Good morning and welcome to the National Press club the place where news happens. I am the president of the National Press club and the managing editor here this morning wee have a special headliner event featuring diane foley the mother of journalist james foley who was murdered y isis in 2014. The foundation is announcing its new Journalist Safety Task force we will have a panel of experts discussing how to address these important issues. As we all know, unfortunately, this is a dire need now as journalists remain in harms way now all around the world. Actively working with the wall street journal to release the reporterju as being justly detained in the present. We continue to advocate for the release who has been held captive in syria for more than 12 years. We have a hugely active team here that works previously to promote the freedom of the press both here and abroad. Today we are also aware that over 11 journalists have already been killed or lost as casualties and that israel hamas were in the past nine days. We mourn the loss of each of these brave journalists. The james w foundation has been working to keep them safe as they do their important work. It was founded by diane foley in 2014 less than one month after the public execution. I am a fellow alum. I graduated before and did not have the pleasure of meeting him in person. But i had heard of him through our networks. Eventually be released. The fact that he returned to the region the stories that needed to be told despite knowing directly the great risks involved to me, the embodiment of courage at this foundation represent spirit the supporters are ensuring the freedom of americans taken hostage overseas the safety and concern is a priority for america. As part of that mission the Foley Foundation works to secure the release of our two american journalists held abroad. This week diane foley who is on National News stating that civilians innocence would be used as pawns by hamas and express a strong concern about the more than 150 hostages taken a senator who serves on the senate floor issued a statement yesterday saluting the foundationss work. He says today we remember not only james foley, but also the risk journalists for dangerous places to shine a light truth. It is a true leader. Saluting all of you for your commitment to that mission. We honored diane foley is here today. She will give her remarks in a minute. This will be followed by a Panel Moderated by a professor of the school of journalism and the washington, d. C. News service. Also the chairperson of the Foley Foundation. We are also honored to have ofpanelists here from the new yk times, the voice of america and a representative who has worked for years at the center. I wanted to thank mike smith a reporter of Coastal Point and fellow board member on the oaNational Press code word of governors newsmaker. Ii also wish who are the cochais of our headliner team. A membership in the event coordinated here at the club. Diane foley. [applause] thank you, eileen. Thanks to the National Press club and all of you for taking time to be here. Cspan covering our news today. The Foley Foundation is deeply committed to journalist safety. We want to ensure that both aspiring journalists and freelance journalists had access to education to enable them to bear witness to Current Events as safely as possible. The development of undergraduate and graduate School Safety curriculum. Curricula in all schools of journalism. It is also accessible to freelance journalists. We currently have 20 journalism and communication schools to use that curriculum thanks to our education director. And we also have 11 schools in lebanon thanks to our partnership with the foundation to generously translated our curriculum we partnered with a company that provides Virtual Reality for freelancers and journalists. We even have a specialist here recently. Dangerous to journalists seem to be increasing both domestically andd internationally. Alreadyrnalists have been targeted in the israeli Hamas Conflict. We are delighted to welcome these generous experts who are willing to be part of a task force to help ensure that it is timely, practical and up to date as it can. I would like to just introduce them. First of all, those that are not able to be with us. We have professor kathy Eileen Mcelroy who is a chair of journalism for the college of communication, university of texas in austin, nathan puffer, Senior Vice President of risk and d resilience at dow jones. A veteran of the u. S. Military and is now a fellow at strategic and international studies. Also hannah storm founder and director of Headlines Network who has been promoting a conversation about Mental Health and moralal injury for journalis we are particularly delighted for thosese that can join us in person. We have Erica PhillipsProgram Manager of the office of language a programming for voice of america. He is responsible for journalist safety and as a primary liaison within thehe United States ageny for global media and all matters related to safety and security. We also are so delighted to welcome jason right who came down from the new york times. He is a Vice President of corporate security. Spent a lot of years that buzz feed as their Global Security director. And asom a founding board member from the culture of Safety Alliance for freelancers throughout the world spirit tom is here, he is our education director from marquette university. And ellen, our board chair who was jims professor years ago. Continuing the legacy through our work today. We are so grateful to all of these experts in their willingness to sell generously shared so that our curriculum can be really useful, uptodate and most timely. Yesterday we hados the privilege of hosting the james foley freedom run here in d. C. It was one of several runs that occurred to allow the country. We even had one in paris this year. All toto raise awareness about journalists like evan and austin who still remain hostages and just to raise awareness of the risks that journalists take every day. As eileen shared, senator van holland left remarks for us. He said he was inspired by our advocacy for press freedom. He is right about the journalist risk that they take just to bring us the news so that we may know what is happening across the world spirit so we hope that todays discussion will illuminate those risks and we can help. Thank you so much. Thank you, diane. Let me add my thanks to the national. Press club for hosting this event today. It is so important to highlight the issue and need for journalist safety. Thank you for joining us and thank you to the National Press club. This morning we will be hearing from our task force. Let me just briefly set the stage for the discussion. Journalists put themselves in harms way to do the important job of getting the news to all of us. And journalists sometimes deliberately targeted by governments, terrorists, criminals and others. Of course we are seeing this right now in israel Hamas Conflict as eileen mentioned. As of the first nine days of the fighting, almost one dozen journalists were killed. Two were missing and eight injured. Last week in southern killed and injured six other journalists. That is 13 others killed in those regions in a week or so. Before last week, 16 journalists hadd been killed so far this yer meanwhile, a different and increasing threat that correspondence face. Wrongful detentions byy hostile governments. Russia, tehran and venezuela according to the foundation research. But, as we all know, it is not just conflict journalism. Foreign correspondence at risk these days earlier this year a tv reporter in florida was shot to death while covering a homicide. His videographer was injured. Last year, Las Vegas Review journal reporter was stabbed multiple times and killed outside of his home. Clark county public administrator robert ellis was arrested in the murder. German had been investigating him. During the black lives matter protest, journalists were often murdered. In addition, many journalists are targeted by online harassers the list goes on. The good news is that more and more News Organizations like those represented on our task force are stepping up to the challenges posed bys these risk. Nonprofits like cp j for freedom of the press the International WomensMedia Foundation and the culture of Safety Alliance to name a few are providing resources for journalists to be prepared to assess risks, mitigate them with Safety Strategies or determine when it is too dangerous. So, with that background, lets get started. Tom, why dont you start off just going into a little bit more detail about what the Foundation Curriculum aims to do sure. Thank you for the question. Thank you to the press club for having us. Within months of jims murder back in 2014, one of jims professors created a graduate level seminar designed for conflict for freelancers. Obviously, that is important. We know that they will come up again risks. One of the things that we notice and we started recognizing was, and it is not just journalists that need to be prepared, we have toav start with general senator young to Start Building these safety habits. Make sure that journalists are learning how to be safe. The way that i always think about this as i think about my sister katie who was field chief at the chicago fire department. Her job is to save lives. She needs to know how to do it safely. Journalists are not that different than first responders. They run towards violence. They run towards places where other people areme leaving. They are armed with a pen or a camera. We have a responsibility to make sure that journalists at the youngest age are learning how to build habits. We took what alan had created with the graduate level seminar and started focusing on undergraduate programs. The challenge was, is it a firstyearar class, do you wait until they are seniors or do you embed safety into the curriculum if we could gather materials, work with experts, see what students need to know and we work with schools, the first year we walk and how to be safe, how do you do a Risk Assessment, how do you interview a hostile source. These things are coming out throughout their sources. The habits are developing the art in that way, safety now becomes an addon. It is not something extra that you do. You need to be saved to be an effective journalists. Safety is not just the physical safety we are looking. Physical safety, mental safety, digital safety and while it seems like a lot to cover, if it is offered throughout courses, making sure they have the tools to protect themselves. I firmly believe that the best way to do this is throughout the curriculum. It is not like you need to be safe when you do this. You always need to be safe. To be honest you can go to a School Board Meeting these days and it can turn sideways. Doing Risk Assessments and thinking about your safety and what i can be prepared for is a habit. That people on the stage agree with that. They have either experienced or seen other experience that need these tools for these challenges thank you. Thank you for all the work that you have d done. Eric, maybe you can talk a little bit about what keeps you up at night. What are the challenges . You have a network around the world thanna in the united stat. Freelancers and staff that you have to try to protect. How do you work with them to create a culture of safety to keep them safe . In addition to myself, i want to call attention to the fact that the distinguished journalist herself also manages for voice of america also here with me today. Thank you, clara. Beyond that on behalf of my colleagues, i want to extend our thanks to diane and to bed and to you tom for asking us to be part of this task force. We regard this opportunity very highly. It ise our hope that anything e can contribute will be of use to the foundation to build on that. Already an impressive curriculum for sure. We have been asked to talk about some of the challenges. We will do that, but before we get to the challenges, we want to touch on that. It is not all bad news. It was part of the curriculum as a lead going without saying. There iss more good news. The ceo has stated right from the start of her administration that journalists safety is a priority. Including the voice of america. That is a big deal. Words are wonderful, actions are better. Amanda has created the position. When that appointment is made to do something that i will interact with. Knowing a little bit more about the suspicion. Challenges are plenty. They are growing. They are growing in the nature of the challenges. Growing in frequency. We have plenty of them. I think that the key is what tom said. It is getting this conversation to be less of an extra box you have to check and more getting to be habit. This is the thing you have to be conscious of and working on all of the time as a journalist. Talking about Risk Assessment. It cannot just be a box that you check at the office before you go off to the location for your assignment. Its something weve been working on a lot at doa in recent years. The Foundation Curriculum touches on this. It is pretty impressive. Risk assessment continues once you get to the location of your assignment. Weve got people in israel now and we tried to continually check in with our people as we remind them as we are moving around, do that assessment. They are required to have a bomb shelter. Find the closest one to you. Know where it is at all times. The smallesten details make a difference. The best example that i can give of that is a year, year and a half ago. Our correspondent was called by the editor in washington called an antigovernment protest. She left her apartment in such a hurry. She forgot what was presiding. She got to the city officials. They round up as they do and they began to require proof of their affiliatione and she coud not provide. She was placed in prison for 10 days. Ten days in prison and south sudan. Not a good time. Getting our journalists to accept something as simple as personal Realtime Tracking 24 seven. Journalists love their privacy. Not everybody goes there easily. Getting journalists to accept personal oneal on one security people with them. Journalists do not like to be encumbered by a plus one when they do their work. I getrc it. There are some circumstances where they have to have that with you 247. Making those choices, if you are the newsroom manager and how important the manager positions are, you have to find a partner that understands what their role is not to say no all the time in the field. They understand the work that journalists do and having a atconversation with that person. Having a representative say, look, your suggestion is a littlele dicey. Lets have a conversation. Those people are hard to find, but we have to find them. Mental health, mental wellness, trauma, moral injury. Sort of a newish conversation. We are being very careful how we travel down that lane. Absolutely engage on that. But that is an ongoing conversation. One of the greatest areas of challenge that we are having at doa is the use of our freelance network. In the universe of doa there are two distinctly different groups. A person that has a direct contract with us. That person gets into trouble. Sort of an expectation we will step up and help. We are using freelancers from platforms like pay descant story hunter. There is no direct affiliation. That connection is worth the company. What is our responsibility to the journalist if the journalist gets in trouble . At the meeting in new york there was a great discussion on policy versus principal. Policy says you are not responsible for that. Principal says, wait, what . This person is working in a hostile environment completing assignments for us on a daily basisth. How am i not responsible for that person. That is a very tricky conversation at doa. Very tricky conversation in a federal environment. We are working on it and know we have to do better. I could go on. Plenty of challenges to talk about but i will just close by completing on behalf of the doa to be part of this. Again, we hope that whatever we can contribute. Thank you. We really appreciate your help. Ofi will ask you a variation of the same question. What keeps you up at night and how has that changed over time . I think to erics point you cannot be static in your approach. Maybe talk a little bit about how it has evolved and what you are worried about today. If you will get a couple of security people here there would be an expert in relation it would be doom and gloom. If you allow me to be a little optimistic for just a bit. I actually feel, similar to what you had mentioned really well said, there has been a pretty substantial shift in the last 10 years i think in the relationship of risk between editors and supporters. I think that it is for the better. I can speak for new york. I would be curious to hear what your point of view is. What i have seen in my work at the time is that the stereotype is a cliche of this grizzled angry editor being like get out there. Get me that story. Dont bother me and dont ask questions until you have it on my desk. I think that that is going by the wayside and that is a great thing. Nowadays we see that we have d young reporters and young freelancers that are concerned about security. These young reporters these student reporters recognize the modern newsroom and editor sees security consciousness as an asset and not a