he was. calling for a no fly zone. he would only make. the presentation. by the west with. the disappearance of some one hundred fifty thousand people living with.

egypt is taking a step towards the east as the country's new president travels to china economic assistance. more of those stories and. talking to a documentary film about fighting wars on the digital. sigrid laboratory to mccurry was able to build a new most sophisticated robot which fortunately doesn't give a darn about anything tim's mission to teach music creation why it should care about humans and world this is why you should care only on the.

towel again and a welcome to spotlight interview show on our album and today my guest on the program jon alpert. in the auto world wars are fought and often won trickle through and photographers sometimes start shooting before the soldiers today i'd like to introduce and i was in the middle of most major conflicts of the twentieth century mr jonathan documentary filmmaker winner fifteen emmy awards and one of the best known ever met with. john till now heard is one of the biggest names in american journalism and documentary filmmaking since he worked in the early seventy's he's won fifteen emmys and for columbia to point towards your reported extensively from hot spots around the globe for nature the middle east and latin america he was the first american t.v.

reporting to end to coming out of the vietnam war and a few years later reported from to her and during the iran hostage crisis after the persian gulf war john albert was the only t.v. reporter to get out of iraq with. covering civilian deaths his report was cancelled three hours before it was due to be aired on n.b.c. after which john. it was. hard johnson welcome to the show thank you very much for being with us today thank you well first of all your latest documentary is called in times square eighty days of egypt's unfinished revolution well first of all why unfinished. if you show the revolution isn't finished or are you left the movie unfinished. it takes a long time to make a revolution actually maybe it doesn't take so long to win one and so in egypt's

case it took eighteen days for the people to become victorious but at the end it is a finished revolution of the people of victoria you know the american revolution is sort of not finished yet we have lots of things in the united states that we're still working on and it's been two hundred fifty years and we haven't gotten it right i think revolutions getting abroad all the time if you got a revolution going on you know and you know it's it was interesting and i've been all over the world in all sorts of conflicts and sometimes i was the only american in vietnam or cambodia i saw the killing fields people say why is the why is america doing this why is america doing that. and i was the de facto representative of america and i didn't know that much about my own country and so i actually spent five years traveling from one end of america to the other filming so that i could understand better where i came from let's go back to egypt was you know coverage was what you see and what you filmed how different was it from the coverage that we

got on mainstream television certainly there's no correspondent often you know there's a correspondent standing between you and what's happening there hi i'm here in talkers where i'm a big brave mortar and we remove the correspondent and we want to make it feel like you're in the square yourselves when the stones come in you need to be ducking because you think it's going to hit you on the head and so this is an experience full film so that you can understand exactly what was happening during these eighteen days but. when programs like my am sent a reporter they the whole idea is the standup to show the presence of the reporter on the field but you you shoot the room footage you are you are the photographer and the reporter so people don't see yourself. i mean on the scene doesn't that. this is that this is sort of a bad for the movie when they don't see the reporters most reporters would think it's bad because they want to get their face on t.v.

all the time that i think people want to look at this. is this sort of developed when i was in nicaragua during the day prague and revolution and a bomb came and hit about one hundred feet from us and my sound man ran away and left me with about one hundred pounds of heavy equipment that i had to carry and the guerrillas sort of went into the forest and they made like a yoke that oxen wear and we hung the recorder from here the batteries from here and i marched around with this heavy camera with a microphone attached to the top by vines that we got from the jungle and i'm filming the people in there answering their answering directly to the camera and when people at home were watching it was almost like they were directly talking to each other and it was a sort of direct television without the reporter in between that let people feel like they were really there and that's what we like we don't want to show that so your concept is that the reporter is. is sort of unnecessary

the reporters are necessary because there needs to be somebody who gathers the information follows journalistic principles but doesn't have to be seen and doesn't have to be i'm standing here and talk rear he's the link i mean there that that's get rid of the link what was that should show in t.v. the the the extra link or whatever it was that was the weak links i mean it well you know there are some reporters who are good reporters that i would be very happy to know they are the necessary links one that mean there's different styles and there should be just one style of reporting there should be one style of interview show there should be a variety of styles and we're we're a variety and so if people want to actually be treated like they're an intelligent person and be able to interpret things for themselves then the watch our program you use reporters do that because because they want to show their face on camera which i don't think is exactly true but i'll ask another question. you do that you often go to two. dangerous places is it because this

brings you adrenaline is it because your way of life is it because you just can't live with the lead because it's a drug for you or because it's a mission what you like you like the results i like the process of the result the process is to some degree a necessary evil and sometimes you have to walk through the fire and argue be able to get to see what people need to see if you stay in your hotel like some reporters do if you sit on your balcony practicing your stand up and practicing what you look like with makeup you're never going to get over here we get over there and we get back but i don't do it because i'm addicted to it and i do it because the results are important and in a democracy people need to see this and that's my job one of the most well known stories of your career was that uncensored footage you brought back in nineteen ninety one from from iraq was that right it was banned by and b c refused

to show it actually find you that they're all repeat those c.b.s. when they fired the producer who wanted to show you are here for the edge and so twenty years has passed since so so the dust is down so can you when you're thinking about that. what. do you think is it is more the more of a legend today of what happened to you were or were or was it all like it was like we learned about it today as one of the what one of the legends of american television well i mean it was an unfortunate moment in american television an unfortunate moment in journalism in which the reality of what was going on in iraq . the information that the american people needed to see in order to be informed about this war that was being fought in our name they couldn't get and all they were getting was propaganda and this information from the government. that's bad

but you know journalism in every country is a struggle it's a struggle here in russia and there are people who are trying to shine a light into dark corners and you make it and they get slapped around that's part of what our job is that we have to take that risk in you know if the same situation happen tomorrow. i do it again how how would you play and the fact that neither c.b.s. . and b.c.'s c.b.s. then let go of the commercial stations so why wouldn't they carry this image well maybe the government would like it but they do they both you should with that do lots of things which government doesn't like sure you know we're we're not a monolithic country in the united states there's different spheres of interest sometimes these spheres work together sometimes they fight against each other n.b.c. broadcast many stories in which we directly challenge the government in this particular case it was different because it was american soldiers on the ground when we

challenge what are our government was doing for example in central america supporting all these terrible dictators n.b.c. broadcast those stories and to some degree these stories helped bring about change and greater democracy in central america and i'm very proud of those stories and very proud of what n.b.c. did but there's other times in which they've chickened out you know people are brave all the time i'm not brave all the time i like to think i am but sometimes i'm scared. so when your own soldiers are on the ground risking their lives when when you are or you supposed to back your own country and what so what you just said so what n.b.c. and c.b.s. were doing they were doing what most of the lou. the the majority of the american population thought thought was right was to support the boys that are cross the water risking their lives so what you did supposed to be an anti-patriotic well i mean let's define patriotism isn't patriotism wanting the best for your country and

wanting the best for your fellow citizens. i don't think you're allowed to define my patriotism i only think my government is allowed to define my patriotism that's the duty of every citizen to define what's patriotic and then to work for their country an i'm not a soldier i can't carry a gun but i can carry a camera and if i bring back information that will help inform my country i think it's patriotism what's what would you choose. informing helping helping your people get more information or helping your soldiers win the war. in afghanistan yeah and is a war in afghanistan winnable after your experience there are. no. iraq into iraq no ok. sometimes if you can hold the mirror up to those situations then the people back at home in kansas or here in moscow the people in kaluga can

understand what's happening over there that's the job of the reporter the job of the reporter is not to carry the gun the job of the reporter is not to follow the orders of the general the job of the reporter is to present this information back to the public so the public can make an informed decision and that's my job and if you've been in afghanistan you basically have to find that. maybe the most patriotic thing that one could do is show people what's going on so we get the hell out of there says jon alpert an award winning american journalist and documentary filmmaker spotlighted will be back shortly after we take a break down to stay with us then go. download the official publication so choose your language stream quality and

enjoy your favorite. t.v. is not required to watch on t.v. all you need is your mobile device to watch on t.v. any time and. you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else you hear or see some other part of it and realize everything you thought you knew. i'm tom harkin welcome to the big picture.

welcome back to spotlight i'm al gore knob and just to remind you that my guest on the show today is jon alpert award winning american journalist and documentary filmmaker johnson. so you want me to tell you something i'll tell you something what's interesting is when i go to afghanistan or iraq and i make my reports you know who thanks me the most the soldiers the soldiers because they're the ones because the soldiers they don't want to fight. they didn't care that they were back around a young girl as they want back home to them to the mamas to their wives to their kids or no i don't think you can i mean about a million and so i mean. soldiers want to fight their it want to fight when the enemy is on their. their cities and towns but when they ascend

thousand two hundred ten of the thousand miles away they probably they they don't like that idea even if they're doing it for money i mean no for what i would say is that. when they're over there and there's you're asking the question what are we fighting for and and fighting for this what are you kidding me. if their thoughts can be brought back to the american people when they're being sent there in the name of the american people and so they very much want. the reality of what's going on in these countries seen by the american people and they thank me for it which is which makes me feel good last time we had a big debate about war and censorship when we had that war will georgia you remember we had a big debate whether the government has the right to censor something when the country is actually what well it was it went on for a couple of days but anyway so do you think that the country that is at war and

that is threatened by an enemy the government has a right at least to try to censor some things i would use the word censor the government has the right to make its own propaganda and it has the right to try in because of the part of the warfare about what i want the job you know that is their job as government officials but that's not the job of reporting the job of reporters not to be a propagandist the job of the reporter is to seek the truth even if the truth hurts . the difference. when you fired from agent do you think they did the right thing because i mean here you obviously contradicted the editorial policy right so so so is is freedom of speech possible or is it always should be a compromise with the editorial policy of the media working for i mean freedom of speech is something you have to fight for all the time i think that there are powerful forces in any system in any government that are going to try to repress

freedom of speech they're just going to do it and if the press doesn't fight for their own freedoms and the people don't fight for their own freedoms their freedoms are going to disappear can produce a paper fight for freedom if it can't. stuff you know what i mean and you know that situation so i want you to pay my bills but i don't want to listen to what you want me to say but there are different models you know there are there there is a listener supported radio and television in the united states that has a great following. and so there are people. all the time trying to figure out how they're going to sustain themselves we have to deal with this every single day you know nobody's coming to me in the morning with. a spoon full of oatmeal. is is the problem of the censorship still relevant at all in the age of internet when anything that's for been on a network appears on the internet tomorrow and inhofe an hour and millions can see

it well government can censor the internet or try to give you an example we did a report about the earthquake in session on china this documentary was nominated for an academy award chinese government did everything they could to stop the people in china from finding out about this program the program basically said that so many school children died because the corrupt government officials instead of taking the money to build schools with the money in their pocket and they built the schools out of sand and so when the earthquake happened all these kids got killed in the schools chinese government tried to cover this up. they censored every internet entry into china that dealt with this when the academy award nominees were being announced it was a live television program in china they pulled the plug on the live show so that nobody could hear about this but what's interesting in this is sort of relates to what you're talking about the sort of excitement of this new type of media is that every person in this little village that we filmed has seen our program despite the

chinese government's attempt to censor it because they've watched it on the internet this scoundrel with the n b c was it really did bring trouble to do the. search certainly didn't boost my career and will. who was it touch who want to touch you if like everybody who touches your gets fired you know would you want to be my friend and go on the with me if you were going to lose this job i was i was in a similar situation in the in the in the last couple of days of communism in this country . so but i mean young journalists and young journalists do you think they should start a network television big and mainstream media and then switch to independent journalism as you did were or can they start skipping this this school of mainstream journalism you know i don't think there's any rule i think what we did completely is outside the normal path well you were fired not about what about

those who made their own choice no but but you know what i what i want to say is that. i had a nontraditional path to network television we started out showing our films on street corners from an old mail truck i bought a mail truck for five dollars put t.v. sets on the side of in and the programs that we made about housing in our community on health care in our community things that we were doing to try and better the neighborhood were shown on the street corners that's my training ground. what's interesting is people have a very short attention span on the street so if my program is boring they're gone and so i learned very fast faster than in any classroom how to make a compact interesting program and as a result our programs were good and we got on t.v. i was also willing to take risks that other reporters wouldn't take i'm not go back to the hotel room sleep on top of the mountain and have snakes in my bed and all sorts of crazy people shooting at me arresting me and things like that or for no

money but even doing that i was able to bring these reports back the lucky thing for me is that again there are multiple media outlets in america so while the commercial networks censored me while the equivalent of state television censored me h.b.o. which is the biggest and most prestigious cable network in america. loves our programs we love working with them and for the past twenty years we've made programs that have won every award in american television and you came to russia to the soviet union made a big film done some shut things invent glasnost and perestroika no snakes no shelling at that time when brought you had. always been very curious about russia you know i grew up during the cold war period where russia was off limits information from russia was very very scarce. and my family on both sides my mother's side of my father's side all come from russia. in fact my

grandmother's cousin was maxime living off who was foreign minister for decades here and was one of the best most brilliant diplomats and there's two of these countries because of the again and was russia's first representative to the united nations so i knew i had russian family here and i was always curious and what's interesting. is that i have since met my cousins from my mother's side of the family my father's side of the family cousins that have been separated from the american family for over one hundred years they're my age and guess what they do. documentary filmmakers. ok when when. perestroika and all that all that pop art. pop art finished is russia still interesting i mean as a country as

a place to to to to to to examine to explore to shoot maybe yeah it's fascinating because you can you can feel the change here every day and i still think it's a country that's on the upswing. and it's a country that has a lot of potential and you feel the energy when you come here. and the energy can be both good and bad you find also people who are struggling to make this into a better country and who have difficulties so. i feel a lot like i felt in the united states in the sixties and seventies i feel the type of energy here you're certainly very critical of your own country many russians including myself and they think that russia may be moving too fast to try to catch up with the united states mcgrew shove started that let's catch up with the united states so but isn't it the wrong way to do to chill for a country like russia trying to be like america and i think everybody has to find

their own way i found my own way as a reporter i didn't copy anybody i did something that felt comfortable for me and there's going to be something that's going to be comfortable for russia but i don't think that you can equate criticism especially constructive criticism would being unpatriotic i love my country i risked my life for my country many many times and i would do it tomorrow so so so getting back to my question you think you think it is impossible for a country to copy a country i mean carbon unaccountable will be itself whatever whatever whatever ideals i mean no i agree with that it's dangerous to just blindly copy something and i think that's not intelligent there are a lot of intelligent people here in russia you have your own rich traditions and cultures and you need to take advantage of that in create something new and exciting that's unique in that that's what makes this such a such a wonderful period as you do have this opportunity you just told me something very interesting you started very interactive with the truck and the screens and the

documentaries peter greenaway told me the other day that his own his own media for his own filmmaking process that he's in is becoming is changing rapidly and becoming very interactive do you think there that your genre your or your filmmaking is changing too because becoming more and more interactive today nobody knows where the media is going in the united states when we used to have a big hit we used to have fifteen twenty million people watch our programmes. now the audience is so fragmented with so many different ways of watching things that if we get a million people you know just a tiny bit of what we have that's a big success. my daughter for example you never watches television she gets everything from her computer so the way in which people are going to be ingesting information is changing rapidly nobody knows where it's gone thank you thank you very much for being with us and just a reminder that my guest on the show today was john album of words when american journalist and documentary film and that's it for now from zero zero one tab you

sound like somebody montacute think i should do next time just drop you know top what will be back with more profound problems than what's going on in and out bad russia until then stay on our team and take care thank you.

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