preferable to the 15 years you would receive in thailand. perhaps these leaders should learn to take a punch. traffic to healthcare.gov increased by 40% the day after obama's appearance. thanks to all of you for being part of my program this week. i will see you next week. good morning. i'm candy crowley. "reliable sources" with brian stelter starts after this check of our top stories. malaysia is revealing more information about the investigation into the disappearance of flight 370. authorities say they're now examining a flight simulator taken from the home of the pilot. no word on what they've discovered but they will be looking to see if pilot practiced the same path. a u.s. official tells cnn u.s. intelligence is leaning toward the theory that pilots are responsible. the search area has expanded to cover large areas of land including extremely remote

regions. crews are looking along two corridors, one to the south, the other to the north, reaching all the way up to kazakhstan. satellite signals picked up on flight 370 for seven hours after the last contact with the pilots. but malaysian officials announced today it's possible the last satellite contact could have come from a plane on the ground. today the country's transportation minister made a personal promise to those on board. >> a lot of speculation out there and i think it to be fair to the investigation anything revealed now will affect the investigation and is to be fair to the families, putting aside speculation, putting aside emotions, putting aside agendas maybe even. the fact that there are genuine people who sincerely want to come and help, i think people will -- that gives me strength. if it takes two years, 20 years, i'll give the assurance to the

chinese families i will do it. >> 25 countries are now taking part in the search. a critical vote today that could determine the fate of crimea and have a serious impact on ukraine. crimeans are voting to either join russia or effectively become an independent state. the u.s. has called the vote illegal, but russia has applauded it. and we learned just now that the russian president vladimir putin spoke to german chance lor angela merkel about the vote. according to the russian government, putin said russia will respect the crimean people's choice. michael holmes is live in simferopol in the crimea region. what's it been like today? >> it's been very orderly, candy. we're out and about earlier, the polls opened at 8:00 a.m. local time, it's now 5:00 p.m., a thousand polling stations are around this region of ukraine. ukraine it still is for the moment. 1.5 million ballots went out.

we were at one polling station, everyone said they were voting to rejoin the russian federation. obviously a controversial vote. our other crews have been out and about in the region and there have been unusual practices going on, one must say. one of our crews saw two ballots being put into the box by one person and nick peyton walsh said earlier a lot of people were showing up at a polling place with no basically proof of who they were, other than a passport and a vote was taken pong the people at the polling place, whether they would be allowed to vote. most of the time they were, indeed, allowed to vote. not what you would expect the u.s. or elsewhere but all along a foregone conclusion in three hours when the polls closed, pretty shortly after there would be a declaration that crimea will join the russian federation. it doesn't end there, of course. later in the week it's the

russia duma has to vote, the parlment vote on whether to accept that. it seems they will. of course the big question then is what next? the rest of the world says that this is an illegal referendum and that any annexation in crimea will be illegal. we're in len be square here in simferopol the capital and expecting a large crowd to turn out a few hours from now and the party will begin. candy? >> thanks so much, michael. i'm sure we will be with you throughout the day. skreeouth korean defense officials say north korea fired ten rockets toward the sea of japan. one official estimates the rockets traveled 40 miles into open waters. the north has defended short range launches in recent weeks calling them justifiable south defense. south korea and the west have criticized the launches. "reliable sources" with brian stelter starts right now. >> good morning. i'm brian stelter. it's time for "reliable

sources." this morning we're covering two big stories. the baffling mystery that has obsessed so many of us this week. in happened to malaysian flight air 370. decision day in crimea where tensions are rising as people vote on whether to return to russia. one of the finest aviation journalists speaking for the first time about what he thinks about this missing plane. bob hager spent decades covering these baffling mysteries for nbc news, he saw them all. saw every detail and he knows firsthand how obsessed reporters can get as they struggle to figure out seemingly unsolvable tragedies. bob, thank you for joining me. >> sure enough. glad to be with you. >> you've been traveling this week so we haven't seen you on television the way people are used to seeing you during previous plane mysteries like this one. from everything you've seen, from everything you've heard, what do you think happened? >> can't tell so much.

there's such a lack of information. i'm going to agree with authorities based on what we know so far that it sure looks like something deliberate in the cockpit, deranged member of the crew, deranged pilot, just gone off unreasonably flying on and on or deranged passenger coming forward and forcing the crew in the cockpit to do this, cutting the communications. but that's all theory. i mean, again, we're operating without a whole lot of information on this. could still be some mechanical problem where the plane decompressed and everybody died on the plane an it just goes on flying although it goes up and down, turns and things like that, which you wouldn't think of with a decompression. anyway, you can't say for sure. got to go so far with deranged passenger or hijacking, murder/suici murder/suicide, something like that. >> of course here i am, asking you to speculate as we've seen on television so much this week.

is that just part of what a aviation reporting is, speculation some in the absence of information you have two things working. investigators are trained to leave open every single possibility and only rule out one thing at a time to try to narrow in on the cause. reporters meanwhile, reflecting the appetite of viewers and readers and so forth, are anxious to try to give the public some information to work off or even some theories or speg speculation that i think in this case speculation is okay, it's natural, as long as it's labeled that way. because none of us really knows -- i mean we're operating without any strong facts. and by the way, forensic investigation is the very best in these kinds of things. i mean you need black boxes or you need some pieces of wreckage. that's what you really need to get at what must have gone on here. >> what kind of sources would you be calling on a story like this? are the united states investigators that are assisting the malaysian officials, really,

really tight lipped usually or are they hard to get to or would they secretly be helping reporters out in a case like this so this? >> this is technically a malaysian investigation. the u.s. people involved are reluctant to be public. ho however they are the best informed in the business probably. you have out there probably people from the faa, federal aviation administration, people from the national transportation safety board, people in boeing, the manufacturer of the 7 77, very knowledgeable people and they're apt to be in touch with their counterparts in the investigation from the malaysian transportation ministry so they're going to learn little things. yeah, the reporters who have worked the beat for quite a while, experienced reporters, have a relationship with these people. they've seen them on other crashes and dealt with them. if i were out there, i would want to be near the seen and working the hotel cory ders near that investigation, wherever investigators are or american

counterparts more important, and trying to learn things off the record. the u.s. people would be reluctant to be on the record. and i think there's a little information to be gotten off the record too from the american pentagon is my hunch. >> that's real shoe leather reporting, in the hotel corridors, maybe at the hotel bar too? >> well, bars, difficult for a television reporter because nowadays the satellite reporting and 24/7 cable operations eat you up. so you don't have time -- i used to be jealous of my newspaper counterparts because i couldn't go to the bar where you would get investigators relaxing. there's occasionally information to be picked up there. when you have to be on the tube every 15 minutes or something, when you're the reporter on the scene, you've got no time to go to the bar. you do hope to get off the record information from people that you know really well and if you're rubbing elbows with them at the hotel you're going to bump into them in the hallway or sometimes they're organized off the record briefing, so every

little bit of scrap of information helps because they're learning things from the foreign people. by the way, very difficult to operate in a foreign country. i remember when the supersonic airliner crashed in paris and i'm trying to get information from the french officials of the transportation ministry, really hard when you're operating in a foreign language to develop a kind of a buddy relationship with them like you can with the americans from as i say the government agencies or the company boeing, et cetera. >> i would like to hear about some of the other plane crashes and disappearances you've covered. let me play a clip from "nbc nightly news" when pan am 103 exploded over lockerbie, scotland. >> here we have one that happened as you said at 31,000 feet. that's near cruising altitude. that to start makes it very unusual. further more as pan american says no communication from the pilots ahead of time. that indicates whatever happened must have happened suddenly. reports that pilots in the area

saw the plane in flames in the night sky as it was on its way down. that would indicate an explosion of some kind in flight. >> what's striking about that clip is that viewers and investigators knew a lot more early on about that plane crash than they do in this case, whether it crashed or not. is there a past disappearance of a flight, a past plane mystery this one reminds you of in any way? >> i think the most recent mystery has been five years ago, the disappearance of the air france flight that left rio, was flying to paris and disappeared over the atlantic. and they couldn't find the wreckage of that for a long time either. they found a little bit a few days later, few bodies and small pieces of wreckage, but two years went by before they found the black boxes from that crash. and until they found those black boxes, that's informative, until they found the black boxes it was all theory. when they found the black boxes

they reaffirmed information that the flight systems were operating incorrectly, giving incorrect air speed indication. but more importantly they found out that the crew may have mishandled the plane based on what information they had. only to say these things can take a lot of time and eventually you got to have some hard evidence before you really can examine up with a conclusive finding on what went wrong. >> and do you think there's such a thing as too much of this conversation? are you critical of channels like cnn that go wall-to-wall on a story like this? >> i think not. i think they're responding to the hunger for the viewing public for information about what went on. so in this day of 27 -- of 24/7 coverage, i can't blame people for putting the spotlight on this because this is very much in the public mind. it's clear that people are very interested in this and somewhat apprehensive understandably.

i don't blame news organizations for doing all they can even although the facts are not very liberally available at the moment. >> bob hager, a dean of aviation reporting, thank you so much for sharing your thoughts with us today. >> surely, brian. thank you very much for having me. >> let's take a quick break here but stick around because when we come back i want to talk about that dirty word in journalism, speculation. journalists are trained to stick to the facts. but the story of flight 370 is full of speculation as we just discussed. it's been informed speculation given by experts, maybe just maybe, speculating is the only way to finally get at the answers to this mystery. we'll be back in two minutes. hey kevin...still eating chalk for hearburn? yea. try alka seltzer fruit chews. they work fast on heart burn and taste awesome. these are good. told ya! i'm feeling better already. alka-seltzer fruit chews. enjoy the relief!

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than olive oil. and a recent study found that it can help lower cholesterol 2 times more. take care of those you love and cook deliciously. mazola makes it better. welcome back to "reliable sources." a satirical headline from "the new yorker" this week. "total absence of information about malaysia flight not hindering 24 hour coverage cable

networks say." a satirical headline but getting at something there that's important. speculation informed speculation, has been a big party of this story. i asked bob hager to engage in it in the last segment for a good reason. bob hager knows more than just about anyone how to cover major air disasters. it tends to be a dirty word in journalism, taught to stick to the facts as we know them. i know cnn has come under criticism this week for engaging in that kind of speculation. but let's be honest, there are times when informed speculation moves a story forward. you take the few sfaktss you do have and ask the real experts like former ntsb officials or people that understand the complex equipment involved and they explain what the few clues we have might mean. if that's speculation it's also a form of journal, maybe not the kind everybody wants to see all

the time on television. is this a situation that calls for speculation? is this a situation that demands this kind of speculation? joining me an expert in journalism and sat in the anchor chair when news breaks, frank, the director of the george washington university school of media and public affairs. i wonder if there's a tendency what would be taught and say. we would be taught never to report a rumor, rumors are off limits and in this case there have been rumors broadcast and i have been glad they have been brought up. friday night of the first day of all of this, piers morgan mentioned rumors that the plane had landed in vietnam but made clear those ru mores were unconfirmed. he was sharing what was on the internet and talked about but trying to tamp down that speculation saying it was unconfirmed. is that an example of the tension between, you know, practice and reality? >> yes. i mean, in the not so old days,

old days, we would have said never report a rumor. in the old days when we were never reporting a rumor there weren't social media rumors being reported all the time. >> right. >> so this merger of old media and new media and old ethics and new ethics in journalism is a collision. i remember when i was working for this network an john f. kennedy jr.'s plane went down, i was minding my own business, got a call, come into the bureau, go on, a record for me, i went 4 1/2 hours without getting up to go to the bathroom. we had no information. but we were wall-to-wall with this. we had to do that. the audience wanted it. the audience expected it of cnn. we had to be very careful, what i call the language of live, when you are live on the air with very limited information but you have to deal with it. now you have to deal with the information, the rumor, the speculation that's coming, literally from around the world in real time. >> this parallel universe of information that's going to be on-line whether we like it or not.

i feel like on television we can at least try to separate facts from what might be fiction. >> that's right. but here's what you have to do when you're on television doing that. you have to say, i'm now separating fact from fiction. you have to say, here's what we know. these are the three facts we know. here are the 15 speculative theories we don't know but we're going to investigate them and discuss them because this what is investigators are looking at, this is what people are askings us, this what is we're hearing in social media because we know wonder about this and this is -- >> almost like a warning label on the coverage. >> yeah, right. surgeon general, right? yeah. it's difficult but it's important and it's happening. >> take me back to those times when you were in that anchor chair on breaking news stories. seems like breaking news coverage is more raw, honest, because the anchor is experiencing it with the viewer in real time. what's that pressure like? you talk about the language of live? >> it's really very difficult an you have to know this an you have to understand your

responsibility obviously to the audience but also the nature of the story itself. i think the most important thing when you're sitting in that chair and it's tough is to keep in your head what you know, what you don't know, what's a legitimate question and what's a wild out there question and how you bring the audience into that process so that you're sorting through that. all right. so in the case of this jet, was it terrorism, a lithium ion battery that blew it out, was the oxygen down so everybody lost consciousness? how long did it fly. did it crash in the ocean, land on an island some place, is it still out there. some of these questions are way out there, and i think what you have to do when you're sitting in that chair, when you're bringing the audience with you, is be very transparent about it. and bring them into that questioning process, really directly so they're part of it. >> people have been talking ability the type of coverage in this case a lot of speculation, but the amount of coverage, cnn has been wall to wall over a

week now. the ratings have been higher than they aare for cnn. which tells me viewers do care about this story. is there such a thing as too much coverage about a story like this. >> yes, there. >> are we there? >> maybe. this is where the -- this is the rub. this is the tension, the conflict. it's what you say, it's how you say it, it's how much you say it, and it's how loud you say it. we call that proportionality. the big danger in cable television and big danger always confronting cnn and it's confronted cnn since cnn went on the air and startd doing 24-hour news is how loud to shout, how much to do this, how much breaking news is really breaking news and how you convey to your audience this is a huge story, everybody is interested, we're going to live on this, go 24/7 washlgs to wall. i'm dating myself but when we had the o.j. simpson trial and went wall to wall with that. that is the first time cnn

really discovered in a powerful way the audience wants wall-to-wall coverage and rewards that with huge numbers. when you know your audience wants that, that's a balance then you have to walk. >> of course the o.j. simpson trial was a mystery but of a different kind. court cases are a mystery just like this is a mystery right now unfolding before our eyes. >> i think, brian, that's so important for us to realize that what we've got here in and why this story is compelling, unbelieve human interest and human concern, tragedy, 239s souls, somewhere, lost, we don't know. there is the aviation story. there is the national security story. there is the terrorism story if there'ses that. the aviation story. we all fly. i sat down yesterday for breakfast in new york city and i'm talking to a guy who has nothing to do with the news business and starts telling me what he thinks happens because he has interest in aviation and flies. >> right. >> so that's story, that mystery connects on all these compelling levels. >> back to our original point

about speculation do you think there are times when it can be damaging, hurt the credibility of the news business? that's what this comes back to. >> speculation is very dangerous because if you speculate wildly you appear to be irresponsible, you can be irresponsible. you can fuel undo concerns, undo panic. you can fuel misinformation. and then in the journalistic world, you will be and you should be accountable for that. but speculation can also be smart speculation and informed speculation. you're an investigator. i'm the show host. and i'm asking you take me into this investigation. you've been in similar things like this or not. what's likely to be happening. that's a question that everyone is asking. by definition that's a speculative question but someone can provide some informed guidance, speculation as to what's taking place, the questions that are being asked and answered. i think that's really important and that's what an audience wants to know. again, you're in this dangerous time, right, between when

something has happened and when you know what actually happened. and, you know, the investigation is going on during that time. investigators are speculating. that's what investigation is. >> frank, thank you so much for joining me and talking through this. >> it's my pleasure. >> in just a moment, the very latest information we have on the search for the plane. don't go away. over the next 40 years the united states population is going to grow by over 90 million people, and almost all that growth is going to be in cities. what's the healthiest and best way for them to grow so that they really become cauldrons of prosperity and cities of opportunity? what we have found is that if that family is moved into safe, clean affordable housing, places that have access to great school systems, access to jobs and multiple transportation modes then the neighborhood begins to thrive and really really take off. the oxygen of community redevelopment is financing.

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s. hello. i'm jim sciutto. "reliable sources" is back after this check of our top stories.

the hunt for flight 370 top military official in india says that his country has temporarily ended its search for the plane while malaysia reviews the massive deployments from 25 countries. the search area now covers large areas of land including extremely remote regions. crews are looking along two corridors, one to the south, the other to the north, reaching all the way up to kazakhstan in central asia. authorities are now examining as well a flight simulator taken from the home of the captain of that flight, the u.s. official tells cnn intelligence is leaning towards the theory the pimtss are responsible -- pilots are responsible for the loss of that airplane. satellite data indicates 370 was up and running for seven hours after the last contact with the pilots and malaysian officials announced it is possible that last contact could have come from the plane on the ground. our atika shubert joins us live from kuala lumpur, the capital of malaysia. tells us how significant that

is, the last contact of the plane could have been on the ground rather than up in the air. >> it could be quite significant, but we simply do not know because we don't know where the plane was located and this is part of why indian vessels have temporarily suspended their search. it's such a huge area and malaysia is saying let's cup serve our resources to cover this huge amount of area. remember we've got 25 countries involved. a lot of coordinating to do. in the meantime however, what it means in addition to finding the location of the plane, they're focusing on who might have taken this plane on this path and why they're looking at the pilots, the crew, but also the ground crew, anybody who helped to get that plane up in the air. >> yesterday, officers from the royal malaysian police visited the home of the pilot. they spoke to family members of the pilot and experts are examining the pilot's flight

simulator. the police also visited the home of the co-pilot. according to malaysian airlines the pilot and co-pilot did not ask to fly together on 370. >> you heard there the police removed a home made flight simulator from zaharie ahmad shah. this is an experienced pilot, known as an aviation junky, created his own flight simulator. not that unusual he would have it but police are looking at it as a precaution to see if there are any clues as to why or how the plane might have taken this wrong turn off of its flight path. jim? >> what specifically, atika, will they look for on that simulator? air experts have told us a lot of pilots do this kind of thing. what particular data will they look for on this pilot's simulator? >> well, they're probably going to look at what kind of a simulation did he run. was it a particular route.

does it match the route that this flight 370 took. that's the information that they'll be looking for from the flight simulator. there's also other kinds of clues. remember, when they say they believe that somebody on that plane might have deliberately flown this flight path, they said it could be hijacking, could be sabotage, could be they're looking into personal problems that the pilots may have had. they're not ruling anything out. nothing to indicate one specific reason at the moment which is why they're saying they're looking at all the options. >> and you make a good point, because investigators have also said they're looking at all the passengers on the plane as well. it's not just the pilots they're looking at althoughs u.s. officials have said that's the theory they're leaning towards. india canceling their search today. as you remember, we remember the search area used to be in the east in the peninsula. turns out that was a useless search in effect and malaysian authorities knew they had radar data indicating the plane went

to the west. is there frustration from countries they were misled initially? >> there's a great deal of frustration but especially china which, of course, has so many of their countrymen on that flight and at a briefing for chinese families in beijing, tempers were running high. a lot of shouting an yelling at malaysian air officials there. even in the press briefing today, there were a lot of cuff questions at one point one journalist asking if the malaysian authorities were, quote, sleeping on the job because they failed to notify people sooner. a lot of tough questions being asked. it's hardest on the families. i spoke to the father of o one malaysian man here whose son was on that flight and he said, i just want to know what happened. and that he's he doesn't get any sleep, doesn't turn off his phone, doesn't want to miss that one phone call that tells him what happened to flight 370. >> and also raises the question

have they reacted earlier, given us information earlier, we don't know what happened but could they have saved some lives, that possibility there. some of the families have raised that question as well. thanks to our atika shubert in kuala lumpur. "reliable sources" will continue with more on the disappearance of flight 370. it's a growing trend in business: do more with less with less energy. hp is helping ups do just that. soon, the world's most intelligent servers, designed by hp, will give ups over twice the performance, using forty percent less energy. multiply that across over a thousand locations, and they'll provide the same benefit to the environment as over 60,000 trees. that's a trend we can all get behind. [ chicken caws ] [ male announcer ] when your favorite food starts a fight, fight back fast with tums. heartburn relief that neutralizes acid on contact

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connectivity. millions of people have been fluid to it. at times this week cnn's ratings have been able double what they usually are. web traffic for a wide variety of news sites has been way up. many people are watching for hours at a time including me. i found myself mess morized by the coverage, despite the fact that we still have no answers. or maybe because we have no answers. but what does it mean when we're watching television for hours on end and what accounts for the heavy levels of interest in this story right now? let's ask my next guest, psychiatrist gail salts. thank you for joining me. >> my pleasure. >> what's the number one reason why so many people are focused on this, almost obsessed with this case? >> it's terrifying, the idea of a plane going down, and if it's a mechanical failure or for sort of a natural disaster, we have no control over that. but if there's somebody that a,

we can blame, and -- which makes us more comfortable, and b, we can control, ie, terrorists, you know, somebody actually doing something that you can stop from happening again, well that makes us also relieved because otherwise it's a random event and that's terribly frightening. >> is it that people, once they've tuned in to a story like this and started to pay attention, people need to hear an ending, they need some sort of resolution to it, an until there is one they are focused ob it? >> >> yes. certainly when it comes to the idea of why someone died, people do want closure. for one. and for two, as i said, they want someone to hold accountable. it's a very disturbing thought and that right now, we can't figure out, quote, who's to blame. and when you think about someone dying needlessly, you know, it's sort of like who am i going to point the finger at. i think this nebulousness keeps

us riveted until we have someone to hold accountable, even though as you pointed out at the beginning there's never been anything like this, it's unbelievably rare, but when you watch it over and over again it doesn't feel that way. as i said, we tend to identify with these disasters and the fear of flying may go up for people. >> first bump of turbulence on my flight i had the look out the window to see where i was, even though i knew it was irrational. >> just like conspiracies aren't necessarily rationale. in fact, interestingly, brian, what happens with conspiracies is that there's something called motivated skepticism which means you already have a belief, and any evidence that comes in you make fit your belief. so even though we may continue to get some evidence, whatever comes in, people filter it through their own prism and they might make it fit whatever story is more comfortable for them. so for instance, if they're

invested in these people being alive they may make the evidence fits sort of the "lost" scenario, they're somewhere on an island okay. that's understandable because it makes us less anxious. >> is there anything positive about this kind of coverage? we've been describing the risks or dangers, but what are the positive attributes? something to be said for the fact that we are all sharing or fears and anxiety through this sustained media coverage? >> the only positive is there are probably some people, they're the people who like to watch horror movies, et cetera, where they get an excitement from watching something that's actually quite terrifying and yet it's not happening to them. so it's safe for them, they're just the viewer, but they get the thrill. >> what happens if there's never an answer in this particular case? how would people deal with something like that? >> i think it's very difficult. the idea that people can vanish

is in a way maybe even more terrifying than death. you know, it leaves you open to whatever your worse fantasies about that might be. so i hope for really the families of the people on this plane, that that's not the case, that they are able to get some closure. it's hard to grieve and in some way accept and then find a way to move on with your life if you don't have an answer. obviously that's happened to people in the past before. depending on their individual psychological makeup, they will be able to deal with that, you know, in a better way or in a worse way depending on how resilient they are, how much trauma they've had in their past, but i would hope for everyone's sake that there ultimately is an answer. >> some sort of resolution to the story. >> exactly. >> dr. gale saltz thank you for joining me today. >> my pleasure. >> coming up, intimidation, threats, bullying tactics,

that's what reporters are facing right now in crimea. one of cnn's correspondents tells us her own troubling story you won't want to miss it. (vo) you are a business pro. seeker of the sublime. you can separate runway ridiculousness... from fashion that flies off the shelves. and you...rent from national. because only national lets you choose any car in the aisle... and go. and only national is ranked highest in car rental customer satisfaction by j.d. power. (natalie) ooooh, i like your style. (vo) so do we, business pro. so do we. go national. go like a pro. my sinuses are acting up and i've got this runny nose. i better take something. truth is, sudafed pe pressure and pain won't treat all of your symptoms. really? alka seltzer plus severe sinus fights your tough sinus symptoms plus your runny nose. oh what a relief it is

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welcome back to "reliable sources." i'm brian stelter. right now, the people of crimea are voting on whether or not to succeed from ukraine. as we await the vote we should keep in mind how hard it has been to get that news out. some reporters there have been detained, others have been roughed up, and many have been harassed as they've tried to cover the chaotic events. cnn correspondent anna coryn has run up against russian

authorities repeatedly. watch what happened to her this week. >> as we drive up military trucks and armored personnel carriers line the road. we ask them what they're doing, no comment says the russian soldier. no filming is allowed here. a senior officers walks up, his machine gun in view. get out, he tells us. you are not welcome. >> some reporters have been assaulted. simon who reports for vice new was attacked at a checkpoint by local police aligned with russia. here's the video. >> hey, hey, hey. >> they took us behind the corner, questioned us, went through our pockets, took all our stuff, looked at our passports. i think we were saved by the fact that i'm american and he's british and they didn't want to create an international

incident. >> how do all of these threats affect the reporters on the ground? joining me is anna who you saw in the earlier clip. thank you for joining me. >> you're very welcome, brian. >> how do you avoid conflict with these militiamen, police officials, some of whom seem to have it out for you? >> reporter: it's very hard to avoid them. there is such hostility and animosity towards western media when you say you are from cnn, you are public enemy number one. they don't want anything to do with europe or the united states. obviously, that is what cnn reps. we've had clashes with local militia. certainlily they've told us to stop filming, threatened to confiscate our cameras, shoved a machine gun into my cameraman's camera. this is something that is happening on a regular basis. this of course while the russian

president vladimir putin says there are no russian forces on the crimean peninsula. we have the proof, have the evidence, and they just don't want us to show it, brian. >> it's a very specific example of journalists doing their jobs, showing the evidence of what is there even if there are denials from the government. when you say you're with a global news organization there to report the truth, does that fall on deaf ears or do you not even bother to try to explain that to these people? >> reporter: there is really no point. i mean, they ask you, are you pro russian, are you for putin, and you say that you are here to report on what is going on. they don't want to hear that. they just want to know you are going to espouse the propaganda that they are trying to get out there. you know, they look at ukraine and look at the government that's taken over ukraine as fascists, as nazis. and there are posters all around

this here and sevastopol, and the propaganda war is definitely being waged. there is intimidation. there are russian forces on the street, these pro-russian militia also out in force and as you would have seen from the clip, they are the ones that are causing real problems here. >> to that point, we were originally going to be joined for this segment by your translator, who's a local journalist there. it was decided it wasn't safe for her to come on. tell us about that. >> reporter: absolutely. we wanted our translator to speak you and your audience and tell you what it's like for her to operate in crimea, particularly now that russia is here, russia has occupied this peninsula. you know, we discussed with her the repercussions that if she goes on air, if she is associated with cnn it's okay within the city, within, you

know, close to her, but once we leave ukraine and cnn no longer has any presence, the real concern is persecution. you know, russian forces, they could find her, they could, you know, intimidate her, persecute her and her family. and we just did not want her to, you know, run that sort of risk. >> how much access is there to freedom of information right now? is it right that so many independent news channels have been blocked and websites now blocked so it's hard to hear all sides of the political argument there? >> reporter: yeah, absolutely. it's the pro-russian message. we know that the ukrainian stations are no longer allowed to broadcast in crimea. so it is really all russian tv even in the hotels. they're only playing, you know, russian tv. so that is the message going out. russian newspapers, russian billboards. the propaganda war is definitely

under way. >> anna coren, thanks for joining me. >> reporter: my pleasure. stay tuned. much more "reliable sources" ahead. [ male announcer ] at northrop grumman, we know in the cyber world, threats are always evolving. at first, we were protecting networks. then, we were protecting the transfer of data. and today it's evolved to infrastructure... ♪ ...finance... and military missions. we're constantly innovating to advance the front line in the cyber battle, wherever it takes us. that's the value of performance. northrop grumman. chalky... not chalky.

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and finally this morning, a thought about news media priorities. when i was at home thursday night sitting on the couch channel surfing the way i do for

news between abc, cnn, fox, msnbc, al jazeera, i noticed something very interesting. every time a newscast turned away from the missing plane story, my wife spoke up. you know how people try to talk through the tv? it was like she was trying to talk to the producers through the screen. go back to the plane, she said. go back to the plane story. got me thinking about how we are all our own producers now, our eneditors, creating our own newscasts and online vergs of newspapers based on the vast array of news available to us. i personally wanted wall-to-wall plane coverage that night too. you know, sometimes a nation's news media do collectively overreact to a story. it happens from time to time. but i don't think it's happened in this case of the missing malaysian arables flight. there are so many other sources of information at our disposal anytime. there's an old adage that the media shouldn't just give us what we want. they should give us what we want to know and more importantly what we need to know. and there will always be some

truth to that. but the pervasiveness of the web changes those calculations. news can't be viewed as one linear product anymore. it's an on-demand product. when you see cnn television covering something nonstop and you want to see something else covered, well, that's what cnn.com is for, what all the other news websites out there are for. we are all news editors now. that's all for this televised edition of "reliable sources," but our media coverage continues all the time on cnn.com. see you next week, sunday, at 11:00 a.m. "state of the union" with candy crowley begins right now. this is cnn breaking news. i'm candy crowley in washington and two breaking stories we are following this hour. the disappearance of malaysian air flight 370 and a crucial vote in crimea on whether it will realign itself with russia. the u.s. and its western