Good day everyone I am Karen bonadio senior director of alumni relations and I’m delighted to welcome you to today’s alumni talk policy webinar focused on media democracy and the 2024 us elections the alumni talk policy webinar series features HK alumni and panel discussions about pressing public issues
This webinar is being recorded and close captioning is available I’m happy to introduce the moderator dick toffel MPA 1983 principal gallon advisory former president propublica who will kick off today’s um timely and important discussion thank you dick thank you Karen so much we’re I think I can speak
For everybody to say we’re delighted to be with you here today and we want to get straight to our discussion first let me briefly introduce my fellow panelists Eric Felton why don’t you wave just so folks I think it’ll be clear but is a 1989 MPA over three decades in
Journalism he has written regularly for the Washington examiner real clear investigations The Weekly Standard and the voice of America he also has his own Jazz Orchestra and wrote a column on cocktails and Spirits for the Wall Street Journal Jackie Weatherspoon is a 1991 MPA Jackie want to if you can wave it
Great excellent thank you she is a member of the state advisory committee of the US Civil Rights Commission and the founders and the founder of decisions in democracy International which trains women to run for public office and mediation skills she served six years in the New Hampshire House of
Representatives and was also previously a senior election officer for undp and Sabra horn um if you thank you is an is a 2005 MPA she is currently entrepreneur in Residence at bmnt following 15 years in federal service at the cyber security and infrastructure Security Agency the NSA
The Department of Justice and the office of the Director of National Intelligence before the Kennedy School she was her 10 years an editor at Thompson writers okay our broad subject today today is Media democracy and the US elections I want to start by giving each of our panelists a few minutes to give
Their thoughts on where we stand at the moment and what personally are their own greatest concerns on these issues at this point um Sabre let’s start with you if we could thank you so much dick and um I appreciate the question about what is the state of play currently um as
Always I am optimistic about what we can do as Citizens to help keep our elections safe but I will say I my experience is quite informed by my history uh primarily in the intelligence community in 2016 I was deputy director for information sharing collaboration at the National Security Agency when we
Discovered the Russian intrusion into the 2016 presidential election I then went to sisa the cyber security and infrastructure Security Agency uh in 2017 and was part of a group that alerted state election officials as to what had happened with the Russian penetrations into their state infrastructure and subsequently I stood
Up the election Task Force at that time we believed um as Federal uh uh participants in the important process of supporting state and local officials uh in conducting Fair elections we believe that the greatest risk was the infrastructure the critical infrastructure of Elections to include it infrastructure voting machines and
The votes of each state but it turned out that it was truly social media specifically Facebook Twitter Youtube and Instagram among others that were so very critical in really shaping the way the public voted um and uh this was driven by uh inaccurate posts that were supported by nation states specifically
Russia um to really change how we were able to view the process of the election so strangely um we did not anticipate um that you could use a much cheaper and easier method to change the way the citizens believed uh that their political uh candidates were uh
Potentially uh able to serve office so I think it’s absolutely critical for us as we go into this election to ensure that we’re doing all that we can to not only protect the the critical infrastructure uh and support the states and local effect election officials but to do what
We can to ensure that we as Citizens are keeping ourselves safe as well as our fow F fellow citizens thank you great Jackie your own assessment of where we stand at the moment and what your greatest concerns are at this point it’s good to be here the first
Thing I want to say is um we are at the end of black history month and I want to do a shout out to a number of my Shiro Fanny Lamer Victoria gray and Annie Divine they were part of the Mississippi Freedom Party and they
Had this burning desire to be a part of the process we have learned as black women that if you are not at the table you’re on the menu let me repeat that again if you are not at the decision making table you were on the menu so black women we
Have been trying to get there to participate we know two years ago we celebrated the 100th anniversary of women trying to get the vote and curious when you look at that history you find out that black women were there they but they were told you can’t march with us
So what did the sororities do they went to the back of the line and marched anyway so sometimes some of you may be curious why is KLA Harris i b p always talking about the sororities well they were there at the beginning when you are the last to vote
You have this burning desire to say I am a citizen Kesha Blain wrote an article this week and the title was called wake up America black women and the future of democracy and we know democracy if we are not at the table it impacts education it impacts Health Care not
Only delivering children but for older women insulin there are so many areas owning property what are some of the areas where we find the most barriers geremander redlining not wanting young people to vote well we know in the last few Cycles they would take the PO in stations two
Miles out of town where college students had to walk during class to get there so again I just say we are here we love America we will always love America and I have looked at what are some of the new things that are happening one of
Them and part of the media for us is two black two black moms in a mic check them out what they’re talking about online look at the 19th look at Aon Haynes and what she is talking about in the media there are some great women and for us in
Our state it’s the Ken State uh Coalition they have a weekly guide on everything that’s happening in our legislature so I’ll tell you a little bit more but thank you so much Eric for letting me open this up okay uh Erin uh again where where we stand at the moment and what your
Personal greatest concerns are well I think where we stand at the moment is um for for all the talk of uh Donald Trump’s uh violation of norms uh uh that has sort of driven a lot of journalists into abandoning Norms themselves and uh you know the the Norms
That I think are are most important are norms of trying to um have balanced reporting where you um get the opinion not only of one party but of another party um and it leaves us without um without an ability to make reasoned careful judgments as Citizens if we’re only
Presented with one side of the story um and there’s been a a a real sense that um that if if Donald Trump is allowed to have his say that that is destructive and um dangerous to democracy um I think rather the the greater danger to democracy is uh if an in an attempt
To um to keep Donald Trump from having his say that journalists abandon um the the the standards that have been essential for uh journalism for for centuries and um you know it’s uh uh Benjamin cardoo uh wrote that that um freedom of speech is the foundational principle
Upon which all of the rest of our freedoms rests and um I think it’s important for journalists in particular uh but for everyone to to make sure that uh in their participation in the political process or in their action as journalists that we maintain um the commitment to free
Speech that allows everyone to be heard and allows the voters to make their own judgment about um who to believe and what to believe so thanks that that is a good setup I think for my first question uh first specific question to each and all
Of you we will by the way have uh significant time for audience questions toward the end of this but but even uh before that we received a number of suggested questions in advance and and they’re going to shape considerably the questions that I’m about to to ask our panel um let’s
Start with this um and and I’d love it if we could keep your answers brief so we could keep things moving um how serious do and and I’m happy to take whoever wants to go first um but I want to get to each of you how serious do
Each of you think the threat to democracy is in the US this year and how serious do you think the American people think it is uh dick I’m happy to go first um I actually do think it is a significant year uh for our democracy
And I do look to Media to be an Arbiter of truth I think um as Eric has just uh demonstrated for us that is the job of the journal to seek truth and to report it and to do so fairly um and to do so in a consistent way and I think the
Challenge that we all have been given is that it’s very difficult to understand what is truth these days and who is pushing the truth and so being absolutely assiduous about understanding um the sourcing that takes place the understanding what actually is true and what is not true um and ensuring that we
We are really um not only being truthful ourselves but standing up for truth and doing so in a very uh outwardly spoken way um I think we are in a very challenging time because it’s hard to tell what truth is um and we can’t always look to our usual uh purveyors of
Uh uh journalism or reporting to really understand exactly how truthful the information that we are getting is and so I think it’s a a huge challenge I’m not sure that our citizens feel the level of threat in the same way I think that we saw in over the past several
Years that our democracy is a much more fragile thing that we than we ever could have possibly imagined and um we all must stand ready at all times to ensure that our democracy stands yeah Jackie I’m going to come to you next how do you how serious do you think the threat is
To democracy in the US this year and and how serious do you think the American people think the threat is um let me on the local level what political parties are doing now they’re lining up candidates so that they could fill the ballot so parties get it citizens they don’t pay attention till
About September and then they said oh then they start talking to friends who are you going to vote for by that time they are just listening to buzzwords or some phrase that a candidate said and that’s why they’re going to vote for them or they don’t and that’s where the information
And disinformation comes in you’re relying on buzzword to figure out how you’re going to vote what political parties are doing now in addition to having um the candidates ready to go they are trying to do education and they are asking themselves should we go to Tik Tock what
Are those things that we can do to get citizens engaged now America this is a pretty happy Tony place to live in the world so we get distracted by all the wonderful things how life is and we don’t look at it as the same we don’t have soldiers running
Around we don’t have tanks in the streets we don’t have those things there is food there are organizations that undergird when they are challenges we’re not looking at what Nigeria was looking at this week where there was not enough rice they was stopping cars we’re not
Even looking at what’s going on in the Middle East in our towns where we’re saying we can’t let the trucks get through we still have a choice of how many types of rice we’re going to be so I think the American psyche and the zist
Is that we usually take our time we wait to the end hear the buzzwords and go but parties are learning how to we cannot wait so in some states like mine everything jumps off this week Eric how serious is the threat and how serious do you think the American people
Regarded you know I I don’t think that um people necessarily think that uh we’re in grave threat mode at least you know sort of not in the way that um a lot of cable news channels will have everybody with their hair on fire you know
Um it it does help to go back and and um look at the past and in in American history things have been often much more contentious much more difficult um than they are now um you know just after the founding you had um sedition laws put in place that uh uh
The parties were using to um knock out their opponents and you had uh people who had been at the founding of the uh of the Republic John Adams uh Thomas Jefferson uh using using the law to try to hobble their political opponents and um I think if you look at what’s been
Going on uh in you know the recent contentious politics of the United States it it’s it’s not as bad as uh even in those dangerous days when the Republic was new and um so I I tend not to um you know be too much of a hand
Ringer um but I do think that uh there’s plenty of room to to do journalism right for people to speak their minds to be heard on uh whether it’s through social media uh or uh you know Town Hall meetings and um as long as that remains
Uh I think the Republic is sound and um and safe yeah Eric I’m just going to push back for a second I mean I I’ve read a fair amount about uh over the years about the era of the founding and I think it’s a safe statement that uh
Jefferson and most of the founders Washington may have been different would not have expected the Republic to last 250 years um so to say that democracy is not as threatened as it was at the founding and maybe to add as I’m sure you would that it may not be as
Threatened as it was at the outbreak of the Civil War um putting those two moments aside do you think that uh things are more perilous than they have generally been throughout the Run of American History or do you think this is just another average partisan fight I wouldn’t call it average because
It’s so flamboyant um I think in just to some degree the the the fights we have now um are extravagant um you know you with a character like Donald Trump as part of the uh the action um it makes for um you know a circus U but that I don’t think that that’s
Necessarily um you know a tremendous danger um I I’ll just give one example this was something I reported at the at the time it was was happening when uh just after um the uh election uh at which in in 2016 When Donald Trump was elected uh
There came to light as um zebra said that that um the the Russian government had um computer uh whizzes who were trying to throw the election one way or another and one example that uh was found was that um there had been a Florida um uh a fake Florida Trump event
That was put up by the Russians um it it just happened that in the same city in Florida on the same day there was an actual Trump um event and the one put up by the Russians um had about 10 people standing on a street corner and there’s
Footage of that and um a few blocks away where the actual Trump event was you had a stadium filled with people and I think that that’s some evidence of the difficulty even from uh for a uh a malicious player that has lots of resources I.E Putin’s Russia um you know
It’s a it’s it’s more difficult than it may seem to try to throw an election and the organic support for Trump um that day far outweighed um the support that had been uh engineered maliciously by the Russians um I I’ve got another question I’d like to get to you but first did
Jackie or Sabra either of you w to jump in here I can’t help but jump in so thank you so much dick and Eric just to respond um well first I’ll point out since I was in the intelligence Community you all as taxpayers actually paid to ensure that I was paranoid at
All times so I’m going to watch for danger right I’m going to ensure that we are keeping our citizens safe keeping our institutions safe and so I do look back at uh the 2016 election and it was simply a failure of imagination on the part of the intelligence Community to
Again um imagine that a an election could have been swung um through social media it simply had not occurred to us and so we were not watching for that and that was a um You Know lesson learned that will never take place again um I think one of the questions that we had
Gotten earlier um in preparation for this uh was do we have policies in place now that prevent um social media from being used in as a weapon against our citizens and certainly we’re not where we need to be um there’s more that needs to take place and I think um you know I
Know that there are many eyes looking at how to actually do that in the right way but I I I can’t help but say I think our democracy is more fragile than we imagined and there are many ways that uh that democracy can be broken um and I
Think none of us and I just simply have to say it it’s the elephant in the room January 6 taught us that literally in moments we could have had um rather than having the peaceful transfer of power as was uh the example set by George Washington our very first president who
Refused to take a third term um that could have threatened our democracy and so I I have eyes on um and Eric you are invited to my table any day because I like your optimistic view Jackie do you want want to say something before we move on to my next
Question yeah yes just briefly um there was a lot of writing on the wall that I saw when um the militia groups they are in my state not only they in my state they boldly demonstrated not only did they boldly demonstrate it they would try to harass
People many years ago in my town we actually had the KKK on the corner these are reals but it’s when uh citizens stand up together no one thought that the proud boys would do anything oh they were harmless they told us how they felt what they believed in
But did we believe them thank you um so my next question I I think comes almost directly from this what useful lessons do each of you think the Press has learned about how to cover Donald Trump compared to 2016 I’m going to leave aside 2020 because he was President then and so and
And also we were in a pandemic two very different situations but compared to 2016 what do you think the Press has learned about how to cover Trump and what in your view do they still need to learn Jackie you want to start with start on that
One oh okay thanks a lot this is a tough one um how do they uh lessons in learning how to cover Trump um in my opinion he’s gotten too much airtime he is very very smart um in every case that he’s had this time he
Knows how to to use the media um people enjoy his Antics when you hear their response so um he has Hood weaked the press in my opinion what has the press learned you could turn to certain networks and they will say we will tell you what he said but we will not show
You so that’s a way of letting people listen to his words and not the show every candidate knows that you can have a great backdrop which looks like 3,000 people he could have maybe had 30,000 candidates know how to manipulate the press and we have to have press in
The room that understands what actually is going on and the Press can do a much better job on covering events on talking to Citizens and really not doing the show but giving us the words thank you Sabra Eric who would like to take the next shot at this what has the Press
Learn about how to cover Trump and what do they still need to learn Eric I mean I I think that the the the question suggests that Trump is not some something to be covered but rather something to be managed you know a a phenomenon that has to be dealt with
Like I’m GNA interrupt you there just to say the question doesn’t presume that the question presumes that Trump is a very is qualitatively different from any major part Party candidate before 2016 and I’m prepared to stand on that one as objectively true right and in what sense is he different such that it
Requires um some kind of different standard of coverage maybe I didn’t say standard I said approach and the answer and your answer you’re fully within your rights of course to say the answer is none yeah and um you know that would that would likely be my approach to it which
Is um you know we see again as this this question of of norms and I think part of the challenge is to to realize that how one covers Trump is not just about what is you know is not just about covering Trump but rather will have implications and ramifications for how journalism is
Done uh for decades to come long after Trump is off the scene um and I think that one of the things journalists need to think about is the the long hul for journalism uh so much of Journalism is falling apart um you know barely a week
Goes by in which there aren’t enough you know couple of hundred people laid off and uh uh sent to the benches um and so in that context especially um I think journalists need to um maintain the standards of Journalism um so that journalism is uh a effective part of the political process
In the United States going forward decades zebra um I would have to say I don’t think we’ve learned as much as we need to I think the one thing that we have learned is we don’t have to hang on every single word and report that and I
Think we all can remember a time when there was just an avalanche of um information and most of it was repetitive and not helpful but what I wish we had learned is that that Trump is just simply one of many um and although yes a front runner which we
Know tends to get the majority of attention and weight um people as Jackie indicated people are still making up their minds people are still gathering information and I certainly wish that the media were able to help us do a better job of sorting out actual you
Know a data driven analysis of what at politicians and perspective candidates believe what their platforms are how those platforms compare um words are important that’s all we have prior to an election what someone says they will do and can do and so I would rather have a much better understanding of how that
Actually Compares from candidate to candidate all right I want to turn to one of the other candidates um there’s been a lot of attention recently to Joe Biden’s Aid and physical Frailty I feel like f Frailty compared to his to his previous state it seems to me again
Fairly clear he’s not as physically strong as he was how do you personally feel about the coverage of this and what do you how do you feel about the subject and and what do you think of the press coverage of the subject so far I’ll jump in on that one I I think
The coverage of Biden’s physical and mental state is unfair let’s be honest there is no person in this country who has more eyes on them than the president um so there is a nonstop uh analysis of every word every movement every motion um multiple cameras and Echo chambers within social
Media as well so um it is not fair um to I think use those little moments of I’m 59 years old I am not in shape to run for president it was a Non-Stop 247 job and I don’t want to do that job but I can’t imagine having to be
On all of the time it’s an it is undoubtedly the case that there will be slips and so we’re gonna catch more of them so I think it’s an unfair characterization can I jump in on that I I I want to let Jackie have a chance first please um I think it’s
Disrespectful um we should all live so long to be healthy at 81 be able to do a job like that what a gift he is with wisdom and experience making um connections I remember years ago when I was in Bosnia he sent an entire team from his office he knows what he’s doing
And he knows the players and in other parts of the world being older you Garner so much respect from everyone last night the president was on Seth mes I saw some of the clips this morning he asked the same question Eric about so what’s this age thing president and the
President came up with the jokes and the first joke he said was it’s classified so he’s coming about this with humor which I think he has to do because there’s no such thing as respect of persons anymore in our country so it’s going to continue but I think his team
Is going to get better on how to respond we all honor our grandparents we are all all thankful when they are able to talk to our children to give them that wisdom to give them that hug and that’s what Joe is doing thank you Eric um I I’m sorry I just have to
Disagree I I don’t have any judgment about um you know whether Joe Biden is up to the job now or up to the job four years from now um but I I can report on things that have have been um clear um to anyone who you know just has any
Any observation of of the president and that is that he he moves with a stiffened gate uh he speaks with some hesitancy um he’s not the vigorous uh uh candidate he was four years ago I mean when you you know people put the uh tapes you know next to one another
It’s just it’s clear now I don’t I don’t know that that you know what that means or um what that entails and and when one has become uh you know incapable of doing the job that’s for voters to decide um I don’t think it that it’s something that voters or rather the
Voters have to be um protected from seeing and knowing they see it when they they see it on themselves it’s it’s really a a matter of uh you know judgment that any anyone would have to have their own judgment on but not judgment that ignores the you know obvious
Changes I want to go back uh to Donald Trump uh as the I think probably the last thing before we go to the audience questions um Trump is set to go on trial on serious criminal charges in four weeks uh and perhaps again to go on trial over other serious criminal
Charges uh over the summer um what are each of your thoughts briefly on how the Press should be covering these trials I mean I don’t want to monopolize things but I’ll jump in if there’s a gap here um which is I I think the reporter should be covering what happens what
What what are the arguments that are made in court uh from both sides both both lawyers I mean the court the court context is one that should be informative of of journalists which is there’s a standard where you you hear from both sides and both sides make
Their Bas best case um you know since many of these courtrooms you know are uh don’t allow cameras uh in the courthouse it’s up to journalists to then uh recount what happens in the courtroom to uh a public that’s interested in hearing what what happens
And uh I think the primary thing is that journalists report bring back the information um and that that’s more important than um making judgments about uh you know what that is going to entail Sabra Jackie I’ll just say I hope it will be transparent coverage and uh that we are
Able to understand um as Eric said uh all aspects of the trials and um in a fair and balanced manner that is what I hope Jackie I was listening to the news today and um I think it was the district attorney of New York uh he has asked
Like the other judges that they would be a gag order um and part of that is for the safety of our judges we all saw the case a few weeks ago where the defendant didn’t like what the judge said jumped over and had to be restrained he was
Going to attack the judge um to me things are a little bit out of control as far as the protocol and resport and respect for the court system itself and I think that’s what’s a little arai um the Press um they have to get
The get they have to do their job but I think there’s a way of reporting a story where all people can stay safe especially families and we know about the judge I think it was in New Jersey or Pennsylvania where her son and husband the son was killed he was shot
Um a number of them have been threatened so I think this is a very serious manner um what the Press decides to put uh out into the public Arena thank you okay do we have uh Karen or somebody a a question from the audience we can take if not I’ve got got more
So okay Chris Riker hi good to see you Sabra nice to see you Eric I look forward to getting your book on the best drink out there after this research I have a question about the role the strengths and weaknesses in the election system that’s distributed to States in other words the strength
Being that it’s hard to hack 5050 elections or even more if you go down the local level but the strengths that we saw in January which was the pressure that was put on local neighbors friends you know people to sway the election push it in a different
Direction how do we see that playing out in 2024 thank you I’ll take it offline I’ll I’ll take that one thank you Chris um as I emphasized um at the beginning of this session uh when we uh as federal agencies were supporting the state and local uh election officials in
Protecting their election infrastructure we had a very finite understanding of what that infrastructure was right the it systems within each state and locality um what the voting machines were um the actual votes themselves what those tallies look like where those were stored was that paper was that Ric Etc
And so we had a very fixed understanding we knew what that supply chain was like we knew how it worked um but I think there’s an incredibly new uh level of attention to all the different ways that we can shape public opinion and how
Might we do so there was this a piece uh in the New York Times on Sunday that talked about the importance of um the actual um uh within each state uh the political parties and the structures of the political parties and the importance of having those structures be um fixed
And unchanging and immutable um and so there are so many different ways to really play with this system in ways that I don’t think we really anticipated it’s um it’s there are a lot of different ways that you can find weaknesses in every single aspect from uh someone becoming a candidate to when
The vote is actually cast and what happens to it so many places for things to uh take a turn for the worst Jackie Eric either of you want to jump in before we move to the next audience question yeah um first of all I’ve been at the polling stations for
Many many years to see how how it works this year our state got updated voting machines but we still have a paper trail a number of states are going just like you said Sabre to paper but we’ve always had paper and the day of an election you can
Have observers there they just have to check in they can actually stay and see the vote count there’s no television there so you’re saying oh such and such a candidate were they slipping something to that candidate no you can be right there in person we actually have international observers that come to our
Polling stations ndi is very good at this of making sure all across the country we have Internationals observing our elections um and I think the last thing I wanted to say election workers are trained they don’t make a lot of money but they are trained and we make
Sure they represent each party and I love our system because to be able to cast your vote is such a wonderful sacral Saint and I will say it again as a woman of color to be able to pronounce your citizenship through the ballot it’s an awesome feeling and that’s why people
Love America thank you Eric yeah just real quick something that is worth looking at it that is a function of the the sort of um razor thin margins in in American politics that have been going on for the last 20 years back to Bush V Gore when you know a few hanging Chads
In in Florida were the difference of who won the presidency um what those uh swing states are have kind of moved around but we’ve stayed uh sort of a uh even Even Steven um electoral um uh calculation that leaves very that can lead to a lot of antagonism because of how close
Things are they’re down the street from the Kennedy School um at MIT they have a thing called the uh the election lab where they do a lot of um uh very serious work on elections and they’ve identified what they call the big blue shift and it is it’s a a reason
That they are able to explain in innocent terms why again and again cons the Republican candidate uh for one or another office will look like they’re ahead when it’s time to go to bed and you wake up in the morning and uh extra votes have come in that U uh are for the
Democratic candidate uh this leads to Republic an thinking that the election has been rigged um but in truth it’s it’s a function of um you know sort of how ballots are collected and when they arrive and when they’re counted um that is actually um you know sort of a
Systemic thing that is just about the process um and if once you understand that I think the argument for improving our election and Trust in the elections is to try to figure out ways to not only have safe and solid elections but elections that appear um to be solid and safe and um
And fair all right thank you our next question is from Saul kilstein I think so you’re up hi there uh thanks for taking my question um I’ve been in the policy and government Affairs arena for um well since the mid 70s when policy and Washington was a different creature tip
O’Neal and Ronald Reagan used to meet over beers uh Daniel Pat Mahan used to say you’re entitled to your own opinions but not your own facts and uh we now have a what I’d call a bifurcated media where um you have people who listen to certain online and print and
Televised media where the facts aren’t equally distributed and so I’m just gonna interrupt you to ask if you’ve got a question yeah my my question is how do you reach audiences that hear and form their opinions that are simply presented as alternative facts okay who would like to take a crack at
That I heard two questions in there um I’ll take that take I heard the how do you reach audiences and then alternative facts and I would say um you know I think we have to look to our journalists to uphold standards of integrity and to you looked up the Society of
Professional journalists right the the premier Organization for the profession which emphasizes four principles seek truth and report it minimize harm act independently be accountable and transparent if we could have that from all of the folks who are uh reporting these days I think we’d be in a much
Different place than we are right now I think journalists have to understand the important role that they play and feel the responsibility ensuring that they are holding to those standards um just as we as citizens have to do our part to really understand um what is truth and
What we’re reading and how we have an adequate understanding of sources um and are able to discern in this world of uh emerging artificial intelligence which is helping us uh manipulate images and videos and audios at just astronomical speeds in ways we would never have imagined shaping what it is that we
Think that we are seeing I will say simply I I am so skeptical now of everything that I see online because we need to be um so there’s obligations and responsibilities both on the parts of journalists as well as us as purveyors of that information I want to get to the
Next question but I’m happy to let Jackie or Eric chip in if they’d like yeah I just want to say um one thing um what I hear people saying I don’t believe EV side and I’m not going to vote secondly that’s the whole intention they don’t want people to vote thank
You Eric all right if I move along yeah please too next question is from Gordon Robison Gordon you’re up hi everyone good evening from Doha Cotter uh I am a uh 2008 midcareer and I’m also the executive producer at Al jazer English who is in charge of all
2024 election coverage so because uh following up what Sabre said I do take our role very seriously what would people on the panel recommend that I and my colleagues keep in mind in covering this election for a global audience and I will give you one you we have a lot of
Smart people in our Newsroom we have a lot of smart viewers but before I left work a couple of hours ago I was standing in The Newsroom explaining to people that in the Michigan primary Trump and Biden are not running against each other our system I agree with
Jackie is wonderful but it also I think it’s fair to say confuses the hell out of the rest of the world so what would you like me to keep in mind as I program for the rest of the world thank you much would like to take the first cck at
That yeah I I’ll just say um I I read Al jaer online every day I also read the guardian um to me and in that way you really need to have an international view we need a world view so I love the way alzer covers a number of stories and
A little bit more death um and I know I’m going to walk away from that not saying I agree but to say oh that’s another way of looking at it so I’m not looking for agreement when I look at the international press or the BBC um I’m looking up for more
Information thank you sorry Z Sabra Eric yeah uh Gordon such an honor to have you be part of this discussion and thank you for the question and thank you most importantly for the huge responsibility you shoulder in ensuring that um truth is brought to light each and every day
Um it’s interesting as I chat with uh friends around the globe um and certainly as we get closer to the election questions come up and characterizations come up of of the candidates um I think it’s got to be a challenge for you to ensure that your reporters are staying away from those
Broad stereotypes um I think we the United States in so many ways can just uh appear as caricatures rather than actual real individuals so please continue to emphasize the nuances um and the truth rather than um the Heat and uh drama of what it is that candidates are
Oftentimes trying to get across so thank you for shouldering that responsibility Eric um I think there’s uh an opportunity um that that Gordon alluded to um which is given the the uh large population of people from the Middle East or families from the Middle East who are in Michigan
And uh Michigan is likely to be a swing state and uh the uh votes of those immigrants to the US uh may make a difference in how Michigan goes I think those are all um opportunities to explain the uh the political system the voting system uh in
The US and uh rather than being seen as a as a difficulty um ought to be seen as an opportunity um to um you know explain how that process works so that when election Night Comes comes along um they’ll understand uh you know what what has happened yeah I’m gonna take the
Moderator’s prerogative Gordon and and take a shot at this one myself and having spent uh considerable amount of time earlier in my career in international news I think one of the most important things that you can say to your audience is to explain to them how unusual America is in international
Relations in the sense that I think it is a safe statement that it is the most insular country in the world because it can be um uh for some of the reasons that Jackie was saying earlier in the in the much earlier in the conversation um America has had the luxury um
Sometimes at its cost sometimes not um of knowing and and Americans of knowing relatively a great deal less about the rest of the world than people in most countries know about foreign countries um and I think this is something that people internationally often don’t understand that they assume
That because they think a great deal more a great deal about international relations that Americans must as well and that the dialogue going on in this country is uh one that is informed and that you know last night for instance on Seth Meyers which is a show viewed by
You know I don’t know 10 or 20 million people the president used the phrase two-state solution I I would wager that a relatively small proportion of Seth Meyers audience knows what the two state solution is or could differentiate it from alternative views of the future of
The Middle East so I just think that as people from outside this country watch this campaign one of the things you can help them with is explaining what the Baseline of sheer knowledge and interest is and what it is not anybody else want a last word um before we let folks go
All right I just say sorry go ahead Jackie please um I heard I had Marvin Cal for press policy I didn’t know it’s a lot of his issues but he started the course with in the beginning was the word and the Word was made flesh and using that biblical phrase um
When the word comes flesh it’s our responsibility to think about what that is and I am ever so grateful for that course and for my time at the Kennedy School as a midcareer so I want to thank you all for letting me be a part of this panel
Today thank you for all of us Karen do you wna take us out from here Sabra did you have a final word uh no just uh glad to be part of this great discussion thanks everyone thank you so thank you to the panelists for a dynamic discussion and for all the alumni who
Joined today excuse me we hope you enjoyed it our next webinar is March 14th featuring Professor Grant friedin who will discuss thriving driving and involving your career for the most up-to-date School news and events please visit the HKS alumni website we look forward to keeping you engaged in the
Future months enjoy the rest of your day thank you all so much
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