>> this program is brought to you by a grant from the ford foundation... >> the world in sound, pictures. as news, americans are seeing less and less of that news in scope and frequency. with budgets shrinking, newspapers and television networks have closed expensive foreign bureaus, leaving entire regions of the globe uncovered, even as everything else has gone increasingly international. >> everything is so global that you just don't need to know what's going on in your state or the united states. you better know what's going on all over the world. >> and i think that's the problem with american news is that we don't tie enough world news together and see that we're all... >> in the same boat? >> in the same boat, yeah. >> in the future, how will

americans learn about their world and get the international news they need? that's our question today on "the future of news." >> a government without a tough and vibrant media of all sorts is not an option for the united states of america. >> i think the idea of gateway journalism, of big networks and big newspapers being the only voices on the landscape, is over. >> this idea of what is credible ultimately comes down to who do you trust. who has been trustwory? >> from the knight studios at the newseum in washington, d.c., i'm frank sesno. hello, and welcome to "the future of news," our conversation about old and new media and what it means for news and for all of us in the digital age. i'm happy to be joined today by 2 award-winning journalists in the world of international reporting. ann curry of nbc news may be best known for her work on the "today" show and "dateline," but

she's also distinguished herself in global humanitarian reporting. she reported on the crisis in darfur when few western reporters were there and has returned to africa repeatedly to cover the conflicts in sudan, chad, and the congo. she's also reported from the middle east and from iran for that country's presidential election. charles sennott, longtime foreign correspondent for the "boston globe," was bureau chief in both jerusalem and london and has more than 25 years of experience covering the world. he's now the executive editor of a new venture, an entirely web-based service devoted exclusively to global news. it's called global post. so welcome to you both. >> thanks. it's nice to see you, frank. >> all right, we know what nbc is, so let's let charles tell us: what is global post? >> well, global post is a new web site. it's free. it's called a destination site. so you can go to globalpost.com anytime and draw on the stories that our correspondents, 65 correspondents in 50 countries, are covering every day. we saw a tremendous

opportunity in this sort of meltdown of traditional media that's happening right now. newspapers and networks are struggling, and onof the things they've been cutting is eir ternational news. and we see opportunity there because we think, as was pointed out by some of the people who were interviewed in the introduction, everything is global. if we want to understand the collapse of the global economy, if we want to understand terrorism, if we want to understand climate change, we need a global approach. >> so, a example, twisting arms? hard to do? what's the hook and the pay? >> very ugh. historically, it's always been sort of the thinking that if you do reporting out of africa, then no one will really watch. and a lot of networks, of course, are concerned about--as newspapers are concerned about circulation, a lot of networks are very concerned about ratings. so it takes an act of i suppose

determination to get these stories in front of people. i think that, however, the arguments are heard because there is a sense that they must be done. i think that the fact that i work for so many broadcasts on nbc and i can convince many different executives, news executives, thathey'll say yes. but i think that the question you broach, which is really an important one: can traditional media do this kind of reporting still? i think the answer is no. and i think that traditional media has failed, actually, historically to do enough in foreign coverage. >> how did you get to darfur? how do you persuade people, or did they persuade you, that that was the story to go to? spend the time? spend the money? >> i pitched a fit. >> [laughter] >> share it with us. >> i did. no, i did. you know, i--i've--throughout my time at nbc news, i have made strong arguments for stories. ias furious at the coverage in bosnia, that we had not done enough, and so i went to my boss and made a strong statement, and i ended up actually going.

>> what did you say that made--made the case? >> "i believe this might be genocide. the united states is calling it genocide. we have a moral obligation as journalists and even broader as americans to understand what's going on there. i know it's tough to get into darfur, almost impossible, but we must go." so i made the argument. >> charles, when she got to go to darfur she had the cameras, she had a network, she got to millions of people. when your reporters go to darfur, who knows? >> yeah, when our reporters go to darfur, we are very much operating on a more stealth mode. we're looking at live blogging from the scene. we're looking to do formal reporting that's well done, well researched, well written, and well edited, as well. but we have a lot of opportunities to do multimedia. so we can have our correspondents all armed with these very simple flip cameras, which cost $250, and they are digital video. they can be edited on their laptops using

final cut pro, and we can send a 2-, 3-minute piece back from the field. >> is there any chance, though, that this sort of thing can possibly have the kind of impact that an ann curry and an nbc can have? >> well, i think the idea of gateway journalism, of big networks and big newspapers being the only voices on the landscape, is over. and i think what we're in right now is a sort of middle ages. i wouldn't call it a golden age. we're all struggling to find our way forward. i think by the middle ages, i mean the empires of big journalism are falling, and rising up are these smaller principalities. and i think they--like the middle ages, there's a time of great confusion and ferment and possibilities and romance. and one thing i'll say is one of the greatest jobs you can have in the world is to be a foreign correspondent. and it's something i got to do for many years for a traditional news organization, and i'm very thankful for that opportunity. we at global post feel like we are about the next generation of foreign reporting. >> ann, when you think about

that impact that you can have with your camera--and you know because when you come back, people say they've seen it. and you hear what charles is saying and you do your own--you're on twitter and every place all the time. what about that impact? where is this taking us? >> oh, i think the future is extremely exciting. the dilemma is, how will it look? who's going to pay for it? what kind of stories can be done? here's my thinking. my thinking is that the united states has had a woeful--i mean, with all due respect--history in foreign work, reporting. even before the newspapers started to have trouble, even before the networks had trouble, we were a very myopic, self-fused country, and we still really largely are, thinking about--mostly concerned about what's happening inside of america. and i think that especially that's exacerbated by the tenor of our times today--worrying about the economy--and, to some degree, that's understandable. but the reality is that not only is the internet causing these major news organizations to have to change the way they do things, the internet is going

to change the way all of us do things. you know, my daughter is going to be able to speak to someone in china, and through goggle translate or some other tool, be able to buy something from her directly. or somebody in china or some other place directly, be able to communicate. the walls of our nation, the edges of our nation, are going to become more sieve-like, and as a result of that, every one of us is going to need to be more smart globally. >> the question is, how is the public served? in all my years at cnn, even there where there was a huge commitment to global news, getting that global news on the air and getting the american people, the public, to tune in was the challenge. so when people vote with their mouse--or mice--and when they don't have it on nbc or the "new yk tis," e qution is, will they go on their own? >> i think the answer is yes. i think people really understand that we are all connected globally. and i think they understand if they've ever been on vacation for one week in europe and they've watched the bbc just for a week, they'll

come home and say, "why don't we have that? why don't we have international coverage?" >> we all say that, charles, and i agree, and this is a great concern. but when you get out there and you see the nielsens or what people are actually clicking on, is it the africa coverage that's getting the attention? >> no. but here's the fference. here's what's exciting. what's exciting is the internet is going to mean that you're going to be able to click on what you want. what happens with newspapers and television networks now is that we sort of--we report to a common denominator. but, for example-- classic example: we had hillary clinton in congo, the place for the worst crimes, most brutal rapes against women, unimaginable crimes in the world. unimaginable crimes was happening to women in congo. and yet when the secretary of state was asked a question and it was mistranslated about whether or not--what her husband thought about some particular issue and she got upset, that was the story. that was the story because the mainstream media thought that was the story. but, in fact--

that is one of stories. but there was a bigger, deeper story that she was not really able to fully bring light to... >> because it goes through the filter of the media. >> exactly. the internet will change that. >> can i make one maybe fairly radical statement, as well? >> we like radical statements. >> and this is going to come from people who i have gotten to know who were senior executives in network news, who have argued to me, and i think convincingly, that there was always this rap that no one wants foreign news. and that was coming from corporate because it's very expensive. and the fact is people do want foreign news. and if you present it in the hard-hitting way that people like richard engel do on nbc or that you can see with really talented storytelling, where someone can make a story come alive and really take you there, people are riveted. they care and they want to watch. but it's expensive. and the tension, especially in the networks where it's more expensive,

has been, "can we afford it?" >> how do you get around that in this brave future? >> one of the most interesting things about a startup like ours is the metrics are unbelievable. we can see immediately what people are reading and what they're not. >> how many people are reading the global post? >> we have 3 million unique visitors so far. and what we're seeing is an ability to actually track stories that people want to read. now, what's the alchemy of this is you never know. it could be on one thing. it could be about, you know, a zoo that's closing in cairo. or then on the next breath it could be about a very important story about climate change that hadn't gotten out there and that we broke and that's interesting. you can't predict it, but you can watch it, and i think we're going to have a new way to judge that. >> so if this is the future, what does it look like? well, sonya gavankar is going to take us now to this site and a couple of others. sonya, what are you finding? >> frank, let's start with

at we were talking about can be found in the multimedia section of their web sit that's where all of the journalists can actually load that video. something i saw, thought was interesting, was this slide show of the women of congo managing to retain their striking sense of style in that conflict. now, if you're wondering what the editors are talking about, go to the chatter section where every day they highlight some of the important stories. they highlight them in a very interesting way. they put it in "need to know," "want to know," and the "dull but important." another web site that we find interesting is globalvoicesonline.org. this is more we2.0: harneing hundreds of bloggers all over the world to cover the world. go to "countries" to see what is being covered. here in china, we can see in the map that the blogosphere is really covering china: 10 articles and 29 links. nothing says it better like the global voices tagline: "the world is talking. are you listening?" now, global voices

is a great example of citizen media covering stories that are often ignored. frank? >> often ignored, but we are listening. are bloggers better than traditional reporters at bringing us the world? is this the future? so we spoke to ivan sigal, the executive director of global voices online. he poses this question for our guests here. >> my question would be, are we really--are we best served by having information that is american news, or are we served by having information that comes from all over the world and gives us a variety of perspectives that we might not have considered? >> ann? >> i think we're best served by having opportunity to hear from all voices. i think that people should--in the future, they will be able to pick and choose what th want to hear. the dilma is going to be what's accurate and what's not, and i think that's going to be the real issue because people have a hard time. there's a lot of material out on the internet now that's considered "reporting" that isn't true, that isn't right and accurate.

and i think that understanding how to vet information, information that's given to you off the record, that is not sourced--i mean, this is a problem. and i see a lot of problems with some the blogs, and i see a lot of positive things with a lot of the blogs, as well. so that's the future. >> charles? >> i would say that it's really important to hr voices from all over theorld. but i would also say we need an american voice for international news. >> which is what you've tried to do with global voice. i mean, you stated that as an objective. >> global post's--really, its tone is very intentionally and unabashedly american. >> what does that mean? yeah. >> that's--i constantly want to clarify this because what i do not mean is jingoistic. i don't mean nationalistic. i don't mean american interests matter more than any other country in the world. what i mean is we have a great tradition of storytelling in america, and i think as an american public, we all have an ear for that. we know the kinds of stories that we can--we can hear and which resonate for us as a country. we're looking to tell stories in the world that

do that. and if we don't, we're not going to capture that american audience, which is the audience we want to go for. we want to say, "america is listening," and invite the rest of the world in on the conversation. >> now, you've got a mix of told me about his job because i'm interested in your response. he said he thinks the future of journalism is going to revolve around what he described as, "leaner, meaner, more versatile types of journalists. the kind who will be able to report, write, blog, photograph, shoot video, edit video, and promote his or her own work through social networking sites," because that's what he's doing. >> true. >> can we do that and still... >> i'm doing it. i feel like we're already doing it. i mean, i'm shooting stills now, and i'm not bad. and i blog, although i hate that word. i--

>> you have a twitter account? >> i have half a million followers. and, to me, that's a two-way newspaper. you know, we have, what, 4 or 5 million viewers on the "today" show, about 4 or 5 million on "dateline," about 7 million on "nightly." but now i still want to twitter because there's stories that i can't get on those mainstream news broadcasts, and there's still stories i can't--information i can't get in. so i put a lot of that meriaon my twitter site. and what i get is--from these half-a-million followers i get interaction. i get people asking questions, people wanting more information. and it's become kind of a two-way broadcasting system. >> has it affected your journalism and what you think you should report and how you report it? >> no. it just has infirmed my--it has reaffirmed my fundamental belief that there are many people in america who are underserved and in the world who are underserved in terms of

news and that we need to do a better job. >> we're going to turn to the audience now for some questions and have you join the conversation. good to see you. thanks. tell us what's on your mind. >> i am a traditional journalist and writer. and my question for all of you is, how valid is material that is generated from social media, from blogs, twitter? >> ann? >> the validity is still to be vetted. and, unfortunately, it's vetted by individual users versus the traditional way, as you well know, is vetted through editors who make sure that it's accurate and have carefully looked at the information. the dilemma now is that it's all out there: all the ugly, all the pretty--all of it. and the problem is that we're having to find--but are there gems there? absolutely. absolutely there are gems. >> how about an example? and the one that may have defined this at this era, which was the iranian presidential elections where the twitter news was in some cases--if it was news--was the vehicle out for

the information because so many reporters had been thrown out. did you find, having covered that story yourself, that that was reliable information that was coming via those social networks? >> some of it was noreliable, but the majority of it was reliable. you have to look at it through the sieve that it's activist information. it's coming from the point of view of people. always when you're looking at information you have to understand the motivation, as you well know, of the person trying to give you that information, and understanding what they want, why they want this information out there. so when you're upset about president ahmadinejad in iran and you're shooting protests, you know, you can look at that imagery and you can say, "ok, there are 5 people there. i'm not really sure that was real." but if you see 3,000 people, you know, getting shot at, there's a kind of honesty in this. so you sort of have to vet that. it's a very difficult dilemma we're in. i think that's a very good question. >> i think it's a great question because i share some of your reservations about blogging. and i think--ann, you said, "i hate that word." i think

those of us who've worked for our careers trying to get it right as journalists, when you hear a citizen saying, "i can just wing it," you know, our backs go up. and i think they should because i--i have always thought of our bloggers, our correspondents who are blogging--we call it a reporter's notebook. it's one of the great traditions of journalism when you worked at a newspaper, you'd come back from a journey somewhere--to iran or to afghanistan or to wherever-- and you got to what was called a reporter's notebook. you just unload what you saw. that is great and valuable, and that's blogging, but we call it a reporter's notebook. >> well, there's something else that happens, too, if i may, and that is that that gets-- the editor looks at it. you get grilled. you get questions back about that reporter's notebook. it's not just anything that you want to write off the top of your head. >> that's true. but i do think there is something liberating about just saying what you saw in an unfiltered way for people, as long as you put it in a place

where your viewers of your web site know that's different than what they call a report. >> and let's go to the next question. >> my question is, how do you use, screen, evaluate news stories that are produced by foreign reporters and correspondents and use that information in reporting international news? >> i think it's a good question, and it speaks to what i've described as ground truth. in a place like the middle east, if you want to understand the arab street, you need to be reading "al-ahram." you need to know the newspapers that are there in the arab world, and that's done by our correspondents on the ground. now we have the benefit of being able to grab them online. but i still think you need that correspondent there on the ground who speaks the language, who can read the newspapers in that language, and who can relate to us, "this is what's happening from the perspective of the media in this country," whether it's government-controlled media or whether it's a free media.

and i think it always should be part of a good report from a foreign country. >> let's take another question. >> i work with the national academy of sciences. ann, you spoke a little bit about this, all of you, during your interview about how credible the news is. any pointers on how do you discern that? >> hmm. very good question. >> charles, how would you provide the scorecard? >> i think credible news is the news that tries to present you as many points of view as possib, but then has the courage to connect the ds and not just present the point't

connected the dots. the way to connect the dots is to say, "in the academy of sciences there are 1,000 scientists, 990 of whom believe climate change is a great threat to this planet, you know, and 10 of whom are funded and underwritten by exxon who don't." and if we don't do the pointillism that is required to present all those dots so that we can create a picture, we're not doing credible journalism. >> we want to take

>> this is lowell thomas speaking, bringing you the pictures of the murder of the king of yugoslavia and the foreign minister of france. tragedy approaches swiftly now. in that gala multitude lurks a man with a pistol, bound by a blood oath to kill the king. he was a croatian terrorist, and he's ready to strike. he strikes on the running board. he's slashed down by saber strokes. straying bullets hit the crowd. women fall wounded, hit by the random bullets. the police overwhelm him, trample him. somebody picks up the instrument of death: that devilish automatic pistol. this historical film document was made by the fox movietone cameramen. the french seized it, released it, and seized it again. but now movietone, thanks to the speed of the s.s. "washington," is enabled to present this, the most historic film document of our time.

>> thanks to the speed of the ocean liners. newsreels were a fact of life for decades. no one would have predicted by the mid-sixties, 1960s, they'd completely disappear, but that's what happened. why? television. the immediacy of television swept them aside, revolutionized how people got their news. so now we'll see what technology has in store for us. ann, what do you think? >> listen, i'm extremely hopeful. i think--because if you think about it from the point of view of being a journalist and you're thinking, you know, "oh, my gosh, i'm worried about my job," then that's the wrong attitude. the attitude is, what will best serve the public? and what we're talking about has the possibility of serving americans and actually everyone across the world in a much deeper, more present way. i think, though, you raised a point. you raised a point: i think it was about accuracy and timeliness. look, i think that you should never, ever sacrifice accuracy for being first, and that is, i think, the dilemma, i think, of the internet. there's a lot of information that goes out. well, you saw that. that took a long time. that was all accurate,

probably, because of the time it took. >> and, charles, in its day, that was revolutionary. i mean, nearly 100 years ago, just seeing that picture. 10 seconds. >> what was true there, in that clip from 1934, and what will be true in 2034 is it's about being there. you have to be there. global post is about ground truth. that is the best example i've seen of a movie reel of ground truth. that person with th camera in their hd was on the ground there reporting the story, and that's what we need whether it's on the web or it's in a newsroom. >> now your theo may or your ann curry can take their flip phone and do it in real-time. and there you have it: more information more available to more people than ever in human history. charles sennott, global post, thanks. >> thank you. >> ann curry, nbc. as always, tremendous. thank you. >> a pleasure. >> and join us