listen on the free c-span radio app. >> senate confirmation hearings for the supreme court justice that cavanaugh are expected in september. they are likely to question cavanaugh about roe v. wade. on tuesday at 8:00 p.m. eastern, c-span's landmark cases presents an in-depth look at roe v. wade and hear from "los angeles times" reporter david savage discussing justice kavanagh's nomination and the abortion issue. >> we take you live now to a discussion about cyber security threats and how the u.s. should respond to hacking and misinformation. it's being hosted by the university of southern california's annenberg center on communication and leadership policy. you're watching live coverage on c-span. introductions underway. works onst classified

bots and digital tools used to penetrate u.s. institutions, which he gave a somewhat cheeky title of can diplomacy survive the internet? he's not the broadcasting board of governors as a senior advisor. we will more about that now from sean. sean, the floor is yours. [applause] you, adam, for the kind introduction, thanks for being here. great to see some money friendly faces in the audience so thanks for coming. i know there's a lot going on today as well. when adam asked me to speak, he did not give me a topic, which is my favorite kind of speaking invitation. i thought i would talk about a couple of issues that are probably of interest to folks but maybe not the most coherent of talks so i'm going to reflect a little about my time at the advisor commission on public diplomacy and say a few things

that i probably should've said more vocally while i was there and feel more comfortable saying now. i will talk a little about my transition to the broadcasting board of governors and some of the work we are doing their and maybe speculate if i can manage to keep my job what the network will look like in a couple months and years. first about the commission, i -- i feel much more emboldened to speak about the importance of the commission not as hi its executive director. i think there is a self interest when i talk about it as a staff member, but as somebody who is viewing it from the outside come i wanted to emphasize how important is to public diplomacy and national security stakeholders throughout this town as an institution that has existed for 70 years and advocate on behalf of diplomacy and international broadcasting since 1948. it is unique in the sense that it is the only commission of the state department -- first of all, it's the oldest commission of the state department.

second of all, it's the only commission at the state department governed by a board of senate confirmed commission members, which speaks to the importance that congress and the white house have the commission -- give the commission and the influence it has in the building and throughout town. it is the go to stakeholder for congress when they want to discuss legislation relating to the state department and public diplomacy issues. the commission is where they go to get help in drafting actual legislation, which is probably the most interesting part of the job from my perspective. the national security council relies on the commission to understand how public diplomacy operates throughout the inter-agency, which is a crucial function when you think about the opponent -- the importance the national security council place. ys. we make key decisions on where funding should go and the structure of public diplomacy bureaus and personnel and is a well respected institution inside the department. a lot of this is because of my predecessor, catherine brown,

who i don't see in the room today, but i know many of you know her well. she is now the ceo and president of global ties. catherine did a tremendous job in raising the profile of the commission when she ran it for three years a little before i took over. i want to give her really all the credit. girl --p away, just a daigle is taking over for the commission monthly search and find a permanent replacement. we are close to finance permanent replacement, maybe two weeks away so stay tuned. reflecting on the commission, one of the things i cannot help but talk about is one of the that really influenced my thinking as i transition toward broadcasting board of governors is just how dire the staffing crisis is at the state department. i'm not trying to pylon headlines or tell you something you understand already view. it's important to emphasize how consequential the hiring freeze

was at the state department and how it slowed things down to a halt, how did added tremendous amount of work to highly competent foreign service officers and civil service officers to such an extent that we see really talented people looking to move out of the state department as a result. if you polled the vast majority of state department employees and ask them what they be willing to step in and take on someone else's job for six months in addition to their own, 99.9% would say yes without a question. if you asked them to do it for 12 months, you get down to about 95%. when you look at 18 months and 24 months, it's not bearable for someone to do two to three people's jobs. that is what we are facing across the public diplomacy apparatus i thought and everything major bureau within the public upon the sea family at the state department. -- diplomacy family at the state department. this is partly because of the hiring freeze. there is no harvard study that says the best way to reduce the

workforce is to institute a freeze. you push out the best people. you take away the morale of the existing workforce and you don't really provide a path for a real design, which is the best way to think about redesigning your workforce. it has long-term consequences and it's also continuing to hurt recruitment at the state department. i know many of you understand this, but when the hiring freeze was lifted after secretary pompeo was confirmed, central hr at the state department also every notification that bureau was only allowed to hire positions that have been filled as of december 31, 2017 . any position that had been vacant or remain unfilled the entirety of 2017 was institutionally damaged. that's not a short-term thing. those jobs are gone. they're not coming back unless they get an exception from the secretary's office. i don't have precise numbers,

but i think we have lost somewhere in the ballpark of 1100 all-time employees -- full-time employees. as of two weeks ago when i left, there was no plan on how to systematically fill those roles or move those rolls around so we can support the mission of the state department. to give you a sense of what a living hundred please means, that's about 4% of the workforce. tillerson, his initial goal was to reduce the workforce of the state department by a percent. -- 8%. in one year, he got halfway there. it's important to reflect not just on the hiring freeze and the consequences that it has but also on how we staff the state department more broadly. i was extraordinary lucky to be able to join the state department in the middle of my career and something that there are not many mechanisms to do. the vast majority of folks have to enter the state department through the exam and career trajectory. while that made a good sense for a good part of the 20 century,

that is not how effective organizations are stuffing themselves in 2018 and not to mention 2025. there needs to be better mechanisms to bring in midcareer specialist in any variety support the state department mission on the technological side, the strategy side, and also in the field. nothing would be better for the state department than if there was a way to get crew professionals working in marketing and other public diplomacy related fields a chance to spend two years as a cultural affairs officer in the field. they would bring tremendous expertise and perspective. when i came back to the united states, they would talk about ther experience and time at state department and help inform and educate americans about the value of this institution, which quite frankly very few americans understand it all. blamene thing to the hiring freeze. it's important to keep that in mind, but i think there is long-term training and recruitment issues that the state department needs to deal with. i would struggling kerch folks to reconsider how they think

about training. it is far too focused on languages alone. officers about forms -- foreign service officers who joined and the number of skills need to be effective today are vastly different from what they were taught when they join the service and the amount of time there given is so small in between posts that there's no possible way they can be expected to learn the new skills they need to be effective in 2018. i don't just blame secretary tillerson on the hiring freeze. i think there are long-term institutional ways we need to address staffing at the state department. the second reflection on the state department has to do with the bureaucracy. aboutt some time thinking what i really want to say here because it's so easy just to tell you story after story about how the bureaucracy wore me down. my main concern really is specifically how the state department is organized in such a way that creates structural disincentives for people and

bureaus to cooperate on projects that transcend the boundaries. from the ways in which people are evaluated on any new will basis to the ways in which funding decisions are made, organizations and individuals have an incentive to work within the confines of their silo and they are disincentive eyes to actually reach across the aisle so to speak and work with other bureaus and offices. i saw this day in and day out during my time there. a kind of obvious example is when the state department is trying to help educate congress and what it's doing to counter russian disinformation rather than send the russian disinformation expert from each of the regional bureaus to the hill to have that conversation. we set up a series of separate the europeanthat and eurasian desk and brief congress and afterwards you can have the western hemisphere

desk brief congress. this would be better if they were integrated, correlated, and communicated as a collective whole. we will look much more correlated if we could at least get along for a little while and communicate that mission together. it actually gets a lot worse. about a month ago, i was at a panel at the tech summit speaking about the question of russian disinformation. i was doing my best and thought i was doing the effective job of explaining how much work the state department and other government agencies were doing to counter the russian threat in central and eastern europe. someone could ask me -- asking if i could quantify the skill of the work. it's a mandate from congress to the u.s. government efforts and i had good visibility as to the kinds of programs and the scope of programs that were endeavoring in this effort to counter russian disinformation. andad somewhere between 200 300 individual programs operating in central and eastern

europe either immediately over the long term that had the effect of countering russian disinformation. this is something the commission is producing a report on. the project got started before i left and is coming sometime in november. it was hopeful for people to understand it's not just something we talked about, but individual programs. i talked about how we think about these programs and how they look differently in different parts of europe. i was very happy with myself. i got a call from public affairs, which is never a good thing. keep in mind that the commission has its individual mandate from congress to keep congress and you make in public informed. i love the work that my public affairs colleagues do, but they don't have the ability to clear on commission remarks are really way into much on what i have to say. however they can express their opinions as it is america and the first amendment exists even in the state department. the person is a highly

professional public affairs colleagues. he took issue with the numbers i've given. he said you need to issue a corrective statement. u.s. government does not have between 200 and 300 programs in central and eastern europe countering russian disinformation. robert,ng up a name, i'm sure that we do, and i'm sure that information is unclassified and shareable to the public. i know that because we are creating a report that does exactly that. to my colleagues in the regional bureau and not going to name names, but it's quite obvious and they say that number overestimates the number of programs that we happ have. robert, that's one bureau in one federal agency. the commission works with the department of defense and any number of actors including folks that receive large grants from rie state department like i so when i was referring to programs collectively, i was clear about including the whole entry government agency. he said i don't ask if you

understood that. i said i'm pretty sure we have our facts correct and he asked me to issue a corrective statement, which i didn't do. i tell the story because it shows how focused each bureau is on their own work even when it's obvious that there's tremendous overlap between the different euros inside the state department and outside the state. -- bureaus inside the state department and outside the state. the challenges it gets worse as it moves forward. the kinds of foreign-policy issues the government is going to face in 2025 is that we have worked on unofficial intelligence and public diplomacy. the u.s. government has to be able to move quickly and robustly to address threats in real-time. bureaucracybout the is having seen how slow we have been able to adapt to threats that are in our face, how are we going to be able to use these institutions and move quickly to address threats as they become

more smaller, nimble, isolated, and targeted, which is the future of the public diplomacy apparatus? a couple more stories about bureaucracy. taking it to the structural level, i think one of the challenges the state department has is how complex it is as an institution and how much work it does and how complex its operations are both for members of congress and the american public to understand. that theear ago, asked commission does for quarterly meetings a year and these are open to the public and intended to help people understand the value of public diplomacy, the range of programs we are investing in, the purpose of these programs. one bureau in particular and the public the policy family, i'm not going to name names, was struggling with questions about its funding. there was a group of folks and stakeholders in d.c. trying to cut this bureaus funding. the general impression inside the state department was we need to do a better job of

helping this bureau tell its story i capitol hill in particular. leadership of the bureau and said i would like to hand over the next quarterly meeting of the commission and members of congress typically come. staffers from the white house will be there. this is a good chance to tell your story about the value of x programs. the leadership said which program should we focus on? i set these three programs are interesting and can help tell stories. at the end of the day, you know your bureau best. i cannot tell you what your stories are going to be, but i've got ideas. went back and had a team huddle and asked for another meeting and said, thank you. we appreciate the invitation, but we don't think we can tell our story in the 90 minute window on capitol hill. i thought they were joking. i thought they were playing a prank on me. would it matter if i gave you an hour and 45 minutes? is it a question of you will have one more speaker you want to bring in?

they said no, we don't know how to tell the story of x bureau and such a confined timeframe. i walked away with this lingering question of you can't tell your story in three minutes, you are in trouble and washington, d.c. inyou can't tell your story 90 minutes, there are real serious issues about how you think about communicating the value of the work you're doing to the stakeholders in this town. another good example of bureaucracy at its best is i got in email a month ago from a senior french ministry of defense official who is just about to publish a report on russian disinformation and report on everything france is seeing russia do in europe. it also talks about what is effective in countering russian disinformation and how each government is approaching this question differently, including the u.s. government. this official, who i met maybe two months ago, wrote to me and said i would like you to review -- again this is a document that will be published at the office

of the prime minister of france. i would like you to review the chapter on the u.s. government's efforts to counter russian disinformation. i said frankly i can something not get my head around all the different actors across the u.s. government and what it's doing in the space and most importantly how they work together if at all. i was happy to do so because what a great opportunity to try to get that story correct in an official publication that's going to be widely distributed, but i couldn't help but reflect on the unusual nature of this request that there was not someone better at the department of defense at the state department, some intermediary who had worked closely with the french government on this report. there was not someone better to clarify what it was we were going to counter russian disinformation, which agencies were taking lead in which areas, and how they all work together. i'mme, this was a moment of thrilled i have the opportunity to help out, but really it d ands to just how clustere

confused the federal bureaucracy on all issues of foreign policy is to anyone outside of this government. even people who have deep expanse with bureaucrats and the state department. don't worry. i'm here to talk about the solutions. we talked a lot about leadership at the state department and the need for leadership and leaders to appoint positions. i think that's true. i think equally it's time to talk about ownership. we don't just need leaders. we need people who will own problems and take responsible the money. problems. that's their jobs. -- take responsible be when they don't solve those problems. that's their jobs. that's the eu does that we should have at the state department and throughout the u.s. government. speaks to theo structural nature and challenges that public the policy has within the u.s. government. i talked with any number of folks about if we need a new reinventnd

the u.s. information agency and i'm always hesitant to say the solution to bureaucracy is an additional bureaucratic agency, but i do think we need some sort of body that resides in or alongside the national security council that chordates u.s. government's strategic communication opportunities and challenges, that has direct wines of authority to the state, the broadcasting board of governors, public affairs, relevant agencies involved in the space, and if that entity meets on a regular basis to both discussed new policies and emerging policies and how we are going to indicate about those policies, but also has the opportunity to provide input into the delivery process in the white house as big foreign-policy decisions are being made. i don't care what we call the agency. i do not think we should call it the office of strategic narratives as recently posed. i think we need something at that level to help coordinate this effort. until we have something at that level, it will be very difficult to start really telling a cohesive story about america's

national interest and its foreign-policy that will resonate with foreign audiences. i imagine that because we can ask what a bit of individual bureaus at the state department. we can ask quite a bit of the individuals of the board of governors to make sure they understand the markets they are operating in, but until we have --ourtney did strategy coordinated strategy where at the top level we are shooting for the same goals and we understand what those goals are, it will be very difficult for us to be as effective as our ever source -- adversaries have been the past couple of years. moving on. what am i doing at the broadcasting board of governors is a question i've gotten a few times. i'm a senior adviser at the office of policy and research. as far as i can tell, and keep in mind this is day 11, so give me a little slack -- as far as i can tell, the first priority is to help a tremendous team of folks improve how we think about research strategy and learning at the broadcasting board of governors.

i had the opportunity last week. what i mean by that for reference is i'm sure many of you have seen our reports. we report that really detailed high-quality, qualitative and quantitative research about the ,reach of our programs the weekly reach of each of the services, and some details about the statistics. but i would like to do is actually asked the question of influence andure significance of media operations in the 21st century? are any of the metrics that we are importing even relevant to those questions? i come at this with a fairly break the glass perspective. i think it's time to rebuild how this. this is not a criticism necessarily of any one of the broadcasting board of governors of course. these standards and metrics are used across the world. relies on a weekly

reach metric to justify its funding to the british parliament. it's not like we are outdated compared to our allies or competitors. it's just that high-quality market research has not quite gotten into bureaucratic offices of the u.s. government. quite likely come i think there's an opportunity for the lead and create interesting methods and metrics to study influence in 21st century media operations in ways that may actually end up leading the private sector. i will talk about that in just a little bit. i pulled up a few things on the left. that's an image some of you are familiar with you the commission organized the research and evaluation learning summit last february at the u.s. institute of peace. convening stakeholders from around dcn around the world focused on the question of how do we evaluate the success from and went from effective public diplomacy and broadcasting efforts? that summit produced a report called optimizing engagement:

research evaluation and learning public diplomacy, which is available on the commission's website. it doesn't interesting thing. all the different metrics that governments are using to assess the effectiveness of public programs. it does 17 different case studies of what effectiveness looks like it and countries like denmark, australia, austria, really interesting stuff. part of my job is to take what has been went from that report in that process and apply it to slightly different environments. the bb g, which is a public diplomacy institution, is a specific mandate and uses a specific set of tools to achieve that mandate. they work alongside each other, but it's not silly the case that the report is -- necessarily the case of the report is applicable to the bbg. members of the research team had a chance to go to the bbc research retreat last week. the bbc had a three day would how theyon

measure their audiences and how they measure the effectiveness of their programs with the audiences. we are really grateful they literally opened up the doors and talk about everything they're doing with faults and effectiveness. is the first time being discussed of the research that showed they had made mistakes particularly in markets and discussed research that showed their metrics have been offer a number of years based on improper sampling. i mention all that to say it was a really frank on the station and the goal is not to say we are doing it right and you should do it like us. here's what we have learned and we would like to hear what you have learned and try to figure out how we can do this better moving forward. a couple kind of the questions that came up are worth mentioning here. i will just mention one more thing. when i talk about research at the broadcasting board of governors, one of the priorities i hope to be able to institutionalize is that research is only effective if it is applicable and can be understood by the folks that are actually broadcasting or

creating media content in order to make those programs better. doing research for the purposes of giving congress a number is not something i'm interested in doing. research has to be user focused and the user is the media production inside the broadcasting board of governors. we need to focus on research that can help them be more effective and the questions they have about the markets they are operating them. help them understand which content is resonating and most important whites resonatinh if g. if we don't start there, the research endeavor will be unsuccessful. we talk about the research metric that is most often recorded by every international broadcaster, which is weekly reach. have you tuned in to radio sparta once in the last week? yes or no? the bbc asks this question. the broadcasting board of governors asks question. these are the key figures we report to congress nee each year.

last year it was in the high range of 200 million and we are hoping for 300 million this year of a weekly audience reach. what does that actually mean? if someone says they have tuned into a bbg created content in the past week, does that actually mean they remember the story? know, but they did remember that they tuned in so it actually is meaningful when you think about it. the bbcn that because has done this interesting study where they had details, market research on the ratings of some of their programs. they had also done a survey in that same market and they saw that people only remembered watching bbc content 60% of the time. that is to say their actual reach was 40% larger than what their surveys came back with because people don't really always remember what they watch in the past seven days. that reality is only going to get worse. by worse, i mean it's going to be harder and harder for folks to remember all the different sources of news and information they've consumed in the past

seven days moving forward. we know when you consume information online that it becomes extraordinarily difficult for you to remember the source of that information and sometimes even what you have consumed. it has to do with the ways our brains really to interactive content online versus tv and radio. in a different study they shared with us, they found -- i will just ask you. to ask you which percentage of bbc stories you think bbc audiences could correctly remember the source of, if you are asked did you beat the story, you would say yes, and you would ask what source, which organization wrote the story or broadcast the story? which percentage of audiences averaged around the world answer the question correctly? 10%? 20%? answer of two consecutive global studies asking about do audiences can correctly attribute the source of that information. for the bbc, it's a game

changer. according to their mandate, if audiences do not reckon as the bbc brand is part of that message, they are not doing their job. that's an unfortunate challenge for our colleagues across the pond. one of the big questions we try to discuss last week was does it matter? doesn't actually matter if people remember where they got the content from if the story was powerful, if it helps someone accountable, if it changes the local news agenda and a way that enhances the democratic process? do we care if they give voices of america credit? i would love it if they did and it would be helpful, but if we are mission driven organization our mission is to help expand freedom and democracy, if they give us credit for it, does that impact whether or not we will be effective? i think no. we should strive for corrective attribution, but we should strive to be an effective organization.

another big question that came up was a question of duplication. so and really complicated process, what we have been doing and what the bbc has been doing and the french government and the german government and canadian government is creating a de-duplicate a number of audiences that tune in to bbg content. when we give congress this number, we say this is unique individuals. we are counting someone who listen on radio and watch on tv. these are unique individuals. there's obviously value to that because it gives you discrete unit to count and compare year-over-year. it moves away from the way that media operates today. we get campaigns are effective when they get at people from different platforms to reinforce a broader message. a multimedia campaign is the future of strategic medications. at the foundation of our research model, we are trying to duplicate these-

efforts when we need to think about how we can integrate them further. we need to rethink how these things are at odds and how we go about producing content and producing research. i mention that because one of the important things to keep in mind is that content producers, the directors of our services, they understand the metrics we are reporting and they make strategic decisions about how they can enhance their performance vis-a-vis those metrics and how it impacts their content. what matters most is weekly peoplewe are enforcing to a cyclic look on a story .ould w we are enforcing shorter stories because that increases the likelihood someone will come back to your content. i'm wondering if that is not the decision from a strategic perspective we want to make. distributed be best by clicked thebait.

reach past this weekly question, what are indicators for how we measure our effectiveness? these fall under the question of influence. we have been brainstorming and interesting proxy indicators, but brand loyalty and wreck in addition, how well do people reckon as the brands of the broadcasting board of governors? how loyal are they? what will they do if the brand or service one way? where would they go next for reliable information? how often are stories cited? how often are journalists given awards or invited to speak at local panels? job of to do a better tracking testimonials, anecdotes, and creating a central database that allows us to track these and keep them accessible, tag them so they can be searched digitally quite quickly. also find a way to tell this compelling stories that were anecdotes in a collective way. we should also be tracking specific policy changes that result from coverage or campaigns that the bbg has invested in.

i want to talk -- one more thing about research and you can probably tell i get excited about it. my goal is to better understand our audience, our loyal audiences that care deeply about content and understand why they are tuning in or listening or going to our websites and why they're consuming bbg content and creating profiles of these people so we can understand and describe the kind of consumers that we are so capable of engaging with and finding other parts of the population that fit that profile that may not be aware of our programming or may not have an incentive to visit. using profiles of engaged loyal audience members and using those profiles to better understand h where we can find similarly interested people and engaged users of our content. i want to talk about the future of diplomacy and public diplomacy and broadcasting.

before i do that come i like to make fun of people that talk about the future. 1903 -- the automobile is a set. fad. this is henry ford's lawyer talking over dinner, trying to dissuade henry fuller spending his life savings on building -- henry ford spending his life siblings on building an autumn -- life savings on building an automobile factory. 1920 -- a rocket will never work. 1949 -- computers will weigh just 1.5 tons. 1955 -- nuclear powered vacuum cleaners will become a reality. as far as we know, those are not quite here yet. i predict the future with a clear understanding of in all likelihood it's going to be wrong. at the same time, there are a few trends worth noting here. first, it's going to become more geopolitically dicey. we are facing the rising possibility of a multi polar war or geopolitical content station were more of an norm than the

past 30 years. from history, we know creates greater instability and creates a far greater need to engage deeply on strategic narratives and the indications front. we also know that there is a shift in power from the traditional nationstate structure to cities. urban city centers are where the vast majority of populations reside. they will become the connective nodes of the toy first century. we have seen some interesting shifts and diplomacy practice as a result of this. the danish have recently launched a series of embassies a foreign capitals countries but technology hubs like silken valley. -- silicon valley. they realize those are important places where decisions are made and they can hopefully influence and understand what's going on. if we try to take that lesson and applied to the broadcasting home, i think it's important to howk about our services and

we can innovate quickly and try to get ahead of some of our competitors. think of our services not as nation based -- think of our markets not as nation-based markets. nigeria is an independent market from angola. we already move past this a little bit by focusing on language, but i'm also wondering if we need to think about markets quite differently. the market and the capital city of an african city is quite different from the market of a rural farming community in that same country. where your users are quite different from the democratic perspective. on termse capitalize that are likely to take place? how do we capitalize on those trends to create services and products that are helpful and really target the needs of individuals we are trying to engage and influence? another way to think about this is week stand up a new service and we think of how to we get it online 24/7? three have a local affiliate

that -- do we have a local affiliate that will broadcast it? these are questions that have to be dealt with on a market by market basis. there's something to be said and a current environment of embracing the new ways in which information circulates. kind ofeeing a gigantic new sharing from social platforms to close platforms. what's that is by far the most popular place to share news around the world -- not the united states but in latin america, middle east, and asia for sure. the challenge there is we have never constructed communication campaigns that specifically sapp users to tha share their stories on that platform. services andnew focus on new kinds of content, we need to think about how do we use these new services and host platforms to our advantage. there is a hesitance because you cannot track content want to go through a closed platform --

want to go through a closed platform, but we can't control how people consume information. we have to go where they are and the faster we make that decision, the more effective we are going to be t. i want to save some time for questions, but i want to address any questions you will have. thank you so much. [applause] you give us a lot to think about. this is the time for your questions and comments. there are going to be two mics. as always, donald has his hand up. >> thank you very much. one comment and two questions . i have reported and worked in many countries over the last 40 to 50 years. the bbc has always been the go countries nothose matter what language is being spoken.

-- i know you're not in favor of another level of bureaucracy, but are you suddenly suggesting the need for or aister of information cabinet level office of that sort? is does theoint u.s. government take advantage of the professionalism of our own networks and newspaper chains and newspaper agencies? shawn: thank you. i want to push back on your first,, which 99% of the time is true. the bbc is one of the world most respected brands and i have that --ects colleagues that may correct me if i'm wrong. is getting a larger

audience than the bbc and i mentioned that because it's worth congratulating because there's a lot of work that goes into the services to make sure they are effective. we do want to be competitive with the bbc. should there be a cabinet level position? i'm happy to say that kind of decision is well above my pay grade. however, given what i've learned about raucously and how washington, d.c. works, the chain of command is a powerful common sense of isaac tool. -- incentivizing tool. the only way to incentivize this to be effective and truly capable of corrugated smart, capable actors from a number of agencies is a have to be held accountable to someone above them who has direct access to the white house and can control resources and has the capability of making decisions that matter for those agencies i would be supportive of some kind of position that has that power. i will let the bureaucrats decide. thelast question -- does u.s. government take advantage of the tremendous professional

individualism of its various assets? it's a hard question. from one perspective, no, but we don't want them to. we don't want state department official taking a binge of highly credited journalists in uganda, potentially politicizing that person and being seen as far too close to the state department to be credible as a reporter on current events. >> what about --? shawn: using american assets abroad? we can do a better job absolutely. in the consulate waiting areas in embassies, you have got a captive audience. the commission had a chance to visit a large number of embassies and see how it works on the ground. 30have folks waiting between minutes an hour and 15 minutes typically for a visa in any number of countries. what are we doing to engage those audiences when they are literally a captive audience?

they do not have cell phones because they happily technology outside embassies. español,y npr, cnn voice of america. i didn't plant a couple seeds when i was at the commission to see if we could fix that. >> the chinese embassy? shawn: they probably stole the idea from me. >> please identify yourself. pat and i work for television, but i also worked as an advisor for the state department. notten wonder why we're producing shows to your agency like what's cooking in the united states. you go for regional issues around or on that note, jazz in each state. people what 10 into it and really like what they see in terms of the united states.

any comments? -- this is also it is my day 11 so cut me some slack. just because i've not had a full chance to get my head around all the different types of content that 60 plus different language services create and disseminate. i do know that we do some softer sides of nudes, including -- sides of news, including documentaries. i don't know if we do cooking shows and i'm happy to be corrected on that. the answer happens to do with the general impression in the current era of accusations of fake news and disinformation, there is such a need to focus on reporting empirical truths getting facts right that investing in softer news may not be the best bang for our but. ck. that guides current dictating.

are interviewing markets where there is a need for different types of content that are not purely entertainment or news that something that can draw audiences in and educate them. there's also healthy eating and healthy cooking, which can then be tied back to some very specific national interests that have profound implications in the long-term. i'm happy to say the team of folks i'm working without the know- with at the bbg that it takes time to bring people on board to produce that content and socialize the idea of a more multi-faceted approach to disseminating content around the world. >> my name is catherine the lincoln. i used to be with the british foreign service. was also. youuick question is mentioned the skills that

foreign service offices need in the future. i really fortunate to interact with hundreds of foreign service officers are in my time at the state department and i cannot say enough about how remarkably qualified, intelligent, creative these folks are and committed, truly committed professionals in ways that i do not see in a lot of other sectors. but i consistently heard from them that they are not given the sufficient time for training in between tours of duty. they were not given sufficient training materials to effectively do the jobs that they are being asked to do in 2018, the kinds of things being asked of them that far out has -- outpaced the skills asked to cultivate during the training time when they first deployed or different tours. if i were to point out one

specific thing, data literacy is probably the most important thing i would like to see foreign service officers embrace. that's a broad term that talks about understanding how to read data, understating how to interrogate data, understanding how to put together data visualization that helps you be an effective advocate for your programs and your principles when you're trying to explain my resources should go one way or another. someone who can actually really discern data in a way that can call for lack of a better term nothen someone is fabricating but someone creatively using statistics to make a case. you need to have some sense of data literacy to be able to push back. that's a skill set that can be taught in a relatively short amount of time. not like a day, but there are courses we can put together that would really empower foreign service officers to be quite effective. >> a quick follow up -- how would that apply to bbg? shawn: again, day 11. [laughter] what i mean by that is i really

don't actually have a good understanding of how bbg approaches professional development amongst its journalists and producers. it's not a topic we have gotten to yet, but i was certainly be in favor of a certain kind of data literacy course or professional development opportunity for folks in particular making decisions related to data what folks whose jobs -- who could do their jobs more effectively if they had a better understanding of how to use data accessible to them. actually, i have a follow. up. i want to give a shout out to the chief strategy officer who has been pioneering a lot of data visualization tactics at the bbg. last week we were able to finally finalize a decision to put our audience research dashboard, which is an interactive portal that updates our audience reach and other measures like credibility and

number of shares, really remarkable dashboard. we are going to put it on screens in about 60 different places across the agency come in front of producers i could use that data to make a better decision on which stories to prioritize and the lobby so can get at the bbg better understanding of who our audiences are and how we can use that data to make decisions. i mention that because part of the applications of that the bbg is emphasizing the importance of the data which the scree ns do. >> my name is jim bullock and i spent 30 years in the field as a public the ponzi officer -- diplomacy officer. one of the strength of the military is that when you push down the lower units, it's called commander's intent. that allows the squad leader or command leader to take initiative and take it manage of locally emerging opportunities without having to refer back up to the bureaucratic chain and

miss opportunities. traditionally it was very someone. all these years in the field, you knew what the big issues where. you are not getting micro direction from washington. when i first started, they did not have the technology to communicate that will. ell. the big lines were promoting a relationship. it was not the fact that you got the news about an earthquake in idaho to the people nigeria. that doesn't really matter. what matters is the people of nigeria can see how a free press operates in a democracy. i'm concerned now that we are talking about training. it's not news content per se that's the important thing that you are pushing out. if you are talking about public diplomacy. you're talking about how to build a relationship with people and other societies that will facilitate and ameliorate our diplomatic relations with those societies c. to do that, the people on the

ground making tactical decisions have to have a consistent guidance and notion of commanders intent from above. i'm concerned that that is a pretty tough nut right now. do you want to comment on that? shawn: i completely understand and agree with the concern of the question. i have seen enough examples of public affairs sections abroad where i think there is some reason to be concerned and some reason to feel pretty good about it. may..e in columbia in it was such a refreshing experience because the public diplomacy function of the embassy is deeply integrated from top to bottom with deputy chief and mission. they meet on a weekly basis with every single agency. there are 60 agencies represented and it's a well run integrated operation. they work closely with washington, but they feel clearly and power to be effective. they are so empowered that they

on offering ad hoc training photo and video editing. when you see that, you're thrilled because you rely some of the stuff that we see here in d.c. can actually be broken at the field level with the right ingredients. there's a couple of reasons why columbia is so effective. i saw any number of public affairs sections that were terrified to put their heads above the sand. there is no reason to innovate or think outside the box because it only puts you at risk given the highly fragile nature of the state department in 2016 and i think that is concerning. the question i would throw back to this audience is how do we go bia modelrds the colom and away from the scared model? how do we encourage folks to take smart risks and talk about those risks with their

colleagues other colleagues can feel as culpable as they did taking those risks? they take a culture that does not focus on what could go wrong in washington, but how can i be more effective in the field? that really is an important question think about. >> i am mary krueger. i'm a retired public diplomacy officer. one of my first jobs was as a russian lingwood broadcaster -- oa, whichbroadcaster v i do not believe exists in broadcast form. that's not my question. you mentioned several times russian disinformation or misinformation. i would like to ask you a little bit more about how you see the strategy innt's terms of dealing with foreign .udiences in terms of the bbg it's difficult to encounter every single fall story. is the strategy to say that

they're bad people putting out false stories and this is how to identify them? four do you try to identify the -- or do you try to identify the key false stories? the second part of that is in order to be effective in revealing false information, you have to be credible. what are you doing to increase the credibility of the united states? shawn: great questions. it's obviously tricky -- a tricky knot we are trying to untie. we have to play fact checking role obviously because we cannot just let propaganda reside without trying to correct it. that is only 10% of the answer. a lot of what we do is focused on correcting the record but also telling more compelling stories that are likely to draw audiences away from disinformation and hopefully create them -- create an environment that encourages deep media literacy. what i mean by that is naturally skeptical but not cynical

media consumers. by constantly pointing to disinformation we don't push people into a situation where they think all news is potentially disinformation. that's a fine line. a lot of what we do is focus on improving the experience of how users engage with bbg content and focusing on stories that are compelling to our adversaries. one of my favorite things about the broadcasting board of governors is that it's one of the few federal agencies whose mission is to put itself out of business. one of our goals is to create free sustainable independent media institutions around the world to the extent that there is no need for u.s. government to invest in journalism. building up robust, independent, educated journalists and institutions that can support those journalists around the world is a crucial piece of the puzzle in dealing with this information. the second question on credible things i'vee of the

been really pleased as i was going through years and years of studies of bbg content is that her audiences think of -- our audiences think of us as highly credible and it's really remarkable. there's a reason why our audiences come back and acknowledge that they think that services are providing content that cannot be found elsewhere. how do we extend the credibility of that voice to audiences that are not naturally inclined to engage with the u.s. government created content? that is something i hope to do when i talk about profiling our loyal audiences. constructing a description of who this person is in identifying subsets of the population that are potential loyal audiences. that's one of the initiatives i'm hoping to push forward at the bbg. >> ross johnson at the wilson center. two questions -- looking back at

the history little bit. you make a compelling point about the need for a coherent strategy and a coordinated effort. granted the probability of a new like --would something i heard a good discussion recently of the active nation's working group of the 1970's and 1980's with a head or a chair with full authority from the white house and the nsc, would that be a possible route here? the second question would be influence. i cannot agree with you more that one has to go beyond the .each to influence and cold war audience research broadcasting, there was an effort to focus on the elites versus total reach.

when you talk about try to measure influence today, could you talk a little on who are the influentials you are trying to measure and could you say some more about how you think about going about that? your booke given prays before, but i want to make sure everyone understands that ross johnson wrote one of the most remarkable books. it's one of my favorite texts and i cited dozens of times. i'm fully supportive of a working group as a first step. because of of what i said regarding chains of command and hierarchies and how that motivates people to act, at some point it needs proper institutional structure. if there is a working group have to demonstrating the value of such an institution, i'm fully supportive. i actually am not as pessimistic about the possibility of such an institution in the near future. i think there is a growing recognition of not just the lack of coronation but the magnitude of the consequences of not being

affected in the informational space. -- effective in the information space. i'm a bit more optimistic on moving in that front in the short-term. loyalty measures are what i am spending time thinking about. i mentioned proxy measures which we note in passing that don't keep track of. how often argent was invited to speak at a local university or on a panel? -- are journalists invited to speak at a local university or on a panel? how often are their stories cited in the country? these are things tracking locally, but we have not been doing a good job of tracking it collectively and using that data to inform the decision-making process. something important is going on here. how do we support that initiative? how do we apply to other services so that their journalists are seen as more credible and capable opinion leaders. i'm fully aware that a lot of this work is done at a micro basis at the service level. how do we operationalize it and institutionalize it so that

folks can get rewarded for being effective influencers but also learn the lessons of the effective ones and help others become more effective? us a great deal to discuss and i'm sure we will be talking about it more. please join me in thanking our .peaker, shawn powers [applause] >> our next program is in september. it will be the second monday, september 10. the talk will be the unites states getting back in the business of world affairs. until then, we are adjourned. thank you. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2018] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org]

>> today discussion about the role of civil society in u.s. foreign policy, hosted by the open society foundation, live at 4:00 p.m. eastern on c-span. nominated to the supreme court by president ronald reagan in is7, justice anthony kennedy retiring after 30 years on the bench. tonight we will look at his legacy on the supreme court and his impact on the nation with a clerk for justice kennedy from and another person who argued 29 cases before justice kennedy and the court.

watch tonight at 8:00 p.m. astern on c-span, www.c-span.org, or listen on the free c-span radio app. >> tonight, a look at the general data protection regulation, the new european privacy laws, and how it will impact companies like google and facebook. joining us is the president of bsa, the software alliance, and the president and ceo for the center of democracy and technology. >> we think of our response abilities in the digital age. every company is a tech company and every company is a data company. law signals a real seachange in our thinking about the rights of an individual and

his or her own data and that that person has ongoing rights even when the data is used legitimately by good corporate actors, and that is a conversation every company needs to have. >> if we want all the innovation that the united states is so good at to move forward in a positive way, and we need to have the right rules underneath that, the right legal underpinnings to get a consensus on privacy. >> watch tonight at 8:00 eastern on c-span2. c-span3,t on american history tv, the vietnam war. webb andear from jim the author of a book, "they marched into sunlight."

american history tv tonight at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span3. trey gowdy and tim scott discussed their book, "unified." then a professor examines why moderate i be less likely to run for congress in her book "opting out of congress." book,a shapiro and his "broken." booktv" airs tonight at 8:30 p.m. on c-span2. senate confirmation harry's for brett kavanaugh to be a supreme court justice are expected in september, and senators are likely to question him about roe v. wade, the decision that struck down many

researches on abortion. tuesday at 8:00 p.m., landmark cases provides a look at roe v. wade. savage hear from david discussing judge kavanagh's nomination and the abortion issue. ♪ announcer: this week on "q&a," a discussion on american history and the u.s. congress with congressional historians richard baker, donald ritchie, and raymond smock. this program was recorded at the robert c. byrd center for congressional history and education in shepherdstown, west virginia. brian: ray smock, if you had to have a dinner party for people in history, say four or five people, who would you have at the table?