investigation. and if it does not lead to charges, we will write that too, but it is a fact that the truth and he is under investigation. it is more than one alleged victim has come forward, but still, a lot of the news organizations didn't want to touch it. they didn't feel it was news. i didn't understand that. on a national scale i understand it, espn punishiicked it up, ann see a news organization saying who is the "patriot news"? and we don't trust that this is necessarily true. >> might have been different had it been, had you worked for a major national paper or something? >> i don't know the answer. maybe. >> maybe they were not able to match your sources, too, or confirm it independently which -- did you hear that from them later? >> no, because the ap picked it up.

i think the ap felt comfortable after a rewrite. >> and what about the feedback? >> i did not hear much feedback on that. but what was disheartening to me was to hear it from other local reporters. >> but then suddenly in november when the indictment came, everyone rushed in and it became a major, major story across the country. >> right at that point. the story was a lot different. there were days where there was a couple of days in the beginning where i counted only one day, but i know they were all about the same for the first two weeks but i had 86 interview requests on one of the first days. which from reporters, and i thought that was a little outrageous. >> they felt comfortable that there is a piece of paper charging the man or something. >> yes, and i think also at that point, there were some facts

that we could anticipate, but we did not feel comfortable enough putting it out there before the actual presentment of the formal charges. so it wasn't publicly known that this was going to engulf a university, but more than that, a university, the charity and the governor potentially. it wasn't publicly understood. we had a good grasp on where it could go, but it was not publicly understood how big it could get, and even for us, we like to think that we could anticipate as well as anybody that i was completely shocked when joe paterno was fired. i did not see that coming. i did not see graham spanier's firing who was the penn state president, and i did not see that coming. i don't know if that answers your question, but it really took on a life of its own very, very very quickly. >> and there were demonstrations in favor of joe paterno, and did people kind of turn against you? you were a penn state graduate, yourself? did people get angry at you for revealing it? >> things were breaking at a

rapid speed. hour by hour and even through the night because of the rioting and the protests on the campus. i would go in to interview and miss three events breaking. there was one time that i did get a little nervous and these are 500 or so drunk college kids rioting and i was making my way from one end of the campus to another. found myself, and just myself and a photographer from a news organization and i could not tell you where it was, but it was very clear since it was the two of us that we were media and of course, he had a big camera, and they start screaming at us. obscenities and start threatening, you know, that they are going to come after us, and

i thought, you know, they are probably not, but it really takes one 18-year-old drunk kid to think that is a good idea to come after us, and that would be very bad. however they didn't. we got, you know. but a couple of nights later they turned over a news van, and at that point i got a couple of e-mails we wish you were in the news van. so, yeah. >> mei, al jazeera english like al jazeera itself is owned by the royal family of qatar and it is very close part of the gulf cooperation council and bahrain, and what kind of reaction did your piece get from say the bahrainian authorities? and any pressure brought on al jazeera? >> yes, tremendous pressure to remove the film from the air.

this film was a huge scandal in the gulf, because it is just -- i mean, this was very embarrassing thing for the bahrainian regime to have all of the things that they did exposed. i mean the tortures and the killings and the disappearances and the arbitrary arrests and all of the other things documented in the film. it was a huge scandal and for brother country qatar, and there is a fire wall between al jazeera and the state of qatar. al jazeera is a news organization and qatar is a country. but whenever a gcc country like bahrain or arab emirates or whoever has a story they protest, it is to al jazeera. so the first thing minutes before it was over, the prime minister sent out tweets criticizing the film saying, you know, this is proof that qatar

hates bahrain which of course is false, because the qataris are relatives of the bahrainian ruling family, and they didn't understand this is an independent doc journalism by al jazeera and not created by qatar. and there was a democratic protest letter from qatar to remove the film from the air. and people inside of qatar hated the film, because they are brothers of the bahrainian ruling family. so a lot of pressure not only from bahrain and saudi arabia to remove the film and inside of qatar, and people saying, how dare you, how dare you air this pack of lies against our brothers, you know. so, the thing is that what happened was that instead of

removing it from the air which would have been a complete disaster, al jazeera added programs for them to air opposition to the film. but the film created a firestorm. and members of the qatar ruling family were attacking the saudi arabia ruling families. >> it was in english? but not in arabic? >> yes, it was translated in english and got 1.5 million hits in arabic. most of the people have seen nit southern arabia, and qatar and united emirates, and elsewhere, because it is the only real document of the arab revolution that happened in the gulf cooperation council states. there is not another comprehensive documentary that

shows what happened. so people wanted to see the thing that they had not been allowed to see. >> of course, you say right at the very beginning, by the way, mei, not only shot the film, wrote the script, edited it, narrated it, and she did everything with the help of hasan mafoud, you say in the outset of the film, that's a sunni-shiite split. sunni minority ruling a shiite majority.

and that must be inflammatory for many of the royal families in the region for which that is also true. >> yes. >> was that in particular an item that seemed to be, how we say, catch their attention? >> definitely, you know, it is a fact that she is with the majority in bahrain, but hearing the fact spoken out loud makes some people very angry. the proximity of iran makes them extra sensitive to the shias. and yes, this film was -- i can't to an american audience or western audience this film is somewhat explosive. for a gulf audience which does not talk openly or has not historically spoken openly as a community about things like sectarianism, between sunnis and shias, and about authoritarianism and the merits of one-family rule and for a community of people who do not talk about these things publicly, this film was a bomb. >> sure, you are dealing with a lot of hidden issues there, but important.

>> and you mentioned that most of the previous work had been about abuses under the bush administration. and obama has come to office with promises of transparency, but he has had more of the whistle plowers and he has not been able to close guantanamo, do you believe that the situation that this country is with this sense or threat how real or not, we do not know, but

it is one that is ladying to the erosion of civil liberty? >> i worry that it is. because if administration that is theoretically as different from the bush administration sanctifies the same sorts of programs, it is going to be hard to get rid of some of these programs. so i do worry a lot about it. what has happened over the last ten years since 9/11 or whatever number of years is that the national security agency has become so powerful in washington, and so it is very hard to push it back and politically it is hard to push it back in congress, too, and not closing guantanamo is to some extent the fault of the amount of opposition that obama got from even trying to do it. they did try. they didn't get very far and didn't make it a priority and with the expansion of the drone program and the prosecutions of people who have spoken as critics of the programs the reporters, i mean, i think that

it is a big worry. >> i do not see it as necessarily over. i mean, i think that there is a lot of turmoil in this, and it is kind of being pushed back, but there is a big role for the press to play in exposing it. >> chris, what do you think of the drone program, and what's the, you know, the reactions to that when you are on the ground, and can you imagine yourself, i don't know, into the mind of a pakistani who sees a drone coming overhead, and in particular how about the american fighting, and you documented some of the frustration that they felt when they were receiving fire across the border from pakistan. this was i think in october and long before that, and not long

before that major, major incident. what's it like on the ground on both sides. >> i think that for the average person who's fighting the war, and the joint program is not a significant issue, because the drones are politically potent because of what they can do in remote air space and what they can do over the country uninvited. they are not especially a tactically potent weapon and they don't have a payload and they are not necessarily going to be used to relieve the troops under fire, and the infantry platoon is much more concerned about what's going on a few miles around it. and that is inside of afghanistan unless they are a border unit. so you won't hear a lot of discussion about the drone program when you are, you know, walking with the rank and file.

it is a much larger issue when you get next to the border though. when you get next to the border, i think that you have got generation, current generation of troops who have been essentially who have inherited real estate that was occupied and then developed in a military sense years ago. the local population and fighters know that real estate perfectly and know where the american bases can see and not see, and they know how the fight those places, and the current generation of fighters who are there are often feeling like sitting ducks. the rules are very tight. the war has clearly not gone well and when they have joined ten years later, it would be such a hot war in the area around them at least and the rules are restrictive for fighting back. so, you know, i have been in fighting positions and firefights where people have said to me, hey, bro, tell my congressman about this, because i can't. you can see it. i can't say it. you see it. write what you see. do that for us, will you? >> and how do you answer that? you say, i'm writing the story about that? >> pardon me? >> you say, i'm writing the story.

>> you say, that is why we are here and write what we see and stay a long time and walk where you walk. i think that for a lot of the troops out there now, they are there for personal and institutional reasons and does not give the rank and file a lot of hope that they will reorder afghanistan the way that they were sort of told when they joined that they might be able to. and the war in some respects has run out of ideas. >> is the u.s. winning the war? >> well, losing and winning, how do you define it? will the u.s. succeed in the broad list of tasks that it set out to do after 9/11 and will the u.s. succeed in bringing women's rights to afghanistan, and will the u.s. succeed in a counter narcotic strategy in the opium field, and will the u.s. succeed in creating a government that is made in some sort of western idea of what a modern

government is supposed to be? the answer to all of these questions is of course not. the task list got to be so long the things they were trying to do were not what they set out to do. and now, i think that it is not a matter of winning or losing, but a matter of choosing an acceptable level to withdraw and at which they can feel that the world is not less safe for all of the efforts there. >> can i ask a follow-up question since we have got you. since one of the reasons that we went into afghanistan in the first place was to try to protect the united states against al qaeda in particular and terrorism. on that one point, do you think that there has been success? >> well with, you know, it is difficult to measure what you can't see. so you only see terrorism when it happens, and it is hard to

say when you can't see it. and so i e am hesitant to answer that question. >> i mean the end of bin laden -- >> that served i think for most americans at least a sense of justice. did that the national security interest going forward that you can measure? i think that is a lot harder to measure and or harder to answer. you know, the question about is afghanistan a safe haven or breeding ground and it is labeling the security minded person assigned to it, you could say that in some ways it is less so, that the threat has migrated out of there to a large degree. is that success? is that value? is the price in blood and time and credibility of the nation worth it? that would depend on the politics, but i ask a lot of

people, let's draw a line of what you are doing this week, today, to the national security of the united states and a lot of guys shrug at you, because they can't. they say, let's draw a line to what we are trying to bring water to this village, and we can do that. can i connect that to saying that you are going to be safer in a shopping mall in cleveland? no. >> we are approaching a question period, so if you have questions, we have a microphone down at the bottom of either aisle. just, you know, just come down and state your question and please no speeches, but questions. sara, i would like to ask a larger question about the sex abuse cases. i know you don't remember, but if you have heard of the '80s when there was a sort of strange

epidemic of charges against nursery schools. one in california, the mcmillan case, and one in boston and one just in new jersey. of workers who were prosecuted and in some cases sent to jail on the testimony of little kids who were in some cases led in the questioning by people who believed strongly that there was a satanic ritual, and it was a strange period. in kind of the history of the american psychological epidemics, it is a very, very touchy issue obviously. you have covered other sex abuse cases, and what do you think is the best way to approach this as a problem? do you think that we should have web sites with the names of sexual predators? how do you balance and how do you get to the truth of a case? how do you ensure that the

people are not accused unjustly or allowed to continue if they are in fact guilty? >> well, i don't even try to have the silver bullet answer to a question like that, however, i can say that one of the -- one -- really probably the only rewarding thing about this experience for me has been the amount of people who are talking about sex abuse. not just child sex abuse but all sex abuse. you know, i had -- very early after the charges were brought, the psychologist for one of the alleged victims said to me, you know, this boy, he was still 17 at the time, actually sees that what he did coming forward was a good thing, because of the allegations that, i believe it was the citadel and then syracuse and several other

alleged victims of -- child sex abuse who were then adults were saying, you know what? because of these people, i'm going to tell my story, too. i think that that's the biggest problem, is that we don't talk about it. so we don't educate ourselves about it, and you know, i know there is now this push for the adam walsh act, the national child sex -- sex crimes registry and a lot of states are deciding it's politic, deciding not to comply with it because of the way that it was set up and the restraints and the cost of it and the personnel that it takes to run something like that. i don't know what the answer is on that level, but i do know that i have never interviewed a victim who said i wish i had kept this to myself.

they have never -- i've always admired the strength of victims who are talking to me, because -- you know, i imagine it's a very difficult thing to do, but i think it's very important. always a big believer in the truth. the truth is -- more facts are better than less facts, obviously, but, you know, i think that's a situation where it's incredibly difficult to make that decision, and i just -- i do think that talking about it is important, and not just for the victims but for those of us who don't understand it, and, you know, that's how we educate the next generation. that's incredibly important. >> uh-huh. please, don't feel bashful. if you have a question, just step right up to the microphone. yes? could you state your name? >> my name is edward hershey. chris, you're no longer an infantry captain, you're a journalist, you put yourself in

mortal danger for the stories that you have to honor. whom do you speak to regarding the risk-rewards of what danger you put yourself into? do you talk to your editor, your loved ones, to yourself? >> why we do what we do? why we go out each day? easy for me. i'm not there for me, i have a high tolerance of risk and get very afraid on some days, but a lot of days i don't. a lot of days i'm able to -- you know, i had a conversation with someone very close to me, i'll leave unnamed and said -- i won't. i had a conversation with my wife. not too long ago. i didn't want to put her out there, but this will tell you a little bit about that, and i said, i don't know how many of these firefights or shellings we've been in. we've lost track a long time ago and sometimes you're not afraid, and she said, well, you know, i'm your wife, and these your kids and we're terrified. so why would i still go out?

or why have i been going out all these years? the answer is, you take that measure. you don't go out on everything, you might go out every day, but sometimes you stay back. and the answer is, it's for the readers. it's not for me. if there's something i don't know and i'm still trying to find i'll keep going out. if there's something to learn out there and i'd think there is, there's a good news reason, i'll shoulder the risk. if there's not a news reason, there's been plenty of good examples where my principle partner is a photographer tyler hicks who father is here in the audience and who will be receiving an award here tomorrow as well. tyler and i will sometimes sit and we'll want to go do something and we'll say to each other, hey, this one goes bad, what do we tell, you know, the guy who doesn't get hurt, what's he tell the family? what's he tell our boss? was there a reason for what we're about to do? a news reason.

is there something here that can lead to the people of the united states, the readers, more broadly than the united states, outside of our immediate sort of print circulation area, understand what we're covering a little more fully? if there's not if we're just repeating this experience, we need back up and not shoulder risk, not put our institution, our newspaper that trusts us in jeopardy, put our families at risk, not get hurt ourselves. it comes down to all of these pressures that you describe, as you step out each day, you know, you want to be able to say, if i get hurt on this one, can i justify it? and if you can't, you might pull back. you know, i listen to you talk. you can justify everything you did. you were telling a story that was not going to be told simply would not be understood if you didn't do it. the only one there and only one with the resources and courage to do it. sometimes, you know, the stories aren't quite like that. the story is a little more

familiar and there will be days, i'll say, i might not do that one, because i don't think i'm going to come away with a set of notes that i could justify, you know, to bill keller, if i said tyler got hurt. we're going to sit this one out. unfortunately, the way the climate's been the last decade, there aren't many days like that. sadly. >> very eloquently put. sir, yes? could you state your name and your question. >> sure. my name is herman bazard. i'm anned adjunct professor at . this question is for sara. we're inundated in the news with stories of teachers in the school system having, you know, affairs with some of their students. do you think there's a difference when the alleged perpetrator is a male or a

female in the way it's recorded? >> that's a good question. i'd like to think not. i'm sure -- i know this question came up a lot in the beginning of this -- this scandal unfolding. several people said to me, and i was actually on a panel at penn state just a week after it all happened, where there was a question, if the eight alleged victims had been girls instead of boys, would we be -- would we be here talking about this? would the reaction have been the same? and i don't know that -- i don't know that i can answer that, although i know that in central pennsylvania, there is definitely a -- a reaction -- let me back up. i think the reaction to hearing the rumors was different in this case. in central pennsylvania, than it was, than it would have been if they had been girls. that the rumors for jerry sandusky, accused of abusing

little girls, i think the reaction in a town like that would have been different. but obviously, i don't have any -- >> sure. >> -- proof that it would have changed the course of the investigation or the force of his career, how he left. why he left. you know, i have no -- no indication of that. >> thank you. >> yeah. >> yes? >> hello. my name is nancy dell monaco. and i'm just a regular citizen who believes in the importance of good journalism and i want to congratulate all of you for a really worthy profession that you've chosen and that you've done. my question is to john and jane. john, you had mentioned that since, in the obama administration, there is more prosecution of whistle-blowers, and i was very surprised and disturbed to hear that and i'd

like to hear you and/or jane speak to that as to why that might be. >> i think i'm right in this. i believe -- we're talking about governmental -- >> yes. >> -- whistle-blowers, and i think the number is now up to six and the highest it had been before is three. so it's roughly doubled, and as to the reason, well, i'll ask jane for that, for the easy part of the question. >> thanks a lot. i think it represents ap mind-set in washington, which is that we are still ostensibly in a state of war, the war on terror, and it's global, and, you know, historically in american history, when the national security concerns rise, civil liberties are eroded, and i've been surprised. i had a chance to go to a, kind