dig him because his power two months from now his powers not to come from a twitter account, is going to come from the signature of the president of the united states. >> with that we have to close the panel down. thank you very much. [applause] we are going to roll this off and bring the next three guests on. we'll get started started with that in just a couple of minutes. >> now look at whether access and transparency will be an issue for journalists trying to cover the trump administration. this is also from the national press foundation. this is one hour and ten minutes. >> let's get going on third panel of the afternoon, this one goes until 430. i'm going to introduce our three guests, we'll talk about press relations to train the incoming administration and the press corps and what things will look like, what we expect things will look like, each of the three guests will give a brief five minutes or less overview of what the main issues they see coming up, i have some questions i think what plenty of questions from the audience. i three panelists are lucy douglas the dean at the philip university of maryland, before coming here she was a couple of decades that the freedom of the past and previous to that and before that also reporter and editor at the pioneer press, jeff mason on the far end to is a correspondent for writers and currently president of the white house correspondent association and the interactions with the incoming administration. kevin goldberg an attorney, but most importantly, he is the president of the chairman of the board of the national press foundation. welcome to all three of you. so i thought we would get started with jeff, if you could maybe just give a sense of where things stand between the correspondent association and the administration? >> the correspondent association started having communications both at the trump and clinton campaign as early as last spring where we just wanted to get the relationship started to explain what our expectations were in terms of press pool, neither hillary clinton nor donald trump had a full protective pool as a candidate in a protective pool for those who are not completely familiar is a group of 13 journalists including wires, print, tv, photography, still photographers and radio who follow the president or a candidate of the president-elect, were wherever he or she goes medically as being in a motorcade, in a plane, for travel so, as you know don't know, after president-elect trump was elected he did not have a pool in place because they did not have one and placed her in his candidacy which was a problem then that got amplified after his election. we have in the last few weeks made progress on getting that pool structures solidified. he came to washington without a pool, he got bad press for that the correspondence association way donna. i waited and on behalf of the correspondents association, we also waited when he went out for dinner in new york a couple weeks ago without bringing a press pool, i think they learn from that, from the negative attention and i think they also learned from as no doubt you just learn when you're putting together an administration from scratch about what some of the aspects are that important, we've been in touch with them and are in talks with them to do that. the pool is not going to be fully formed or protective until they get to the white house because they refused to allow journalists on his plane which we object to and we have made those objections clear. then there may clear back to us that is not going to change. once he is here then there will be the traditional structure of the pool flying in air force one and that is not something that i'm even putting up as a?, because we because we just assumed that will be respected. they have told us they do intend to respect the traditions of the white house pool when they come and we right now are taking them at their word for that as well. i've been using the words cautious optimism. obviously there were lots of things that happened during the course of the trump campaign that should give reporters and media organization cause for concern, we have not had a chance to address all of those with the incoming administration. we are having a prioritized list of what is important to us and the pool has been at the top of that list. once we get that core piece of white house press court business locked in i think will be able to address some of the other issues as well. i think is going to be a challenge. no question when i think there are a lot of unanswered questions which we can explore a little bit today. a lot of what we have waiting for us our unknowns. i am not one of, i do not not belong to the doomsday camp despite some of the rhetoric that even people like respected former white house secretaries throwing out into the dialogue, i do not think it is in the interest of an incoming administration to declare war completely on the press. or to blow up the press room or blowup the white house press corps, if they do, the correspondence association will be ready and i can assure you we are preparing for worst-case and best case scenario. at this point so for the people who were working with on the trump side have been working with us in good faith. we want to maintain and develop that relationship going forward. >> thank you. lucy, outside of the day-to-day coverage of the white house, the issue of transparency and access go far beyond that, clued in the freedom of information act and so far, what you see is the most critical issue coming in with the new administration. >> first, thank you for inviting me. welcome to the college of journalism downtown bureau. i hope you had a chance to look around. were thrilled that you are here. i thought i would talk about two things, one, but i'm really anxious about. and one that i have a, thank god attitude toward when you're reporter dealing with media access involving the feds, other than following the president around in the white house and covering all of that, when you deal with the agencies and criminal justice matters, jeff sessions, be afraid, be very afraid. kevin and. kevin and i have both watched him for very long time. my eyes and popped out of my head when i saw that he was up for attorney general. his record as far as transparency goes is terrible. his attitude toward the media is irrationally bad. he is nasty and so for example he went out of his way i guess six years ago to try to shred effort to pass a federal shield ball was the obama administration and eric holder on record supporting. but he was on the senate judiciary committee and watching him and those judiciary committee meetings and watching the way he would get angry when there is an issue involving the media was really a wonder to behold. the other issue that came out when we're trying to get amendments to the federal foil last year he put a hold on it twice. >> those are the ones we know of and for you, which is actually the bright spot i wanted to mention to you, federal foia we were able with the help of your employers and colleagues and nonprofits another good government folks, we were able to get some amendments to it and try to follow along with me as i explain this. since 1970, the attorney general, however the incoming attorney general is when there's a change in presidents and parties, so they send out a memo interpreting the freedom of information act. saying that when you have an opportunity to make a discretionary lease, i want you to consideration these things when you release it. for example, when bill clinton took office, janet reno sent out a memo that said, memo that said, if you have the opportunity to make a discretionary release, release it unless you can see there is a foreseeable harm. george bush and john ashcroft came in and they flipped it. and they basically said, if you can come up with the reason particularly of privacy or national security reason to withhold something under discretionary release, withhold it. obama came in and on day one of his presidency said, went back to essentially the clinton standard. so all all of the agencies are required, were required to abide by this attorney general guideline on how to follow the federal freedom of information act. the career people would go back and forth like a yo-yo. what legislation, bipartisan legislation was introduced over the last several years and finally passed and signed by the president in the spring that makes the obama holder discretionary release standard, the for siebel harm one law. so that ashcroft cannot come in and just say no, were flipping it that sounds like it's deep in the weeds and difficult to follow. in more than a little bit wonky but it's really, really important. there were some other improvements made to foia at the time for example the office of government information services the national archives has a little bit more power. some of of the things we can talk about if you would like to. but, there also was an eric holder memo, the obama administration, remember it wasn't all that great when it came to dealing with media issues. obama went after more journalists and more so-called whistleblowers than any president in history and sucked journalists in with these folks that they were charging with espionage. in the summer of 2013, after thousand 13, after the media really went crazy over the orders for phone records from the ap and calling james rosen from fox alleging that he was a co-conspirator so they could get a warrant and get around the privacy protection act. so the media push back and holder came back with a member that's been tinkered with, they tinkered with the memo a couple of times but what we have got from older is essentially a guideline this is were not going to do that anymore, were not going to go after the media for doing their job. again, really important and there's been a lot written about it. what you need to understand is that the guideline, it's not a statute, and jeff, and jeff sessions could come in on day one and revoke the whole thing a lot of people who spent a lot of time working on this thing. it will just go out the window. i would not be shocked at all if that's exactly what he did. >> so kevin, give me a sense were talking ahead of time, what's your biggest worry or fear going into this new administration? >> all of it. it's funny because right where the sea was ending i'm thinking, our job as attorneys is largely to think of the worst case scenario that can happen and maybe work back from there. i love your optimism, i have some fears because i see a lot of things. unless. unless be clear, a lot of these fears are actually because you did say something else i was really relevant that i agree with, there certain presidents in place and a lot of those are negative two that were started in this administration and will be allowed to be built upon a fear by the next administration. i've done a lot of discussion with attorneys for media groups and trade associations, and just sort of so you understand my background, i don't just spend full time running the affairs of the national press foundation, we have a unbelievable staff who does that. i'm a chairman of the board and i'm a media attorney and i represent the american society of news editors and the association of news media. we do a lot of policy work included work on the foia bill and working with the white house correspondents association three years ago on the letter that complain basically to president obama about the lack of access that reporters and photographers were getting to white house events. and that is a precedent that i think the incoming president is going to want to take advantage of. restricting access, controlling the flow of information, and although it wasn't as apparent in the current administration, one way he will take that is if your access will become i'm not an essay pay to play but much more preferential. it will become access journalism a little bit more than accountability. the problem is that you don't have a lot of good ball to push back with. that is my big fear, there's not a lot of legal precedent when the president says, were going to have a meeting with the japanese prime minister and what you'll get is a handout photo that we want you to see but you won't see anything other than when we let you in the room when you have that handout photo and then we'll control who can be in the room because there's really somebody can people that we can fit in there. who's going to get that? maybe not the washington post, it remains to be seen. those are precedents that are very difficult to push down on legally because i think you're with the reporters committee when this happened at the state level here in maryland and maybe folks were working for cns or others remember when a reporter and the columnists from the baltimore sun were told you will not be let into any event, we don't have to let you into. we will not answer your phone calls. will answer your foyer request because the law mandates it. we will not give you anything else and they went to court and they lost. that's a precedent that his most recent in this area regarding coverage of an executive official. that should scare people. and why? because what you end up with and i know people don't want to go to this place, but i'll go there, you end up with propaganda. you do. you end up with a photo being given up that is what they want you to see. if someone wants test the question later i can get you some -- in one move. so i'm worried about access and retaliation and blackballing. on the legal side we do have precedent ground foia would be number one. there's a great body of law that we can use another area as my mentor and former boss once said the greatest thing this country of her producer is not necessarily the first amendment but an independent federal judiciary to uphold the first amendment. we will put our reliance on court. my fears media organizations do not have the money for the time to pursue foia cases in court like they used to. there we have the laws there but we need may not have the ability to press that law. that is just foia law. you mentioned a possible prosecution of journalists as co-conspirators. another thing i'm another thing i'm worried about is an early statement by the president that the president-elect that he may consider nondisclosure agreements for all government employees which has been standard within intelligence agencies but not others. with that cuts out the flow of information to you is reporters into the public. i think that would be an unbelievable way to control information if you want to. i'm not sure it's something we should be happy about. we talk about things like the anti- slap law. that's a way to get frivolous lawsuits kicked out of court and does the president elect like frivolous libel lawsuits? or that maybe his friends to her millionaires who want to bankroll attack on publications would be more emboldened to do so. and that brings me to my last point which is what really bothers me is a cultural change we may see. things that in prior years were completely off-limits and again i put my hope and faith that you are right and that they will respect the presidential pool, i put my hope and faith in the fact that the first amendment will stand up to all of this but what i think you'll start to see was a culture shift worse okay, it's okay to go after the media and disregard what they say, it's okay to sue them and it's embraced to sue them and physically threaten them. this all becomes, normalized and that is what i fear the most is that we have a massive culture change. i've heard from people about various things that have happened in government over the past eight years and i'm not going to say this administration has been great, they came in with this unbelievable statement, will be the most transparent administration in history. every said if they had one thing they could take back, i think that mine will be in the top 10. i think it was unattainable goal to me and they wished many times they had never set it. and they filled it many ways and a lot of regards. but there's a lot of things being done that i fear for. efforts to harness technology to put information out to the public in a proactive manner. look at -- which is a technology think tank, that was a real positive. and i'm not saying, i don't know if it's going well. you mentioned the office of government which is an independent overseer of foia what will their future independence be? what is the future of the open government partnership which created a metrics for our participation in our ability to lead on the world stage as a country committed to transparency? all of of these things were created and they were great. i don't know if you'll see extensions of them or improvement on the or other ideas that are similar. what i've heard about all of those that makes me worry for them in on him cannot say they're going away, i've every belief that they will still be in existence and i want them to be weak as they have created culture within government that i know people cannot quantify and cannot see but people have told me it matters throughout agencies. that's something i think you will see a flip phone thank you. a quick definition, he said the 18 office and gsa, was that? >> the general service administration is located at 18th and f street. so basically they build really cool stuff. to harness technology and put information up. i think it's think it's cool what they do their at that investment in technology is something i would love to see continue. >> you talked about jeff sessions. if someone asked me what that would mean for foia, i don't know if he cares. but when i saw that his attorney general was, got really scared. >> let me ask lucy, a little bit more about the foia reform legislation. , you talked about is a little bit, how does that actually get through congress of press really piece of legislation go through? >> there are quite a few members of congress on both sides of the aisle, foia truly is a bipartisan effort when it gets right down to it. and charles grassley is a big proponent of transparency. he uses those transparency loves himself. when he is chairing a committee like judiciary, he can push those things, pat, pat leahy has been a big supporter, darrell islip has been a big supporter and their motivation was to get information about obama out to the public so they want to transparency about what the democrats were doing. so there was bipartisan support to get it done. they did a few other things as part of it kevin was integrally involved in it. i talked talked about the presumption of disclosure and in strengthening the office, but they made foia a bit more more friendly by creating a portal that hopefully they will be creating a portal you can also argue that this would be the full implementation of the foia amendments of 1996 if they were to pull this off. they're going to be allowing requesters to ask for a document in one central place, though you don't have to be an expert on foia and sit down and say who would have that record. should be a lot more friendly. there's no reporting requirements for the agencies and what they have to report on, with their activities have been every year and probably the most controversial part of the amendment will be that they are keeping a log, they're supposed to be now taking the most frequently requested foia requests and once they fulfill them they'll be making them sequester them and make them available to other people so the next time someone asked for that you don't have to reinvent the wheel. the other thing they're going to do is publicly identify who the requesters are. so the question will be, are we going to come up with a little bit of a delay so so reporters can get their stories done? because there has been some reporter push back on that. i think anybody who has the time to go and scan all of the records to find out who has been requesting what, but i think on balance this is a good thing to reveal this information. >> so if i put in the foia that is automatically posted. >> theoretically be available through the portal and anybody else who came later could start there without filing a request. of course if your reporter you're going to worry that you're gonna get screwed by yourself. >> the identity of the requester >> so it's just a signed by the president and we know from other times that foia has been amended it takes time, but yes, to unwind this you would have to go back and get congress to change the law. >> i know this those who do your requests faster. >> unless you're asking for something someone else has asked for. the last time we amended foia there was some things done to improve that process. when it comes to the sheer volume of what some of the agencies have to respond to and the cost of it, no. federal foia has morphed into a gigantic being and it's difficult to wrestle it to the ground. i do not anticipate that was what used to take you three years to get will only take six months. i think think yours probably still at three years. . . the obama white house may use social media as a way to bypass the traditional press but they didn't cut out the press in terms of not doing any press conferences, and some of our excess feeds. i think the media has to adapt a little bit to social media but that's going to happen more with the incoming president for sure. i do think that if that pendulum swings all the way toward a trump administration or a president trumbo made using twitter or social media and completely bypassing the press consistently been do we asked news organization and members the white house correspondents association particular will have to have a discussion about our strategy for that. right now we are all supporting every single tweet and right now i think we have a responsibility to do that because that's how they present it lacked indicated it. if we don't get progress in our push for access to him and to members of his administration and other parts of his new white house then we will have to have a strategy to deal with that. >> basically discrediting everything they say regardless of what it was because they didn't like it. how else can we fight against that kind of thing? against tim discrediting everything we said because clearly his supporters resonate with that. >> i wish i had an easy answer to that question. i think at least part of the answer to that question is reporters have a responsibility to tell accurate stories and to put in accurate and full context and i think you are seeing that at least for many publications. the day the president-elect talked about millions of fraudulent voters having taken part in the election, many headline said millions without evidence. that is important and critical and factual content and journalists have responsibility to do that. the onus will be on us to continue doing that if that style of rhetoric continues in the white house. >> i have an interesting, well i think interesting thought on that which is gleaned from and prepping for this and another meeting i was having in discussing these issues with other media journalists i read a lot of articles and some more related to legal and some were related to how the pushback and one of the articles, can't remember it said visuals will be more important than anything else. i'm thinking to myself that goes back to the access question again. what is the one thing during the campaign that -- the most. the video, his own words so i think that's why the access matters. you can't stop them from tweeting. no one wants to stop them from tweeting. that would be an assault on the first amendment and the violations so -- saying you absolute cannot tweet. what is obviously going to get more press and groundswell for the media is facts over narrative will be sourced documents against foia, source documents, source video not he said she said back and forth. it's kind of putting everything out there. i think that's what controls the access of the videos. >> you mentioned the photos he talked about the issue of the meeting and handouts. we had an issue with that with this white house where the obama white house was relying too much on putting out official photos instead of allowing the pool or in particular still photographers and we were successfully got that process to change. the way you do that is through having community within the press corps and the decision not to use the handout. we tried that with the photo from the trump meeting and it worked partially. the washington press corps in the white house press corps was respectful of that decision not to use it but we didn't do i think a good enough job of getting that message across to our colleagues. the press there is more accustomed to using their own photos. once he gets out, it's out. the way i would wrap up that issue is the media and our news organizations we do have some power there and our power is staying unified, saying no we won't use those handouts and this has happened with the obama administration. the white house says we will let in just a few people from the pool if the whole pool says that we are not going in, we don't accept it if our colleagues and friends can go in and we don't accept it if we don't have a camera person. that sort of unity is very powerful and that's one of my goals this year and with the goal that we set in july before it won the election that press corps unity and press access would be two key criteria. >> kevin talked about the obama's and they wanted to be very transparent and how they came to regret those words words. to help you reportedly found access to the federal agencies and i'm insisting more and more if you are going to interview someone you have to have a mind are there in our organization when we recorded stories like that our policy is to mention in the story. i'm wondering if you can talk about that. >> some of the agencies particularly anything what was really prevalence was anything with science that was involved. the climate change people and the health care people. they were really sophisticated in the way that they were sitting on you guys. i would go into a lot more innocuous interviews, things that were so unbelievably routine in the past but they are going to try to pull something and i think the solution was a really good one. every time they do it say, we were not able to talk to the number one guy in the world on climate change without having a public relations person they are fitting everything he said. or staring them down. when asked a question so-and-so was glared at by a public relations. i think we have to do more of that, more particularly in the days of fake news and all of that. we have to be doing more explaining about our process. the one thing that we hopefully have as journalists is credibility and one way to get credibility would be more transparency about where you got the information verses these guys who were sitting in their basements making themselves up. hillary clinton had -- or something. i think a good word of advice would he i know it takes up space and i know it takes a time but mention that stuff. one thing you said, you were actually in the room. >> this is an something that started under obama. it's been going on for years. it's just something you need to be aware of and it's difficult. again representing asme when we get this letter we take issue with the wca in aca. he resulted in a meeting with jay carney and we talked about it but there was some follow-up. there was a lot of things that got peter daut after a while. on this issue, about a year ago december 2015 i was part of a small delegation representing the amd and also the society of environmental journalists about that particular issue. nothing really happened. they took the meeting they listened and we talked but it was a lot of talk and little action. i think that's standard for the administration in reality nothing really changes and there's not a lot you can do to change it. what you are doing is one thing. >> that also brings up the whole non-disclosure agreement. federal employees are theoretically going to be defined as intelligence agency employees. if that happens that will shut down access to a whole bunch of agencies to get news coverage. >> i just wondered what you think the purpose is of off the record meetings with the president-elect and how do you think that will play into the coverage? >> theauther rett -- the only off the record meeting that i can think of that as bob been publicized as with the tv networks. it's funny you mentioned that one because when i first saw that meeting was happening i was frustrated because of what i just shared with you about unity and i thought okay, here we go. the tv crews are going right in and we are not all on one page. the reporting of the results of that meeting date me feel like that's fine. maybe we didn't need to be in on that one because it was not a meeting about access release that was sent the main thrust of the meeting. it was more like an opportunity. sounds like it was more of opportunity for the president-elect vent against broadcast coverage that he did not find favorable. but to answer your question i guess i would say the way "the new york times" handled their meeting was terrific. having some off the record times within a principle that you are covering can sometimes be a guy able as long as it is done, as long as there is also a chance for an on the record piece. i can remember, i can remember it even in the 2008 campaign that being a topic when we were discussing the obama press corps about whether we were okay with him coming back to the back of the plate plane and chatting with reporters. there was only a day if he had already done or if he was also doing a press conference where we could ask on the record questions. i think that same principle applies here. will will we have some off the record meetings with his staff? we are working on access issues and preparing the way for white house coverage. yeah. they need to know that when they are sitting down with us that we are negotiating good faith and i'm not going to take everything i learned in that meeting and go out and write a really critical statement. that doesn't help me either but your question i don't think was about that. your question was more specifically having off the record meetings with the president-elect. i would say the balance of the two examples i can think of in the last couple of weeks are the television executives and anchors in "the new york times." i think the times example is the one that follows. >> we will start with james. >> this applies to covering trump is a whole. the people who do that, how do you kind of know about normalizing the routine in the way that they respect things like for example things that we are used to? for example on saturday they say in the morning we are done for the day but then it turns out they are not done for the day and we'll have to come back if they did warn them about it but yesterday afternoon they told me there was a lid on the day. i don't trust it at all in some people in the pool tell me that we need to start respecting it is if we come back and we trust their word that they, that's a way to normalize it. so i guess my question is kind of what is a responsible way to normalize this kind of routine of covering and not letting them walk all over the press. if we don't respect it then they won't respect it. c for anyone not familiar with the term lead, anyone not familiar with that term? that is the term we use at the end of the day when the white house, i'll use the white house as an example, the president is not going to do any other movements on or off campus that the press would cover it. to be more specific no event on campus that would be over press is not leaving. so i lived a sick he means you are free to go. your question is on the trumps ivana trump towers in particular should we or should we not respected when i call a lid to close there have been a handful of examples where they have called a lid and something as happen. >> they don't treat them the same way and should we? >> anything decides the term lead? >> i just think it's an example of how they do things in the future when it comes to nothing to see here. >> on that specific example i am not concerned and in fact i'm encouraged by reporters not necessarily taking their word for it about a lid. i don't say that to be critical of the trump folks. i think part of it is generally they are still the gearing it out, figuring out how we work, figuring out what their responsibilities are in the press. i know the one time that he went out for dinner in new york and did not bring the pool they had given a lid to the press and then everyone rightfully sort of freak out when they heard he had been out for dinner. she hadn't known he was going out for dinner. i don't know what the individual conversations were but if she said she did not take her at her word. they did fix fix it the next tie enough to get thing but when we get to the white house, when they get to the white house and the press corps is there calling a lid right now doesn't mean that all the reporters go home. it just means many cases the still photographers go home because they don't have anything else to photograph. maybe some of the folks who might accept a lid as standard at the beginning of the trump administration stay a little bit longer afterwards in case this happens. i would say that would probably be wise. i'm not ready to extrapolate the experience, the very unusual experience of transition at trump tower and applying all those lessons in what happened the white house. it's going to be a totally different environment. that said i'm not naïve and i don't think any of us should be naïve about the rest and about them respecting our traditions and respect in our vocabulary and terms like that. i think part of it will mean we have to be vigilant but i think in fairness we also have to make sure that they get a chance to get it and to explain what the standards are and what our part to his principles are. we are working on that. b i was wondering in being critical with the media at the idea non-disclosure agreements with government officials calling late in than going out is there precedent for this with these sorts of ideas in the past? >> i can think back to when bill clinton signed basically what would have been the u.s. version of britain's official secrets act in only a last-minute intervention through john podesta made him realize this is a really bad idea. he was ready to sign it. it seems like a good idea at the time and that would be a think one example. the mac in terms of other presidents that has happened. hasn't happened a lot and it hasn't been in the apples for apples comparison because they had a pool which we don't entirely have right now. we are mostly there but we are not all the way there. i can think of maybe two times with president obama and that was very unusual. i think there was one time and i have to have a sitdown with some of my colleagues who were there. i wasn't there for very long but colleagues of mine said it happened once in hawaii and i do remember there being at least one time in washington where he went out to get a sandwich or something like that and they had probably declared a lid and he changed his mind and want to go somewhere. that may have been a poor choice by someone lower down on the lid i'm not sure. i honestly don't remember. and in both cases it's always from the press point of view egregious so we would have a check did no doubt. i wasn't on the board but i'm sure the lord did. there wasn't sort of a systematic effort to this pool certainly end of this administration. that doesn't mean we have gotten everything we have wanted and from my view there has been an alarming decrease in the number of pool summits that we cover with the president which is not entirely something that the white house has control over but it's an issue we can deal with. so i guess that was a longer answer than i meant to give. in some press corps as it happens occasionally but there's not a widespread problem that a to and use this precedent. >> a quick follow-up and i will go to you. your november 16 press pool at the new york dinner talk about it was breaking with decades of precedent. when did the press cool come into fact and how long is that history been there? >> while the press pool has had various iterations for decades. everyone can remember that there was a pooled their with john f. kennedy when he was shot. it wasn't the same number of journalists that we have now on the pool and there were communications and there were some fascinating stories about the two wire reporters and the upi guy holding onto the phone and keeping a peep from getting the news out. that is not a press corps issue that we have anymore because we all have the east. but it dates back at least until then. i can give you the details of a specific rundown of details. maybe somebody else can. >> we are talking 75 or 80 years in some form or another. >> i'm a former fellow. i guess i have two questions and maybe three. i do want you to go from kanye to trump in a minute but as -- can you also talk about libel. the president-elect wants to open up a libel and is there a possibility that happening in how that can impact what we do have broadly speaking to all of you and you touched on it as well, give us your perception of this era of false news and false statements. a tweet about illegal votes and we wrote the story saying yes the president-elect has evidence yet still it was yesterday we saw incoming chief of staff on that point. yes we are writing the stories but how much of it is really sinking in? >> i want to actually say that i think it's a bit of a red herring like they have flagged wording issue was other than to say that again it gives credibility to others. they can't criminalize flag burning themselves. i feel like allen iversen here. are we really talking about flight burning? this is insane. you did a lot more of the libel laws than i ever did. you have a much better perspective on that. >> you know he just can't really do anything and as he said in "the new york times" someone pointed out to me that i couldn't -- myself because of things i have said in the past. yeah. [laughter] so libel is a state towards. it is a state action even when you have the libel case that isn't a need in federal court. you are still relying on state statutes and state common law. so you would have to influence about half the local court judges in the country to make any impact on this whatsoever. i'm not worried about the libel law. every once in a while people raise the actual malice standard issue. that is the standard that was created in 1964 and "the new york times" verses sullivan case where for the first time they applied federal constitutional law to a libel case and where they said in the instance of a public official and then later a public figure, the plaintiff will have to prove that the statement was made knowing it was false or was wrecked was with regard as to whether or not it's true or false. i imagine mr. chavez a litigant find that annoying, but you know you would have to in four years pull off something. let's assume for the sake of argument right now for years we have a sea change in the way libel law is operated throughout the entire country. it doesn't work that way. it just doesn't. so he can talk about all he wants but it kind of shows ignorance. >> the thing for me is we were making little progress on the proposal. i was going to be useful for people who were sued. it's a defense that can be used by a person that speaks out on the matter public interest. many of these suits are a defamation lawsuit. just under 30 states in the country may or may not apply in federal courts allow you to accelerate the simple process and sometimes get your own damages which is unusual under u.s. law. defendants do not get these attorneys fees paid for very often and this would allow that to happen. it's a great thing for people who are suits just to shut them up. i'm not sure they would sign that bill under congress. >> i'm. confident he would not. i think if it had gotten to obama he probably would have. but 30 states are to have the statues to what it would do really is give those protections to the other 20 states and allow defendants to get rid of the case as early. california probably has the best function, really strong. it works really, really well. >> also some of the statements coming from the president-elect. i talked about this earlier today. i think there is a responsibility from both news journalists consumers of news and public officials who work covered, to be clear about what is actual news and what is not and we certainly saw over the weekend the potential consequences and ramifications of a fake news story being taken as seriously as this was, which was awful. .. sources in the stories and to read critically journalists obviously have a responsibility there but it has to be shared by public officials. >> last week stamford released a study that showed 80% of high school seniors i think it was high school seniors were not able to identify it true stories versus false stories. they have a massive education campaign to figure out how to teach media literacy to everybody. there's some foundations and other nonprofits that teach 400 students a year we have a very popular media literacy class but there are ways to learn how to read something. the problem with anyone under the age of 30 is they are more likely to believe things they see on the screen. there are ways you can learn how to read something on the screen. talk to a fact checker. they have a way they describe it as they've read things horizontally where most people will read a story vertically. but a fact checker goes and looks at it holistically and we just have to teach people how to do that themselves. >> one minute and then we will go to chris and michael. >> in these instances what we have seen in the last ten years is a change in the reliance on the recovery with regards to meeting to bypass you, officials can, entertainers can. they've worked hard on making sure the credentials you get in sure that you don't give up too much and that's what this is all about. so you go to a concert like the one a couple weeks ago and the credentials say when you have to turn off your phone and everything else. usuallusually this is after thet two songs. we saw what happened he went on a rant and basically went off the stage. there were people there with smartphones. do you know where there will be people without smartphones is in an oval office and that matters. what happens with trump in the moment the white house press and photographers walk out of the room and go off message on the prime minister of japan. do you think whoever is his successor will show a picture of the president doing that, talking down to the japanese prime minister, i don't know but i doubt it. that's why this matters. that is the case you make about why the access matters. [laughter] >> [inaudible] himself in the briefing room every day what's your position? >> that's a great question, chris. i will not hide my frustration with the former press secretaries advocating against having daily briefings or criticizing the mainstream media using them as a vehicle for doing that. i find that frustrating. but i don't have any intel about that. i haven't had a conversation about the plans for daily briefings. i think right now, they are not thinking that far in advance because they haven't identified through the press secretary is going to be yet and i think once they have at least a structure for the white house press team, that will be the time to have some of the conversations about how you envision the day by day operation buildings. i don't think anybody in the white house press corps would support getting rid of briefings. obviously we wouldn't. there is room for reform of some kind of a new president wants to add a gaggle instead of a briefing here or there and make it shorter sometimes. there might be many in the press who would applaud that. i myself that the white house correspondents association generally are not engaging in speculation about it because we haven't gotten any intel from them. there'll be half as outsiders who are either trying to get influence were trying to get clicks on the story and blow things up in the air. >> i would also add one thing to what kevin said. i'm not sure that president obama if he went off script with the leader we wouldn't see that either. we have to be clear based on the experience of the campaign they have a reason to have concerns about the administration and access issues. that said, we have many of the concerns already and many of them regardless who have won. >> i've been making that same argument. this will have to be the last question. >> politicians are bypassing the media. but there are two trends going on. and it's pretty widespread that the traditional press is a liberal establishment and i wonder how you see those playing out a. >> run that by me again. the proliferation of the more ideological news organizations at the time that the public pics organizations that may not think of themselves and who's getting access. >> the short answer is i don't know. my guess is i can see some comparisons between kind of a geographic connection and what i mean by that is fine president obama won the election, there were more interested in the empire and the white house press corps. is it possible after, but there will be more conservative leaning news organizations that will start covering the white house on a daily basis and perhaps get encouragement to do so? what we have control over in the white house association is our standards for evidence wouldn't apply to the same standards regardless of the organization and affiliation. we are a natural association that represents a diverse press corps so we can obviously instruct the members on how or what to report that we have a certain standard for membership in the pool that gets access regardless of. -- drawn to the more ideological outlets and does that continue to increase this polarization, do you see a remedy to that or what direction do you think that trend line is moving? >> you are absolutely right and again the only thing you can do also. we have to somehow teach them what they are doing and where these sources of information are coming from. >> i want to thank all of the panelists very much. [applause] that's it for this afternoon. we are moving up for a recession so i want to thank everyone who came out and think very much. >> tell us a little bit about your documentary. >> my partner and i produced this in orange county california. we decided that having family or anyone care for them was not okay so we decided we are going to talk about this issue in our community and we decided to make a documentary about it. i encourage juniors in high school or middle school there io use this platform to raise your voice and say your generation deserves to be heard and i think my advice for the students on the fence is to look into the community and see what is affecting those around you because those are the ones you love and you'v you far with evey so there is an issue that you see happen every day on the streets that's probably where you can start a. >> thank you for all of your advice and if you want more information go to the website student cam.org the cochairs sat down with the moderators to lessons learned and they also looked at potential changes on how future debates are suc