i've been able to usually take somebody's information and then get it verified elsewhere. so it doesn't -- so then my original tipster who absolutely wants to remain anonymous, you know, becomes marginal or irrelevant to what we ultimately put on the air. and at the same time, i will not put that person's name anywhere in my computer. i won't put it on notes, anything like that, so that there's no way of it ever getting traced should, you know, the government come and attempt to seize my records. the only other thing i would add to it is sort of a twist on confidential sources. it came up once when i was doing a story about a medical researcher whistleblower who

blew the whistle on a company that killed her research because it proved that the drug this pharmaceutical company was bankrolling was ineffective. and the company -- i tried to be even-handed. i talked to the whisle blower. she was on the record for some. she was in the background and off the record for other stuff. me and she was off the record for other stuff and i felt like i didn't know what the facts or because whistleblowers are complicated people and you never know and you want to hear the worst thing the other side has to say. so you can then backtracking figure it out. and at some point i came -- so i went on background and off the record with corporate executives and at some point i realized what they were doing was completely trashing her in such a way that they have no

obligation, no responsibility for anything they were telling me. but i was obligated to check it out and ask her about it, you know, or collar people and get the rumor mill going. and so, at a certain point i realized what they were doing and i just said, nothing is off the record, no more. and we just let forward. if you're not willing to sit on the record, then i'm not interested in hearing about it. so that was just sort of a twist, sort of the kind of corporate version of the scooter libby use of confidential sources. so anyway, okay. >> that actually reminds me in the context of whistleblowers, it is common for the employer to then use off the record or background information to trash on the whistleblower, to try to get some traction against an

employee. there are famous cases, for example, the linda tripp case where they went into her security file. .. the government itself that has tremendous access to information that can smear people go into their files and do the smear on the whistleblower. the privacy act in fact, was enacted in 1976 because that is exactly what happened with the daniel elsberg where the government went into certain classified government records just to obtain damaging information to smear him it does cut both ways, and it's an issue that's out there. >> question?

>> out of the events so successful in getting into the media? >> that is a question i was going to ask our friends in the media. the question and i haven't i don't know the answer to that, but the question that i have to the panel is it there were two or three things when they whistle-blower comes ford initially to get on first base what are you looking at in a whistle-blower that says this might be something worthy of a full investigation for a few starts investigation and what are the guidepost you are looking at? i don't know the answer. >> it is the thumb rule of let you look at when you whistle-blower has some of the negatives that jim mentioned and may have a lawsuit or issues with their

employer. what do look at it with the initial venting process to determine if this is a real case? >> i think it comes down to what you can consider to be newsworthy. whistle-blowers coming to you with a story that is germane and the news you will be more interested. i look for people with high-level access and, not someone on the lower rungs. i would love to have any kind of documentation. if they come to you with instant corroboration that helps immensely. you may want to look someone in the night and assess how credible they are then go through the whole process of trying to weed out people who are not credible. >> i don't want to give away

"60 minutes" secrets but i was impressed beyond all believe about the effort so one of the colleagues that produces four steve croft we were doing the project and i picked them up at the airport to be day low-level fbi agent that may know something about the case and looking at the associate producer with a gun up and coming journalist it is three and a half for 4 inches thick and we thought we had to ask and what is that? this is everything i dug up on agent acts she had dug up everything to the point* of knowing what the favorite wines he had and he was a wine taster and she knew things about his life and i watched when you get the a

gut check meeting the whistle-blower for the first time and the ability of doing such thorough research you could have an engaging conversation with the person right away. i really know all of these things about you. when i saw that do journalism -- two digits since -- due diligence that is journalism at its best track of the media may have gotten it wrong but not precisely capture what really went on because they had not taken the due diligence "60 minutes" does every time. that is probably the most important thing. way one tip faxed we deal with that. what is great is that he always comes and they know that we need a facts to be validated show me how i will get there that is what builds a level of trust. it is checking facts in has

to be daunted and crossed. >> >> it is all situational. sometimes a whistle blower will come with something that is esoteric or just doesn't reach the threshold. i don't know what that is it does not reach the threshold but generally it is something that is of national consequence may be surprising you did not know that war makes you think about in a different way. and in terms of what the attorneys were whistle-blowers can do, it is like john said we do an

amazing amount. the glory for me is "60 minutes." l. they do four or five stories per year at the end of the day we will shoot 900 minutes and whittle it down at 13 minutes because the amount of information that we know is a breathtaking. and parenthetically it is a way to get out of a threatened lawsuit. this will come out in court if you sue us and the lawsuit was dropped. but what a lawyer can do is to know the story. know the case and present it

and then the it is just meeting fed guy and eyeballing him or her and finding out if it is everything he o.r. she says and if it holds up in terms of the interest bedded is very general. it is so general. it is hard to make a hard and fast rule. >> is there another question? >> but with the decline of newspapers with investigative reporting? [inaudible] it. >> that is the excellent question. >> with diminished resources for investigative reporting is a real problem. >> i have two theories we

have more expensive not just because we are paid a lot of money but spend a lot of money going after things but almost as difficult to deal with so when the big risk that they go to the investigative journalist because they are difficult to deal with but this is closest to my personal interest to have a journalism in the name of saving money abandon one of the greatest obligations to the public. if you think how this country started with thomas paine's pamphlets that rose to fight tyranny and become a country is south the u.s. today so many papers are myopic we analyze what happened yesterday are right about what we think will happen tomorrow and so few people it takes time. you have to spend hours at a dinner table talking to a whistle-blower you may decide was not worth talking to because the one to talk to about their house not

substantive but we need as a profession to get ahold of. if i wrote a book today i would say stop the winding, not the press is. we have convince the public we're not worth that much and have relent ever owned business model. but one of the things we're working on is to come up with a business model to support a robust investigative journalism. i am at a nonprofit center that just spend money to do accountability journalism every day and there is another one out of new york doing the same thing. it has to transfer outside of the profession i am glad people are stepping forward and my goal within the profession is to convince editors and publishers that investigative journalism is essential to the public discourse and it cannot be

profitable if done the right way and the great minds at the table need to figure how to convince our bosses of that. >> we were chuckling when talking about working on a story because any news organization especially not the magazine there is a constant pressure to turn it out. investigative units are costly and time-consuming. and the traditional models will probably go away or decline significantly. however i am not quite as downbeat because they're all of these other new models that are starting with the web at. there was a guy that was reading about that has a notion he is exploring now within local markets he publicizes an area of inquiry and investigation

and solicits donations from interested citizens. it is like a little microfinance thing way on a local level to finance an investigation it is not traditional but if it works it is fantastic. i am a little more optimistic. >> out ask our panel listed they have been a concluding remarks they want to share with the audience as we wrap it up? i will go in reverse order and start with john if there's anything you want to say in closing? am i thank you for your time this is such an important aspect of democracy to make sure the government and business leaders are held accountable and the secrets can be brought to light when needed. just the fact we're having this conversation helps a lot to educate the public

there's a lot of important journalism to be done and i hope these member of the public and people here today can help us engage in that and we do some good. >> i will add for any whistle-blower who were wis -- listening i hope they're not discouraged by some of the negatives that we pointed out today we have all agreed it is an incredibly important function and some of the best tories any of us have worked on. >> i would just say that in many ways this kind of journalism is a blending of self-interest and public interest we really want to do the right thing. we're really motivated to act in the public interest.

and sometimes those corporate and journalistic ideals clash. but by and large, you know, it shakes out well in the end. and it's, you know, like health care legislation. the process can be ugly. the sausage making. but at the end of the day all are served by it personally and professionally and whatever it is that's driving the whistleblower and hopefully what's best for the country. so in light of that, i invite all whistleblowers --8'@ [laughing] beat the path of "60 minutes." thank you. all of us. [laughter] be the path of "60 minutes" day-care. [laughter] >> i would like to add a

message to the attorneys that will be representing what whistle-blowers and whistle-blowers which is you have heard someone from the journalists today about what they are looking for or what they are wary of in terms of you trying to get a message out that can effectuate change and not lose the opportunity to make positive change because of difficulties of communication i think one important thing for a journalist and lawyers to be very aware of as somebody who has worked with them over to 85 years say whistle-blower is usually to people the person and they were before they blew the whistle which is often and courageous, honest, courageo us superb employee that works the way up and is loyal. just you want on your team than the person you will see

on a park bench or climbing delayed at night frustrating, depressed, upset because what they had believed and and often the value structure was turned topsy-turvy but i will say i have been able to see it i don't know the whistle-blowers before they blew the whistle i can only read it in their performance reviews are letters of commendation they come to be when they are in crisis but i am able to see them after and often they come back to the people they were. it is amazing when you see them again as that loyal, dedicated and incredibly effective employee activist or professional sometimes as an attorney who would have a long-term relationship with the whistle-blower we get to see it. i hope that the crises that

the whistleblower is in when they turn to the journalist will not become an impediment to be misunderstood then is used to four word the public interest. with that i would like to thank everyone for coming. thank you very much on behalf of the national whistle-blower center there will be more information posted at our website which is whistle-blowers did work. thank you very much. [applause] >> of the $787 billion economic stimulus package signed into law last year, $355 billion has been

committed. that's up $2 billion from the previous week. a little over $200 billion had been paid out for those projects. you can learn more online at c-span.org/stimulus. you'll find news briefings, hearings and debate as well as links to government and watch-dog groups tracking the spending. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2010] >> this year's c-span studentcam competition asks students to create a five to eight-minute video dealing with one of our country's greatest strengths or challenges the country is facing. here's one of the third-place winners. >> there's a lot of misunderstanding about what true free markets, how they work, how

they don't work what rules are needed and what rules are necessary. we have a system but people don't understand how the system works. a disaster came along in the summer of 2007, and so we had to focus on the fact that the whole idea of free market and capitalism have taken a real hit. >> since colonial times immigrants from around the globe have traveled to america to seek their fortunes. from the industrial revolution to the great depression the united states has had her share of ups and downs. yet whether she is experiencing a recession or an economic boom, america remains the land where opportunities are abundant and the entrepreneur thrived. >> what we really stumbled into, when i was in high school, i guess a senior, my business partner, danny, was a junior. we were in a band.

he bought some screen print supply and we made our own frame, our own screen out of like, you know, just wood that we cut, stretched the mesh over it and just did everything really primitive. stretched over a piece of glass to hold it in place. it really kind of started getting into printing for other bands, you know, doing some stuff for the school just for fun. we realized, hey, we could do a business out of this. so we kind of asked my dad for a little mini loan and he gave it to us. we kind of went from there. >> i decided to open a gourmet pasta company because it's something i've done and has been in my family for three generations now. we're the third generation to make pasta. it's been in our family since 1926, and we wanted to carry on the tradition. >> it's a personal reason.

physically and at the same time the man of word is diminishing so i found something for me to retire to. since i had this donut experience, donut business experience, it was just a way i made the natural, the reason, the choice for me to choose as a small business. >> i started my business by doing some side work for somebody who needed something to work on. had a full-time job. i was in the seismic industry, electrical engineer. but this was more fun. on the side, i got two customers. i got laid off which was almost a fair fortunate hindsight. i got laid off from my electrical neerchging job. the two companies i worked for

shared an accountant. i got up to five. i realized i got up to 20, i could make a living. >> only in america would it be possible for these four known start their business. they have capitalized on our country's greatest strength, the american free market economy. >> i think a free market economy is the only way to go in america. i don't know if we have a true free market economy in this country. there's a bit of crony capitalism going on as far as, you know, who gets to fail and who gets to succeed. but, you know, on the small business scale, which is where i think the free market economy is kind of the most true, in a way, it's the only economic system i could ever imagine because that's how entrepreneurs can thrive and grow with dpe tition and failing and succeeding. you need to fall a little bit to be able to stand up. i think it's really important to have a free market economy. i think it's the only way that

entrepreneurs can survive in america. >> considering the prices we've just had, free markets really is the only way out of it. the government doesn't spend the dollars it takes from somebody else. and when they take it from somebody else and later spend it, there's a tax, a burn. they only spend about 80% in a productive way. individuals are better served hanging on to their own money and spending as they see fit. absolutely a free market. if you look at the economy that have choked off any free development, they stagnate. china is the sole exception, but they're bringing enough free market to let the industry work. the free market is the only way you get out of there. >> in a free market economy anyone has the ability to open a business. over 600,000 businesses are opened each year in the united states alone. but due to the nature of capitalism, 1/3 of these businesses will fail within two years and over half will close within four. so can anyone start a business?

>> yeah, i think that anyone can start a business. you have to have drive. it has to be something that you're motivated to do. you have to try to find the resources and in this day and time it is a little difficult to find the resources. but if you start small -- like when we first started, all we had was pasta. eventually we graduated and added a line of sauce from there we added a line of cheese. we added a line, on and on. if you start small justify and you have something that people want -- our pasta, we have a niche because nobody else does what we do. the machine that we have have been in our family since 1926. it's a hand-made product. so it's going to be something that is not a quantity item but it is a quality item. that's what we try to do. i think if you do that on any kind of business, i think it could be successful. >> not everyone can started a business. it takes an incredible amount of

dedication. you got to live it and breathe it. i'm on a project right now that i've been working on for 12 days straight. went to bed last night working on it, woke up this morning working on it you don't see many people willing to do in a. that's really not going to happen with very many people. >> starting a business is no small task. there are factors and limitations beyond the owner's control. however, starting a business in the united states would be nearly impossible without the free market economy. and the american dream would be unattainable. >> it's not that easy over there. they are talking a lot over things, especially something called connection. you need to have some connection to governmental -- things like that. or some existing business peop people. not just your initiatives and then your own self-funds.

a lot of times they need the family support over there. not just from your savings and making loans from bank, on your credit and things like that. it's very different and very tough. >> the american dream does exist. not only is america the land where anyone can be successful, but where everyone has the opportunity to participate in a system that has proven itself again and again and is truly the nation's greatest strength. the american free market economy. >> do i believe the american dream exists? absolutely. it does. it's difficult to attain. it takes both brains, personality, and it takes determination. >> attainable? yes, i believe it is attainable. from personal experience. yes. >> to see all of the winning entries visit studentcam.org.

>> "washington journal" is next on c-span. we'll take your calls. this morning president obama travels to charlotte, north carolina, and we'll talk about the economy. he'll be speaking at a manufacturing plant that produces batteries used in cell phones for electric vehicles. .