 And I'm going to hand it almost directly over to Elisa Munoz of the International Women's Media Foundation. I will just quickly say that it's been a strange media landscape that we've all been trying to re-navigate over the past six months or so. And there's been a great deal of attention on domestic political press. So it is very heartening to see a roomful of people who care about international reporting. And we're partnered with several organizations today showing that there's a great deal of organizations and people who care about this sort of journalism. Yeah, so Elisa, I will just turn it over to you to introduce our three panelists and Peter. And we will try to get directly into the substance of the conversation. Hi, everybody. Thanks so much. I echo Lindora's thank you for all of you coming out here for this important conversation. And I saw who the winners of this year's James W. Foley Freedom Awards were, our three favorite people in the world, all in one place, which just couldn't resist giving everybody an opportunity to hear directly from them. It's not often that you have such remarkable women together, and we really wanted to make sure that everybody got the opportunity to hear what they've been doing and the important things that they've been covering. So I won't talk too long, I just want to say a couple of words about each of them. Emma Beals, who is a dear friend to many of us, she is a major force in the creation of the Frontline Freelance Registry, an organization that represents freelance journalists around the world. And any of you who know freelance journalists, you know how difficult their job is today. She is also largely responsible for the standards that have led to the creation of a culture of safety alliance, which is an organization, it's an alliance of 80 organizations in 20 countries to increase the safety of journalists around the world. It's hugely important, the IWMF is a part of it, and it's one of the only real collaboratives that I have seen work for so long and so effectively. So it's a real treat to have you here today. Arwa Damon is a senior international correspondent for CNN who's based in Istanbul. Many of you have seen her covering some of the world's greatest conflicts around the world, focusing in the Middle East and in North Africa. I'm very proud to say she's also a 2014 Courage and Journalism Award winner. Welcome. And Delphine Haggard, who is a stalwart working behind the lines to make sure that journalists stay safe. She's the director of the Washington Office of Reporters Without Borders, and I don't know where we would be without you, Delphine, so welcome. And I'm happy to introduce also Peter Bergen, who's the vice president of New America and the director of the international security program there. He's also a journalist and knows very well the kinds of issues that these journalists face and that women journalists around the world are facing. So please, thank you. Emma. No, sorry, Delphine. You're just putting you on a spot. Delphine is going to start. No, I understand. It's much more exciting to hear from Emma. And Arwa, you see I have the Washington DC style. I'm here to give you maybe an overview of the threats and dangers that are facing journalists all around the world. And then we will get into the exciting number. So just to give an overview, yes, journalists are more and more threatened and targeted all over the world. Last year in 2016, at least 80 journalists, professional and non-professional, have been killed. And again, mostly murdered, mostly targeted in countries, of course, in conflict like Syria, like Iraq, and so on. I always, always, always, always want to highlight that 90 percent, 90 percent of the journalists killed are local journalists. They're Syrian, they're Iraqi, and so on. And it's the same percentage for the number of journalists kidnapped. 90 percent of the journalists kidnapped in almost the same countries are local journalists. And maybe if I want to finish with one, maybe, numbers, because today we're a free woman here. I want to say that actually last year, five women journalists were killed, three were working for Tolo News, and their minibus was targeted and bombed in Kabul. And the other one was a Mexican woman journalist working in Veracruz and the other one in Somali. So we see that still it's maybe the number of journalists, women journalists, working in very dangerous countries are still not such a majority. And that's actually maybe the main reason why there's not so many women journalists killed or detained or kidnapped. It's because there's maybe less local women journalists working on the ground. But we have two amazing ones who have been taking so much risk to bring us the news. So let's go behind these boring numbers and very sad numbers. But I think it's good to get this number in mind and just to remember that the devious country for journalists last year was Syria, Afghanistan, Mexico, Iraq, and Yemen. And that's of course the countries where the highest number of journalists of stage remain, Syria, Yemen, and Iraq. And the journalists in jail, Turkey is now the countries where the highest number of journalists and non-professional journalists in jail. The situation is really crazy there mostly for the local journalists. And it's now in the same super group of China, Iran, Turkey, the countries where the situation is deteriorating in many different ways. I just gave so many different countries where in each country the situation is very different. But the dangers and the threats are here definitely to target and silence the journalists. Okay. Well, I wanted to follow on from what Delfin was talking about and talk about one thing specific to freelancers and one to reporting on Syria and then a growing trend that we're seeing that sort of bridges the gap between the two. So, I mean, for freelancers we obviously face the same risks as other journalists working in the field, the physical risks from governments and so forth. But we also face a risk from within the industry itself, which seems particularly as we talk about press freedom more and more and the importance of the role of the press is the role that the industry needs to play in taking part in the defense of freelancers and local journalists because often they don't pay them well, they don't give good conditions or they take a long time to pay. We pay our expenses upfront and then go and do the work and then sort of three months later once we've invoiced then it's gone through the accounting team and you've followed up three times you get paid. And so there are risks that freelancers face that are the responsibility of those within the industry within which we work rather than necessarily outside threats as well. And if we're going to talk about defending sort of press freedom at a time where it's becoming increasingly critical, making sure that we come together to face those as an industry and we're not leaving behind some of the most vulnerable in the industry is even more important than ever. And I guess one of the interesting trends I guess covering Syria at the moment is how fake news is affecting the reporting that we can do from Syria and what we've seen particularly since the Russians have joined the conflict is this idea that you just need to sow a seed of doubt about what happened and you can almost change the entire narrative about something that's occurred in the country and as the physical risks in Syria have got higher and higher and there's fewer journalists going in none in some cases. What you're finding is it's very difficult to sort of get to the bottom of what has happened but it's still possible it's absolutely still possible but then in this environment of sort of the lying corporate media and the MSM being the biggest devil going what happens is you only need something like the hashtag Syria hoax to start to sort of cast doubt about who was responsible for a chemical weapons attack or who was responsible for what happened in Aleppo and those kinds of things and it's really damaging for people living in Washington or in the West who are trying to understand what's happening in these places because they have policy implications in a city like this I was sitting with someone who's very educated stays on top of the news last weekend and he said well no one really knows who did that chemical attack did they and I just about sort of cried we thought we're all running around doing all these things taking all these risks and how can you think that you know how can you be in doubt about about what happened there and so I think that's something for perhaps more discussion as we go into questions a bit later and the third was this sort of trend toward vilifying the media but under the guise of terrorism so a lot of the time it's very easy now in countries that are looking to silence the media to sort of just cast aspersions about the press or a particular journalist as being a terrorist of some kind and it's very difficult to push back on that it's difficult to push back on it as a journalist and it's difficult to push back on it as you know advocates for press freedom who are trying to work in these in these areas because it's happening everywhere it happens in the west it happens in in Syria it happens you know across Africa and it's that's an increasing I guess trend that we're seeing and it starts to undermine the role of those journalists and then you know as Delphine would know what you see is if people are facing physical threats or their status is being undermined they become more at risk of being murdered or imprisoned you know they start to face a bigger sort of more complicated and complex threats so I guess that's the three points that I wanted to make before we jump on to our who will tell us a bit more about field work great point thank you I think just to add to the points that I've already been highlighted there's also this growing phenomenon of how the impact of journalism has become diluted and how do we as journalists then try to combat that how are we trying to navigate this new landscape where it seems as if despite our best efforts to highlight certain issues to highlight certain stories to take the risk that we have to take to tell certain stories we're not seeing the same sort of impact generated by those stories on a global scale or even on a moral scale that we used to see say even ten years ago and I think that's something that we're all struggling in terms of trying to figure out how do we perhaps change how we're storytelling or try to alter it in a way because now we live in a world where you can retweet a photograph of a little boy lying on a beach and pat yourself on the back and say I've done my share I've created awareness because I've retweeted or liked on Facebook or whatever other social medium that is being used and that's also a calculus that one that needs to take into consideration especially for my network for example CNN is what is the risk versus what we're going to get out of what we're doing and you know I'm very fortunate and that I work for a very well established organization we have all of our safety measures put into place we do not face the same kind of security threats to a certain degree that some of the freelancers do because we do have a greater infrastructure but that's not to say of course that it comes without risk and sometimes you can calculate everything perfectly but when you're being targeted by everybody whether it's extremists on the ground, ISIS fighters, government that are trying to discredit you, you know sometimes despite your best effort you still do find yourself in these vulnerable positions. The other issue with being discredited on a global scale by leaders is that it then allows others to do the same so when we hear rhetoric for example coming out from the United States trying to discredit the mainstream media that then gets reflected in the reporting in a country like Turkey that then leaves especially our local colleagues very very vulnerable and to highlight your point I mean I cannot overemphasize this enough I am sitting here working for a major news network I am protected I am well paid my local staff especially in the days of the CNN Bureau in Iraq they were the ones taking the risk the reporting we do today we do with the local staff with the activists in Syria with the people actually on the ground in Iraq and they do not have this level of protection yes they have some because obviously they are affiliated with CNN but even beyond that everyone else is running around getting all of the information that we use they get followed to their homes at times they receive specific threats they are actually hunted down and targeted there's an activist network called Raqqa slaughtered silently that's based on Raqqa amazing group of very brave individuals they were actually hunted down in Ghazi on tip two or three of their members were directly assassinated in broad daylight in Turkey that's the kind of threat that they are facing and it's I guess we need to discuss different ways that we navigate this ever changing landscape in terms of impact of journalism the risks that are being taken the protection that is how we move forward because we cannot allow the power of journalism to die I mean what kind of a world do we live in where we can't demand accountability where we broadcast images of dying children and nothing actually fundamentally changes and we really need to figure out a solution to all of this I think collectively as the press as members of the public as entities that are trying to protect journalists so that we don't allow one of these main institutions that we have these main concepts that we have to lose some of its impact thank you all I mean it's a sort of depressing portrait view well I mean I guess it's depressing on several levels because I mean one of the things you say is about how do you take these big risks and obviously you've taken a lot of risks and your pieces your story from Mosul got a lot of attention it was in November but you know people have short memories I mean I remember well one of the biggest story of all time at one point was that when the girls were taken by Boko Haram and everybody in the world was tweeting about it and it lasted precisely one week and then it was forgotten so I guess this is a sort of broad philosophical question which is you said that ten years ago things might have broken through more I mean is there anybody Emma or Delphine is there a way of measuring that because I mean it sounds right but we were actually getting quite a lot of coverage from Syria in one way or another right? I don't think it's the volume of the coverage because it is per se the impact that it actually has so ten years ago, fifteen years ago when you're covering as an example the war in Iraq is taking place and there is an atrocity that has been committed as an example of military was bombing Sutter City they said that they killed five main militia fighters with AK's if you went out there and you got the footage that showed the exact same spot and actually showed that okay there were two militia guys that were standing to the side but they were actually children picking through a garbage dump and they were killed as well there was a slight little shift there was at least an acknowledgement of what had taken place and perhaps for a little bit of time it's just on a very minor scale but one question I would have about that is there were 100,000 American troops there at the time right? I think you can look at at least in the American price there's an inverse relationship between the number of American troops and the amount of coverage so Afghanistan is barely registering it takes 140 people to be killed in one attack for it to even get to page A4 of the New York Times this is a sort of side issue to the bigger point you're making but if there are Americans at risk soldiers then the coverage seems to be we take care of our own I mean let's just accept it globally speaking you know governments will take care of there and there's nothing really wrong with that it's I mean if there are British troops in Helmand the British press is going to pay attention to Helmand right so but there was no such information generally I mean if something like that happened during the Iraq war you watched it on CNN you read it in the Washington Post and that was how you got your news and if you were extraordinarily engaged you might have gone online and found a blog somewhere in the depths of my space from somebody in Baghdad but that was for the very very committed and now something happens in Iraq you can watch the Russia Today version the CNN version you can find a local blogger who's tweeting about it you can find 1600 different versions of the same event and that's in one place in one country and that happens across all of the sort of things that are happening around the world so I think people are a bit bamboozled by that I think that I want to come back to the point you made at the beginning that the information is more deluded and it's hard to we need a comparison of what was the impact of the press ten years ago and now but what's for sure is that now this media bashing that we see coming from the US but actually from the highest level of government in the UK in France it's part of this delusion of what is true what is not true and also now more and more government have their own propaganda media also all armed groups have their own propaganda media so the information there are so many cold information which are actually propaganda or which are information which supports some interest that it's harder to find the real news and that has an impact I think it's maybe another way to put it because I don't think that each strong picture of a photographer from Vietnam or from Bosnia changed the way the world reacted to wars or conflict in the past but what did not exist at that time is that this numerous source of information which are actually propaganda and increasing amount of time wasting our time fact checking people's opinions essentially so you report on something that happened and then all the other people who have an opinion or a countering view of it or have an interest in discrediting that information put out there things about the chemical attack or what have you and then everybody has to go back and do a second lot of reporting on it explaining why all of these opinions or counter reports aren't true and that's taking time away from resource of news organizations from journalists doing original reporting that would help us learn something new and there's a huge amount of resource being invested in basically debunking nonsense I wonder if that's really new the New York Times famously wrote in the late 30s that the Soviet economy was a miracle this was the New York Times reporting that there was a miracle going on and of course this was Stalinist propaganda so the idea the New York Times was reporting it as fact so the idea I mean I guess what is maybe a little bit new is when you have RT and the Chinese equivalents and all these other entities that sort of pose as sort of maybe they have a kind of quasi feel of a news organization it's also the scale which something is happening the scale upon which information is being disseminated and consumed it's the scale of the different resources of information that is out there it's the scale of the targeting of journalists which is correct me if I'm wrong unprecedented the danger you can go on the ground and be directly targeted by an entity or you can be targeted by the government as well and more and more countries sort of the moral compass on a global scale Has Assad won the Syrian civil war and power? He has not lost I think when you try to define something that's as catastrophic and as devastating as Syria to either winning or losing it's neither I mean Syria full stop has lost on every single level will he remain in power does he have a much bigger chance of remaining power in somehow surviving because of the Russian support? Yes, absolutely I think unfortunately it may end up being a long drawn out war of attrition and I don't think we even at this stage really have a grasp on what it's going to do to Syria to the Syrian population and then what the Rippelan effects of it are going to be and just to add to that I think the debate around Syria is a bit flawed we need to to a certain degree not just talk about what do we need to do to resolve Syria we need to start talking about what happens if we don't resolve Syria on every scale not just what happens if we don't end the violence but what happens if we don't address the refugee population what happens if we don't address all of these you know young bright minds that are growing up in these decrepit situations filled with anger understandably watching their parents helpless hopeless having lost their lives not having a chance for a future what happens if we don't address all these different facets of the war? the moral injury that goes with just sleepwalking into a solution which seems like what's happening in the moment. Tell us what your organization does for freedom I mean give us more some detail about what you do for the people that are coming to your organization for advice and help so with FFR the reason we set it up was I don't know if you've ever met a freelancer but trying to get them together is a little bit like you know pinning down clouds because they're off doing their work and they're busy and they're passionate about what they're doing and sort of getting organized and isn't so easy and it gave the industry an excuse not to engage with us because you engage with one freelancer or another freelancer it doesn't mean anything so as much as anything it was about getting folks together and creating a body where we could have a seat at the table where we could be represented in the conversations that were going on within the industry about how freelancers should be treated and it was primarily sort of sparked by the British press deciding that they weren't going to take freelancers' work from Syria anymore so rather than a proactive approach they said well we just won't do it and of course we know that's nonsense basically what it would mean was that they would end up sort of delegitimizing a transaction of freelancer they wouldn't stop doing it if they want the news they'll take the news but they would give you 50 bucks cash out the back door rather than engaging in a proper way so we said well if we get together we can talk about this so we did and so the biggest thing that we really offer folks is an opportunity to have a seat at the table at a time where the media industry is changing and freelancers are taking a bigger role particularly in foreign reporting to be able to express what it is that they need to do their jobs well and to have a constructive conversation with industry come up with suggestions to show that they're professional to say well actually I take my job seriously I take my safety seriously and you should as well so we've never been afraid of telling freelancers that they have obligations as well if they're going to take part in this sort of conversation with industry so but it also offers people a network they're often working in dangerous places it can be a bit lonely, frustrating so they've got a way of getting in touch with other freelancers in the area we help them get training or discounts on flat jackets just the practical stuff that they need on a day to day basis and it helped us when the American foreign editors decided to do the same thing as the British ones and say no freelancers from Syria have a solution to come to the table and say hang on a minute we've already been working on this let's all sit down and that's how ACOS started was because there was actually a group of freelancers that could come and have a constructive conversation about how to work together rather than sort of just slamming the door on that arrangement which as I said was never going to be a solution Narra to the extent that you can say what is when you go into western modes or conflict zone like that what is what sort of security protocols do you follow it's actually pretty extensive on our end it's usually depending on where we're going of course I mean it's a lot of research into it's a lot of reaching out to the various different intelligence agencies within governments trying to sort of put together as accurate of a picture as we can it's a lot of reaching out to sources on the ground CNN has a pretty solid infrastructure when it comes to how we operate, who we go in with how we go in, how often we check in with the network we're constantly being monitored whether we're being monitored or we're actually checking in with the network itself we have a lot of protocols that are put into place I mean I have to say all things considered to a certain degree and this is part of CNN management's job but I find them to be fairly protective of us but then again as I was saying even the best laid plans we never know so back in Mosul I went in back in November I went into eastern Mosul with the counter-terrorism division and all of the intelligence had indicated that ISIS had moved their fighters to the east and we've been covering the lead up for the battle for Mosul itself for about three, four months at the time when we went back and kind of did our what lessons could we have learned what could we have done differently there was actually nothing that we came up with in terms of our decision making process but long story short is we went through two, three neighborhoods fairly quickly we got into these very narrow streets and then the ISIS attack really began and they just took out the back vehicle and the front vehicle and the entire convoy was stuck because it couldn't turn around and we ended up under siege for 28 hours and I think the clear take away from all of that was a certain level of appreciation that we still need to have for just how unpredictable ISIS can actually be a recognition that we should never to a certain degree underestimate their capabilities and how they're operating and that's just one of obviously the many threats that we face out there open it up to questions if you have questions raise your hand wait for the mic and identify yourself thank you where is the mic we'll keep talking till the mic arrives because we're getting live streamed so we need to hear your question on the is ISIS I mean what is ISIS more dangerous than other than the Taliban or they're just you know they're the most I mean they start you know they had circa 2004 then became Al Qaeda then became the Islamic State of Iraq and at every single stage those entities were declared defeated and at every single stage they morphed and came back even stronger than before and I think there's a lot of danger in trying to define this war against ISIS again in terms of winning or losing and I think when we try to simplify a battle against an ideology in those terms we lose a lot of the nuances and the factors that then allow these various different you know fighters or ideologies or leaders to kind of regrow themselves even stronger than before well so the political factors that gave rise to ISIS are all basically still in place more or less and we can have a son of ISIS a grandson of ISIS you think great grandson I mean I just don't think we should underestimate it and I don't think we should be defining it in terms of winning or losing or just looking at territory because when you go out there and you say oh we're defeating ISIS it oversimplifies a much broader problem but certainly reducing the geographical caliphate has an impact on this of course but we do not yet know what their next move is what we do know is that they always had a next move what do you think it will be probably you know more ISIS has been very very good even when it takes you know credit for or actions attacks that have taken place or individuals who are inspired by ISIS I mean the smallest attack in Europe can cause massive fear and ISIS is very good right now and global leaders are playing straight into this exploit the fear of the other create greater divisions have us forget this fundamental reality that oh by the way we're all human beings we all more or less want the same thing and let's exploit that let's exploit this fear that actually exists even if we don't necessarily like to admit it okay is this lady here sunglasses yeah sunglasses lady hi my name is Mei I'm a freelance magazine writer living in Kabul and my question is about the most offensive and I apologize if it was covered earlier I got here a little late I'd love to know what you guys think was done well as an industry journalists going into Mosul covering the offensives leading up to it and up to now and what ways in which we failed what was overlooked thank you okay I actually think Mosul was fairly well covered there was definitely a lot of media especially at the beginning I think the lead up to it perhaps all things considered I do think that was fairly well done too but there's a lot of and it's a bit different when you're talking television or print obviously like we're putting together two and a half three minute news reports every once in a while you do get the longer report 11 minutes on air I think when I've especially been stateside and talk to people there's two things that I found that they're kind of missing is one the nuances of what's happened and why is it that ISIS was even able to take over Mosul there's an impression that the Iraqis should have gotten the job done a lot quicker which I think is unfair because the U.S. military in its history recent history has not faced the kind of battle the Iraqis are facing inside Mosul America's topist fight in Iraq was Fallujah 2004 more or less 15% of the population that stayed behind and it's about maybe a tenth the size of Mosul the Iraqis are dealing with ISIS they're dealing with over a million people held hostage they're dealing with and we saw this ourselves every single house has a family in it and and so I think some of the human side of the story maybe could have been brought out a bit more something that I tried to focus on and then the why and the what do we need to do to stop this from happening again and you know print has done a pretty good job in terms of trying to get into that but again this goes back to the consumption I feel like we're in an era where people actually want their news and what's Twitter 120, 160 characters like if you can't put it into that then it's going to just go and I don't know how we begin to address that I know people are interested in reading long form I know they're interested in watching long form but how do we shift more people towards actually doing that I have a follow up question to that so the military operation that take to take Mosul seems to have gone pretty well obviously it's a very difficult operation it's never going to be quick and it seems that the reason for that is the politics were worked out ahead at the time so that you know the Kurdish Peshmerga and the Shia militia they're not inside the city so what happens and that's great so I mean when I was in Iraq about a month ago the main question was what happens after Mosul falls and no one really knows but there's a lot of concern because everybody can agree that ISIS is a bad thing but then they don't agree about anything else what do you think is going to happen in Iraq because Abadi is not Maliki it seems but there is still a big problem so what's your assessment I haven't been in Mosul I think you're very right and that's the problem is that the force that's going to actually hold Mosul and I think the Iraqi government has a very short window to prove to the population of Mosul that it is not the Maliki government and that it is not going to be targeting them indiscriminately and that it can actually keep them safe because the thing for ISIS to then turn around and do once they eventually lose all of the city is going to be after these soft targets like they normally do and then of course you have the dynamic that's going to be happening with the Kurds who have already drawn their new borders in the sand and have absolutely no intention of pulling back and that's not even necessarily going to be an issue for Mosul per se but even a bigger issue when it comes to Kirkuk and the oil fields that they have and then of course you have the popular mobilization units the Shia paramilitary forces that are kind of surrounding the Kurds who have not fully gone into it I mean the window to get it right is so small and the sad reality of Iraq is every single time there's been a window to get it right the powers that beat have failed miserably. Is the body going to get it right? I don't know I have to say he's definitely not Maliki he was handed a wretched situation and I think if we look at it today in the Netherlands he has done a relatively speaking decent job but can he stand up to all the different forces that are pulling at him? Both of you have been embedded with the Kurds or have spent time with the Kurds do they want an independent state but understand that it's politically impossible or where are they right now if you were to kind of characterize? I think there's been this broad realization that they as badly as they want independence especially for Iraqi Kurdistan they're still too reliant on the 17% that they get from the budget in Baghdad problem right now of course is that Baghdad is not really sending money to them and I think right now there's a bigger shift towards independence but it's going to be very tricky because let's also recognize the Kurdish dynamics that exist within each country. Iraq's Kurds are not serious Kurds are not Turkey's Kurds are not Iran's Kurds Ankara is willing to deal with Erbil. Ankara is absolutely not going to deal with the YPG As reporters whenever you start talking about Kurdistan there seems to be a blizzard of acronyms the PKK, the SPG, the YPG the whatever it's very hard to understand how do you communicate to the public because it's important to understand but how do you kind of make sense of all this when you're reporting on it? You hope that they give you more than 45 seconds to answer but I would say across the board we haven't done a great job of it to be honest and that's going to probably come back and bite us in the ass when it comes to taking back rocker and what happens but it can articulate that a bit more because I think it's quite an interesting point so why, if you can't explain it the retaking of rocker is going to involve these groups and if you can't explain who they are to the audience why would that be a problem? Wow it's going to be a problem because I think that in a lot of the media the representation of the Kurds has been a little warning chicks with guns dancing with flowers in the mountains it's not necessarily representative of what the actual dynamics on the ground are going to be and what some of the specific tensions are when Kurdish groups go into some of these areas Let's not forget also the infighting that has historically existed amongst Kurdish groups right now it's very much an alliance of convenience that's not to say that that's going to be long term or sustainable for us on television you try to sort of simplify it and you have the Peshmerga which are the Iraqi Kurds and then within Syria you have the YPG who are the Syrian Kurds the fighting force but whom Turkey views as being the flip side of the PKK basically one in the same entity that Turkey deems to be a terrorist organization and where it gets very complicated is that America is allied with the YPG in Syria and the Turkish-American relations yeah actually no I think that was very good okay another question lady here Hi I'm just the answer planer with the enough project in the century we focus on violence and corruption in east and central Africa so this won't be a question about the Middle East but one of the challenges that we sometimes see when we work with local staff whether technically freelance or other contract arrangements is we work with a lot of people who care so much about tracking down the information and to the point that they'll sometimes take risks that we think that they shouldn't so I'm interested to sort of across the board from all of you what recommendations or guidelines or resources and approaches you recommend for helping local staff better look out for themselves when they may see them inclined to take risks that sort of take things too far because they care so much about getting the information making the contacts putting themselves out there to the point that they incur risks that we don't necessarily encourage them to take but that they want to take because that's how they're wired to do it Great question and very hard to answer because there's no easy answer we can tell you that they are a handbook, there are resources available on the website like ACOS like FFR they could refer to what are the safety guidelines that maybe western freelancer use but that's a start but that's not enough also because there's already so much need for the western freelancer going and which is not enough I'm thinking for example that we're still working to try to get a decent insurance health insurance for western freelancer going to dangerous places and the next step is to try to get good healthcare insurance for the local freelancer and fixer and that's it's very hard, we're working very hard as a group through ACOS through that goal and I wish I could tell you here is the insurance you can go to here, it doesn't exist yet so we have to work to make these resources available for the locals because again yes they are the ones who take the real risk so we are working on it so I would encourage you to follow what ACOS the culture of safety alliance is doing because that's really the goal of this collaborative action so you're close to getting some kind of insurance deal for reporters going into these conflicts that wouldn't be so expensive right now the real cost of insurance is prohibitive there are already some insurance for western freelancer going to war zones not always so expensive but now the one that reporters without borders was working with for six years now stopped American so we don't have any more insurance for Americans I ask an American insurance company or we're not easy to deal with but so now through ACOS now we have many news agency AFPAP writers and TPJ we're trying to see how if we come all together we can get better price, better coverage for the western freelancer even Americans I think also you also want to try to emotionally walk them back from it I think there's a very visceral reaction when you're that invested in a story of something happens I need to get there now and it's almost overpowering and one of the main points of discussion to have is like we understand we know how important this is but if we sit back and wait say 24 hours can we get a better security assessment of what's happening on the ground is it going to be detrimental to the information that you're going to get if you wait 24 hours or even x amount of hours before actually going in are there different ways to acquire the information that you want i.e. is there someone closer to where the incident took place who you can call do you know somebody who might already be at the scene you can give you that information without you needing to go there yourself and give yourself that breather to actually do a proper security assessment of what threats you might face once you actually arrive to what it is that you want or if you're trying to uncover information about corruption or sensitive issues that might land you in jail or target you for kidnapping are there ways to do it where you can better conceal your identity and conceal the identity of your sources which may take a little bit more time we understand that but in the long run it's safer for everybody involved and I think a lot of times people just need to be talked down from that emotional initial I need to get there I absolutely have to do this and I say this from personal experience because I've definitely had CNN walk me back from that I would say the fact that you're asking that question puts you ahead of a lot of other people so that's great that you're asking that question but I would agree with that there's risk assessment forums and videos and so forth that you can get on the Rory Pack Trust website RSA, CPJ and going through those and then really talking folks through well if you do this and we have to evacuate you from the country to live in exile because you dive in and it's really good to look and if you sort of walk through people through the worst case scenarios and make them understand that that's actually a thing that might happen and sort of facing the reality of what the consequences might be it helps to sort of pull them back I think Wait for the mic sir and identify yourself John Foley, Jim's dad What level of effect does the need to be read or published or seen have on the risk taking that journalists, photojournalists humanitarians any person in a conflict zone war zone whatever I mean would seem to me as in on any of those that my career was involved in that as well as my desire to do good to be pushed to want to be where some people didn't want to go so that I could see, do and say things that aren't being done or said So you do your risk versus editorial you know the first question I would always ask or you know when folks are wanting to talk through whether they should do something is that risk versus the editorial benefit sort of equation of you know if you are going to be the only person to get this story and it's otherwise not going to be told whether it's important and exposure to something you know dreadful that's happening then your calculus on the risk might be different than if you're just going over to the Mosul front line as a freelancer because all of your other photojournalist friends are anything that you should so sort of putting that kind of what's the benefit not just for my career but for the for the understanding outside of the thing as the first question and then going into the risk anyone who does this just for career is in this job for the wrong reasons I think a lot of the driving factors for all of us is you know you want to go where no one else is going not necessarily like the first process is not you know what is this going to do for my career is what is this going to do for the people who I'm reporting on and what happens if their story, what happens to them if their story isn't told at least that you know my and most people I know's line of thinking because I think I would like to think that beyond kind of career progression most of us feel a profound moral responsibility you know even though we're talking about the fact that the impact of journalism is diluted we're not going to allow a sense of futility to silence us or stop us you know actually I want to go back to that point that actually we have this impression we share that impression that information is diluted but at the same time if the journalists are so targeted and targeted it's because what they're doing is still very powerful and that's why there are so many different ways to try to silence the journalists and the information itself very cruise Delphine seems to be the most dangerous place in the world for journalists right now right yeah we thought for some time that the violence in Mexico diminished but last year and even last month was extremely concerning and we also I have to say disappointed by the lack of efficiency of the plan that the Mexican government try to put in place and that's very difficult when the government are not able to fight impunity at that level and this impunity is really every kind of every murder of journalists in the world remains unturnished so it's an easy thing to kill a journalist and to not be afraid to one day face justice and that's uncourage of course the targeting of journalists everywhere in Mexico everywhere this lady and then this gentleman thanks Christy Dellafield with Mercy Corps it's good to see you guys again my question is really about that impact as a humanitarian organization we're in Syria, we're in Mosul we really want to tell those stories too and what kind of techniques and tactics are you using to try to get that human story out what are you experimenting with now and how can NGOs partner with journalists to get those real human stories told for Syria and Iraq are obviously two very different things because in Iraq we can physically access what's happening and I guess for me it's kind of it's still down to that same principle that has always existed when we come together into one person's story the story of a four-year-old girl who is covered in shrapnel who might be going blind because after her house was hit in a coalition airstrike her father pulled her out charred black beyond recognition and then the ISIS fighters that still controlled the area would not allow them to leave for three days until they actually got physically driven out that takes a lot of the complexity of the battle for Mosul and brings it into one four-year-old girl's story Syria of course is phenomenally difficult because it's much harder for us to go into and access and in that case we're relying on these networks of activists we've been working with for about six years right now of course a lot of them have been pushed out of areas like Aleppo and it's even harder for them to access information but I guess for me it really goes down to trying to take we need to begin relating to each other again we need to begin listening to each other again we need to not look at these images and turn away and think that's happening over there that's happening to the other but recognize that as confident as we are in our certain realities today as confident as we are in the fact that we can have a gathering like this and it's not probably going to get targeted in some sort of a bombing those people that are going through the sheer insecurity and fear and terror right now we're as confident in that reality back then as we are today and it's shredded like that for them I think the other thing is exterior there's this perception that there isn't very much information that there isn't data available we don't know what's happening on the ground and that's just absolutely not true there's so many NGOs working in the country there's so many sort of organizations gathering data about populations and all kinds of things and it's being hoarded for different reasons in different places and it's not being shared and I think the humanitarian community as well as the political community still have this fear that every journalist is going to take everything you say and just like put it on the page and screw you over but with a story like Syria where the group of people that are still covering it in depth at this point is small and they understand the risks and they understand the dynamics and they had some background there is an opportunity to be briefing them or for people to be sharing robust information more regularly with journalists and having an ongoing dialogue about the way that they might use it or report it without this kind of fear of the radical truth telling because then we get into these problems like we did with Aleppo where you have the population data for instance this whole debate that went on forever about how many people were in East Aleppo well the information was available that was more accurate than the 275,000 number that was bandied around and because everybody used the one number that was public it kind of undermined a lot of the other reporting that went on in East Aleppo so I think just trusting each other a bit more and having sort of ongoing discussions I mean it's a little bit different with something like Mosul where the breaking story and people are maybe going to take those bits of information and get a jump on their competition but for some of the more complex stories I think there's ways of like Humanitarians and journalists having a more useful relationship that results into a better information TV images of children being gassed by it with Sarin to produce an outcome from the Trump administration what was your guy's reaction to that do you see any evidence of some larger sort of Trump administration theory of the case in Syria I think it should be looked at two things to say about that one is that the reaction from a lot of activists was the other thing is I don't think it should be taken beyond the context of it being a single reaction to one action the policy hasn't really changed there's no broader plan to try to deal with Syria in and of itself and I also think that given the indescribable emotional rollercoaster that Syrians have been going through especially those who oppose the government to see the US step in like this gives them an injection of hope but crashing down from that can be very dangerous on multiple levels incident was it the right thing to do well I think that accountability is important and I would argue that the last chemical weapons attack in 2013 with the lack of accountability that went with it was a turning point in the conflict and has had repercussions that will haunt us for a very long time so in some senses accountability is important but it needs to be kind of meaningful accountability rather than sort of theatrics so I don't think that it will have vastly will vastly change the course of the conflict in the same way that the lack of accountability last time did but I think the fact that there is there was some sort of cause and effect showing is helpful but if it doesn't come with a broad set of policies that are meaningful and useful in resolving the conflict then I mean it's usefulness is limited okay bringing back to the news and the impact of news at the same time that the US government was launching this attack the trending hashtag on Twitter was ciaox and just seeing that was for me Halcy Gabbard went to CNN to say she wasn't sure who did the attack right I mean right after it so she had been to Damascus she had been to Damascus and she just said it wasn't clear who did the attack so so is it a mistake to say Assad must go was it a mistake to say Assad must go at the beginning and is it a mistake now I think the problem is that if you're going to say Assad must go you must be willing to put in the muscle behind that I think the big problem has been with you know rhetoric whether it's Assad must go red lines cannot be crossed and then not having the muscle willpower or the capacity to actually be able to stand up to what it is that you're saying has you know it has a devastating impact that's very difficult to put into words but if you just imagine yourself as a young Syrian activist who has gone out there who has tried to demonstrate peacefully who has probably been detained who has seen loved ones detained and or killed who has seen these promises and all sorts of rhetoric coming out of various leaders who by the way it's very important to point out that despite the fact that Syrians and Middle Easterners feel betrayed by the West and by the United States they still fundamentally want to believe in America and in America's values and in Western values when they ask for freedom and democracy so to see these powers not stand up on a global stage for what it is that they claim to stand up to other populations are asking for it and then we wonder why it is that when they've been gunned down they end up turning towards more extreme groups not necessarily out of conviction but when you're getting killed are you going to stand there or are you going to go and hang out with the guys with the bigger guns and that's the ripple on effect of what happens and I think it has an impact on the fight against ISIS because that is an ideal war and if you prove that your ideology you're not prepared to fight for it and it doesn't actually amount to much it makes that the sort of ideological war that you're waging on the other side of the country all that much more difficult because you're undermining what you're saying and things that we all know people who were activists who some have stayed on obviously as activists and I have so much respect for them you know a guy who used to run a women's clothing store who was a moderate rebel went and joined Nusrah why? Nusrah had the bigger guns you know two very close friends who were in these peaceful demonstrations in the beginning who had the same ideas of what they wanted Syria to look like one stayed as an activist and the other went off to ISIS and threatened a guy who was his best friend I mean what happens inside a person's moral compass that allows them to break off like that these are all issues we need to address and talk about to prevent it from happening How would you assess Nusrah's strengths or weaknesses right now and by the way we're going to have another session after this starting at 1215 that will include Theo Padnos who was an American journalist who was taken hostage by Nusrah and was released eventually Well the thing that Nusrah did differently than ISIS initially was to embed themselves into the local population in a different way than ISIS did so when ISIS sort of took off out to the east Nusrah remained and so until reasonably recently they've had a degree of support from the local population not necessarily ideologically at all but because they didn't sort of go in with the big stick in the same way that ISIS did and so that sort of put them in a slightly different position and now there's this very difficult situation where they are sort of geographically entrenched into areas that are civilian areas where there's loads of people who want nothing to do with them and where you also have a sort of country wide strategy that involves relocating people from areas that were opposition held into where Nusrah are and so you have this I think this is going to be one of the more complex issues to solve in Syria you have this issue where you have sort of American and Western counter-terror imperatives that involve getting rid of Nusrah but to do that you're going to have to go and fight them in what is a civilian area where you have essentially through complacence of nothing else allowed the evacuation of civilians of women and children, activists, journalists doctors from places like Daraya east Aleppo across the country into that area so how are you going to get Nusrah out of that area without compounding the problem of disenfranchising these other people? And they were viewed for the longest time as being the only ones who were actually protecting the population bearing in mind that Nusrah learned from the lessons of al-Qaeda's failures in Iraq whereas implemented a different strategy in Syria whereas ISIS did not but you also have you know even early days circa 2012 even in a place like Aleppo people wanted Nusrah to run the bread factories why? Because of their extremist ideology they were viewed as being truthful and honest and they weren't going to steal the bread and they were very smart in acting this way and really entrenching themselves and their strategy for Syria was to embed themselves from the ground up which I think long, long, long term potentially poses a bigger threat not inconceivable the elements of ISIS as they kind of crumble join up with Nusrah I mean it was interesting that when ISIS first came in Nusrah emerged fighters to them because they had to a certain degree because they had basically again bigger guns more power, more capability so the reverse could also be true it could, yeah gentlemen here I'm a master's student George Washington my question's kind of taking a step back but where do you three see journalism going in the next 10 years and how do you protect the integrity of your stories in the age of social media there are lots of questions so where do we see journalists going as a representative for a press freedom organization what I've seen is that the trend is that journalists have never been targeted as much as today in a way this is unprecedented so which means that where it is going that it's more and more dangerous to be a journalist and in war zone but also in our democracy actually last week we released our annual index and what we highlighted this year is that even leading democracies are now more and more targeting journalists in different ways using the judiciary or using police and we have seen the number of journalists arrested in the US and France growing up this last year and this is very dangerous for many different reasons but so when you ask me where I see journalists going that there's more and more risk and we need to defend it more and more and we need to defend journalism because we need of course to continue to know what is happening and what we like to say as reporters without borders is that actually we don't defend journalists because they are amazing people some are but not all and I can say that because I'm a journalist but because really journalism the press freedom is the freedom that allow all of us to verify the other freedom exists and that's why it's so important to defend it that's why it's so important to talk about it to talk about the reality on the ground to talk about the press and that's why when you ask me where is it going I don't know but it has to continue to go because we all need it I mean we're fighters and yes it's going to be tough but I mean we are inherently fighters like we will fight back against the system we will fight to get a story that's what we fundamentally believe in so I think even though yes it is going to be a lot more difficult to be a journalist not just in terms of physical security but maybe to a certain degree emotional security because it is exhausting to be targeted over and over and over again whether it's on social media or whether it's not for myself per se but for local journalists whether it's death threats or all of these other aspects of it that they deal with but we will not stop fighting I think now is the moment where we really need to come together and figure out how do we stand together how do we fight back against this growing phenomenon of global leaders trying to discredit us actually what I want to say is that there is so much collaboration between the media and the press freedom media working together to fight back and so if there is one good thing you can put it on Trump on different reasons I never been working so much in collaboration with my colleagues so that is very encouraging your question about social media for those of us that aren't millennials we are still trying to figure it out but it's a different way of disseminating information that as we have been talking about it may be diluted but it's also a way of reaching an audience much quicker in ways that we haven't before and I think we are still working it out and I think that's okay I would pick up on the social media and say that sometimes in my reporting think about what the response on social media is going to be and hit off some of it in the report itself so you're like what are the trolls going to say when I say this okay so I'll put something that counteracts that in there and save us all some time because then you can kind of if you don't give them anything to pick up on and you do know what the thing is that the troll I mean in a story like Terry you know what the trolls are going to say you can kind of head them off at the path and I think that that sort of goes back to as well the where are we going to be in journalism in ten years and in depth as an industry is going to be really important at this particular time you know there's the way that we're embedding new ways of reporting into legacy media is very successful in some cases and not so successful in others so how are we able to pull data reporting in 3D and VR and so forth into the reporting in a way that's meaningful rather than playing with our sexy toys you know and giving people a way to engage with the information that makes them feel confident that it's true you know we need to sort of maybe address this idea that we all think that we have some sort of right to explain what happened but the public is saying to us well actually we don't necessarily think that you do so what can we do to rebuild that trust and how can we use some of the tools that are available to us to facilitate us to do that rather than just to you know show that we have the the shiny as camera what about what extent do you either of you use encryption when you're in these zones where the government is hostile the people you're working with are you may need to hide their identities and the sources of the people you're talking to and you do when you need to or sometimes when you go into some countries you take a burner phone with you I think you know protecting sources is one of our cornerstones it's absolutely vital Emma? Well yeah I mean it's just thinking about what the risk is in any given circumstance I mean the risk is different if you get up the government versus if you're scared of you know an armed group over there or and choosing the appropriate form of communication or encryption for the risk that you're why would you mention Trump in this context then what can I say that actually we have seen that protection protecting your source and using encryption is actually even very useful in Germany in UK in Canada in the US where we have seen more and more cases you know that in Canada there's like many journalists who are under police surveillance and you hear of things like that and you're like what Canada or Germany actually just passed a law which allow them now legally to to monitor any non-German person including John Eisenhower I just assume my phone's monitored at all times by various different entities and every once in a while there's a bit of a strange buzz where I hear myself talking back to myself and I'm like oh you too yeah yeah But you know it was the Obama administration aspects of the Espionage Act who either try and imprison journalists or their sources more than any administration in previous history so I think it's dangerous to say somehow Trump is I did see a story that Ryan's previous wants to was talking about expanding libel laws in a way that would be disadvantageous to journalists who said this yesterday so I don't but I think this is a bipartisan thing this is not There's been a trend broadly speaking towards this on a global level Hi I'm Holly Jensen I work for the Department of State and I want to go back to a statement you made earlier about switching shifting the conversation back to the human side of these stories What lessons do you think we can take from the storytelling that came out of a rock from ten years ago Do you think that was a failure on journalist parts to not highlight the humanitarian excuse me the humanitarian side of what was happening on the ground in Baghdad as we moved through Fallujah and then what lessons can we learn to apply those lessons to apply that to what's happening now in Syria I think the problem with Iraq in the old days and I thought back a lot on this because I started reporting in Iraq in 2003 we were kind of fighting a different kind of fight back then in the sense that we weren't being discredited as the media but when we reported something from both the US administration side and the US military we were slammed left right and center for only focusing on the bad news for only focusing on the tragedies that were unfolding and that we weren't reporting good news and because of that mentality the administration and the military either deliberately or out of a level of ignorance that I still cannot fathom did not acknowledge reality on the ground in Iraq and when you do not acknowledge reality on the ground in a war zone that is that complicated you end up in the situation that you end up in today should we have done things differently back then were there ways to sound the alarm bells we were all collectively trying to sound back then that is something that we need to in a different forum go back and really reflect on because I think those of us who reported Iraq and back then people didn't just really drift in and out of the store you went in and you stayed for the long haul we were trying so hard and we would go into these briefings and backgrounders and get shredded to pieces by people who were sitting in Humvees or inside the Greens on about how we didn't know what was really happening and of course those statements were made publicly so it was a different battle back then between I guess the media and those in power than it is today but it was still a battle to try to get information out there to a certain degree and I guess the narrative that we saw versus the narrative that the administration wanted the world to see maybe mother of Abdul Rakhman Peter Kasig and my question regards ransom kidnapped insurance the pros and cons of it I can see where a con is that it could falsely give somebody the assurance of security that's not really there and thereby emboldened them to take more risks than they would I'm wondering if you see a place for it in the next 10 years that you're talking about what will be happening in the next 10 years it depends where you're reporting so there's lots of places where having KRE insurance is really helpful because the kidnapping is a transactional process and it's non-terrorist groups and you can get a ransom paid and get out quite quickly I think there's other, of course it's always going to be useful for freelancers it's cost prohibitive it's not something that employers will cover which is a problem because even when even when you're dealing with a group that a ransom can't be paid to having an advocate having someone who has been employed to follow up your case day in and day out is enormously helpful you might have use on that no I think it's a huge debate about the whole logic behind paying for hostages I mean at the end of the day you know it's someone's life and I think we just we need to look at as to whether or not the strategy of not paying and not negotiating has actually changed anything which I don't think it necessarily has it doesn't make you less of a target if you say to a kidnapper well my government's not going to pay I mean let me just interject because the Pogli Foundation gave us and Hostage US gave us 1200 western cases of people being kidnapped and the outcomes for Americans were twice as bad as any other group the only people the only other group that had outcomes that were even close were the British we also don't so now you know separating out the question of are people being killed because the ransom is not being paid or is there some political dimension because people are being targeted because they're Americans but I think we came to the conclusion I mean it's a simple fact when you look at the ISIS prisoners met almost all the Europeans got out and they all paid and I I'm not as brave as people on the stage but one of the things I most object in this discussion is the idea well and you hear this sometimes from in you know reasonably educated Americans well people are in dangerous places and therefore you know they get taken and it's kind of their fault and you know of course journalists are in dangerous places aid workers are in dangerous places because that's where the need is we're not sort of in great we're not covering what's going on in you know Sweden because Sweden is relatively tranquil there are no aid organizations working in Sweden in any meaningful way and so by the law of averages by the law of averages it's going to be journalists and aid workers who are going to be taken because they're the people that are in these places but yeah so it is a simple fact that not paying ransom certainly increases the likelihood of having a bad outcome and that is a simple fact the other thing I find interesting about the argument you just made is that you know there's this thought that like journalists and aid workers haven't essentially been used as a soft power lever for decades by the American government the British government and then you know when you get into trouble it reverts back to well you're just a civilian it has nothing to do with you know the ideas of the country that you're from I guess that's one point is that when you're kidnapped there's the question of kidnapping insurance but I think that your citizenship is even a more important factor and who kidnapped you if it's a criminal organization or if it's a terrorist organization makes I think a bigger difference than if you are covered or not and talking about journalists we know that freelancer will never be able to have kidnapping insurance so then it's more back to we will kidnap you and what's your passport this is a very good segue to the fact that at 12.15 we're going to have a whole session that will be about this issue and Theo Padnaus is going to be part of it and Rachel Brigg from Hostage US and Diane Foley from the Foley Foundation so if you would like to come and hear a deeper discussion of this particular issue at 12.15 we'll be holding that is there any other questions we'll wrap up we'll take one more thank you I'm Laura Calli I'm a reporter for the Washington Times I was previously in Israel in the Middle East question of whether you agree or disagree on international reporting if it's accurately conveying kind of the majority opinions in countries when we're telling stories about them I always felt when we were reporting from Israel we weren't showing exactly how strong the right wing was and people were really surprised when Netanyahu won the election and I feel I see that in other countries too so if you agree you know what can we do if you disagree what am I missing there's been these moments I think for those of us covering Syria in particular where it's been like what the heck were we doing this all for you know when there was the picture of the Lillain Curdie and suddenly everyone was like all about the refugee crisis which of course was a huge story and a big issue but it was as if it was happening in a bubble and no one seemed to understand where these people were coming from or why and this one sort of social media picture had more cut through than all of the stories we'd been writing about Syria for a couple of years that would have given you a fairly good indication that there might be a whole bunch of people wanting somewhere else to live and there's been a couple of those sorts of things where you think well actually whether it's the majority opinion or not where somehow we're not getting the scale or the reality of the millions of people who are sitting there waiting for the conflict to end to go home across particularly effective way and I think you know just sitting here and listening to all these discussions taking place there's so much information that's out there there's so many ways to get information that you know we also need to kind of figure out a way to encourage the public that's consuming news to go out and seek information themselves no don't just watch CNN if you see something on CNN if you're focused interested want more go and read a newspaper article about it so maybe what we need to start figuring out how to do is how to grab someone's attention take for example the momentum that was generated after the horrific image of Aylan Kordiyov you know Amran sitting in the back of that ambulance wiping the dust off of his face and turn that into something that's going to somehow motivate the general public to go out and seek more information of their own because I think there's also a bit of apathy when it comes to A. what's happening but a lack of enthusiasm wanting to go out and seek more knowledge yourself in terms of the general public but that being said once people are interested in something you do see more interest in it you do see more research being done you do see more questions being asked we just I think maybe need to figure out a way to capitalize on that momentum when it peaks for stories or even begin to generate it ourselves given the way that information is being circulated right now I want to thank our wonderful distinguished panelists