GREGORY CAPUTO, NEWS DIRECTOR, WGN-TV, CHICAGO, IL
Mr. Caputo. I thank you very much for inviting me to
testify. My name is Greg Caputo. I am the news director at WGN
Television in Chicago.
WGN has been on the air in Chicago for 56 years. The
station has a rich history and tradition of providing live
coverage of events ranging from politics to disasters, breaking
news and weather stories, civic ceremonies and sports.
In fact, the first regularly scheduled program on WGN, back
on April 6th, 1948, was a 30-minute newscast.
WGN now produces six hours of local news each weekday and
one hour a day on the weekends.
We are on the air for four hours in the morning, one hour
at midday and a final hour at 9 p.m.
In addition to our local signal in the Chicago TV market,
our news at noon and at 9 are carried on the WGN Superstation,
which is on cable systems throughout the country. The
Superstation is currently available in 63.7 million households.
These 32 hours of news each week demonstrate both a
commitment and a responsibility to our viewers. We know they
rely on us each day for the news. And we know they have a right
to expect us to be there at any time with the latest warnings
and information if an emergency is imminent.
We are owned by the Tribune Company which in Chicago also
owns newspapers, a local 24-hour cable news service, a radio
station and Internet sites. These business siblings allow us to
have a robust contingency plan to stay on the air in the event
of trouble.
As you know, our CEO, Dennis FitzSimons, chaired the Media
Security and Reliability Council which was formed right after
9/11 to begin the examination of some of the issues now being
addressed in this committee.
The conclusions and recommendations of the MSRC indicate
that more work needs to be done to ensure that all Americans
are served during a time of crisis and disaster.
The RTNDA has taken steps to begin this work, sponsoring
seminars around the country to discuss disaster planning in
concrete terms, applicable to the newsroom environment.
These seminars are valuable learning tools, as well as
reminders of what we and the local TV newsrooms need to do.
Our responsibility is two-fold. We must stay on the air.
And we must have the latest, most accurate information for our
viewers.
To handle the first responsibility, our station has a
written plan outlining the steps we will take in the event of a
disruption. We have backup power systems, backup transmitters,
backup communications, backup broadcast facilities. And in some
cases, our backups also have backups.
I mentioned our 24-hour cable service a minute ago. That is
one of our backups. And their facility is located in a western
suburb of Chicago.
Our station is on the north side of the city. The cable
station has all the resources needed to allow us to broadcast
from there upon nearly a moment's notice.
We also have a more limited backup facility located in the
Chicago Tribune building in downtown Chicago. We have micro-
wave receivers located both in downtown Chicago and in the
suburbs. All of these sites are capable of taking in our micro-
wave signals and turning them around to whichever transmitter
or broadcast facility we need to use.
Our satellite truck can be placed anywhere out of harm's
way to provide coverage. And we have our own helicopter on call
24 hours a day, equipped with transmitters and broadcasting
equipment.
None of this will matter, however, unless we also succeed
at the second responsibility I mentioned, that we have the most
accurate and up-to the-date information and up-to-date
information for our viewers. In times of crisis, getting
critical and life-saving information to viewers is the most
important job we have.
For example, the city of Chicago has built a sophisticated
communications center known as the 9/11 Center. It has become
the hub of information during any major disaster coverage. News
media in Chicago know that when a disaster strikes, the main
sources of information and warnings will come from there.
The stations have worked with the city to have the ability
to provide live coverage from there with the minimal amount of
warning. This allows city and state officials with important
information nearly instant access to the airways.
Live coverage from the 9/11 Center is one way of making
sure we serve our viewers.
Utilizing technology for automated warnings is another.
Participating in the Amber Alert system is a third.
Keeping a list of experts and analysts to explain complex
and frightening events is yet another. We have such lists, and
we keep on retainer military and terrorism experts who
regularly appear on our newscasts.
In addition to explaining a particular event, these experts
also serve another less obvious purpose.
Their very existence and appearances on our broadcasts
reminds viewers that terrorism and its consequences are real
and can hit home.
This is important, because one of the findings of the MSRC
was that human beings, when faced with an awful situation
regarding terrorism or disaster will attempt to disbelieve it
and ignore warnings associated with it. This is human nature.
The MSRC recommendation is that the media take steps to
prepare people, letting them know what might happen and what
they can do about it. The appearances of these experts for
discussion and analysis during non-emergency times address what
they need. These discussions remind viewers what might happen.
Stations also have a natural competitive issue with each
other and appear to fail to cooperate with each other at times.
But one of the key findings of the MSRC is that the stations
have in place such plans.
To quote a memo from FitzSimons to FCC Chairman Powell,
``There is a striking symmetry to the core findings. Simply
put, local market planning, coordination and sharing are the
keys. To be successful, MSRC needs to engender systematic local
market voluntary cooperation.''
And based on some experiences that I have had in the past,
that can happen.
Thank you.
[The statement of Mr. Caputo follows:]
Prepared Statement of Greg Caputo
WGN Television has been on the air in Chicago for 56 years. The
station has a rich history and tradition providing live coverage of
events ranging from politics, to disasters, breaking news and weather
stories, civic ceremonies, and sports. In fact, the first regularly
scheduled program on WGN on April 6, 1948 was a 30-minute newscast.
WGN now produces 6 hours of news each week day and one hour a day
on the weekends. We're on the air four hours in the morning, one hour
at noon, and our final hour is at 9PM. In addition to our local signal
in the Chicago TV Market (3,417,000 viewers,) our news at noon and at 9
are carried on the WGN Superstation, which is on cable systems
throughout the country. The superstation is currently in 63.7-million
households.
These 32 hours of news each week demonstrate both a commitment and
a responsibility to our viewers. We know they rely on us each day for
the news. And we know they have a right to expect us to be there at any
time with the latest warnings and information if an emergency is
imminent.
We are owned by the Tribune Company which, in Chicago, also owns
newspapers, a local 24-hour cable news service, a radio station, and
internet sites. These business siblings allow us to have a robust
contingency plan to stay on the air in event of trouble.
As you know, Tribune CEO Dennis Fitzsimmons chaired the Media
Security and Reliability Council formed after 9-11 to begin the
examination of the issues now being addressed by this committee. The
conclusions and recommendations of the MSRC indicate that more work
needs to be done to insure that all Americans are served during a time
of crisis or disaster. The RTNDA has taken steps to begin this work,
sponsoring seminars around the country to discuss disaster planning in
concrete terms applicable to the newsroom environment. These seminars
are valuable learning tools as well as reminders of what we in the TV
Newsrooms need to do.
Our responsibility is two-fold: we must stay on the air and we must
have the latest, most accurate information for our viewers.
To handle the first responsibility, our station has a written plan
outlining the steps we'll take in the event of a disruption. We have
back-up power systems, back-up transmitters, back-up communications,
and back-up broadcast facilities. In most cases we also have back-ups
to the back-ups.
I mentioned our 24-hour cable service. That's one of our back-ups.
Their facility is located in a western suburb of Chicago. Our station
is on the North Side of the city. The cable station has all the
resources needed to allow us to broadcast from there upon nearly a
moment's notice. We also have a more limited back-up broadcasting
facility located inside the Chicago Tribune building in downtown
Chicago.
We have microwave receivers located both in downtown Chicago and in
the suburbs. All these sites are capable of taking in our microwave
signals and turning them around to whichever broadcast facility or
transmitter we need to use. Our satellite truck is dual-path and can be
placed anywhere out of harms way to provide coverage. And we have our
own helicopter on call 24-hours a day equipped with cameras and
transmitting equipment.
None of this will matter, however, unless we also succeed at the
second responsibility I mentioned earlier, that we have the most
accurate and up to date information for our viewers.
In times of crisis, getting critical and life-saving information to
viewers is the most important job we have.
For example, the City of Chicago has built a sophisticated
communications center known as the ``9-1-1 Center.'' It has become the
hub of information during any major disaster coverage. The news media
in Chicago know that when a disaster strikes, the main sources of
information and warnings will come from there. The Stations have worked
with the city to have the ability of providing live coverage from the
``9-1-1 Center'' with a minimal amount of warning. This allows city and
state officials with important information nearly instant access to the
airwaves.
Live coverage from the ``9-1-1 Center'' is one way of making sure
we serve our viewers. Utilizing technologies for automated warnings is
another. Participating in the Amber Alert system is a third. And
keeping a list of experts and analysts to explain complex and
frightening events is yet another. We have such lists. And we keep on
retainer military and terrorism experts who regularly appear on our
newscasts.
In addition to explaining a particular event, these experts also
serve another, less obvious purpose. Their very existence and
appearances on our broadcasts reminds viewers that terrorism and its
consequences are real and can hit home. This is important because one
of the findings of the MSRC was that human beings, when faced with an
awful situation regarding terrorism or disaster will attempt to dismiss
or disbelieve it and ignore the warnings associated with it. This is
human nature. The MSRC recommendation is that the media take steps to
prepare people, letting them know what might happen and what they can
do about it. The appearances of these experts for discussion and
analysis during non-emergency times certainly address that need. These
discussions remind viewers what might happen.
Another plan to handle a disaster, which I have yet to mention, is
for stations to help out each other, to set aside their natural
competitive instincts in favor of making sure the public gets all the
information possible. In fact, this is one of the key findings and
recommendations of the MSRC. To quote a part of a memo from Fitzsimmons
to FCC chairman Powell: ``There is a striking symmetry to the core
findings. . .simply put, local market planning, coordination and
sharing are the keys. To be successful, MSRC needs to engender
systematic local market voluntary cooperation.''
I don't have to tell you how difficult this will be. But I can tell
you about a situation which happened to me a few years ago when I
worked at our company's station in Boston. A construction crane on a
project next to our property toppled over and crashed into our
building. Water lines and gas lines burst. The ceiling in much of our
building came down. Water, dirt, broken beams, and the smell of gas
were everywhere. We had to evacuate the building. The Fire Department
ordered everything inside shut down. It was too dangerous. We were
knocked off the air.
But then something remarkable happened. Every television station in
Boston called to offer us help. Every one of them. Within a couple of
hours we were back on the air because of a satellite and microwave link
from our sister station in New York through New England Cable News,
which we don't own, to our transmitter. By the middle of that day we
were moving our news people to WCVB-TV which had workspace, and a spare
studio and control room for us to broadcast our news. That evening,
while our building was dark and deserted, our newscast was on the air.
We didn't miss a beat. The cooperation of the stations in Boston during
this incident gives me hope that when something really important is on
the line, when lives are at stake, that we in the media will be able to
join together for the common good of all.
Mr. Shays. Thank you very much.
Mr. Long, welcome. We have already announced your presence.
STATEMENT OF ROBERT LONG, VICE PRESIDENT AND NEWS DIRECTOR,
KNBC, LOS ANGELES, CA
Mr. Long. Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Turner, members of
the committee, it is a privilege to appear before this
committee to testify about the role of the news media informing
the public about dangers to safety and security.
On a national level, NBC Universal has devoted substantial
resources in support of FCC Chairman Michael Powell's
initiatives to strengthen homeland security through the Media
Security and Reliability Council.
NBC Universal personnel continue to assist MSRC efforts,
which already have delivered a series of best practices for
ensuring the delivery of emergency information to the public,
physical security and restoration of media facilities.
NBC has also taken affirmative steps to increase Americans'
understanding of public safety issues.
For example, just last week, NBC News began a series of
national reports called ``12 Ways to Make America Safer,''
dealing with topics such as how to make a family disaster plan
and how to provide better security for railroad traveling.
But I am here to talk only about local television news
coverage. For us, the challenge is to find ways to make what
happens in the world relevant to more parochial eyes. I believe
that three things are essential to that mission: resources,
poise, credibility.
First, resources: We must do a lot of news and have the
manpower to cover big stories.
When I was news director here in Washington, WRC, Channel
4, we expanded news to 40 hours a week, more than any broadcast
entity in the city of Washington.
When the Pentagon was struck, news teams from our sister
stations in Chicago and Philadelphia came to our aid.
More recently, our Miami station was able to draw on teams
from all 13 other NBC-owned stations to deal with the
devastation of Hurricanes Charley and Frances.
KNBC in Burbank began backing up programming feeds for
Telemundo. Their network is centered in Hialeah, just outside
of Miami. Should their operations fail, Los Angeles would take
over and keep that network on the air.
This morning, our managing editor from Los Angeles, Keith
Esparros, arrived in Birmingham to help our sister station's
coverage of Hurricane Ivan.
Second, poise: Poise is about how we deliver the news. Our
coverage must be calm, timely, authoritative. I believe
strongly that we must report only what we can see until
reliable information begins flowing.
We have only to look at the anthrax crisis and Beltway
sniper killings during my tenure here to see the potential to
cloud rather than clarify.
Poise is also about making good journalistic choices. When
WRC discovered the license number of the car Muhammad and Malvo
were thought to be driving, the decision to broadcast that
information led to a tip from a citizen and an arrest within
hours. This information was being withheld by the police.
To help with tough calls like that, we need to have a hot
list of authorities. Every one of our markets has fine
universities and laboratories and other institutions to draw on
to create a crisis map.
Third, credibility: To remain the most trusted source of
information in the country, local television news must get
smarter and stay smart.
Traditional wisdom once had it that TV news could not
report on complex social, economic and political issues; that
it should focus instead on only what ``Joe Lunchbucket'' could
touch and see. Keep it simple. Keep it relevant.
This was always a patronizing and fundamentally wrongheaded
view of what journalism is about and what people expect from
television news.
But it took September 11th to prove to some that the
complex forces at work in the world can have a profound effect
at home.
``Simple'' left our vocabulary that day, and we re-learned
what art and science have been telling us all along: Nothing is
irrelevant.
Thank you again for the opportunity to testify.
[The statement of Mr. Long follows:]
Prepared Statement of Robert Long
Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Turner and Members of the Committee,
my name is Robert Long, and I am Vice President and News Director of
KNBC, the owned and operated NBC station in Los Angeles. It is a
privilege to appear before this Committee to testify about the role of
the news media in informing the public about dangers to our safety and
security in these difficult times.
NBC Universal, Inc., broadly supports national and local efforts to
increase the safety of all Americans. These efforts are not because of
a governmental mandate or federal rule. As a major broadcaster, these
efforts are simply part of what our stations, like other broadcasters,
do, both on a national level and as part of serving our communities.
On a national level, NBC Universal has devoted substantial
resources in support of FCC Chairman Michael Powell's initiatives to
strengthen homeland security through the Media Security and Reliability
Council. NBC Universal personnel continue to assist MSRC efforts, which
already have delivered a series of best practices recommendations for
ensuring the delivery of emergency information to the public and the
physical security and restoration of media facilities.
NBC, the nation's leading television news service, also has taken
affirmative steps to increase Americans' awareness of public safety.
The national news coverage provided by the networks of NBC, including
NBC, Hispanic network Telemundo, MSNBC and CNBC, ensure that all of our
viewers are aware of the broader security issues that face our country.
As part of this effort, NBC also is investing substantial resources
into the possibilities of new digital programming services, including
new and innovative multicast informational programming, that will
combine local and top national coverage. Moreover, NBC believes that
such national coverage must go beyond the news items of the day. For
example, just last week, NBC News began a series of national reports
called ``12 Ways to Make America Safer'', dealing with topics as
general as how to make a family disaster plan and how to provide better
security for railroad traffic. This sort of national coverage directly
expands the public's knowledge of what to watch for and what to do in
cases involving potential emergencies.
Locally, NBC Universal's 29 English-language and Spanish-language
stations have a different challenge. For local news, the challenge is
to find ways to make what happens in the world relevant to a more
parochial audience. This is a subtle and difficult kind of journalism,
but a necessary complement to activities like the ``preparedness fair''
that our Los Angeles stations are putting together with the help of our
local universities and government agencies. It involves how we choose
our stories and who we select to speak with authority about the events
of the day. It means putting the world into local context, because it
is the intelligent thing to do and because there is no neighborhood
beyond the reach of the malevolent forces at work against us.
Journalists have always believed that a well-informed public is the
best defense of liberty, and this axiom has never been more true than
it is today.
Dealing with results of terror is easier. Television newsrooms know
a lot about disaster, and the same rules of journalism apply whether
dealing with an earthquake or an enemy attack. Los Angeles, for
example, has in the lifetime of many of its citizens experienced two
riots, two major earthquakes, and three of the most ferocious
firestorms in history. The city has endured lurid crimes, political
assassinations, gang wars and acts of violence that terrorized whole
communities.
The mission of KNBC in extreme situations is threefold:
1. Stay on the air (or quickly get back on the air).
2. Show what is happening.
3. Talk only about we can see until there is reliable
information to pass along.
KNBC regularly reviews the station's area disaster plan to allow
for new ideas and new technologies. The plan deals with both the
mechanics and philosophy of news broadcasting. The mechanics are about
our first mission--staying on the air or quickly getting back on the
air. They embrace four scenarios.
1. The studio, transmitter and antenna are operational.
2. The studio, transmitter and antenna are not operational.
3. The studio is operational but cannot transmit through the
antenna.
4. The studio is not operational but transmission is possible
through the antenna.
We believe we have thought through these scenarios and have
solutions for them that involve, or will eventually incorporate, the
use of a satellite production truck, direct transmission to cable head-
ends, a ``studio-in-a-box'' trailer parked away from our studios, and
partnerships with other broadcasters who may be less affected by
whatever calamity comes our way.
More important than the mechanics of staying on the air is the
philosophy that illuminates our coverage. At KNBC, this philosophy
begins with strict adherence to ``reporting only what you can see.''.
This is particularly important because official statements in the early
stages of a crisis may be inaccurate and misleading, and speculation by
a reporter, always a bad idea, can be life threatening in a crisis.
Once credible information does begin flowing, the focus shifts to
context. At KNBC we have on-call experts in the following areas:
1. General science
2. Environmental science
3. Terrorism
4. Police Tactics
5. Military Tactics
6. Fire fighting
7. Earthquakes
8. Los Angeles infrastructure
When trouble comes, the appropriate expert or combination of
experts reports immediately to the news director--whether he is at his
normal place of business or in a field location. The job of the experts
is to monitor incoming reports for accuracy and credibility, and to
advise the news director on anything that falls within their purview.
They stay at the news director's side throughout the crisis with the
hoped for result being that our reporting will be more accurate, less
frightening, and therefore more useful.
In quiet times, these experts can help us update reports to be used
in the event of a disaster, on everything from what is a ``dirty bomb''
to how to tell if water is safe to drink. We have assigned an executive
producer the collateral responsibility of using our experts to help
prepare the expository reports to be held for an emergency, and to
oversee implementation of our disaster plan.
Quiet times give us an opportunity to better inform our viewers
about what many consider to be the inevitability of terrorism directly
affecting their lives. KNBC recently conducted a round table with the
area's top law enforcement officials to discuss the presence of Al-
Qa`ida in Southern California. We have discovered gaps in security and
given our viewers and web users opportunities to express their fears
and concerns. The reporting we do now is at least as important as the
reporting we will do in the event of a catastrophe.
I was news director at WRC here in Washington on September 11,
2001, but I was in Paris when the Pentagon was hit. Minutes before, New
York's Twin Towers had been attacked, five blocks from where my son was
beginning his third day in high school. I was useless to my television
station in Washington and to my son in New York, except to the degree
that I had emphasized to them continuity of leadership, clarity of
purpose, and individual initiative and responsibility. My son did not
panic and made his way up the West Side Highway to safety, covered in
ash. The assistant news director in Washington took command and guided
coverage that was calm and complete.
In particular in Washington, as at other NBC Stations around the
country, the coverage was both national and intensely local. A station
like WRC-TV, which routinely does 40 hours a week of local news, is
successful precisely because it diligently focuses on its community.
Again, this is not because of a government mandate; it is because this
is what our stations do, and, thanks to our people and the expansive
resources and support of NBC Universal, do well.
What we relearned that day was that trouble never comes when or how
we think it will; nature and our enemies are indifferent to our plans.
We were reminded that it is not so much about having systems in place
as it is about having a mental process in place; staying focused on our
mission as information gatherers, and perfecting our craft of
dispensing that information with calm and reasoned authority. It was
also a lesson in looking after our own. Nannette Wilson, who was in
charge until I could make my way back from France, and is now news
director at NBC's WNCN in Raleigh, saw how living through and reporting
the events of September 11 and its aftermath took a toll on our
journalists. She made sure that counseling was available to them and
was sensitive to their need to share in editorial meetings and be kept
informed of evolving plans for coverage. Nannette's wise actions had a
positive effect on our staff's ability to maintain its professional
equanimity.
A year later, we were dealing with the Beltway Sniper attacks that
killed ten and again brought fear to Washington. The media had good
days and bad days in its relations with the agencies that investigated
those crimes. In the end, a decision by WRC to broadcast the license
plate number of the suspected sniper car--information that had not been
made available by authorities--led to the capture of the killers at a
highway rest stop, and proved again the importance of a free and local
press. It also was a vivid illustration as to how the support and
extensive resources available to an NBC-Universal owned station improve
local television: more resources result in not just better day to day
coverage of local events, but also enhanced coverage of breaking news
that is critical to the welfare of the entire community.
TV wisdom once had it that local news had to avoid complex social,
economic and political issues, and focus solely on what viewers could
see and touch in their own neighborhood. ``Keep it simple and
relevant'' were the watchwords. If we gave the public anything esoteric
or hard to swallow, we would drive them away. This was always a
patronizing and fundamentally wrong-headed view of what people want
from local television news. But it took September 11 to prove to some
that the complex forces at work on foreign soil can have a profound
effect at home. ``Simple'' left our vocabulary that day and we
relearned what art and science had been telling us all along: nothing
is irrelevant.
Mr. Shays. Thank you very much. I thank all three of our
panelists.
And my intention is to basically start with Ms. Lowey, and
we will have 8 minutes for each. And then Mr. Lucas. And then
you, Mr. Turner. And then Mr. Dicks.
And then I will ask some questions as well. And if somebody
wants to come back for a second round, we could.
Ms. Lowey, you have the floor.
Mrs. Lowey. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I want to join you
in thanking our distinguished panel. As we saw from reports on
broadcast ratings from the previous political conventions, 24-
hour cable stations are providing increasing numbers of
Americans with news on current events.
In many cases, perceived or real biases in the coverage of
many of these networks, such as Fox News, have attracted
millions of ideologically like-minded viewers to their
broadcasts.
Most of the testimony in the previous panel and this panel
referred to the responsibility that news organizations have to
the public. But let us face it: Not all anchors are impartial,
and not all experts are without political affiliation,
especially in light of the highly politicized atmosphere in
which we find ourselves now, a nation at war, approaching
elections, preparing for and defending against another
terrorist attack.
My first question is: How can we make sure in the
responsibilities do we have, that there is still a line between
news and spin?
Perhaps I will just lay out all three, because they are
really interrelated.
Research has shown that people are tuning into news
coverage that reflects their political ideologies, that
different segments of the American population no longer read or
hear the same news.
How can you, as responsible people in the news industry,
ensure that your coverage reflects the complexities of the
issues before us, rather than defaulting to one bias or
another?
Lastly, I have to admit, I was looking at the recent Pew
Research study, and I guess I am among the 5 percent that gets
most of my news from ``The NewsHour,'' a little bit of CNN
backing that up, and then some kind of network news in between,
if I have some time.
I saw the most remarkable program a couple of months ago on
``The NewsHour.'' It is ``Mea Culpa.'' I do not know if any of
you heard about it and saw it, but the people who were
participating were really questioning each other. They almost
all, to the person, acknowledged that there was a bandwagon in
support of giving the president the authority to go to war.
I think The Washington Post has since done many stories
about that. Anything criticizing the administration, according
to the responsible reporters and representatives of our media,
on the program, were documented to be on the back pages.
And we have seen a lot of analysis now, a couple of years
later. And it is very distressing.
I guess it is heartening that there has been some self-
examination and criticism of the media by themselves.
But if you can answer the other two questions, perhaps
comment, and then on this: How does this happen? Could it
happen again? And what could we do about it?
Perhaps you can begin.
Ms. Cochran. This subject did come up in the previous
panel, and I was interested in Frank Sesno's phrase. I think he
called it the politicization of the audience, of the news
consumers.
And, you know, we are all dealing with that, those who are
doing the more traditional, ``Straight ahead, just the
reporting, thank you.''
You know, I think we are blessed in this country that we
have a wealth of sources of information and news. And also,
opinion, something that has always been a staple of print
journalism, is now becoming more a part of electronic
journalism as well. You have talk shows. You have people who
appear on the air who come from politics or come from an
ideological perspective, and so on.
But I think it is important to note in the same Pew study
that you refer to: What is still the most watched and the most
trusted source of news and information in this country? And
electronic journalism, local television stations in particular,
are the number one source of news for--in our own surveys--49.9
percent of the public.
And likewise, local television stations rank as the most
trusted among the public. And they have managed to hold on to
their credibility.
And I would submit to you that it is because they provide
news that is relevant, that is absent spin and that is the kind
of thing that ordinary citizens really rely on. And they come
to have a relationship with their local stations and to depend
upon them.
So I think the partisan nature that you have noted is not
necessarily true in all parts of the news media.
And you have also noted the tendency of journalists to be
self-critical, and that is certainly true.
I mean, we are critical of everyone else. And we also turn
a critical eye, sometimes on our competitors, but also
sometimes on ourselves.
There are journalism reviews that thrive. There are
discussion programs that thrive and so on. And I think this is
very health.
These kinds of topics are the kinds of things that we
discuss at our annual convention every year, that journalists
love to debate with each other. And they are debated within the
newsroom.
Almost any decision that is made of a really difficult
nature is one that is going to be discussed and argued about.
And that is what is very healthy about a newsroom
atmosphere. And it is also something that makes it fun to be in
a newsroom.
And so I guess I would say that I think one of the things
that we should do as an industry is to make it clearer to the
public that those kinds of debates do go on.
We need to let the public know that we do have standards
and guidelines that we observe.
And we need to probably share with the public more than we
do the kinds of questions that we ask ourselves and take the
opportunity when we think that something has been unbalanced in
our past coverage to go back and to correct the record and to
say, you know, ``Here is where we think we went wrong, and here
is what we think is the right take on these issues now.''
Mr. Caputo. I have a great deal of faith in the public. I
believe that they see and hear a lot more than perhaps they are
given credit for.
You ask, ``How can we make sure that we present the
difference between fact and spin?'' I think that is what you
said.
I think the public is pretty perceptive. Our responsibility
is to make sure that we can point that out with the analysis
and the commentary that we do with it by presenting the
different sides and different points of view, which in local
TV, I think we do.
We are in local TV, and so we do daily newscasts. Somebody
on one of the panels this morning talked about the 24-hour-a-
day news sites. We have had that in local TV all along.
We are constantly available to our viewers. And we all have
plans to take care of them in an instant if something comes up
that our local viewers need to be informed of.
The political ideology that you speak of in various
networks and whatnot, I do not think, again, that is anything
terribly new. It has been in the print press forever. It is
part of the rich tradition of journalism in this country.
And again, I have trust in the public. They can see that
for what it is, and they may watch it. But they may also learn
things from that, and they may learn things from other areas of
other kinds of programs that are on.
The local newscasts that we produce, we balance the various
points of view, and we try to get as many points of view into
an issue as we can, as a way of providing some context and some
information for our viewers not only to make decisions, but to
become as well-informed as they can of whatever the issues are
facing the electorate that week or that day.
And as to the bandwagon in support of the war, that is a
very interesting question that we all were part in that time.
And somebody in one of the panels this morning talked a little
bit about the legacy of Vietnam, how some of that impacts some
things that are going on even today.
And in all honesty, I suspect there might have been a
little of that, that there was a feeling that the government
needed to be supportive in a war, or needed to be supported,
and that the time to do the questioning was not right then.
I think as journalists, we are looking at what we were
responsible for back then and taking some notes and some
responsibilities, and we will learn from that. Hopefully, we
will not have to go through anything like that again.
Mr. Shays. Thank you.
Mr. Lucas?
Mr. Lucas. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
When I came on this Homeland Security Committee, back last
year, I had great hopes for what we were going to get done in a
bipartisan way. But I have to talk about my sense of
frustration in that it seems that this committee, one side of
the aisle says everything is great, we are doing well; and the
other side of the aisle says, you know, the sky is falling.
And so I think a lot of it is dismissed as just partisan
banter in an election year.
But it has been very frustrating to me that we have not
dealt in more candor, because everything is not all right, but
we do not seem to see much of that in the media.
And I guess I would ask you as panelists, and again, I try
to be as reasonably objective as possible, and I know none of
us are totally that way: But do you all agree with the prior
panel? I think in essence what I heard them say was that we
have kind of given homeland security a little bit of a pass
since 9/11, and given them the benefit of the doubt.
I would like for each of you to comment on that, starting
with Ms. Cochran.
Ms. Cochran. We need to distinguish between coverage of a
bureaucracy, like the Department of Homeland Security, and
coverage of homeland security threats and issues.
I think that there is something to be said about the fact
that the department itself has not received a lot of coverage
at this point. It is a relatively new department. I am sure we
will see some more of it.
Columbia Journalism Review, in fact, published in their
newest issue, an article asking that very same question,
``Where is the reporting?'' outlining some stories that could
be done.
But as you will hear from my colleagues here, there is a
lot of reporting being done, particularly at the local level,
about serious flaws or risks that are not being addressed in
local communities.
Mr. Long. At the local level, we are not dealing with these
agencies, as Barbara has said. Governor Schwarzenegger has
named a head of homeland security for California. We are going
to get to know him. We do not.
We spend more time with our local officials, municipal
officials, police officials. And we spend an awful lot of time
trying to find out what does not work.
This is not in the category of aid and comfort. To anybody
out there, it is very irritating to a lot of our local
officials to hear about these things for the first time on the
evening news.
We try to ascertain what Los Angeles's plan is, what it is
for the larger area. We are talking about a huge geographic
area, enormous population. What are people doing?
We are chasing them around all of the time. I think we have
been very aggressive on that front.
It is very different. What national news organizations do
and what we do are different things. We are dealing with the
same subjects. Again, we are doing it on a more parochial
level.
For us this is easier. We know these people. We deal with
them every day.
Homeland Security, that agency, is a rather remote entity.
Mr. Caputo. In the course of a week, we are dealing with
the people that are involved in the security of our area
several times a day.
These are the same people that we talk to when there is an
explosion of a gas line that causes a neighborhood to be
evacuated.
These are the same people that will be the first
responders, along with the news people, I should say, too; the
news people are also part of that first response team, when a
train disaster might occur.
So we are dealing with these folks at a local level quite
regularly. And we have communication lines opened up to them.
We are constantly pointing out each other's flaws. I can
assure you that I have had conversations with the 9/11 people
in Chicago regarding some things that I feel they have done
incorrectly. And they do not hesitate to pick up the phone when
there is a problem with something that we are doing that might
be perceived as incorrect, or perhaps, is wrong.
The Homeland Security Department that we spoke of in the
hearings this morning, as Bob said, as Barbara said, we in the
local media do not have the kind of relationship with them that
perhaps you all do here in Washington.
We are with the folks that are at the police stations and
the fire stations. And those are the people who are going to be
the first ones to respond to a disaster. We have relationships
with them.
And when there is some issue and something that they are
doing wrong, we all work on it together.
Mr. Lucas. Last July, a year ago, I talked to the secretary
before we went home for a break to say, ``What should I tell my
first responders? And what is the priority?'' And he said,
``Interoperability of radio communications.''
We had a number of application processes you had to go
through, and we were supposed to set up a single application
process.
To me, we still have money we have not put out because we
have not dealt with that yet. I mean, that is horrific as far
as I am concerned.
But getting back to a more specific thing, I think it was
last May, around Memorial Day, I think the attorney general
came up with this thing, where there were elevated risks. That
came out of the attorney general's and the FBI office. But
Secretary Ridge did not raise the color code.
How does the media deal with that, when you have one agency
talking about elevated problems and homeland security? Does
anyone remember that? Is that confusing?
Mr. Long. It was certainly a challenge to the writers. We
try to keep up, and can only report these things. We are a long
way from the corridors of power in Washington. And we try to
explain what these terms and phrases mean.
We play with the hand we are dealt. It is hard work.
Mr. Caputo. None of these things occur in a vacuum, though,
for us. I recall specifically the time that you are talking
about. And it was a bit confusing. And I think the viewers were
a little confused.
What we tried to do was to explain what was going on. I do
not think there is anybody that watches TV newscasts or reads a
newspaper in this country that is not aware of the general
nature of threat that we have.
Our job is to keep the information coming so that they can
make decisions and understand what is going on.
Whether the risk is an orange or a yellow is something that
allows us to talk about it again. And part of what we do with
our experts and the people that we bring in is to continue that
dialogue, continue that information flow.
It is not something that people suddenly wake up one
morning and say, ``Oh, we were not at risk yesterday, and today
we are.'' I think people know that we are.
Mr. Lucas. How am I doing on my time?
Mr. Shays. The gentleman has one more question.
Mr. Lucas. That is okay. I am finished.
Mr. Shays. Okay, the gentleman yields back. And we will go
to Mr. Dicks.
Mr. Dicks. You know, I think, as we talked about today,
earlier, I think the media does a fantastic job when you have a
hurricane and you know it is coming, and you get all of these
incredible reports, and people have a sense of what is going to
happen, or after it hits, you know, the press does a good job
of covering that.
I think what is frustrating here, and this is, as I said
this morning, I mean, the Congress has a responsibility. And I
commend our committee, as the Chairman has had hearing after
hearing after hearing, which has given us a chance on the
Democratic side to ask a lot of questions of the
administration.
We are frustrated because we do not think this story is
getting the kind of coverage that it ought to get about the
gaps in security.
Now, I saw some of the NBC reporting, the national
reporting on the 12 ways we could be safer. We got into
container security, port security. A number of these issues are
starting to be covered.
I think it is the responsibility, one, of our committee,
for the loyal opposition to present to the American people the
gaps in security that we see, and let the American people judge
it.
But I think the press also has a responsibility--and I
think it could be done at the local level--to go out an ask the
hospitals: Do you have the serums? Are you ready for a
bioterrorism attack if it occurred?
I mean, there is a lot out there that could be done at the
local level. I mean, I am thinking of the dirty bomb scenario
that we went through.
And we saw what happened when the longshoremen were locked
out on the West Coast, Mr. Long. And, you know, within four or
five days, the economy of the country was threatened.
Well, what happens if we do not get container security
right, or we do not get port security right? I mean, the
country is really being left vulnerable.
And one of the reason for it, frankly, is that we are
putting all of the money into this war. I supported it.
But the reality is that we have not been able to fund
homeland security because all of the money went to fund the
war, all of the discretionary spending at that level.
So a lot of us here are very concerned that we are drifting
as a country, that the press is somehow not as alert to this as
they should be, and we are trying to raise the red flag.
We feel like we are failing. But it is a matter of
considerable frustration that we cannot seem to get the
attention of the administration that more needs to be done on
these issues, and that more resources need to be there, more
effort at the local level needs to be there.
And the press, which normally would come in and raise a lot
of tough questions, does not seem to be there.
Ms. Cochran. Again, I think I know both these gentlemen
have examples of the kinds of stories that they have done on
their own stations where they are looking at the security risks
locally.
One of the things that we are doing through our workshops
that we are having in 10 cities is to put journalists together
with scientists, local experts, public officials, so that they
get some new ideas and some new resources to be able to go out
and do these kinds of stories.
And we have a ton of stuff on our Web site to help people
figure out what kinds of angles they could be pursuing and so
on.
But there are a couple of problems.
One is, when these stories were done initially, after
September 11th, news organizations endured severe criticism
from officials, but also from the public, saying, ``What are
you doing? You are giving terrorists a road map.''
And so this is a kind of reporting that needs to be
approached very delicately and to be explained very clearly. I
am glad to see that you are endorsing this kind of reporting,
because it is very important.
The second thing is what Mr. Turner was referring to
earlier, a lot of the information that is needed to do this
reporting is going behind this wall of secrecy that we have
talked about.
If the information about the local chemical plant, where a
truck bomb could set off a disastrous leak and where the fence
is rotting, it would be very easy, very vulnerable, if
information like that is now off-limits, because it is for
official use only or it is subject to sensitive security
information regulation, we will not be able to report those
stories. And the public will not get that information.
Mr. Long. Well, I would just say this, that we are getting
a lot better at looking at these issues. And we are doing it by
developing our own sources of information. Journalists will not
function long in a vacuum. This is anathema to what we do.
I now have a panel of 15 scientific experts, drawn from
CalTech, UCLA, USC, other institutions in Southern California.
The dirty bomb scenario that you mentioned, I am hearing
that the greatest risk is from flying glass. What are we doing
talking about dirty bombs? You need to investigate these
things.
And we are doing it with not a great deal of input from the
government.
This will get hardwired in our process. This is what
Barbara talks about when she says, ``Keep those cards and
letters coming. We are going to be getting information from
somewhere, if you want to participate.''
Mr. Caputo. I would agree with you that we need to do a
better job, and we were not doing a very good job in some of
these areas initially.
I think Barbara touched on some of the key reasons why.
We were all very supportive of our government. We felt
there was a threat. And as Americans, we felt an obligation to
be part of a solution to that.
There is also the huge amount of public outcry when some
stories like that were done, as Barbara indicated. I think now
we are using opportunities like this, plus in our own
newsrooms, we are coming up with ways of looking at things and
trying to do a better job of pointing out the shortcomings.
That is part of our role that we need to pay more attention to.
In our situation, we have done stories on some shortcomings
in security around the port of Chicago and around some of the
power facilities. It perhaps has not received the publicity
that it might have received, say, if done on a network evening
newscast or something along those lines. But viewers in Chicago
certainly are aware of some of those things.
We have done stories with hospitals. We have done stories
with the first responders and the police and the fire about
what they are up to.
We need to do more. And I think that hearings such as this
one and some of the conversations that this engenders, and
certainly in our company's newsrooms, and we have newsrooms in
a lot of cities in this country, we will go a long ways toward
doing that.
Mr. Shays. Thank you, gentlemen.
Mr. Turner, you have the floor.
Mr. Turner. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
One of the most essential elements of preserving our
democracy and our freedom is to be sure that the public
understands the truth.
It is frustrating to me, and I want your help. And I would
appreciate your insight on why this has occurred. It is
frustrating to me that a few months ago, a poll was done that
said a majority of the American people believe Saddam Hussein
had something to do with 9/11. A repeat of that poll was done a
week or so ago. Now that number is down to 42 percent.
When such an obvious issue like that is misunderstood by
the public, it causes me to wonder, where are we going wrong?
Is it those of us in government who are not speaking out
clearly? Is it the media that is not sharing the information
accurately?
But, you know, it is so clear, having been here when we
voted on the resolution to go to war, the entire debate was
about weapons of mass destruction in the hands of Saddam
Hussein. That is what all the briefings were about. That is
what the discussion was about. That is what the debate was
about. And those of us who voted to go to war, I think, did so
based on that information.
And yet the public, apparently, even at that time, believed
that we were going to war because Saddam Hussein had something
to do with attacking America on 9/11.
Now, how did we get in that position? Those of you who are
in the news business have got to have some insight on how that
could happen. Because, obviously, it is a very dangerous
circumstance, particularly when we are talking about matters of
war and peace, that that kind of information could so penetrate
the public and that belief could be so widely held.
Could you help me? I would appreciate any of your comments
or insights, because that is, to me, a very troublesome thing.
And I am looking for an answer to, why has that occurred?
Ms. Cochran. Well, I think journalists were just as puzzled
as you were by that conclusion, because, you know, that was not
a story that they were reporting directly. They were not making
that link in the reporting that they were doing.
But I think you have to look at what our leading public
officials say and how they portray things and how the situation
is cast. And I have seen stories on television, I have also
seen stories in newspapers, that go back and look at statements
that were made that, when reported--and statements by public
officials--that, when reported, might have led Americans who
were very busy and not paying that close attention to come to
that conclusion.
We do a lot of things in the news media that we hope the
public pays more attention to. Not all of it gets through. Not
all of them are--when they are watching television, they are
very busy doing lots of other things, and so it can be
frustrating to the journalists also.
But, in this case, I think you have to take it back to what
was being said by public officials at the time.
Mr. Caputo. The reporting that we do comes from the people
that we talk to, and when government officials are saying
things or presenting those things, we are covering that side of
the story. We try to cover as many sides of stories as we can.
At that time, to the best I can recall, there was really
about one side to that story. Try as we might, the side to that
story was still coming from government officials on both sides
of the aisle and from D.C. and from other places.
To the best of my knowledge, none of us ever presented that
story, never said that. People came to that conclusion based on
things that they heard or that they thought they heard. I get
that a lot on very mundane issues, where people will think they
heard something and then when you read them the actual text or
whatever it might be, they are somewhat surprised: ``Oh, okay,
that is what you said. Now I get it.''
Well, obviously, in this particular case, they did not have
that opportunity. This was too overwhelming for that.
Our role is to cover the news and to present the news, is
to analyze it or provide opportunity for analysis by different
sides and different opinions and different points of view on
stories.
This particular incident that you are talking about, this
particular study that you are talking about, I regret the fact
that that might have been a perception that people had from any
of the reporting that might have been done on TV or on radio or
in the newspapers.
But the fact is, it comes from some statements or from some
things that were covered, and people listened to it or heard it
some way differently. And our job is to try to keep the record
as correct as we can.
Mr. Long. We cannot correct failures of public policy,
misperceptions. We reported this information. We were as
surprised by it as the ranking member was.
Again, it began here. And this was a debate within
governing circles in this country, not in the media. We were
not defining the adversary. We were reporting what was said.
And my statement earlier that, you know, we have to get
smarter and smarter to keep up with this stuff and nothing is
simple anymore; yes, we need to, as local news organizations,
take these large issues and make them relevant to our local
audiences and keep doing show-and-tell. It is very important.
But we cannot make up for deficiencies in public policy.
Mr. Turner. Let me turn to another issue that I think may
have had some impact on the issue I raised about the public's
false perception that Saddam Hussein had something to do with
9/11. But it also, to me, could be an issue that could be very
damaging in the event, as I think likely, we get into other
terrorist incidences and explanations for them.
There seems to be a blurring of the line between news
reporting and news analysis. And, to me, in some of the
networks where I see that occurring, it seems to be a very
dangerous trend. And I would assume that blurring of that line
would be something that would be deeply troublesome to the vast
majority of the members of the Radio, Television, News
Directors Association.
But what is your perception on that? Am I correct that that
seems to be a trend that perhaps was not with us before? And
what can we do about it, or what can you do about it in
policing your own profession?
Ms. Cochran. Well, I think that, you know, what you are
touching on is the growth, in the television medium, of what
began in radio; that is, talk as a form of, really, almost
entertainment, but where strong political opinion is offered
and then reacted to by the audience or by guests.
And I think that the--I think there is a danger that the
line becomes blurry. And especially if you see a journalist who
plays one role as a straight reporter in one context and then,
in another context, is asked to give their opinion or their
analysis which sounds an awful lot like opinion. I think that
is something that I think most journalists look at with a lot
of concern.
There are a lot more people who are appearing on television
now who come from the world of politics rather than the world
of journalism, and what does that mean?
Still, the audience seems to be able to sort these things
out, from what we can tell, that they can distinguish between a
show that has opinion in it and a show that is straight
reporting.
I think I mentioned earlier that one of the things that we
are very gratified about is that local television news not only
continues to have a very large audience, but it also continues
to do very well in terms of public trust. And I think that has
to do with its fact-based, straight-ahead, very relevant
reporting in an effort to be balanced.
Mr. Shays. Thank you. The gentleman's time is expired.
I would like to take the opportunity to ask some questions.
And I am going to try to be as honest as I can be about
something, not as careful about maybe how I should say it. But
it galled me, when we had the Iranian hostage crisis, that the
news media talked about day one of America being held hostage,
day two, day three, day four, day five. I felt the news media
was creating the news and giving tremendous power to the
Iranians.
And the best proof of that to me was, when they did not
like the reporting in the news media when it got to be day 200
or day 300, they kicked you all out. They kicked all our media
out. And we stopped reporting about it, and we did not have day
320 and day--and Americans stopped caring, and we stopped being
held hostage.
And then what happened was they invited the news media back
in, because the American public was losing interest. And we
never, ever, during a world war, talked about the number of
times people were held prisoner and holding us hostage that
way.
I guess my point is, I want to know, when is the media
creating the news, creating the story, continuing the story,
and when are they contributing to just knowledge?
That is my bias about the Iranian circumstance. I have been
to Iraq six times. I have been four times outside the umbrella
of the military. I have spoken to everyday Iraqis. And I will
tell you, I have never felt the news media has gotten the view
of Iraqis on the media.
And I admit that you all are more local and national than
international in, maybe, your coverage.
But I would have soldiers tell me that they would be
talking to another Iraqi and having conversation, and that news
truck would come, the news media would come, and all of a
sudden, someone would come down from the back, shake their
fist, the media would take a picture of it, and that would be
on the nightly news. Because they got to watch it. And then
when the media left, they would go back and have a nice
conversation with the Iraqis who were there.
Or, when I was in the Peace Corps--so I want you to address
those two issues, because I really feel like the media creates
the story as much, sometimes, as they report it. That is my
view.
I would love some comments. Not long answers, but some
comments.
Ms. Cochran. You know, I--
Mr. Shays. Why don't we start the other way? Mr. Long,
just, if I could, just because it is always starting that way.
Mr. Long. Well, she is our captain.
Mr. Shays. No, she is your boss--you are her boss.
Mr. Long. Yes, the way Congress works, too.
I think we are confusing the media and journalism,
marketing and the message. It is not all one monolithic thing.
When ``Nightline'' was created during the hostage crisis,
this was their banner headline. This was a way to draw
attention to a brand new newscast, a new half-hour of
information--a marketing decision to help deliver information.
I did not have a lot to do with covering that war.
Did we create events? I have never seen an example, in my
40-some years, of a story that I did changing the course of
events--hastening, slowing. These are things we wrestle with
all the time.
But if we are criticizing ourselves, are we criticizing the
practice of journalism? Good journalism dictates that you do
the story about the G.I. who is passing out candy and helping a
local shopkeeper repair their store, just as you do about the
insurrectionists. And I have seen those stories, too. Good
journalism demands that.
Mr. Shays. Let me ask Mr. Caputo to answer the question.
Mr. Caputo. I think the presence of the camera always is
going to change some of the dynamic of any event. The presence
of three people rather than two will change the dynamic of an
event. The presence of 10 people rather than eight will change
the dynamic. I think that is a natural occurrence.
To the specific that you talked about, where somebody
claimed that a group was talking and a camera came by and then
they started raising their fists and then when the camera left
they stopped, I do not doubt that that happens. But I also do
not doubt that there are some sincere emotions that, perhaps,
the raising of the fist represents, and that is part of our job
to present that and to show that.
We do the best we can in order to make sure that whatever
we show is accurate and is truthful, and we try to be as
objective as we can be and as fair as we can be.
Mr. Shays. Yes. What this triggers is something else that I
see, though. When I was in the Peace Corps for two years, I
read the Newsweek international edition and Time magazine
international edition.
When my wife and I came home, I swear we thought that we
were going to see barbed wire around every public place. And we
were shocked that it was--yes, there was unrest and there was
marches and so on, but it was a part of a particular area or it
did not happen all the time.
But because that is the only thing we got, because we were
two years isolated, no TV or anything, just got that--and it
got me thinking of this: If I looked at the local newspaper and
I did not live in the community, I would have one view; but if
I live in the community, I can understand that what you hear
about a bank robbery every, you know, four months, was
isolated. Whereas, if I just got the news and I was not there--
being there, I can take the news and I can put it all in
perspective. Not being there, the news has a different view.
And it got me wondering if, is there a greater
responsibility to get the full picture when it is more
international, when no one is there ever?
And maybe it is not sexy to talk about the umpteenth number
of days that these guys went out and never encountered a
problem--I am talking about our troops.
You see the difference I am trying to say? I mean, in your
local media, they know, in Los Angeles and Chicago, that what
you report is not a typical experience in those communities. It
is an event that took place that catches their interest.
Does that make sense to you?
Mr. Caputo. Well, it may also be an event that not only
catches their interest, but it is an event that has some
significance in the community because it, perhaps, represents
something else or will result in some sort of action. If it is
a series of traffic accidents at a corner, is there a problem
with that corner? Those kinds of things, those are parts of
what we report, and that is part of what that reporting is
about.
Some of your comments remind me of something that Walter
Cronkite once said: ``Our job is not to report the cats that
did not get lost today.'' I have always remembered that,
because I think that our job is to report things that happen
that need to be known, as painful or as sorrowful as they might
be, in order to provide an informed electorate or an informed
viewer.
Mr. Shays. But the bottom line to all of it is that it is
not typical of what is happening every day in your society. You
are not reporting what did not happen. But people make
assumptions when you report on news overseas that that is
typical of the day. And when I talk to the troops who are there
and I talk to Iraqis who are there, their day is not typical of
what I see on CNN or any other news that night. But then my
constituents think that is typical. That is, you know, the
quandary we are in here.
My time has run out, and I go to Ms. Jackson-Lee. I am
going to do a second round if you do not mind.
Ms. Jackson-Lee, you have the time.
Ms. Jackson-Lee. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. And I
thank the ranking member for holding this hearing. I thank them
because, obviously, I think all the work that we do is
important.
I think that I would be remiss if I did not add, however,
my concern about the need for the Select Committee on Homeland
Security to both hold hearings, and more importantly, mark up
important legislation that I believe needs to be introduced
regarding the 9/11 Commission, the reorganization of the
intelligence community and issues such as that.
To the distinguished panel, I will probably make some
remarks and then ask for your comments, because I do not know
if you can please all of us all the time, because I am going to
wear a completely different hat almost from Congressman Shays
in terms of your reporting and, frankly, fault you for, I
think, buying, even at the local level and I guess disseminated
by your networks, the connection and nexus that was falsely
made between 9/11 and Iraq.
All of the hype was relayed, if you will, by the media,
which convinced the American people that we had to support, at
least, the president's stance on the attack on Iraq.
And although there was some alluding to dissent and there
was some coverage of dissent, it was few and far in between.
And I remember it, because I do not think individuals who were
intelligently and well-informed in opposition to the war got
much airtime locally or otherwise, unless they were in some
kind of altercation with those who supported the war.
So, in your answers, I would just like you to recall as to
how you received information during that fall debate of 2002
when there was a debate going on about the choices to be made
on the war question.
Then I would like to move to the idea that I think you are
very vital in disseminating information locally to secure the
homeland, to secure neighborhoods, towns, counties and cities.
And I would be interested in how you discern when you
should make--how we are effective in communicating to you, to
give the right kind of information, to make announcements,
whether it was the alert system, where the alert announcements
were coming in, or whether or not you feel you are adequately
equipped to receive information if we wanted to announce that
we thought a particular area was being targeted. And how would
your local and your network stations and your radio stations,
how would you respond to that?
I am also concerned with what we have seen in your industry
over the past couple of years, and that is the multi-
conglomerates, the mergers of--the gobbling up of print media,
radio and television. This sort of vertical integration, if you
will, I am extremely concerned about.
And I bring to your attention the Court of Appeals for the
Third Circuit recently ruled on the FCC's action that would
allow for more media consolidation. You have spoken about--we
have discussed in this hearing about the role of media in
alerting the public during disasters. An often-cited example,
as I have mentioned, is this whole media consolidation.
And I draw your attention to an incident in January of 2002
in North Dakota, where all of the local stations--radio
stations, I assume--are owned by Clear Channel Communications,
and the lone radio employee was unavailable to respond to a
train derailment and the spill of thousands of gallons of toxic
chemicals.
So what do we do with this idea of the continued megasizing
of media, if you will, and making sure that all segments of our
community get information?
Lastly, let me say that we know--and I would not in any way
make the suggestion right now; I may make it later on--that you
do not report issues dealing with terror, the war or anything
else on the basis of ratings. I would hope that would not be
the case. And I hope that you would be eager to make sure that
all information is brought to the American public's attention.
And the reason why I say that is: You can build up
patriotism, which we all support and promote, but you can also
build up intelligence and intelligent decision-making by the
information that you generate, particularly those who deal with
pictorial and hearing, because that is mostly what Americans
do, they watch TV screens or they drive and listen to radio.
So, would you give me, in the last point, your sense of
responsibility in making sure you disseminate information that
will allow Americans to make intelligent decisions?
And I would hope that you all would comment, and I will
start with Ms. Cochran. And I gave you about three major
points.
Ms. Cochran. A lot of ground to cover. Maybe I will go in
reverse order here.
You know, I think we do, certainly, feel a responsibility
to cover this and other important stories. And questions of
personal security, questions of community security, questions
of terrorism threats are very, very interesting to the public.
And so, covering these issues is something that, you know,
certainly is going to be well-received and it is not ratings
poison, as we sometimes say about some kinds of stories.
So it is a topic that I think all newsrooms are paying a
lot of attention to and trying to build up their expertise on.
And there is an awful lot of information that has to be
assimilated, news sources that have to be found, all that kind
of thing. I think newsrooms are in the process of doing that
now.
You mentioned consolidation. And I guess, just as today we
have talked about sometimes tensions between news media and
government officials, I would say within companies there is
often a tension between the news department and the owners who
say how much money the news department has to spend.
And I think, as we watch, those of us who are on the
journalism side of the line, watch what is happening in terms
of the economics of our business, I think our principle concern
is an understanding that it is very important to protect the
news coverage from undue commercial or other kinds of financial
influences that would somehow harm that news product.
And, I think, you know, we, our association, says that the
best business policy is to have a very strong news product and
to not undermine the integrity of that news product. So, that
is our position on that.
What happens in that is something that is certainly not in
our control and something that our bosses are dealing with.
I think I talked already about the alert systems.
And then the information that--we talked about the
misimpression that some Americans got about the connection
between 9/11 and Saddam Hussein, and we talked about the fact
that some of that is because we are reporting what the debate
is in places like Washington.
And, you know, if you will remember then, the opposition
party was not necessarily always in opposition. I mean,
government officials were receiving the same kind of
information, news media were receiving the same kind of
information, and so it was harder to find dissenting voices.
And I think whenever there is a common agreement on a
policy and there is not, you know, a back-and-forth, it is
going to be harder to illuminate other aspects of that
question.
Ms. Jackson-Lee. The light has--
Mr. Shays. If you have a follow-up question--I am going to
just close up, but if you would like to follow up with the
other two members who are--
Ms. Jackson-Lee. Yes, let me do this if--and thank you, Mr.
Chairman. I will just be very, very quick.
If you could just pick one of those and quickly answer. I
will not let you go over all of them.
And I will just throw this sentence for the record: I think
one of the striking examples of whether or not we can be a
media system that, you know, reports or seeks to report is the
actual shut-down of the coverage of the bodies coming home as
was done on Vietnam. That was done by the administration. I did
not hear any media outlet contest that. And many families were
not opposed to the honoring of their dead coming home, but
there was a complete blackout on that. So I would just make
that point on the record.
But if you would refer to the other points that I asked
about--the terror question, disseminating information--and then
we will close out.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
If you could just take one question a piece, and I will
yield back my time.
Mr. Long. Well, I was the news director here in Washington
during the roll-up to the war, and frankly, we were more
interested in the impact on the local economy and what would
happen to local Reserve and National Guard units. That is how
we chose to localize the story.
There was not a great public debate. Again, this is
national news coverage, local news coverage. And we are taking
the issue, an imminent war, what would it do to the Washington,
D.C., area? That is how we covered it.
Ms. Jackson-Lee. And the only thing I will say on that is,
the public debate was not given air, because it was there, but
we were not covered it.
But anyhow--and I appreciate it--Mr. Caputo, I think?
Mr. Caputo. Yes. I want to talk a second about one of the
things you asked, if we are properly structured to deal with
events--
Ms. Jackson-Lee. Yes.
Mr. Caputo. --in the homeland security area--
Ms. Jackson-Lee. Absolutely.
Mr. Caputo. --which I think is why we are here today.
The short answer to that is, I do not think so. I do not
think we are properly structured. I think we are working our
way there. I know in Chicago we have conversations on a fairly
regular basis with the people who are the officials in charge
of this. And by ``regular basis,'' I am probably talking like
every couple of months or so.
We need to have more of those conversations. And we need,
as news media--I think this was brought up in the panel this
morning--we need to be able to participate a little more fully
than we have in some of the exercises that are done to help
test the systems of homeland security.
One of the things that we have talked about in Chicago is
actually being a little more a participant in that, rather than
just observers, and actually having two roles: one, to observe,
and the second one, to participate.
I think that our obligation to make sure that people know
what is going on and know the answer and where they need to go
and what they need to do in the event that some sort of an
incident or some sort of an attack override just about any
other obligations that we can think of, and that needs to be
worked out and continued to work on.
Ms. Jackson-Lee. I thank the Chairman.
Mr. Shays. I would love all three of you, with short
answers, to explain to me an experience that I went through and
help me sort it out. And it had to do with the whole issue of
terrorist warnings, you know, Code Yellow to Code Orange,
elevated to High, and then you have Red which means you are
under attack.
And in December last year, it blew me away the way the
press dealt with this. This committee and others had briefings
that we were aware of a terrorist attack, potentially, using a
dirty weapon, targeting five cities, to be done at a high-
profile event. We were also aware that there was likely to be a
hijacking of aircraft from Europe.
Now, having that briefing, I found myself saying to my
daughter, ``If you go to Washington, do not go on New Year's
night, go on New Year's Day.'' Because she wanted to go into
New York. So I was telling my daughter--I cared about my
daughter. I found myself saying to my friends, ``Do not fly to
Europe, because you will have to fly back.''
And then I started to feel guilty, because I was telling
everyone I loved and my friends how to protect themselves, and
then I started having the public call me. ``My school is going
to Europe, what would you do?'' And I would tell them what I
knew.
And then I found myself saying, ``Well, if that is what I
know''--then I had the press say to me, ``What does this mean,
these warnings?'' I said, ``Well, it means the following,'' and
I described to them what it means. And I was sorely criticized
in the national media for that, sorely criticized because I
suggested that, unless it was an emergency, I would not go New
Year's night to Times Square.
Now, I realized I could have handled it better. I could
have said, you know, ``This is what the potential is. Make up
your own mind.'' In other words, give them that information.
There were only two media people in the entire country,
that I read, that in any way supported my telling people what
the real threat was. And everyone else--just basically, I have
never gotten more criticism on anything I have ever done.
When I asked the staff who heard it, they said that they
would not go. They would not let their family members go, and
they told their friends not to go.
So, help me sort out why I should think the way the press
handled that was right. I know I could have handled it better.
But what does the public have a right to know?
If the terrorists know that they are going to do it, why
shouldn't the public know what the terrorists already know? And
why should it have--and then when I questioned, to conclude my
story, when I questioned the number-two person at Homeland
Security after the event, a month later, I said, ``What did we
know?'' He said, ``I cannot tell you. It is classified. It has
to be behind closed doors.'' Well, it was already, by then, in
the media. I mean, it was an absurdity to me.
Help me sort out what you would do, as news media, on a
circumstance like that? And what does the public have the right
to know?
Mr. Long. I would love to have had you on television.
Our problem with these things is that--and I do not know
this scenario, I do not know who criticized you, or--we love
information. I am sorry somebody picked on you. I would have
put you on TV.
Mr. Shays. It is a big disincentive, I will tell you that.
Mr. Long. Well, again, a problem usually with this kind of
thing is, we do not know what to say beyond the color.
Mr. Shays. Well, let me ask you--
Mr. Long. We go to local police authorities, they do not
know. This would have been a nice bit of information.
Mr. Shays. So, in other words, okay--
Mr. Long. An interpretation from a ranking member of
Congress on the meaning of a warning sounds to me like news.
Mr. Shays. Well, let us say I did not even say it. What
happens if you found out what the warning was based on?
Mr. Long. It is a totally different--you were criticized
for giving up classified--
Mr. Shays. What I am trying to--and I do not mean to keep
my colleagues here.
What I am trying to sort out is, I believe the warnings
system--you and I may have a disagreement on this--I believe
the warnings system should be shared. I just believe people
should know what is the basis behind them, and then people can
make intelligent decisions. That is my belief.
What is your belief, Mr. Caputo? And then Ms. Cochran.
Mr. Caputo. I agree. We should know what is behind the
warnings and we should have that information to let people make
judgments based on that information. It goes back to something
I said at the very beginning: I have an innate trust of people.
They get information, they are able to make decisions. You made
decisions based on warnings that you had about some threats
that you perceived to exist. Other people had a right to make
those decisions on their own.
Our obligation is to have that--our obligation is to not
only, however, present that information, but then to also
present it in a context that makes sense. And when we are given
partial information, or not always all the information, then
the context is lacking. And that is not a good thing.
Ms. Cochran. I agree with my colleagues. The more
information that you get to explain what is behind the threat
level, the better.
Mr. Shays. Do you mind one more? Just one more that the
staff had asked about, and I think it deserves to have you
respond to. In the worst case, news is no different than--in
the worst case--than entertainment industry, both, you have
both villains and heroes. I mean, news can be entertainment in
its worst case.
When you have the news reporting on household names like
Carlos the Jackal or the Meinhof Gang or Son of Sam and, you
know, you almost create this, this celebrity by constantly
calling them the name.
Do you feel that there is reason for the media to rethink
that? Or do you think it is just part of the process? You give
him a name and you start talking about him and it is every
night, Son of Sam did this, Son of Sam--you know what I am
saying? The guy was a blatant killer who shot people at close
range. Should we be giving them names like that?
Mr. Long. Not all of us do that. I do not think it is
particularly bad. It identifies an ongoing story. That is one
way to look at it. If you are trying to get some sizzle going
there, if you are tabloiding it, that is another motivation.
So for shorthand, it is not a bad idea. This is not the
story you heard before, this is the next chapter. I do not mind
labeling things. It is the intent. If the intent is to make
this more understandable to you, to get you back into the
context of the story without having to begin at the beginning,
then it is probably a good thing.
If it is just to titillate you, this is not the kind of
news that we do.
Mr. Caputo. I have taken a lot of these. I am not sure
anybody sees them as heroes or as anybody other than what they
are, the villains, or whatever it might be that they are. The
Son of Sam is a perfect example. I do not know anybody that
thought of the Son of Sam as a hero or anything other than a
felon. Even law enforcement gives names to various people: the
Clown Killer in Chicago--the Killer Clown, I should say, in
Chicago, John Wayne Gacy.
Mr. Shays. I wonder what they think.
Mr. Caputo. Who? The law enforcement folks? I have talked
to them. They--
Mr. Shays. No, the Son of Sam. I wonder if he began to
see--
Mr. Caputo. I--
Mr. Shays. I wonder if this just perpetuates, but I guess--
Mr. Caputo. It is possible that it does, sir, you are
absolutely right: It is possible that it does. But I think that
our--you know, in the shorthand that exists in the business, I
think people know what we are talking about, and I do not think
it glorifies anybody, it just makes it a little easier to
communicate information.
Mr. Shays. Well, let me thank all our witnesses. There is
lots more questions that could be asked, and there may be some
members who are not here who would like to ask a question of
you and we hope you would be very willing to respond if they
did have a question.
I thank all three of you, sir. If you want to put on the
record--that may be something we should have asked that we did
not that you would like to put on the record?
Well, we thank all three of you for your participation, and
we will call this hearing to a close. Thank you.
[Whereupon, at 2:13 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]
FOR THE RECORD
Submitted by Randy Atkins, Senior Media Relations Officer, National
Academy of Engineering, The National Academies
This country isn't ready to deal with a catastrophic terrorist
attack, and government preparedness may not be the biggest problem.
Indeed, one of the most critical parts of our infrastructure--the
nation's news media--doesn't appear near the top of anyone's list of
concerns. They should be of utmost concern to those responsible for
homeland security.
I suspect, though, that most defense types simply regard
journalists as pests at best, maybe even a threat to national security.
They generally feel the media are to be avoided as much as possible and
told as little as possible. But with the country's increased focus on
security here at home, I think that the strength of the news media is
more important than ever.
When we think of infrastructure, we usually think of tangible
things that bind us together: our water supply, transportation
networks, energy pipelines . The media, too, belong in this category.
They are the main communication conduit to the public, carrying
valuable information from one place to another. The interconnectedness
of these modern infrastructure systems allows greater efficiency, but
it also creates new vulnerabilities. And the news media may be the
weakest link in this system.
We need to protect the media as zealously as we protect the
electric power grid and nuclear reactors, and not just their printing
plants and broadcast towers. Their journalists also need to be armed to
work effectively as part of the nation's response to terrorism. And to
do that, they need the help of the engineering and science community.
A couple of months ago, I was on a panel at a meeting of the
Associated Press Managing Editors, and I began by asking who knew
anything about the place where I work--the National Academy of
Engineering (NAE). Not one editor in the room raised a hand, and this
was a group interested in participating in a discussion about science
and technology reporting. I bet I would get the same response from an
audience of government policymakers.
Here's what scares me: Neither the media nor the government value
the roles of science and technology as much as the terrorists do. While
terrorists see Western civilization as bad, they have demonstrated both
their adeptness and willingness to take from it what they need--
chemicals, computers, planes. In the same way, while calling us an
entertainment-obsessed culture, they use our media, too, to full
advantage--counting on journalists to dramatically present the
terrorists' ghastly handiwork.
Ignorance and misinformation can be as damaging to the information
infrastructure of the United States as a break in an oil pipeline. It
can cause paralysis among citizens, and confuse people trying to
respond to a crisis. As a local police chief recently said, ``You can't
build a fence around a community, but you can arm your citizens with
knowledge.'' American journalists have few precedents for these
emerging terrorist threats--it's different from traditional war
reporting. Organizations like mine must work hard to get good
information into the hands of the media quickly in the event of any
cyber, nuclear, chemical or biological attack. Journalists need instant
access to trusted experts who are good communicators.
I would go so far as to argue that getting good information to the
public in the midst of a crisis can be more vital than the actions of
first responders. In fact, journalists are first responders. Not only
do they sometimes get to the scene first, but they are the only ones
focused on and able to describe the level of risk to the public. They
can save lives through the efficient delivery of good information.
With today's 24-hour coverage, journalists are under tremendous
pressure to say something--anything--and to say it first. Of course,
this can lead to speculation, which is not always harmless. In fact,
sometimes it can cost lives. This isn't just the media's problem. It's
the engineering and science communities' problem, too.
At the NAE, we have wrestled with the question of how to help the
media become better informed and more conscious of their importance in
the event of a terrorist attack. The media, after all, are a vigorously
independent bunch, constitutionally protected and--to the nation's
benefit--outside of government control. So the NAE has decided to
conduct a war game exercise that, for the first time, would focus on
the media. The goal is to develop new communication strategies for
cutting through the chaos of a terrorist attack, as well as to develop
better connections between the journalists and the scientists and
engineers.
I mentioned our war game idea to a major news organization, and the
executives there replied that they felt they had already been tested by
9/11. Well, yes, to a point. But next time--which we are constantly
warned will come --could be worse. Accurate and efficient communication
with the public during a catastrophic attack will require more
technical expertise than was needed on 9/11.
Based on past experience, I know that I'm facing an uphill climb.
Shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks, for example, the NAE held a daylong
briefing for senior news executives from across the country on the
technical aspects of various forms of terrorism. We were pleased that
the TV networks sent a camera crew over for pool coverage. The crew got
there early, but didn't turn on its cameras during any of the morning
briefings--and the briefers included some of the nation's premier
experts. The cameras were only there to record the words of the
luncheon speaker, Tom Ridge. Then they left.
Too often, journalists take the path they're most comfortable
with--which often means the political angle. Even during the anthrax
attacks, journalists were turning to members of Congress and their
staffs for technical answers.
I think that, in part, this is because politics is a form of
theater, and entertainment trumps substance in the ratings. Let's face
it, news is about people and personalities. I know the journalistic
importance of storytelling and of doing it in compelling ways. The
public, unfortunately, has been trained to have a limited and shallow
attention span. If we want it to get information at all, that
information must be ``packaged'' correctly.
The challenge--for both scientists and journalists--is to make
science, technology and engineering more intriguing; to make it,
whether in wartime or not, more a part of popular culture. The media
don't take their role--their responsibility--seriously enough. They
aren't just a business. They are part of this country's infrastructure
and times have changed.
We need the media to keep challenging the government, because that
friction makes us all stronger. But uninformed journalists can't
effectively question authority. For example, well-meaning but misguided
government efforts to classify too much information could harm national
security by slowing the delivery of research results beneficial to
society. And unless the public is well-informed, it won't know how to
analyze the issues and know how to assess the information being
provided by its leaders.Before 9/11, people like me chuckled as
journalists churned out their usual ratings-grabbing fare, overlooking
important stories while providing full details on the psychology behind
the contestants on "Survivor." Just as terrorism was not at the
forefront of many journalists' minds before 9/11, I think it's being
slowly overshadowed again by today's trivial obsessions.Randy Atkins is
senior media relations officer for the National Academy of Engineering,
one of several independent organizations created by Congress to advise
the nation on issues involving science and technology.
``Washington Post, Outlook, Jan. 26, 2003''