Medill/USA TODAY investigation of U.S. international food aid programs finds significant, entrenched problems

EVANSTON, Ill — The U.S. food aid program, which works to help starving and malnourished people worldwide, is wasteful and suffers from serious and widespread problems that undermine aid for potentially millions of would-be recipients, according to a three-month investigation … Continue reading →

Honoring Medill grad James Foley – and the kind of journalism he championed

After seeing confirmation that James Foley has been murdered at the hands of the barbaric terrorist group Islamic State, I have been struggling to find the right words to say – besides the obvious, which is to tell my students and fellow … Continue reading →

An eye-opening report on the impact of U.S. surveillance on reporters, law and democracy

Two influential advocacy organizations have issued a must-read report on how large-scale U.S. surveillance is not only harming journalism and the public’s right to know, but also undermining the rule of law by creating a chilling effect on lawyers trying to do their jobs in the national security realm.

That’s quite a strong and sweeping statement, but the 120-page report by Human Rights Watch and the American Civil Liberties Union backs it up in great detail, including interviews with more than 90 journalists, lawyers and both current and former government officials.

The joint report, released today (July 28), is titled, “With Liberty to Monitor All: How Large-Scale US Surveillance is Harming Journalism, Law, and American Democracy.”
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‘We are all Jim Risen’

This past weekend, more than 1,500 investigative reporters from around the world descended on San Francisco to attend the annual conference of Investigative Reporters and Editors and hear from the best and the brightest about how to get better at their craft – including national security journalism.

Some may have gotten more than they expected from the keynote speaker, Lowell Bergman, including those who run IRE, the world’s largest grassroots organization for accountability journalism. (I’m on the IRE Board of Directors).

That’s because Bergman, one of the best muckrakers of his – or any – generation, took us in the media to task for not doing more to help investigative reporters over the years. Without quibbling over out differences about what IRE has done for investigative reporting, and investigative reporters, I think Bergman made a lot of good and important points that are worth sharing with a wider audience. Continue reading →

NYT’s Risen, facing jail: ‘I will continue to fight’

Now that the U.S. Supreme Court has denied an appeal by The New York Times’ James Risen, the Pulitzer Prize-winning national security reporter could go to jail sometime soon for refusing to identify a confidential source.

After Monday’s Supreme Court rejection, Risen said, as he has many times before, that he’s sticking with his decision to battle a subpoena – and possibly see the inside of a jail cell – rather than give up a source

“I will continue to fight,” Risen said in an interview with the Medill National Security Journalism Initiative on Monday afternoon.

Now that we’ve heard from Risen, it’s time to hear from another key player in the saga: Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr.
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Background briefing on sources and secrets

By JOSH MEYER Below is an unabridged version of a backround brief for which I did extensive resarch on behalf of participants of the March 21, 2014 symposium, Sources & Secrets, which will be a gathering of top journalists, national … Continue reading →

NSJI’s Josh Meyer discusses Snowden on KCRW

Josh Meyer of the Medill National Security Journalism Initiative discusses the latest developments in the Edward Snowden story with KCRW’s “To the Point” host Warren Olney on Dec. 16, 2013. MixCloud Podcast Nsji-meyer-kcrw-snowden-12-17-2013 by Medill National Security Zone on Mixcloud

New drone reports raise important questions about what the government — and the media — are doing

Two of the most credible advocacy organizations have just raised the stakes considerably in the drone wars controversy, contending that American airstrikes in Pakistan and Yemen have killed and injured many more innocent civilians than the U.S. government has acknowledged.

And Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch go even further in their respective reports (read them here and here), alleging that many of the attacks may have been illegal, and perhaps even war crimes.

In some cases, they contend, the US drone strikes and other airstrikes killed many suspected militants when capturing them was a feasible option, or when it wasn’t clear if civilians could be killed along with them. The result: women, children and even a 68-year-old grandmother gathering vegetables in the family fields were killed by powerful missiles fired from pilotless aircraft. Continue reading →

An unprecedented look at press freedoms — or lack thereof — right here in the United States

After decades of turning its critical eye to the lack of press freedoms in other countries, the renowned Committee to Protect Journalists today releases its first comprehensive report on working conditions in the United States — and it’s quite damning.

Essentially, just when you thought the Obama administration’s “war on national security reporters” couldn’t get any worse, CPJ comes along and describes in detail how the situation is actually far more dire than one might imagine.

The “CPJ Special Report” was authored by Leonard Downie, Jr., the former top editor of the Washington Post, and it is as important as it is scathing. Downie’s report is being released today and, while long,  it’s worth reading in its entirety — not just by reporters but by the public and certainly by lawmakers and other observers of the growing security state here in Washington.
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A depressing but important look at the war on national security reporting

Veteran intel journalist Jeff Stein has an excellent and very comprehensive report about how dangerous it is to be a national security journalist these days, and it’s worth highlighting (and condensing with some of the best links).

Stein, who writes the SpyTalk blog and has written for The Washington Post and other media outlets, interviewed an impressive number of working journalists, media experts, lawyers and others for the Computing Now piece. He uses those interviews to show how the prosecutorial war being waged by the Bush and Obama administrations against reporters is actually worse than the general public knows.

When Stein joined The Post in 2010, the situation was already bad enough for an in-house lawyer to tell new hires to not write anything down that they didn’t want the government to see. “Not in your notes, and certainly not in emails,” he quotes the lawyer as saying. “Give your sources code names. Avoid talking about anything sensitive on the phone.” Continue reading →