U.S. Efforts to Advance World Press Freedom

3:00 P.M. EDT

Real Audio of Briefing

MR. BALLARD: Okay, this is a less formal briefing since we're not on television today, so welcome this afternoon on a rainy Washington day. I'm glad you chose to join us for our program on International Press Freedom Day.

We have three panelists for you. You have their bios so I won't spend a lot of time introducing them. Adam Ereli, of course, is the Deputy Spokesman of the Department of State. We have Patrick Butler, and lets make sure I get his title right. He's the Vice President for Programs at the International Center for Journalists, which is one of the largest journalist training centers in the United States. And we have Paul Koring, who is a correspondent for the Globe and Mail of Canada.

These three gentlemen will each make short statements and then we hope to engage you in a discussion of the importance of this day and everything it stands for.

Let's start with Patrick.

MR. BUTLER: Thank you, and it's a pleasure to be here with all of you today. I'll be interested to hear from all of you and find out where you're from and what kind of press freedom issues you're dealing with in your countries.

Let me just start by telling you just a little bit about the International Center for Journalists and what we do around the world. Has anyone encountered us before or been on one of our training programs? Not here. Okay.

Well, most of our work is done with journalists in the countries -- other countries besides the United States. Our mission is training journalists in countries around the world, especially countries that don't have a long history of free and independent media. So we do most of our work in Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, and Asia.

And we do our work through a couple of different kinds of programs. The first type of program is one that brings journalists from other countries here to the United States for training programs. And usually the way we do that is bring them for about a week here in Washington, where we'll bring in faculty members to lead sessions on whatever it is that the journalists are here to learn. For example, it might be investigative reporting techniques; it might be new radio techniques in radio production; it could be media management -- how to actually make money with your newspaper or your broadcast station.

So we'll do about a week here in Washington and then we usually send each of the journalists or media managers out to newspapers, radio stations, television stations around the country, where they get a chance to get some hands-on experience in how journalism is done in this country.

And our point in doing that is not to say that journalism in the United States is the right way and everybody needs to do it our way. We have problems in journalism in this country as well. All of you know some of the recent problems that we've had on ethics at The New York Times and USA Today and a number of other outlets. So we're not saying that we do everything right, but we are -- we have been (inaudible) free and independent media in this country, and we think we do have a lot to offer.

A lot of journalists who come from other countries are really amazed at the freedoms that journalists in this country do have: the opportunity both to investigate and criticize the people who run their -- either their country or their community, and the ability to get information about what government is doing. Freedom of information in this country is a model for much of the rest of the world. So that's the first kind of program where we bring journalists here to the United States.

The second kind of program is one in which we send U.S. journalists who are experts in various topics abroad to do training in the countries themselves. And our biggest program that does that is called the Knight International Press Fellowship Program, and that program sends about 25 U.S. journalists a year to different countries around the world, each one for up to nine months in country -- at least two months and up to nine months. So they really have a chance to get to know what the problems and challenges are of the journalists in that country before they start doing training.

A lot of the training, as some of you may know who have participated in it that happens in countries around the world is what we call parachute journal training: somebody just drops out of the sky, gives a seminar for a week, and then leaves. And they really don't get a chance to know what the needs are of the journalists. So we try in our programs to send them over for longer periods of time, where they really get to know what the challenges are before they start doing training.

I'd really be interested, in either of those types of programs, in talking to any of you who are interested. Our programs are generally for journalists from other countries, so for Washington correspondents we don't really have too much, although we have looked at, perhaps, trying to get into doing some training for journalists who are here from other countries covering Washington and New York for their home publications or broadcast outlets.

So hopefully we'll have something like that soon. But if you have colleagues at home whom you think might benefit from some of our training programs, please let me know and I'd be happy to talk to you more about that. I have some brochures and other information. For example, we have one that's coming up for newspaper editors from around the world. So if any of you know of English-speaking newspaper editors back in your countries that might be able to take advantage of that month-and-a-half-long program, let me know.

And then real briefly I wanted to tell you about, because our topic of the day is press freedom, that is one of the things that we do. Our main mission is training journalists on skills development -- things like how to do investigative reporting or how to report on topics like the environment or health that often don't get much coverage in other countries of the world. But we also do a lot of training on press freedom issues.

One of our biggest programs is -- takes place in Latin America. And we have been doing it for about five years now, training journalists in Latin America first on ethics and then on free expression issues, freedom of expression issues. So in those programs we're training journalists about some of the international conventions that guarantee all of us as journalists and as citizens the rights to express ourselves freely, to investigate what our governments are doing, to get information from our governments.

So we're looking at international conventions like Article 19 -- many of you are familiar with that -- or the Declaration of Chapultepec here in the Americas, and educating them about those international conventions and the rights that we all have, but also educating them about the laws in their own countries so that they understand, perhaps, how to change those laws if they're not conducive to freedom of expression, and also how to work with those laws to get information.

So that's one example of the kind of training that we do on press freedom issues, and then, of course, by bringing people here to the United States to expose them to the way journalists work in this country, we think we're also doing training on press freedom because they have an opportunity to see what works in this country, and in some cases what doesn't work, because there are also examples of where we don't have as much freedom of the press in this country as we would like to have.

And I'll stop there because I know we're all going to make brief statements and then take your questions. One last thing I did want to say is that our funding is a mix of both private and public funding. About two-thirds of the funds for our center come from private foundations, such as the Knight Foundation, which is affiliated with a chain of newspapers called Knight-Ridder. That foundation gives us about a third of our budget to do training, so it's private money not connected with the U.S. Government. Another third of our budget comes from other private sources and the final third comes from the U.S. Government.

We do a number of programs that are funded by the State Department or the Agency for International Development. And their interest, of course -- as you're going to hear in just a moment -- is in promoting press freedom and a higher level of journalism skills as well. So we operate and administer a number of the training programs that my colleague funds, and he's going to tell you about some of those.

MR. KORING: Hi, good afternoon. My name is Paul Koring. I'm a correspondent based here for a Canadian newspaper. I thought I would be extremely brief to start out, and that is that I guess press freedom is a bit like motherhood, everybody's in favor of it, it's probably very hard to bestow.

You're all right now living and working in a country where there's probably more press freedom than anywhere else on Earth. No doubt somebody somewhere will take issue with that, but by and large this country, by its Constitution, by a long tradition and practice, by a whole set of legal freedoms, by the fact, I think, that its press is largely a commercial enterprise, you've had a couple of centuries of development that if it's not always held up as a model, it at least is a place where many countries and many journalists can aspire to have that many freedoms.

I think there's -- and one of the things that we may get into in the question-and-answer, I think a great deal of this whole issue is very hard to sort of leave to treaties and development programs and training courses, all of which are hugely valuable.

I think to a considerable extent the media, the press, has to take some considerable responsibility for both acquiring and maintaining and defending its own freedoms. That's much harder to do than it is to say, but I think there is also a bit of a tendency amongst the media, both in the developed and developing world to just presume that these freedoms are granted by right and that they don't have to be sort of secured or looked after often enough.

There's all kinds of countries with constitutions or that are signatories to treaties that would theoretically guarantee press freedoms. We all know that not all of them have a terribly free press.

And I will pass to Adam.

MR. ERELI: Thank you, Paul. Appreciate it. I'll just make a couple of comments on behalf of the State Department on World Press Freedom Day. Three things, I guess. Three issues I wanted to cover.

One is, obviously, I think you all are very familiar with the fact that, as a fundamental tenet of American foreign policy, we agitate and advocate very actively on behalf of freedom of the press. It's something that I think is just a part and parcel of everything we do as a government in our bilateral relations around the world.

I think if you look at the statement we put out today, you will see a number of examples of where we have made issues of freedom of the press important components of our bilateral relations. Every embassy in the world, when we do our Human Rights Report, has to do a special section on freedom of the press.

So this is something that we pay very, very close attention to, and for a very simple reason. And that is that it is our view that no society can consider itself fully developed if it doesn't have a free and open press, because unless people have access to information, freedom to express themselves and freedom to debate ideas, then that country's capacity for development is, by definition, limited.

Second, let me just tell you a little bit about what we do to help the press or to help develop press freedoms and capabilities of the press. We need to start with the Foreign Press Center. As you all know, we've got three Foreign Press Centers in the United States. The U.S. Government devotes considerable resources to providing journalists in the United States with the resources, with the access and with the assistance to do their job.

We also have -- and this is, I think, very important -- what you see here for foreign journalists visiting America, we have in every embassy around the world. We have an official, whether it's a press officer or another cultural officer, dedicated to serving the local press, providing them with access to databases, access to information, so that they can do their job.

In addition, we have training programs. I know that you mentioned that we also do our own government-sponsored training programs. I think last year we sent 700 foreigners to the United States on journalism tours to give them an idea of how journalism is treated both intellectually in terms of intellectual approach to journalism, but also practically and how you do the job.

This year, we're looking at having just about the same number, 675 visitors to the United States on journalism programs. I would note that the Foreign Press Center sponsors journalism tours for foreigners to the United States. We are more than doubling the amount of money we spend on that from last year to this year, going from 400,000 to over a million dollars to fund journalists coming here to learn about how we deal with and how we approach freedom of the press in the United States.

Another aspect of our approach to freedom of the press is looking at it in terms of regional development. In Central Asia, where that part of the world is really coming out of a period of one-party rule, closed societies; opening those societies up, giving people access to information, ability to openly discuss ideas, is critical to democracy catching on in that part of the world. Therefore, we have focused on Central Asia, a two-year, $700,000 project, to help develop capacity, to help develop skills and to help develop the expertise in dealing with the press.

You guys hear a lot about the Greater Middle East Initiative. There is an important component in the Greater Middle East Initiative focusing on the press. Actually, it's not the Greater Middle East Initiative -- it's the Middle East Partnership Initiative. Correct me. I'm wrong. The Middle East Partnership Initiative -- significant resources devoted by the U.S. Government to developing a free, dynamic, vibrant press in the Middle East because, again, we see it as indispensable to the broader liberalization in the region, something that the people there want but also something that press is necessary to support.

The final thought I would leave you with is something that touches me directly because this is what I do every day, but I think there is a bigger idea here, and that is that if you want the press to do their job and you want the system to work, you have to provide access to information. Because that's what you guys are all about -- it's providing information to your readers, information that's timely and information that's accurate.

You guys have a job to report information that's timely and accurate. We have a job to provide it. So it seems to me one of the things, and maybe we can talk about it later, one of the things, in addition to having a country having the right laws and journalists practicing journalism in a responsible way, one of the things that you really have to have is access to information. We, as the U.S. Government, I think, spend a lot of time and a lot of effort in trying to facilitate access to that information, by making it available and, second, by talking about it ourselves. And this is sort of what I want to pick up on what you said is, and this is why I think that maybe working in the United States is different than working in other places is because there is a conscious decision to make as much information available as possible. And then it's up to you guys to make the best use of that information.

But speaking on behalf of the U.S. Government, I can tell you, and I think it's supported by the fact that we have a Foreign Press Center and what our embassies around the world do, we make a big effort to increase the access to information through the use of the Internet, through access to our officials. It's very important.

But anyway, those -- that's, I guess, what I wanted to say.

MR. BALLARD: As you're called on, I'd like to please remind you to state your name and your media organization and affiliation. I guess, the gentleman behind -- yes, second row.

QUESTION: My name is Said Arikat and my question is to Paul.

How is the press in Canada more restricted than it is in the United States? You mentioned something like that. Could you cite some examples?

MR. KORING: Yeah, well, it's probably only a marginal difference but -- oh, sorry. It's probably only a marginal difference, but it shows up in several ways.

First of all, and I'm not a lawyer, but there's no automatic protection for, sort of, commentary on public figures the way there are here under U.S. libel laws.

Secondly, and I think probably more importantly, there simply isn't the kind of -- if you compare the United States Freedom of Information legislation and the Canadian, I think it's called Access to Information legislation -- I may have got them reversed -- there simply isn't -- there's fewer teeth in the Canadian legislation.

Let me give you an example, and I think it's attitudinal. A few years ago, the Canadian Prime Minister punched a demonstrator in the midst of a melee, and who wasn't badly hurt but broke his tooth. And one of the things that I got involved in was whether or not it was the job of the tight personal protection team -- in Canada, RCMP, here it's the Secret Service -- whether, in fact, this had been a breakdown of security. Right? In other words, the Prime Minister had sort of lunged through his security screen and punched this demonstrator.

The question was: Is it the security screen's job to keep the leader inside? In other words, did the screen fail? The RCMP basically wouldn't take any questions. I picked up the phone, I called the Secret Service and they said, "Look, we're not commenting on the specifics, but we're telling you right now that it's our job to maintain a screen around the President. The President can go anywhere he wants. We may advise him against it."

Now, at issue is not the substance of the answer. At issue is the Secret Service felt some -- and I don't think you can point solely to legislation; the Secret Service felt some obligation to answer the question whether or not the screen -- maintaining the screen was their job or not. The RCMP simply dismissed it. "We're not going to answer that question."

Now, don't let me extol American virtues too much. I'm not here to do that. You know, there's plenty of prevarication and failure to answer questions and failure to return telephone calls. But by and large, I have as much or more access as a foreigner resident here to government information than I would as a citizen resident in my own country.

MR. BALLARD: The woman in green.

QUESTION: Adam Ouologuem with the African Sun Times.

To which extent there is a limit between patriotism and true journalistic job?

MR. ERELI: Good question. Whom are you asking?

QUESTION: You. (Laughter.)

MR. ERELI: The conflict between patriotism and true journalism? Are you speaking to me as a government official?

QUESTION: Yes.

MR. ERELI: So, for example, am I going to, like, give you the really good information if it's -- if it makes us look bad?

QUESTION: I want it to look good.

MR. ERELI: You want me to look good? I want to look good. (Laughter.)

But let me put it this way. I mean, I don't see a conflict there between providing information and being patriotic. Obviously -- well, first of all, you're never going to lie, so that's the first principle. And that -- and that's because it's -- how should I put it? You undermine the image of your country if you lie and present false information, so that in itself is an unpatriotic act.

And you also, I think you also impugn your colleagues because if you, as a spokesman, knowingly say something that's not true, then it's not just you they're not going to believe, but they're not going to believe everybody else who speaks on behalf of the U.S. Government. So that's number one.

Number two -- so you're not going to lie. Number two, you're going to try to present the information in the best light possible, you know, to try to defend the point or advance the point, broader interest that you're trying to advance. That's what I would call partisanship.

There's a difference, well, actually, there's a difference between partisanship and patriotism. Partisanship is defending the Administration, not because you're a Democrat or a Republican, but just because they are the guys in charge that need defending.

I don't confuse that with patriotism. Patriotism is the fundamental values of your country, and the reason there's not a contradiction is because I think open, honest presentation of the facts, and a sincere, genuine debate of the issues is in the interests of everybody. That's what I think is a fundamental tenet of American democracy and that's what guides us in our dealings with the press.

You might want to be trying to criticize our policy and take issue with our policy. Okay, fine. I'm going to present to you the facts and our approach to the issue as clearly as I can. It's up to you to agree or disagree. But again, I just don't see a contradiction between patriotism and presenting our position. There isn't one.

MR. BUTLER: I just want to follow up on that because I think there's also another issue involved here with patriotism, and that is patriotism journalists and how patriotic journalists should be when they are covering an event that their country's involved in.

Obviously, the one we're thinking of right now is the war in Iraq. From our perspective, we have seen a lot of journalists, both coming to this country and in the work we do abroad in other countries whose trust in the United States media, as sort of a paragon of what media should be, has crumbled a little bit because of the way the media have covered the war in Iraq.

A lot of people from your countries and from countries where we work thought that the media were overly patriotic in their coverage of the war: a lot of American flags flying and we, you know, the use of the word "we" and things like that. And so there's a real debate in journalist in this country about whether we were too, you know, giving -- whether we were too patriotic.

And some people in other countries have also raised that as a press freedom issue because they believe that our government has somehow exerted some control over us in forcing us to be more supportive of the war. I'm talking more about when the war was happening. Obviously, things have changed a little bit lately and probably our government would say we're not being very patriotic at all right now.

But I think that what we've tried to do is explain to people that that is not a question of the government forcing the media to be patriotic in its coverage of the war. It's -- media in this country is a business, as it is in many of your countries, I'm sure.

And so if the media were -- were, perhaps, a little one-sided in their coverage of the war and not, not showing civilian casualties or other things that people thought they should show, it's not a question of government control. It's a question of, that's what the audience wants. And so media have been, have been giving the audience what they believe they wanted.

MR. ERELI: I have another thing to add to you. You know, it's easier for me than for you because I'm not neutral. I'm a U.S. Government spokesman. I'm defending the Administration. I'm putting across the Administration's point of view. So, you know, I'm being both patriotic and sharing the information, but I'm doing it in a way that isn't neutral. I'm taking sides, saying, you know, "This is our position. This is how we see things." So you know where I'm coming from.

The problem is for journalists. A journalist cannot be patriotic. This is the point I would contend. You cannot be patriotic. And I'll give you an example. I'll go to the issue that I know very well, and the issue that we have a big disagreement with a lot of journalists about, which is Iraq.

You know, you've got Arab journalists covering Iraq, and Arab journalists who feel that what is happening to Iraq is an insult, and a degradation to the Arabs, and that they have a very definite point of view. They think the United States is an aggressor. They think the United States is committing crimes against the Iraqis and that the Iraqis are the victims of a hostile and ill-intentioned superpower.

Okay. Fine. That's your point of view. I don't care. But don't use the microphone and the camera as a podium to promote your ideas, because that's not your job. Your job is not to get on Al-Jazeera and say, "What America is doing here is a crime and they are killing innocent civilians," because that's not reporting. That's editorializing. That's getting caught up in some patriotic fervor and misusing the media for your own personal agenda.

That's irresponsible. That's wrong. As a journalist, you should be there saying, if America is killing babies, okay, show America killing babies. Say, "America, on this day, killed X number of babies, and I talked to, you know, and I can verify it," and do your reporting and report the facts. So that's my little spiel on patriotism and reporting.

QUESTION: (Inaudible) objective in your job?

MR. KORING: I mean, you know, I was thinking about this. Maybe I, maybe I sort of have a patriotism deficit. But I've -- it has never occurred to me, and I've spent most of the last two decades -- I mean, I haven't lived in Canada since 1980, maybe that's the problem, but reporting from some quite difficult and conflicted places, including sometimes when Canadian soldiers have been involved, and I can tell you quite honestly that I've never sort of had one of those moments where you think, "Well, if I write this, I'll be somehow unpatriotic. I'll sort of hurt the country or hurt the government," because I actually -- I mean, I don't think I could care less. It's not my job to worry about the government's image. That's sort of Adam's job and his counterparts' in Ottawa.

Now there's, you know, there's always sort of -- there's always -- there's moments of moments of operational security stuff, but I don't think that's patriotism, that's just sort of part of the tradeoff that you make with militaries.

But I want to go back to both in answer to your to question to something that Adam said. I mean, I think a lot of us lament the sort of, the blurring of the line between straightforward reporting and editorializing as though there were some good old days when it didn't exist.

I'm not sure those good old days ever really existed. I am fairly confident that the blurring of that line is not good; that it will be nice if it was all clearly distinct, you know; that this was an opinion and that's reporting. I also think that governments tend to protest too much about this, you know?

If the editorializing is in support of their position or view, you don't hear them denouncing the journalism as scurrilous because it's full of opinion. The only upset is when the opinion is contradictory or contradicts their stated end. But there's a certain -- I suspect too much is made of this. Good journalism stands on its own merits, and people recognize it. And people recognize it without, sort of, years of training or growing up in countries that are -- you know, bask in the glow of press freedom.

People, quite ordinary people everywhere I've been, understand truth; understand that, you know, a revelation about something or accurate reporting about something, or true stories about a subject of importance. They recognize the difference between that and opinion. I suspect it's mainly those of us involved in journalism and the chattering classes in general that worry way too much about this. I think most people get the difference and make the distinction.

QUESTION: Well, my question is for Mr. Ereli. Yes, my name is Salameh Nematt. I'm with Al-Hayat newspaper. It's a Pan-Arab international newspaper based in London.

My question is basically on your efforts, State Department's efforts, to promote freedom of the press and freedom of expression, particularly in the Arab world and in the Middle East, and this has been the focus of this Administration's policy declarations in the past several months.

Now, what I see, it seems to me that there is a -- there are conflicting forces at play here with U.S. policy in the Middle East. On the one hand, the question of the war on terrorism has taken precedence, has taken priority. And as someone who's just recently moved from the Middle East, I can say that in the last two years since September 11th, the U.S. pressure on the governments in the region to fight terrorism has been used by the governments in the region to clamp down on a position, on the freedom of expression. In other words, the free press and free expression have suffered in the last two years, as a result of U.S. pressure on these governments, or they simply used that as an excuse to do it.

On the other hand, most of the media in the Arab world is government-run or government-controlled. So in other words, you encourage journalists to do their job properly. You are basically asking them to dissent and asking them to be subversive because this is how governments, dictatorships or autocratic regimes in the region, they perceive it as dissent, as opposition that is not allowed.

So our problem here is not with the journalists knowing what to do, it's the problem with them unable to do their job because most of the media is controlled by the government; and second, the government simply won't let them.

So on the one hand, the U.S. is pursuing a project of change in the Middle East; basically, fighting terrorism on one hand and seeking democracy on the other, and they seem to be two conflicting forces. What are your priorities here, if you want to put in the balance the fight against terrorism and the promotion of democracy and freedom of expression? This is on the one hand.

The second thing is, in my view, what could help journalists in the region is if the United States is willing to step in to protect journalists from being persecuted by these governments and jailed, and in many cases, simply censored and not allowed to publish in these newspapers. Is the U.S. willing to provide an alternative media, in Arabic, in these countries protected by the United States so that they can do the job?

Thank you.

MR. ERELI: A couple things: One is, I don't know if I'd agree with you that there is a contradiction between the war on terror and freedom of the press. We certainly don't see it that way. In fact, I think that freedom of the press is critical the a successful conduct of the war on terror by making people aware of what exactly the stakes are and what exactly their governments and their international partners are doing to protect them.

And it's always difficult to talk in generalities. I'm sure you're thinking of some specific cases. You know, I look around the Middle East, and over the last three years, contrary to growing restrictions on the media, I would contend there's growing liberalization of the media. I mean, just look at the number of satellite channels that have come online.

We've got to make sure we're talking about print versus TV, but in the electronic media, look at the number of outlets that have come out. You've got Abu Dhabi TV; you've got Al-Arabiya to compete with Al-Jazeera; you've got LBC, which has done a heck of a lot more programming and pushed the envelope of what the programming and of what's allowed. You've got Radio Sawa, which, you know, started about two years ago and immediately shot to the top of the ratings. I mean, people were listening to that more than all radio stations combined, because it offered them something new. That's not censored by the governments there. Some governments don't want to let it in.

It's news. Are you kidding me? They have got news every 15 minutes. And they've got news that they can't get, that the governments don't give them. Why? Because they've got direct broadcasts of what people are saying in their own voices, as opposed to what announcers read somebody else said. So that's direct news in a way that people weren't getting it before.

So contrary to -- unless you can give me some examples -- contrary to a crackdown on availability -- or crackdown on the media, quite the contrary, I see an expansion of media that's available to people.

Now I'm not saying -- this gets to the second point that you made.

QUESTION: Okay.

MR. ERELI: I'm not saying that governments do not try to control the media, and in many cases, I think governments try to control the media, and I agree with you. And governments do, in many cases, feel threatened by an independent media, and, therefore, work to prevent that.

That gets to, I think, the question that we all face when we talked about the Middle East, frankly, and that is: What do the people of the region want? Are they content with that status quo, or do they want to change it? And if they do want to change it, how do they want to change it?

And our position is that we want to respond to the desires of the people of the region. And it is our sense that there is a desire for change and we want to be supportive of that desire for change. We don't want to come in and tell governments, "You have to liberalize your media. You have to give up government control of the media. You have to do this; you have to do that."

But what we do want to do is, when there are citizens groups saying, change the NGO laws so that we can have media watchdogs, or so that we can challenge what's in the media, we'll support the civil society groups. The point here is that -- and I think you know this idea better than I -- you had a media establishment that was born, frankly, of a statist view of social affairs where the state controlled everything; and that that approach is slowly melting away, but it's going to take a long time.

And what you're starting to see is non-state actors in the media environment, private actors, and that's a trend I think that should be encouraged, that should continue, that we should support because it offers an alternative and a valuable alternative. And when people have the choice between something official which they know is BS, and something non-official which is more entertaining and more responsive, they'll go with the second -- they'll go with the second right away. But to get at your basic point, I do not know if I share your view of there being a contradiction between the war on terror and free press, as a general proposition.

QUESTION: El Bashir from Sudan. Evidently, the Al-Jazeera is getting under the skin of the American Government. You know, you can see it from what Rumsfeld said and what our friend here is saying. And when you listen to Al-Jazeera and other Arab papers they say that the press in America, the media in America, is controlled by certain interest groups.

My question is: Would you please tell us about how the Internet and the meager cable stations like, or channels like Al-Jazeera and CNN are doing? Because what I hear from you seems like you are still speaking about -- in terms of before the Internet and before that. And these are new realities. I can't understand them myself. But can you please address the Internet and the cable in terms of access, dissemination of the news and the training, especially the training? Thank you.

MR. ERELI: Let me just kick off with something, and it's not a metaphor that I admit to, but I like it. You know, about 30 years ago, governments really lost control of international financial flows, you know, Bretton Woods died, and nobody runs the money markets now, the international money market.

And what's happened more recently -- in large parts of the world, it lasted up until 1989 -- but governments have lost control of content. You know, with a combination of broadcast licenses and all kinds of other things, even in the Western world, there was a lot of influence on content and threats about content that lasted really until quite recently.

One of the things that we're in the middle of -- and I agree with you that I don't understand it either; I don't think anybody understands its implications. But it's a content free-for-all out there right now. I mean, and some of it's the Internet and some of it's the proliferation of new delivery systems.

But, you know, it's only, what, 15 years ago, that I remember being in places like Albania where, with stolen television sets, people would listen because they couldn't watch -- it was all jammed; Italian television broadcasts could get just snippets of news. And now you see even some of the most horrible, repressive, nasty regimes on the planet trying desperately and failing to keep out the Internet, none of which is an endorsement of all of the content, none of which is to suggest that it's all accurate or correct.

I'm simply making the point that governments, by definition, national state authorities, have lost control of content everywhere. And where it's going to lead us, I don't know, but they have. They've lost control.

MR. BUTLER: You asked specifically about training, and I think this is having a major impact on the way we do training, journalism training, around the world. Obviously, you know, the Internet and cable television have just given an incredible multiplicity of voices and points of view that we didn't have before.

Before, there was maybe a little clearer definition of what journalism is. You know, there were -- if you -- a famous quote: A.J. Liebling said, "Freedom of the press belongs to everyone who actually owns one." Right? You have to own a press to have freedom of the press, or that's the way it used to be.

So you had to own a press. You had to own a newspaper. You had to own a television station, a radio station, so that was -- it was a fairly limited number of people who had access to, you know, get their message out.

Now with the Internet and with cable TV, to a lesser extent, lots of people can be journalists, in a sense. And the question is: Are they adhering to the same standards of journalism, of ethics in journalism that newspapers or radio stations or television stations used to do? And -- newspapers and radio stations and television stations that see that as competition, and therefore feel that they have to be quicker about getting stuff than they used to.

So what that means to us, those of us who do journalism training, is that we have to expand our definition of what is journalism to encompass groups -- or I can't even call them publications because they're not publications -- that we might not have considered journalism before, but they are journalism because they're getting information out to the people.

And then the other factor here is, obviously, getting back to what we were just saying about governments trying to control information. And obviously, yeah, it was possible in Albania to see a pirated broadcast, but it's a lot easier now because you can -- governments can't completely control who has access to the Internet.

They are trying, and certainly China and lots of countries are exerting control over who has access to the Internet, but it's harder to do. So it also is a press freedom issue, and one of the things that press freedom organizations need to do is fight these new ways that governments have of controlling access to information.

Okay. Here in front, and then we'll go back there.

QUESTION: Yeah. Betty Lin of the World Journal and United Daily, Taiwan. And, yeah, could you talk about the situation in China, since you mentioned here about Chinese Internet activists?

And secondly, this concerns a lot of us, since a lot of us are going to cover the Republican and Democratic Conventions this summer, and we just learned from the press gallery that the Foreign Press Center may not be there this year.

And also, since -- while the Center has been extremely helpful and we'll benefit a lot from it, and in the past, they would provide, like, daily briefings from important speakers and also provide like up-to-date information; and also, especially, like they would answer questions that we had since, well, a lot of us are not familiar with U.S. democratic process and the questions that ordinary U.S. journalists wouldn't have so that we hope it's not the case, but if that is, and whether we can petition for that, or how can we petition?

MR. BUTLER: I'll answer the China question real quick, and then I'll turn it over to you, Adam.

China is a tough country to do journalism training in, obviously. And it's very cyclical in terms of press freedom issues. Right now, it's kind of on a down cycle with a number of somewhat independent publications in the southern region in Guangzhou suffering from, you know, being closed and journalists being jailed, and so right now it's a problem area.

But we do think it's important for us to be in China doing journalism training. We are -- we send Knight Press -- I mentioned the program that we have that sends trainers abroad for up to nine months. We've sent a number of Knight International Press Fellows to China. And even though it's not a country that I would call free in its -- in terms of the press, it's an area where we can sort of lay the groundwork or set the stage for what we hope will be more freedom in the future.

So we are doing work there, training journalists right now in the areas that they actually can do some independent reporting such as, perhaps, maybe looking at environmental problems. That's an area where journalists are able to do some investigative reporting. They are able to look at corruption on the local level, if not yet on the national level.

So that's the kind of training we're doing now, giving the journalists the skills that we hope they'll be able to use down the road when more freedom comes.

MR. ERELI: Yeah, just on China. First, I think that the persecution of Internet providers and as Patrick said, the actions taken against journalists, I think, underscore why this year, at the UN Convention on Human Rights, we put forward a resolution on China. Because this is an issue, among other things, that we've been pressing China on for some time and we didn't see progress.

And it gets back to the point that I made earlier, which is that press freedoms are a fundamental part of American foreign policy, and we use our power in defense of those freedoms. And I don't think there's any better example of that than China where, despite the fact that I think we have a very good relationship with China; despite the fact that over the last three or four years, our bilateral relationship has improved significantly, and there are many, many areas where we agree; there are still those areas where we have differences and we don't hesitate from pressing those differences.

On the subject of the conventions, this was a very difficult decision. It was a decision made on the basis of limited resources, quite frankly. As I mentioned earlier, we are increasing the funds for foreign journalists tours from 400,000 to over $1 million this year. Those conventions cost us $400,000 every year. So when we were looking at how we wanted to spend our money, we said, "We can't do both. We can't both increase the number of foreign journalists tours and do the conventions. Which would we prefer doing?" And there was a debate, quite frankly. And the reason we decided to cut the conventions in favor of the journalist tours is quite simply this: We thought that it was better value for money to introduce journalists who did not know the United States to the United States to give them a broad picture of what we were about, what we were like and help expand their horizons -- that it was a better use of our money to do that than to spend money on journalists who were already here, who already knew the United States, and to focus on just one event for two weeks a year. And like I said, it was a difficult decision, but it is one that we had to make given limited resources.

QUESTION: So it's final?

MR. ERELI: Pardon?

QUESTION: So is it final?

MR. ERELI: Yeah, it's final.

MR. BALLARD: Okay. I guess, two more people with their hands up. We'll go here first, and then over there.

QUESTION: Hi, I am from Nikkei.

And I haven't seen the original text, but I've read the report that Vice President made remarks that -- saying that Fox News is most neutral media, and I'm not sure about that is accurate comment.

But also I remember that the debate there was debate between Fox News and CNN, which is about which is more neutral on world report. So I'd like to get comment from Adam and either panelist.

MR. ERELI: Well, I'm not a media watchdog, so I won't offer editorial comment on the media.

(Laughter.)

MR. BUTLER: Put me in the hot seat. (Laughter.)

My own, my personal opinion is that Fox is not particularly neutral. It's probably -- I've talked earlier about the patriotism of the U.S. media and their coverage of the war. Fox was, by far, the most patriotic. I think that's without question.

But you know, I think -- but certainly, people will make the argument on the other side that CNN is too liberal. So, you know, that's -- I guess in this country we often say that if you're getting criticized by both sides then you're probably doing okay. If somebody is saying you're too liberal and you're too conservative, then you might be finding the right path somewhere in the middle.

I don't know. I tend to think that most cable television is not as good as the network television, probably. And I'm a newspaper person, so I think, generally, if you're looking for the best sources of information, it's probably going to be print.

QUESTION: (Inaudible).

MR. KORING: You're saying am I --

QUESTION: You know, what I'm saying is, you know, Fox News, and I think, in my modest opinion, I think there is a danger of having, you know, CNN or other news channels become more "Foxified," so to speak. Because, you know, they are waving the flag and they are pushing this issue of patriotism too far, where they are putting everybody into a corner where they feel obligated to report in that particular way.

MR. BUTLER: Well, that's what I was saying earlier is just that I think that there was -- the criticism has been that the U.S. media has been too one-sided, that they were -- and that's what I mean by patriotic -- too patriotic, too much showing only the U.S. perspective on a controversial issue. And I think that during the coverage of the war, Fox did seem too much to me to be on that side.

MR. KORING: Let me just pick up on the question two ways. Politicians, I'm not sure, are any different from any other news consumers. They tend to sort of like the flavor that suits them. So if, you know, the Vice President or the President or anybody else makes incautious comments expressing favoritism or expressing a bias, I don't think (a), that's a surprise.

Secondly, in the term -- well, just to pick up on what I think is your very valid point about patriotism, it may be in the medium-term or the long-term, a more patriotic thing to do is not to narrowly support any particular government's policies or any administration's policies on any particular issue.

But, you know, that's the kind of subjective judgment that, not just press critics make. This is a country, and I think one of the -- I go back to this point that I sort of tried to make originally. And you don't just see it in America, but I think one of the reasons that there is such a great degree of press freedom in this country is that there are such a variety of outlets and they are commercially driven, so without diminishing the importance of the press; it's a little bit like breakfast cereal. There's a lot of choices out there. And commercial media, commercial enterprise media may not be the best way of doing things, but it may be the least worst way of doing things.

And if you look around, almost everything else has been tried: licensing journalists, state-owned media, you know, requiring newspaper publishers to have licenses. So you know, I can sit here and itemize and criticize the failings of the U.S. media, both individually and collectively, kind of, until the cows come home. So can everybody who works in the U.S. media. Collectively, you may wind up with a better result because of it too.

MR. BALLARD: We're running out of time here, so why don't you all pick a last question, and then we'll close.

QUESTION: Can I ask a question?

MR. BUTLER: Well, actually, you already had one, and there's a couple in the back who haven't. The gentleman here, I guess.

Yeah, you, in the tie. I'm sorry. Oh, the microphone.

QUESTION: Thank you. My name is [Masakatsu] Ota, working with Japanese news, Kyodo News, wire service.

I have a question about the (inaudible) outside the freedom of press, but I can't resist asking this question, especially to Adam. The information about the intelligence, and sometimes, especially for us foreign media, it's very tough to get the intelligence issues.

But sometimes the, you know, U.S. media broke the story on the intelligence issues, and last week we have a very surprising story from Washington Post on the North Koreans' nuclear weapons cases, and look back on one year ago, Iraqi case and the State Department and this government declassified a bunch of intelligence stuff to persuade the people who are going to maybe war.

So where is your priority? I mean, you know, where is your priority of the government to declassify some materials, on the other case, and the not declassify the other materials? I mean, in terms of the security for the people, the region, or just the -- you know, in terms of just in order to achieve the political purpose? What is your priority to declassify the intelligence stuff?

MR. ERELI: Yeah, that's an excellent question. I would say, frankly, that each case has to be looked at on its own merits. And I think you mentioned two cases. I'll add a third. You mentioned the February 5th speech, presentation at the UN; you mentioned the Glenn Kessler article last week on the National Intelligence Estimate on the North Korean bomb program. I would also add to that the decision to declassify the presidential -- the PDB, the Presidential Daily Briefing, for August 6th. If you'll recall, that was about two weeks ago, which is what the CIA told the President about al-Qaida activities in the United States.

Okay. Each of those decisions made to declassify was made from -- well, in two cases, Powell's presentation and the PDB -- that was a decision to declassify classified information. And then the question of the Washington Post article about the North Korean bomb, that was just some source leaking the stuff to the journalists.

But in each case, and then, you know, you can use whatever examples you want, you have to think about this. Here are the considerations: Consideration number one is: What is the nature of the classified information? How did we get it? How sensitive is it? And to what extent will publicizing it compromise how we got the information and make getting future information more difficult? So that's on the one hand.

On the other hand, those are the arguments that you have to weigh against declassifying. Arguments for declassifying, you have to say, "Okay, what is” -- and this was the case that the 9/11 Commission made, "What is the public's right to know?" What is -- you know, if the Administration is making the case that it acted appropriately based on the information it had, well then, you'd better tell us what the information you had was, right? So what was in that PDB? You're saying you acted appropriately based on what's in it. Well, you know, you'd better tell us what's in it because, otherwise, why should we believe you? Well, that's a pretty good argument, and I think it's kind of what won the day.

On the journalist piece, you know, there's the tension between intelligence and an open society. I mean, there is a tension there. And this is where you get the whole issue of leaks. And on any given day or any given week, there are going to be articles about intelligence issues that are based on a journalist talking to somebody who gives him information that might be classified.

Well, I'd say two things: I'd say one is, it was wrong of that official, because there are very clear rules about how to handle classified information. And one of the rules is, you don't give classified information to people that don't have a clearance to receive that information.

Okay. But, you know, I mean, these guys are trying to advance a political agenda or advance an issue. You know, probably the guy who leaked this information wanted to make the point that North Korea's a danger -- we don't appreciate how dangerous it is -- and to make the point he let this journalist know that we really think they've got eight bombs. And this is why we think they've got eight bombs, as opposed to two bombs.

Well, that's not true. We don't know yet, but he might think so. But anyway, this is to get back to the point. This is the tension of living in an open society, dealing with intelligence stuff in an open society. You've got a press that's -- you know, the demand is there and you can supply it.

But my point would be, you'd better do it carefully, number one. And number two -- number two, I, as both someone who reads intelligence, and both -- I'll tell you this, and this is what became very clear to people after after invading Iraq, and the Secretary has made the point, is that when you're reading about intelligence, it's never black and white.
And so even if you leak it, and even if the press writes about it, don't think you've got the whole story because you never do. And even when you have all of the intelligence in front of you and you think you have the whole story, you never do. That's just the nature of intelligence.

QUESTION: May I have a follow up?

MR. ERELI: Well, she had a question. Why don't -- one more question back there. Yeah, we'll do one more question.

QUESTION: Thanks. Hannan El-Badry. Egyptian journalist.

I would like to ask -- it's not two questions, but first one, regarding taking action against the journalists. Did the American Administration have ever a chance to speak with some of Arab leaders or governments regarding arresting the journalists like Tunisia? As you know, there are some journalists are already arrested until now.

My second point regarding the Greater Middle East Initiative, as we know, improving the skills of the Arab media and the training and freedom of press was part of the -- such an initiative. Do you believe the Arab media will accept such an issue? And can you please give us more information or details regarding that point on the Greater Middle East Initiative?

MR. ERELI: Yeah, I don't have much to tell you on the Greater Middle East Initiative. It's just not that thought out yet.

On the issue of, will Arab journalists want training programs? Well, I don't know. You're a journalist, you tell me or not. I think that, you know, I'm not suggesting that Arab journalists aren't well-trained to begin with, but I think that if there are ways to increase interaction with international colleagues, that's all to the good.

On the issue of raising detention of journalists with foreign leaders, we do it all the time; and we do it with Tunisia, we do it with Syria, I presume we do it with Ivory Coast. I mean, that's what our embassies do. We have human rights offices in embassies and I know that when Secretary Powell met with the Tunisian Foreign Minister, he didn't raise particular specific journalists' cases, but he did say human rights is a concern for us.

So this is something I said at the very beginning that is an integral component of all our actions when we deal with foreign countries, is respecting freedom of the press and respecting the rights of journalists to inform the public.

QUESTION: I wonder if we could address the issue of protecting the sources. How far should one go, the reporter go? The issue of Valery Plame is one case in point.

MR. BUTLER: You know, I guess the easy answer is that you go all the way, and you go to jail forever, and you do all those things and that's just -- it's really, it's a very tough question. And I know the several times in my career when I've been personally faced with it; I feel I've been very lucky. I've had huge support from my publication and, you know, the high-priced lawyers were hired, and we went to the mat, and we were okay.

But I am just filled with admiration by journalists who face much, much, much tougher consequences than I've ever faced, and who refuse to knuckle under to threats, both on revealing their sources and all kinds of other things.

So -- and I think it would be just absolutely wrong for me to say this as some sort of simple answer to that because I think, I think it's impossible to have a simple answer. It's a very -- but it goes to the heart of this, you know? I mean, again, it's not just treaties and training programs and slowly growing traditions that protects press freedoms. It's -- journalists going to the mat sometimes.

QUESTION: (Inaudible.)

MR. BUTLER: Do I hear from them?

QUESTION: Do you have any information?

MR. BUTLER: I know nothing about it. We have an African correspondent. I don't deal with the area at all.

QUESTION: (Inaudible.)

MR. BALLARD: Okay, well, let me in partial answer to your question give you two things. One is that -- well, three things. First of all, there is a statement made by spokesman Richard Boucher today on the occasion of World Press Freedom Day that all of you could pick up on your way out.

Second, in every year's Human Rights Report, as Adam mentioned, there is a section on freedom of the press in every country and what the Department of State believes to be the situation of freedom of press in that country. And third, later this week, we will have yet another briefing on the follow-up to our Human Rights Reports that we released around the world. So that will be an opportunity to discuss certain efforts in specific countries, like your question.

But anyway, I'd like all of you to join me in thanking our three panelists, Patrick Butler, Adam Ereli and Paul Koring. And thank all of you for your great questions and wonderful engagement today.