University, the sponsor, and in particular could in particular, the allied you president for her support. I want to thank my friend and , ourague Ralph Engelman faculty coordinator. As many of you know, our awards were established in 1949 to commemorate george polk. The correspondent assassinated the year before during the greek civil war. Year, now in our 71st 3125g bestowed as of today prizes. In keeping with his legacy, our judges honor reporters whenever possible and not just their news organizations. Who are doggedse in their investigations, resourceful in their tactics, and intrepid in overcoming the odds, whether it is sending dispatches from a battlefield or exposing corruption at city hall. We like stories that hold power to account, that reveal things that deserve to be revealed, and that carrie and impact that carry an impact. Received 561 submissions. Mary. With big stories in syria, afghanistan, and libya. The uprising in hong kong, chinas repression of the uygers ebola,pread of environmental disasters, political chaos in latin america. Domestically, reporters were drawn to write about wildfires and floods, police brutality, inhumane prison conditions, the breakdown in immigration enforcement, sexual assaults in religious institutions and vapi opioidng, the changes and our peoples in the trump administration. This year, we saw an increasing number of team entries. News organizations have become adept at mounting coordinated efforts of specialists to dig deeper into the issues. We also saw more partnerships among News Companies and across different media platforms. These are all to the good, but interestingly, of our 15 wearers winners, or than half are single reporters working more or less alone. It is an indication that the thef george polk mantle of george polk, a loan journalist, a lone journalist, has been taken up by a new generation. Here are the winners. The foreign reporter award goes med for illuminating the causes of genocide in brazil and the caribbean. , of the reporting Houston Chronicle, for revealing the administrations continuing use of inhumane practices in dealing with refugees. Metropolitan reporting to the series, newsday for its long divided, documenting widespread discrimination against africanamericans in suburban housing. Brianreporting to rosenthal of the New York Times for uncovering the scheme in which profiteers inflated the price of taxing battalions and sold them to drivers through exorbitant loans. To markional reporting scheffler, maliki brown, and the visual Investigations Team of the New York Times for new techniques in forensic investigation, they proved, among other things, that russian pilots bombed hospitals and other civilian targets in syria. Financial reporting to know up and davidkevin mel b, of Bloomberg News for revealing reaped profits by using a tax break intended to help poor areas called opportunity zones to instead construct highend luxury projects. Reporting to dominic gaetz, mike baker, anna lewis forof the Seattle Times showing how boeing and the faa cut corners in approving deadly design changes to the 737 max jets. Environmental reporting to helen foriller of politico establishing that the department of agriculture squashed its own research that would help farmers adapt to climate change. Military reporting to Craig Whitlock of the Washington Post for the afghanistan papers, a report on thousands of documents from u. S. Officials, acknowledging the 18 year war is a disaster. Justice reporting to lisa gardner of the Philadelphia Inquirer for exposing the physical abuse of boys at a wellknown reformatory school. Political reporting is shared by charman,en, jonathan and dion leffler of the Wichita Eagle and Luke Broadwater and staff of the Baltimore Sun for revealing municipal corruption that led to the ouster of the iesmeasures. Dispossessed, an article in the new yorker showing how speculators in the south use legal loopholes to seize blackowned ancestral lands. Television reporting to john saad worth of bbc news for investigating camps in western china that detained and indoctrinated the muslim population. Toally, a special award Nicole Hannah jones of the New York Times and contributors for the 1619 product, which examined the role of slavery in u. S. History and its continuing. Ffects in contemporary society congratulations to all the winners. Now we have, as a special event, a Panel Discussion on the difficulties of finding truth in war. Two of this years winners are on the panel, Craig Whitlock and mark to figure out how we find out without having somebody on the inside, a russian pilot or thect or telling us, or defense ores intelligence community, they were not willing to get into this area. What we ended up doing was there is a Network Inside syria of Early Warning spotters, a group of people that basically take it upon themselves to try on eavesdrop and keep tabs russian air activities. Using themo ad other sources, able to get russian pilot transmission. The russians transmit for a number of reasons on an open channel,ilots who open we obtained that material that allowed us to zero in on russian culpability. Those are audio recordings, is that what you are talking about . They are recordings between russian pilots and air traffic control, communicating stories, communicating about their bombing runs. We had a several russian translators helping us decode the language and terminology that they would use. We established patterns of corroboratedity, with visual evidence, eyewitness accounts, help us put this portrait together of russians hitting hospitals inside the country. Task, you areing going through hours and hours of tryingransmissions, then to gl locator locations with activities, it was grueling work. In the end, we were able to establish that russia was doing this. As far as we were concerned, conclusively. At the times and the post, we are not in the Business Opportunity things like this, determine guilt or innocence. We would not come out and say this is a war crime, but let me say, the International Community should have plenty of evidence to make that argument. Craig you, started on the afghanistan papers with a limited question. I wonder if you can share with us what that was. Craig the series of the afghanistan papers, we got a tip. The tip was about general Michael Flynn, a retired army was gaining20 16 he notoriety for campaigning for appearing atand republican valleys chanting, locked her hillary clinton. We were doing background reporting on general flynn and how he had gotten involved with the trump campaign, but also his record in the military. The tip we got was that he had given a blistering interview about the war in afghanistan with an obscure federal agency called the Inspector General for afghanistan reconstruction. I had cover the pentagon antimilitary and general flynn, while politically he was controversial, in the military he was this wellknown figure for speaking truth to power and he would be critical of people in his chain of command for military intelligence matters. That could be interesting if he gave an interview about the war in afghanistan, we would like to know what he said. We went to the Inspector General and said, we would like to have a transcript of the interview and thought it was a straightforward request. At first, the agency said sure, should not be a problem. We will get back to you soon. Then they started delaying and hiding things and donald trump got elected and Michael Flynn was named National Security advisor. Request wasthat our denied, they were not going to give this material about general flynn. We filed freedom of information act request, ultimately a lawsuit. It was ae document and blistering interview. General flynn was withering and his assessment of the war and in , the lack of progress the American People over the years, he said what the reality was on the ground was so different from what was being totally public, he said it was almost a crime. That got us interested. Of course general flynn was one of hundreds of people who had given similar interviews. We thought this could be an important story so we filed more requests and another lawsuit. , butok three years ultimately we got all this Public Information available and posted it online for readers to see. We bought a bunch of stories about it. Sarah can i ask you, from the time you got that original tip to when you obtained general flynns interview, you remember how long that took . Craig a year and a half. Sarah from that point, how did you learn there were other interviews out there . ,raig we heard there were more the Inspector General was cagey about it, but finally acknowledged that there were hundreds more. We put a request in for those. We are pursuing these on two tracks. If we get the Michael Flynn one at when the lawsuit, the Inspector General will crop up the rest. We were wrong. We got the interview, but they double down and did not want to release the rest. We filed another lawsuit and they started trickling them out bit by bit. It took three years for them to release all the material. We are still in court to get more interviews and get the names of the people who were interviewed by the Inspector General. Identify 100to people who had given interviews flynn, but the majority of them, the Inspector General redacted the names, did not want to make them public, were in court flynn we are it and we are optimistic we will win. We think it is important that people who are in charge of the work, people who played a key role, if they were critical about the strategy and how the American People are not told the truth, the public deserves to know, there is Public Interest in knowing who those people are so they can judge for themselves the merits of what they say. Sarah i want to open this to both of you. , one ofector general the last things you did before publication was you had an interview with the Inspector General on camera. He allowed you to bring a video into his office. The way he approached at interview i would love for do to describe that and also, the broader question is, once you have your initial piece of documentary evidence, you have what is store process of approaching what is the process of approaching the actual story . Craig mark has a more complex response probably. For us, it is straightforward. Anyones name we are going to publish, we need to get comment from them in advance of publication and verify the facts we are going to report, active them a chance to respond. Particularly for people who may not want to talk, may not like what we are reporting, we were up front with the Inspector General in advance of publication. We would say, i told him and his staff, here is what we are planning to report. Reluctant to talk because there is ongoing education with our lawsuit still pending. I went back to him multiple times and said, we are getting close to publication, this is your last chance. We would like to get your response to an army of questions. He decided to go an array of questions. He decided to go on camera and we included that as part of our coverage. Sarah could you characterize for everyone the difference between that interview and what are the same Inspector General told congress after publication . Craig one of the main questions had, why argue withholding this material from the American Public . Why did it take three years for you to release these interviews in which people who are in charge of the war had, why admit the war was a failure, they did not know what they were doing, the strategy was illconceived, many of them did not know who the and me was . Commanding generals. So my opening comments. How could you as Inspector General whose job it is to hold people accountable, how could you keep that from the public . We did not get a straight answer regardse said, in some it was not his job, he was not supposed to deal with questions of strategy and policy. He was all over the map. It is important to emphasize, everything we did obtain is Public Information. Both from the court and the Inspector General himself. These were not linked to us. This is information we went the oldfashioned way under the law. This is Public Information. When the Inspector General testified before congress, he took a different tone sarah i wish we had the video. Craig at the same time, he is complaining that the pentagon are keeping secret this critical information about the war, which is true, but he himself is complicit in that because he withheld information as well. Sarah correct me if i am wrong, he says there is an incentive to lie. Craig he said what was clear from the interviews that we obtained was that there is a theme that american officials repeatedly lying about the lack of progress in the war. He said there was an incentive to lie because they all wanted to dress it up as a rosy progress, things are on the right track. In a way, he was making our case for us, saying that what we uncovered and were able to bring to light, according to him, showed without a doubt that the government of multiple administrations was blind to the American People about how the war was going. Not share thatad characterization with you prior to publication . Craig in our interview with us, he said he acknowledged that he told us he had said, this shows the American People had been lied to. He was not emphasizing at the same way, that is one of the ironies. As our stories came out, i wonder if he felt liberated to say he is critical of how the war has been handled and how they government has not been forthcoming. Mark, you may have a more complicated response, because when you are reporting on a foreign government, there are not the same kinds of official avenues. [no audio] having our team triangulate where the sun is going down to make sure we have the time right. Based on the patterns we established, what time they are flying, that corroborate we are not going to get we tried to get Russian Military defectors, from our efforts, they are not out of there. We had to take these other avenues into the story. That is what the visual Investigation Team is about. It is about trying to find new ways to do conflict reporting and to hold these countries accountable. Singlethere is not a place where you can go for that information. You have to overlay these different sources to establish what is the closest thing you can. Mark exactly. Up we were end meticulous about making sure we had everything. The russians said they came out and said we do not open rate operate on open transmissions. Our pilots do not operate on open transmissions. It is not true because we have a preponderance of reporting that lineup perfectly with the times of the attacks in question. The exact moment that a bomb drops is the exact moment when we have established a pattern of bomb dropping in other transmissions in other locations. Debunking those stories is part of the process and using this preponderance of gathered visual , audio, and eyewitness material to make the cases. Sarah you noted the post is still in active litigation. One of the arguments that is to reveal the names of the people who were giving these interviews. I noticed in his testimony before congress, one of the arguments do not reveal those names was, here is the Washington Post, for however many decades cap the identity kept the identity of deep throat secret. This Inspector General to reveal the names of people who requested anonymity . What is the argument . Craig the Washington Post is not a public agency. The freedom of information act apply to agencies of the federal government and the executive branch. The Inspector General may not like it, but it applies to his office as well. He has given a lot of different explanations in court for why he these officials who are in charge of the war, their identities should be withheld. It has been all over the map. Lawyers have called them whistleblowers or criminal orormants or consultants just people who did not want to their names made public because it might they might it might be politically embarrassing. But none of those add up under the law. They are not whistleblowers, these are not people who came to the Inspector General to report wrongdoing. This was the Inspector General seeking out people who were involved in the war to interview them for a public report called lessons learned. These people being interviewed or something they knew was to be made public. Maybe some would say, i prefer my name and not to be attached, but under the law, that is not a legal excuse to be exempt. To call them consultants or informants i think is a stretch to say the least. It is perhaps laughable. His reasons under the law, our argument is they are farfetched and do not apply. We will see what the judge says. We think we are entitled to those things. The other i really is there was no consistency in how he treated these interviews. Many of them were labeled on the record, the document would say on the record, we would still get thoseght to interviews. Some were labeled on the record, they would still redact names. Let me give you one example why we think it is important to fight for names. There is one interview with someone who served on the National Security council under obama, the name was redacted, the interview was about how they routinely distorted what they call the metrics or measurements of progress in the war at the white house. They would get reports from military headquarters or the pentagon or state department and go to the National Security council. This person said in this interview, we have the transcript, these metrics were routinely distorted, they knew they were resenting a false picture of how the war was going. This was being done at senior levels of the white house. They knew this was going on, they were distorting these measures of progress, the president himself would announce to the public. That is a serious statement. Some flunky at some lowlevel, a senior person at the white house. Who was it . We think the public has the right to know who is making this serious allegation and we would like to know more about it. That is the kind of thing that is why we think there is a compelling Public Interest and knowing who these people are and what they said about the war. Sarah this is a broader question for both of you. It is a little esoteric. Because you have had experience in trying to get to the truth during wartime, why do governments throughout different administrations and countries consistently lie during wars . You can say they are all corrupt, but it has to be something else. The afghanistan papers, some of the individuals will give an explanation. There was an incentive not to tell the truth Michael Flynn and his interview gave a good story. Year, we get each a new brigade or Battalion Team with the army or come in for 12 months into the war zone. They had the same mission. To take the fight to the enemy and protect the population. Every single brigade or Battalion Commander with common, they say, it is a mess, this war, this is going to be tough. By the time they left, every single one of them said, i accomplished the mission. We took the fight to the enemy, we protected the population, we are winning. Who is going to want to say at the end of their tour that they are losing . That they did not accomplish their message their mission . This is against the mindset of the military. Who wants to admittedly fail . That looks bad, that is not going to go over well with the higher reps. In these reports, accomplish the mission. The next guy comes in, takes over, goes, what a mess. I cant believe things are so bad. Iconext guy, same thing, bush the mission. Are those people i accomplished the mission. Are those people trying to deceive the American Public . I think there is self protection, people dont admit that they did not accomplish it. They were not winning. It is hard for people to be honest, in the chain of command, but to the public at large. Sarah i will open up for questions in a minute. Think of something if you would like to ask a question. If you dont, that is fine, i have other questions. Ive noted you have done a lot of reporting internationally. I wonder why we are drawn to that and if you find that there are other barriers to getting to when you or maybe not are reporting outside the united states. Some places, for sure, because they do not have the ortory of being transparent theoretically being transparent. The interesting thing about the work that the Investigation Teams does, you do not even obviously there is never a substitute for being there. We have bureaus all over the world that we collaborate with and that we that we partner with on investigations and stories. For our team, it is almost like an egalitarian approach to covering atrocity and conflict. What we are looking for is people basically eyewitness accounts, looking to build official accounts using the open source and open web to do it. Randomunds a little because we combine that with other things, like satellite imagery and geolocation and all the rest. But i think that the idea is that we can put together a story that does not need a government lineen a tip, a public tip , to help us corroborate. That is the goal. Some of thelly, in drawions we covered, the is that you are able to , before therlds advent of the internet, were offlimits. The government and some of these countries were able to dictate the terms of the narrative. What is exciting about this work is that it allows accountability to be held in ways that these governments have never had to deal with before. I think that is the big draw for me and the rest of the team. Sarah does anyone in the audience have a question . A question for mark. Workentioned that in your on the russian bombing of the civilian targets in syria, you relied in part on the transmission from pilate to base pilot to base on an open channel. It raised a question in my mind of when you use open sources and you have to fess up to it, you run the risk of having those sources close down closed down, cutting yourself off from a technique that was useful last time around. Mark it is a good question. This listening network, is what i would call it, they have this network set up as an Early Warning system for people to get out of bombing, sites that will be bombed. You are eavesdropping, hearing the pilots are going in this direction, hearing what they are saying, get out of this location. Uswas a serious question for about, is us using this material, well shut down . The russians have not stopped linesthe transmission that they have been using. We dont know for sure we think the reason they use open transmission, they are kind of using syria to guinea pig new war fighting technologies and weaponry and trying to run a decrypted Communication System over a place like syria with new materials we think it might be something that they dont necessarily know how to do it yet. Because thisat constitutes a war crime in the International Community and because the russians the russians have not been shy about saying they are attacking what they call terrorists in syria. Military officials brag that they killed 30,000 people, that they are all terrorists going against the regime. Refused todamantly say they targeted civilian targets or hospitals. That holding them to our, even if they are not vociferous about denying it, the u. N. , they sit on the security council, the United Nations should know that the russians are party to this. That became the next phase of this investigation, which was the United Nations is in a position to callout the russians for these attacks and they are conducting their own investigation as we speak into russian and other targeting civilian sites. But i think that we felt like the right to know and the network that was helping us with this back us up on that. Also to mark. To the communications of the russian pilots, did they ever indicated that they knew they were bombing hospitals or civilian targets . Did they say anything . Ark no, they speak in pilotese. United airlines used to let people listen into the transmissions, i dont know if they do anymore. You used to be able to listen to that, which i used to love. It is not a chatty thing. We were never able to i dont know if they knew what they were striking. They knew what they had to hit, they had coordinates, whether they knew what it was or not as a pilot, unclear. But obviously somebody spotting on the ground, hospitals are being hit by a we suspect russians, it could also be syrians have bombed hospitals too. Whether the individual pilot knows, unclear. Sarah we have a question in the front right here. These stories required a lot of time. Was there ever fear at one point that there is no there there . What makes you stick with a path and think that there is something they are at the end of it . You are constantly making judgments based on instinct and what you have. Case, it was pretty clear early on, since we got a general flynn interview, that would be news. If we had done a story on what he said, that might have been news. We uncoveredwhat where hundreds of people saying similar things. We thought it was worth waiting to see what else was there and the more we dug, the more we realize there was more material. Early ontood clearly that this was going to be a good story, we just did not know how good. We had to keep pulling on that string. As a journalist, youre asking that. Au get a feeling there is good story and you have to justify it to your editors to say why we are spending time on it, but you are making that evaluation, what is this worth . I think you go by instinct. Is that right . Mark yeah. Once you are two or three months o it and you are not sure we did do a lot of questioning about we have what we need to have . Sometimes it is a leap of faith. Good because it is it motivates the team to try and flip over more rocks than they had or they get creative and think about, have retried this . Have we tried this . We havee times when gone down a road and have not necessarily had the material we are Getting Better at identifying that kind of path. We wek that even if would have had a story in some way, it may not happen as revelatory as it ended up being. Whatre able to, no matter you have, to make something happen if the material is as strong as it is. Sarah we have one more question. Or two more. Hi. Did you ever get a sense that the russian pilots were aware that people were listening at there was disinformation provided by the pilots . Becomeg, how did you aware that there were another that there were other names out there . Did you say to the Inspector General, how many names there are . How did you chip away at that . Asked for thee Michael Flynn interview, the next question was, how many other people did you interview . The Inspector General said, a lot. They were not precise, but it became clear that there were a few hundred at least. I put in another request for those. We kept pushing on both fronts. Think because everything lined up for us and we were meticulous about making sure that the transmissions and times of the bombings matched with flight logs and eyewitness accounts, i think we felt fident that they were not we had decoded the terminology that they used. I think we felt good about that. Neveri dont i would speak for russia, but i dont even know if they are that bothered, to be honest with you. Bombing they feel in some ways they can operate with impunity, which is why we were and continue to be aggressive with this reporting. The world is looking in a different direction now. Offereel like they can you skate and misdirect and disinformationize their way out of it. I dont know if they feel like they have to take that measure. We felt pretty good that they were not being disappointed if distant form one thing, congratulations to both of you. Astonishing work. Lots of important stuff out there. One of the highlights of the series, the public was being lied to by its own leaders, including generals, in a sort of the way the pentagon papers brought out those decades ago. I will redo something, but of the big lines that kept being used i will read you something, one of the big lines that kept being used. Altered topoint was present the best picture possible. Hat came from a higher up where you able to access actually when the example you gave, this person you want to fight out their identity any hard evidence, emails, or any specific hard evidence which i did not see in these reports, of a data point that was, here is the second version, here is the speech, here is the something. Actually specific examples . Craig i will give you one example. These came from memos that Donald Rumsfeld wrote, he call them snowflakes because he wrote so many, he dictated these memos, they would come fluttering down on his subordinates at the pentagon. These were obtained by the National Security archive at George Washington university under another free information act request. We could line this up. Here is rumsfeld, he is getting , he went to general afghanistan in 2006. ,rom his chief civilian advisor they both went to afghanistan in 2006. That summer, came back with reports that had been classified at said things are really bad in afghanistan, the taliban is making us come back, these were lengthy reports for the secretary detailing how things were going south and the insurgency was picking up steam and the u. S. Was in danger of losing the war. Memos,d is reading these responding to them. At the same time, his speech writers are putting out talking points saying how great the war in afghanistan was going. He named example after example of women who have jobs or people , road miles rumsfeld, at the same time he is he is getting these classified report saying how badly these wars are going and asking dick cheney and others to see these reports, he is directing his press team and speechwriters to put out a completely different picture, completely opposite of the information he is giving to the public. [inaudible] i just mean, he was not changing data point, he was not changing the information, he was just offering a rosy view and presuming craig and suppressing ww. And suppressing the real view. He would say they were altering data point, this example i gave the National Security Council Officials in the obama white gaveave expert specific examples in the interview of how they would take statistics they would turn it around, the number of enemy initiated attacks, this person said, no matter of it is going up, we say this is a good sign because it shows we are taking the fight to the enemy. Around 2 was twisted to present a positive result. I dont know if that answers your question. Much foryou very reporters to find out what is going on in wartime is one of the Biggest Challenges they face. You illuminated the problem for us. I would like to quickly read through the list of winners again in case people have tuned in halfway through. First, i would like to acknowledge someone in the audience. Formerd our way, a Washington Post Foreign Correspondent and writer, many books on the middle east. Thed at his brother jim run foundation, which is a sponsor of the polk and without then we would not but not be what we are today. The foreign reporting award goes the New York Times for illuminating the causes of violence in central america. E ofonal reporting to creol the Houston Chronicle for revealing the administrations in of inhumane practices dealing with refugees. Metropolitan reporting to the staff of newsday for its series, long island divided, documenting widespread discrimination against africanamericans in housing. Brianreporting to rosenthal of the times for uncovering a scheme in which offiteers inflated the price medallions and sold them to drivers through exorbitant loans. International reporting to Mark Scheffler and visual Investigations Team of the times for new techniques in forensic investigation that approved among other things russian pilots armed hospitals in syria. Noah, andreporting to david of Bloomberg News for revealing that developers can beat huge profits by using a tax break in and intended to enhance poor areas to instead construct highend Luxury Products project. Business reporting to dominic and lewis can of the Seattle Times for showing how boeing and the faa cut corners in approving deadly design changes three 737 max jets. Environmental reporting to forna miller of politico establishing that the department of agriculture squashed its own research that would help farmers adapt to climate change. Military reporting to Greg Whitlock of the Washington Post for the afghanistan papers, a report on thousands of documents from u. S. Officials acknowledging the 18 year war is a disaster. Justice reporting to lisa gardner of the Philadelphia Inquirer for exposing the physical abuse of boys at a wellknown reformatory school. Political reporting is shared by jonathan charman and dion leffler of the Wichita Eagle and Luke Broadwater and staff of the Baltimore Sun for revealing corruption that led to the cities respective majors. Magazine reporting to lizzie , ansler for a dispossessed article in the new yorker showing how speculators in the south used legal loopholes to seize blackowned intestinal lands ancestral lands. Television reporting to bbc news for investigating camps in western china that detain and indoctrinate the muslim population. Nicoleecial award to hannah jones of the new york for thed contributors 1619 project, which examined the will of slavery in u. S. Its and is continuing continuing effects in contemporary society. Congratulations to the winners. Thank you all very much for your attention. [applause] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2020] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] [indistinct chatter] [indistinct conversations] if you missed any of this program, it is Available Online at journal cspan. Org. Awards in the search box. Earlier, politico held a conversation with voters. President trump is hosting three Western State campaign rallies. The first at 9 00 p. M. Eastern, also here on cspan, online at cspan. Org, or listen on the free cspan radio app. And the president tweeting today about a potential democratic rival, mike bloomberg, saying is corrupt Bloomberg News going to stay what it is, that he does not respect our great farmers or that he has violated comp and violated Campaign Finance laws, with payoffs all over the place. That from president trump. Cspan, your unfiltered view from government. In 1979 andable brought to you tay
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