Our first day of meetings was a success! After a slight mishap with the subway, we arrived at Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) and met with Carlos Martinez de la Serna, Program director, Chief Strategist of Regional Programs and part of CPJ’s senior management team. During our time together, we spoke about many of the harsh realities endangering journalists today, especially since the world stepped into in the “fake news” era. “We basically use the tools of journalism to protect journalism,” de la Serna said. CPJ recently teamed up with the Freedom of the Press Foundation to launch the United States Press Freedom Tracker, a website “brings together more than two dozen press freedom advocacy groups to create a centralized repository for research,” (Freedom Press Tracker). According to the site, in 2018, eleven journalists were arrested, 42 were attacked, five were killed, and 21 were subpoenaed in the United States alone. The United States has long been a standing symbol of press freedom, however in 2018, the United States was named one of the deadliest countries for journalists, according to Forbes.
After CPJ, we headed over to The Daily Beast where we met with Noah Shachtman, Editor in Chief. The Daily Beast is known for having a “no fucks attitude” and delivers its content solely through digital platforms. By reading The Daily Beast, it is evident that their word differs from most major news publications who go to extensive measures to ensure they don’t appear biased. Shachtman’s view of how journalists should act is a bit unusual in the field, “I don’t think journalists have to be unbiased. What they have to be is fair.”
Brian Stelter, host of “Reliable Sources” on CNN, was our next stop. As someone who reports on media, Stelter makes sure to be on top of his game and connected at all times, even prescheduling tweets before our meeting started. Journalism is something that affects peoples’ daily lives, Stelter noted, and fragmentation in the national news affects who audiences trust. Stelter’s personal belief is that journalists should always be “adversarial” in regard to the government. Furthermore, Stelter sees CNN’s lawsuit against Trump as “uplifting” because it shows the system of checks and balances and the importance of the fourth estate (the press). Stelter also highlighted the importance of accuracy in a world where people expect accurate and instant reporting on news, “They won’t remember if you are five minutes late to a story. They will remember if you are five miles wrong.”
After our final meeting, we had time to grab lunch before heading over to today’s filming of the Daily Show with Trevor Noah. What was perhaps the most exciting part of the show, aside from getting called out by the warm-up comedian, was Trevor Noah’s guest – Malala Yousafzai, a Pakistani young woman who is an advocate for the female education and a human rights activist. Yousafzai was there to speak about her most recent book, “We are Displaced.”
Hannah Montgomery 