2022年6月7日
加利福尼亚州洛杉矶
先驱观察家报大楼（Herald Examiner Building）
布林肯国务卿：非常感谢大家。各位晚上好，来到洛杉矶非常好，特别是来到这座不同凡响的大楼。我要首先表示感谢，非常感谢你们，亚利桑那州立大学的克朗凯特新闻学院（Cronkite School of Journalism）、南加州大学安纳伯格新闻学院（Annenberg School of Journalism）以及艾奎斯研究机构（Equis Institute），感谢你们与我们合作共同举办这次活动；而且，同样重要——甚至更重要的是——感谢他们在提倡独立新闻工作和公民参与中的领导作用，以及培训新生代媒体专业人员。
对远程来到洛杉矶的来自西半球各地的新闻工作者和公民社会领袖们：欢迎你们。我们非常感谢你们的到来——而且特别感谢你们每一天都在从事的至关重要的工作。
最后，对于在座的所有新闻学院的学生们，你们所走的道路令我们感到振奋。现在我这么说多少有一点权威性，因为我曾经是一名有抱负的新闻工作者。在我这个年纪，当我短暂从事这一职业时，我用过的是一种叫做打字机的东西。你们可以查查看。你们能在因特网上找到它。但听听一个从未完全实现这一抱负的人的话——这是一条有挑战性的道路。我想你们已经知道这一点了。但在这里看到崭露头角的新闻工作者令我感到无比振奋，而且我非常期待阅读你们的署名文章，并在今后的岁月里在媒体报道中听到并看到你们。
从明天开始，第九届美洲国家峰会将汇集来自我们这个半球的政府、公民社会、年轻人、私营部门和公民，以探讨我们如何能够共同解决我们的社会所面临的根本问题，并更好地为我们的人民服务。这就是我们为自己设定的使命。
在西半球的每一个国家，对于我们希望实现的每一个目标，针对影响着我们人民生活的每一个问题，一个自由、独立的新闻媒体都是必不可少的。
我们从西半球及全世界各地的新闻报道中看到了这一点——其中包括今天在座的一些人士的报道——不论是深入报道最艰巨的议题，例如腐败或安全部门的滥权；还是提升基层领袖寻求解决种种复杂问题的方案的报道，例如有关小岛国中的青年活动家帮助自己的社区因应气候变化造成的海平面上升及其他变化的报道。
对这些问题进行报道显示出一个自由、独立的新闻媒体是健康的民主机制的名副其实的基石。其核心是一种理念，这种理念认为准确的信息是一种公益品——有助于人们了解打造他们的生活的事件和作用力；凸显他们可能无法看到的问题和解决方案；而且，最根本的是，赋予公民以有意义的方式参与他们的社区、他们的国家及整个世界的权能。在民主国家中，我们往往期待媒体来提供这种公益品。
这也是像我们这样的政府应当公开接受审视的重要意义的原因所在，公开接受媒体的提问——尽管有时这不是一件最让人舒心的事。你们也可以听听我的这番话。
当我有幸就任国务卿时，我首先从事的工作之一是恢复国务院的每日例行记者会。我们的发言人，内德·普赖斯（Ned Price），今天也在座。正因为如此，每当我访问世界各地，我都要专门举行新闻记者会，接受当地媒体以及一些随同我们到世界各地访问的媒体同事的提问。也正因为如此，我将在讲话结束后接受你们的提问。
然而今天，我们看到行使表达自由的权利，包括新闻自由在内，在我们自己这个半球以及世界各地都面临着重大挑战。这些挑战，若不予以应对，有可能威胁我们的民主体制的根基。
因此，我在现有的这段时间里想要做的是强调指出我们看到的其中的三项挑战，以及美国正在——协同新闻工作者、媒体组织、非政府组织、多边组织、慈善机构、私营部门和其他政府——我们所有人正在为应对它们而进行哪些努力。
第一项挑战——对任何人都不是新闻——是虚假信息。今天很多发言的人士都重点谈到了有关政府和非国家行为者如何利用我们的媒体生态系统中的薄弱环节来制造、传播或放大虚假的或误导性的信息。我们已经看到这些虚假信息如何导致社区两极分化、毒害公共领域并损害民众对卫生系统、政府机构和民主本身的信任。
今天，美国将启动美洲数字通信网络（Digital Communication Network of the Americas）的第一个中心。自数字通信网络于2015年创立起来，我们已经切实帮助建立起一个由全世界8000多名新闻工作者、教育者、传媒人士和新媒体专业人士、公共官员以及其他人士组成的网络，他们正在努力抗击得到国家支持的虚假信息和宣传。
这个网络通过开发并分享基于实证的工具来帮助当地从业人员为民众提供准确的信息，并以此从事这项工作。
以这场疫情为例。我们已经看到有关政府及其他行为者蓄意散布有关新冠疫情的起源、传染情况和治疗方式的虚假言论，试图煽动恐慌并散布怀疑，包括针对安全有效的疫苗，以削弱对民主本身的信任——包括有意地针对这个地区的西班牙语社交媒体。
虚假信息在网上的传播及其广度十分惊人。一项衡量在疫情的90天期间的社交媒体流量的研究发现，世界卫生组织的新冠疫情网站的全部社交媒体参与数量只有25000，而相比之下，一条谎称新冠病毒是一种从加拿大窃取的生物武器的虚假信息就有210万点击量——百万点击量。再说一下，这是不实的。
为了对此做出回应，数字通信网络汇集了从事调查报道的新闻记者、数据科学家和公共卫生官员以分享有效力的方略，在社交媒体上发布有关新冠疫情的准确信息并揭穿害人的谬论。
数字通信网络的实力在于这个得到创建的网络的多样性和扁平性。它不试图规定一种单一解决方案，而是为参与者提供便利，让他们从各自的应对措施中相互学习——不论是通过网络研讨会或培训、在线学习中心或研究交流，乃至游戏和应用程序。这个新的美洲中心将与数字通信网络在非洲和欧洲设立的中心相辅相成，进一步扩展我们的合作伙伴网络，以及他们提出的创意。
即便在我们采取步骤抗击虚假信息之时，我们也必须时时警惕给予政府过于宽泛的权力，这类措施以刑事处罚、审查或其他手段来压制表达自由，正如我们在一些政府所通过的一连串的所谓“假新闻”法规中看到的，其中一些被滥用于骚扰或关押从事政府不喜欢的批评性报道的新闻工作者。
由此我要谈谈第二项挑战：整个地区的媒体从业人员所面临的持续存在的威胁、骚扰和暴力。
你们都了解这一点，因为你们很多人正在亲身经历这些。
据联合国教科文组织遇害记者观察站（UNESCO observatory of killed journalists）统计，今年在这个半球至少有17名新闻记者遭到杀害，其中包括——最近——于5月9日在墨西哥韦拉克鲁斯（Veracruz）遭到枪杀的El Veraz新闻网站的负责人耶塞尼亚·莫利内多（Yesenia Mollinedo）和记者希拉·约翰娜·加西亚（Sheila Johana Garcia）。
对于新闻工作者而言，全世界没有哪一个地区更具危险性。
这类罪行不断发生，在很大程度上是由于那些下令者及执行者极少被追究罪责。这发出的信息是，这些袭击可以继续下去并能逍遥法外。
进行镇压的官员们还利用新技术来监视新闻记者并监控他们的私人通讯——而这恰恰正是通过不懈的跟踪报道工作曝光的。
有关政府正在利用全面打击的立法来压制自由表述，正如我们在萨尔瓦多最近于今年三月和四月通过的一系列修正案中所看到的。
在古巴、尼加拉瓜和委内瑞拉，仅仅从事调查性新闻报道就构成了犯罪。
在尼加拉瓜，新闻工作者及政治反对派候选人米格尔·莫拉（Miguel Mora）和米格尔·门多萨（Miguel Mendoza），以及报纸发行人胡安·洛伦佐·霍尔曼（Juan Lorenzo Holmann）目前正遭到不公正的关押，他们此前在缺少基本的正当程序的庭审中被依据侵权性的立法判刑。数十名独立新闻工作者由于遭受迫害和威胁已逃离该国，其中包括本周和我们共同参加峰会的阿尼巴尔·托鲁诺（Anibal Toruno）、路易斯·查瓦里亚·加莱亚诺（Luis Chavarria Galeano）和杰克逊·奥罗斯科（Jackson Orozco）。
在古巴，独立新闻工作者遭受系统性的侵害，其中包括连续数日乃至数周地遭到软禁、殴打及被迫流亡。
当新闻工作者个人遭到攻击时，当他们遭到迫害时，当他们被关押时，以及当他们遭受其他任何方式的打击时，这种寒蝉效应所波及的远远不止是直接受害的个人。有时这可能导致一家刊物被关闭。还有些时候，这可能导致其他记者自我审查，或彻底离开这个行业。
因此，以下是我们为此而进行的一些努力。
美国正在同整个地区共同努力增强法治，投入于培训法官和检察官来调查并起诉这类攻击行径，以及那些针对人权卫士及其他公民社会领导人的攻击行径。
针对攻击新闻记者的行径，我们始终公开地大声疾呼，在每个国家，以及在公开和不公开的场合。我们在我们的年度人权报告中记录有关政府试图限制表达自由的行径。
我们在深化与全球维护言论自由和记者安全的多边机构的接触，运用我们在桌边的席位努力使它们更加有效。美国返回这些国际机构的重要原因之一，就是能够在这些场合发挥一些领导作用。我们将支持新机构解决新出现的威胁。
我们非常骄傲地加入新的美洲国家组织言论自由和新闻业之友集团（OAS Group of Friends of Freedom of Expression and Journalism），并且欢迎创建美洲国家组织新的媒体诚信中心（Center for Media Integrity）。路易斯，感谢你在这方面的领导作用。这是非常、非常重要的。我们还在深化与媒体自由联盟（Media Freedom Coalition）的关系。
我们也在做一些非常实际的工作，希望能够带来改变。例如，为面临骚扰威胁的新闻工作者提供更多支持。美国国际发展署（USAID）将提供多达900万美元，支持全球性的保护记者防范诽谤基金（Defamation Defense Fund for Journalists），该基金为受到不公正诉讼的新闻工作者和新闻机构提供费用保险。起诉记者是压制性政府采用的手段之一，试图通过利用和扭曲法律，对记者提出他们无经济能力抗辩的诉讼而对他们进行惩罚。我们将确保让他们有能力为自己辩护。
国务院正在投入多达350万美元，启动一个保护记者平台（Journalism Protection Platform），为处境危险的媒体专业人员提供人身安全和数字安全培训、社会心理关怀，以及在他们受到这样或那样形式的攻击时给予其他协助。
第三，我们正在努力增强独立媒体的可持续能力。明了地说：如果越来越多的媒体因为无法找到可行的经营模式而关闭，我们就不会有生机蓬勃的独立的新闻业。
美国正在与商业团体和私人行业协作，帮助独立媒体具有更好的财务持续力。我们在向面临风险的媒体提供直接金融援助。我们已经承诺向国际公共利益媒体基金（International Fund for Public Interest Media）提供3000万美元——该基金将着重帮助在缺少资源和环境不稳定的条件下运作的媒体，并且为加强独立媒体机构的财务可行性提供500万美元。
我们也在鼓励其他国家采取同样的支持方式。如你们一些人所知，我们举行了一次民主峰会（Summit for Democracy），由拜登总统去年主持召开。峰会聚焦的主要方面之一，就是要共同找到为独立媒体提供支持的途径。
我个人认为，很难有比投资于我们的民主机制更明智的投资——鉴于我们这个地区的新闻工作者正在进行极其勇敢和富有创意的工作。
例如像凯瑟琳·卡尔德隆（Catherine Calderon）这样的新闻工作者。我想你们当中许多人也许今天早些时候听到了她的讲话。2015年，她是一位活动人士。她帮助组织了在洪都拉斯的反腐败示威活动。她与报道这些抗议活动的记者珍妮弗·阿维拉（Jennifer Avila）一再相遇。她们交谈得越多，就越是发现了一个同样的缺陷：虽然洪都拉斯人在日常生活中饱受腐败之害，但却没有任何媒体机构对这个问题进行独立的大力报道。
这当然不是偶然的。多少年来，力图记录腐败问题的洪都拉斯活动人士和记者——尤其是女性——遭到了迫使她们噤声的骚扰、威胁、歧视和暴力。
因此，凯瑟琳和珍妮弗决定成立一个媒体机构，弥补这个缺陷，名称叫做Contracorriente，意思是反潮流。从2015年以来，反潮流（Counter Current）机构蓬勃发展。它揭露了政府、军方、警方最高层的腐败，并导致一些著名人物辞职和甚至受到起诉。凯瑟琳在回顾成立反潮流时说，“我感到现在比任何时候都更有必要。我们必须存在……让我们有一个能够从事新闻业的空间……而不被噤声”。
这对于西半球各地的自由、独立媒体也是一样：它必须存在，现在比任何时候都必须存在，为了我们人民的福祉，我们社区的福祉，我们民主社会的福祉。
美国致力于做一个不仅保护这个空间而且扩大这个空间的合作伙伴。非常感谢。（掌声）
 
欲查看原稿内容: https://www.state.gov/secretary-antony-j-blinken-panel-discussion-at-the-media-summit-of-americas-session-a-commitment-to-journalistic-freedom/
本译文仅供参考，只有英文原稿才可以被视为权威资料来源。

Secretary Antony J. Blinken Panel Discussion at the Media Summit of Americas Session: “A Commitment to Journalistic Freedom”

REMARKS
ANTONY J. BLINKEN, SECRETARY OF STATE
HERALD EXAMINER BUILDING
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA
JUNE 7, 2022
SECRETARY BLINKEN:  Thank you very much.  Well, good evening, everyone, and it is wonderful to be in Los Angeles, and particularly wonderful to be here in this extraordinary building.  And I want to start by saying thank you, thank you, thank you to Arizona State’s Cronkite School of Journalism, to USC’s Annenberg School of Journalism, to the Equis Institute, for partnering with us and putting this event together; and also, as important – more important, even – for their leadership in promoting independent journalism and civic participation, and for training rising generations of media professionals.
To the journalists and civil society leaders from across the hemisphere who made the journey to Los Angeles: welcome.  We’re so grateful to have you here – and especially grateful for the crucial work that you do every single day.
Finally, to any of the J-school students in the audience, we are heartened by the path that you’re taking.  Now, I say that with some degree of modest authority, as a one-time aspiring journalist myself.  Now, I’m old enough that when I briefly practiced the profession, I did it on something called a typewriter.  You can look it up.  You’ll find it somewhere on the internet.  But take it from someone who never fully realized that aspiration – it is a challenging path.  I suspect you know that already.  But I couldn’t be more inspired to see rising journalists here, and I’m really looking forward to reading your bylines and hearing you and seeing you in the media over the years ahead.
So starting tomorrow, the Ninth Summit of the Americas is going to bring together governments, civil society, youth, the private sector, and citizens from across our hemisphere to try to see how, together, we can tackle the fundamental problems that our societies face and do a better job at delivering for our people.  That is the mission that we set for ourselves.
In every country in the hemisphere, for every goal that we want to achieve, for every problem affecting the lives of our people, a free, independent press is essential.
We see that in the reporting around the hemisphere and the world – including by some people who are here today – whether that’s digging into the toughest topics, like corruption or abuses by security services; or lifting up the stories of grassroots leaders who are finding solutions to complex problems, like the youth activists in small island states who are helping their communities adapt to rising seas and other changes that are brought on by climate change.
Reporting on issues like these shows how a free, independent press is quite literally a cornerstone of healthy democracies.  And at its core is an idea, the idea that accurate information is a public good – one that helps people understand the events and forces shaping their lives; spotlights problems and solutions that they otherwise might not see; and, fundamentally, empowers citizens to engage meaningfully in their communities, their countries, and the world.  In democracies, we often look to the media to provide this public good.
It’s also the reason it’s so important that governments like ours are open to scrutiny, to questions from the media – even when occasionally it’s not the most comfortable thing to do.  And you can take that from me as well.
When I had the honor of becoming Secretary of State, one of the very first things I did was to reinstate the daily press briefing at the State Department.  And our spokesperson, Ned Price, is here with us today.  It’s why, wherever I travel around the world, I make a point of holding press conferences where I take questions from local media as well as with some of the media colleagues who travel with us around the world.  It’s why I’ll take questions from you when I get done with these remarks.
Yet today, we see that the right to freedom of expression, including freedom of the press, faces profound challenges in our own hemisphere and around the world.  Challenges that, if left unaddressed, could threaten the foundations of our democracies.
So what I’d like to do in this time that I have now is to highlight three of the challenges that we see, and what the United States is doing – together with journalists, media organizations, NGOs, multilateral organizations, philanthropies, the private sector, and other governments – what we’re all trying to do to tackle them.
The first challenge – this will not be news to anyone – is disinformation.  Many speakers today have highlighted how governments and non-state actors are seizing on vulnerabilities in our media ecosystem to create, to disseminate, to amplify false or misleading information.  We’ve seen how these falsehoods can polarize communities, poison the public square, undermine people’s trust in health systems, government institutions, in democracy itself.
Today, the United States is launching the first hub of the Digital Communication Network of the Americas.  Since creating the DCN in 2015, we’ve actually helped build a network of more than 8,000 journalists, educators, communicators and new media professionals, public officials and others around the world, who are working to combat state-sponsored disinformation and propaganda.
The network does this by developing and sharing evidence-based tools to help local actors provide people with accurate information.
Take one example, the pandemic.  We’ve seen governments and other actors intentionally spread false narratives about COVID-19’s origin, its transmission, and treatments in an effort to stoke fear, to sow doubt, including about safe and effective vaccines, to erode trust in democracy itself – including deliberately targeting Spanish-language social media in this region.
The spread, the reach of disinformation online is, quite simply, staggering.  One study that measured social media traffic over a 90-day period of the pandemic found that the entire World Health Organization COVID-19 site received only 25,000 social media engagements, compared to 2.1 million hits – million hits – for a single false story claiming that the coronavirus is a bioweapon stolen from Canada.  That’s wrong, by the way.
In response, DCN has connected investigative journalists, data scientists, public health officials to share effective strategies on disseminating accurate information about COVID-19 and debunking harmful myths on social media.
The strength of DCN is in the diversity and flatness of the network that’s been created.  It doesn’t try to prescribe one single solution, but what it does is it makes it easier for participants to learn from one another’s responses – whether through webinars or trainings, online learning hubs or research exchanges, even games and apps.  The new Americas chapter will complement DCN hubs in Africa and Europe, further broadening our network of partners and the ideas that they bring to the table.
Even as we take steps to counter disinformation, we have to always guard against measures that give governments overly broad powers to criminalize, to censor, or otherwise quash freedom of expression, as we’ve seen in the rash of so-called “fake news” laws passed by governments, some of which have been abused to harass or lock up journalists whose critical reporting the governments didn’t like.
This brings me to a second challenge: the ongoing threats, harassment, the violence faced by media workers across the region.
You all know this, because many of you are living it.
At least 17 journalists have been killed in this hemisphere in this year, according to the UNESCO observatory of killed journalists, including – most recently – Yesenia Mollinedo and Sheila Johana Garcia, the director and a reporter of the news website El Veraz, in Veracruz, Mexico, shot to death on May the 9th.
No region in the world is more dangerous for journalists.
Crimes like these persist in no small part because the people who order them and carry them out are so rarely held accountable.  That sends a message that these attacks can continue with impunity.
Repressive officials are also using new technologies to monitor journalists, to surveil their private communications – a practice unearthed, fittingly enough, through very dogged reporting.
Governments are using sweeping legislation to quash free expression, as we saw in the recent slate of amendments adopted by El Salvador in March and in April of this year.
In Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela, the simple act of carrying out investigative journalism is a crime.
In Nicaragua, journalists and political opposition candidates Miguel Mora and Miguel Mendoza, newspaper publisher Juan Lorenzo Holmann are currently unjustly imprisoned, after being sentenced under abusive legislation in trials that lacked basic due process.  Dozens of independent journalists have fled the country due to persecution and threats, including Anibal Toruno, Luis Chavarria Galeano, Jackson Orozco, who are with us this week at the summit.
In Cuba, independent journalists are subjected to systemic abuses, including house arrest for days, weeks at a time, beatings, forced exile.
When individual journalists are attacked, when they’re persecuted, when they’re imprisoned, when they’re targeted in any other way, the chilling effects reach far beyond the immediate victims.  Sometimes this can lead to the shuttering of a publication.  Other times, it can lead other reporters to self-censor or to leave the profession entirely.
So here’s some of the things that we’re trying to do about that.
The United States is working across the region to strengthen the rule of law, investing in training judges and prosecutors to investigate and prosecute such attacks, as well as those on human rights defenders and other civil society leaders.
We consistently speak up and speak out about attacks on journalists, in every country, in public and in private.  We document governments’ efforts to curtail freedom of expression in our annual human rights report.
We’re deepening our engagement with multilateral bodies that advocate for freedom of expression and the safety of journalists around the world, using our seat at the table to try to make them even more effective.  One of the reasons that it was so important for the United States to come back into these international organizations was to be able to assert some of this leadership at these tables.  And we’re helping to stand up new bodies to address emerging threats.
We’re very proud to join the new OAS Group of Friends of Freedom of Expression and Journalism and we welcome the creation of the OAS’s new Center for Media Integrity.  Luis, thank you for your leadership on this.  It’s very, very important.  And we’re deepening our engagement in the Media Freedom Coalition.
We’re also doing some very practical things that we hope will make a difference.  For example, increasing support for journalists who are facing threats of harassment.  USAID will provide up to $9 million to support a global Defamation Defense Fund for Journalists, which will offer liability coverage for journalists and news organizations targeted with unjust litigation.  This is one of the tools that repressive governments use.  They try to turn and distort the law against journalists by going after them with lawsuits that they can’t afford to defend.  We will help make sure that they can defend themselves.
The State Department is investing up to $3.5 million to launch a Journalism Protection Platform that will provide at-risk media professionals with physical and digital security training, psychosocial care, and other assistance when they are in one way or another under attack.
Third, we’re working to make independent media more sustainable.  Put simply: we will not have a vibrant, independent press if more and more outlets are shutting down because they can’t find a viable business model.
The United States is working with business groups, with the private sector, to help independent media become more financially sustainable.  We’re providing direct financial assistance to at-risk outlets.  We’ve committed $30 million to the International Fund for Public Interest Media, which will focus on assisting media in resource-poor and unstable settings, and $5 million to improve the financial viability of independent media outlets.
We’re also encouraging other countries to engage in similar means of support.  We had, as some of you know, a Summit for Democracy that President Biden convened last year.  One of the main areas of focus of the summit was finding ways collectively to provide support to independent media.
In my own judgment, it’s hard to think of a smarter investment in our democracies – given the incredibly brave and innovative work that journalists are doing throughout our region.
Journalists like Catherine Calderon, who many of you heard from, I think, earlier today.  Back in 2015, she was an activist.  She was helping to organize demonstrations against corruption in Honduras.  She kept running into Jennifer Avila, a journalist who was covering the protests.  The more they talked, the more they saw a similar gap: For all the ways Hondurans were hurt by corruption in their everyday lives, no media outlet was conducting independent, rigorous reporting on the problem.
That, of course, was no accident.  For years, Honduran activists and reporters who have tried to document corruption – and in particular, women – have been silenced through harassment, through threats, through discrimination, through violence.
So Catherine and Jennifer decided to launch a media outlet that would close that gap, and it was called Contracorriente, or counter current.  Since 2015, Counter Current has flourished.  It’s unearthed corruption at the highest levels of government, the military, the police, and it’s led to high-profile resignations and even prosecutions.  Reflecting on the founding of Counter Current, Catherine said, and I quote, “Now, more than ever, I feel it was necessary.  We had to exist…to be a space where we have the possibility of doing journalism…without being silent.”
The same is true for free, independent press across the hemisphere: It has to exist, now more than ever, for the well-being of our people, for the well-being of our communities, for the well-being of our democracies.
The United States is committed to being a partner not only in protecting this space but expanding it.  Thanks very much.  (Applause.)
QUESTION:  I want to know how you justify the invitation to Dr. Ariel Henry from Haiti when he is ruling with no mandate in contravention of the nation’s constitution, and then he’s been implicated in, I think you would admit, very serious crimes, including the murder of a Haitian journalist just this February by the Haitian police.
SECRETARY BLINKEN:  So we’ll have plenty of opportunity, I think, in the days ahead to talk about the summit, the participation in the summit, who’s here, who’s not.  In Haiti, we continue to work for a transition that leads to appropriate elections that are supported by all the Haitian people.  We continue to work to deal with gang violence that is afflicting the country and is doing terrible damage to the Haitian people.  We continue to work to try to find ways to support the Haitian people, who have borne more than their share of trouble in the last years, both human and naturally made.
So in all of these ways we’re working, including with partners in our hemisphere, to try to support the Haitian people.  But we want to see them have a truly representative government, and that goes down the path of getting to new elections in the coming time.
QUESTION:  But Prime Minister Henry is refusing to negotiate with civil society.  Again, he is actually governing with no constitutional mandate.  His government has been implicated in many different crimes, including potentially the murder of the past president.  You yourself have said in your speech here today and in previous statements that countries like Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua, that you mentioned are being excluded from the Summit of the Americas because you deem them to not be democratic.
But how can you use that as your justification when you have the so-called prime minister of Haiti, who is ruling under no sort of democratic mandate here, despite the fact that this is well-known in terms of the repression of journalists, the repression of protesters, and his previous involvement in the coup against President Aristide that The New York Times has at least alleged the United States Government was supportive of?
SECRETARY BLINKEN:  Again, we, like many other countries, are determined to get into the facts of what happened in Haiti, including the assassination of the previous prime minister.  We’re determined to find the facts wherever they lead and to whomever they lead.
QUESTION:  What about (inaudible)?
MS THOMAS:  Okay, and now – well, now we would like to get started on our conversation that we have planned here today.
SECRETARY BLINKEN:  I —
MS THOMAS:  Yes, I’m excited to get started on this, and I think everyone will enjoy it as well.
QUESTION:  (Off-mike.)
MS BAIETTO:  And we’ll have more time, of course, to answer these questions after the discussion that —
SECRETARY BLINKEN:  We’ll be happy to follow up with these questions.
MS THOMAS:  For sure.
SECRETARY BLINKEN:  Thank you.
QUESTION:  But Secretary Blinken, what about Shireen Abu Akleh —
MODERATOR:  Thank you, all.  We really want our panel (inaudible).
QUESTION:  — who was murdered by Israeli forces, right?  CNN just agreed to this.  These are your two greatest allies in the Middle East, Saudi Arabia and Israel.
SECRETARY BLINKEN:  Again —
QUESTION:  They have murdered American journalists and there have been absolutely no repercussions, and you’re sitting up here talking about the freedom of press and democracy.  The United States is denying sovereignty to tens of millions of people around the globe with draconian sanctions for electing leaders that you do not like.  Why is there no accountability for Israel or Saudi Arabia for murdering journalists?  It is one of the most dangerous places in the world to be a journalist in Palestine.
SECRETARY BLINKEN:  I deplore the loss of Shireen.  She was a remarkable journalist, an American citizen, as you well know.  And there too we are determined to follow the facts and get to the truth of what happened to her.
QUESTION:  The facts are established, Secretary Blinken.
SECRETARY BLINKEN:  No, they have not yet been – no, they have – I’m sorry, with respect, they have not yet been established.  We are looking for —
QUESTION:  Yes, they have.
SECRETARY BLINKEN:  No, they have not.  We are looking for an independent, credible investigation.  When that investigation happens, we will follow the facts wherever they lead.  It’s as straightforward as that.  That has not yet happened, but it’s something that we very much want to see happen.  Thank you.
MS BAIETTO:  And we’ll have time after the panel, of course, to talk more about this.  But Madison, go ahead.
MS THOMAS:  Yes, so thanks for joining us here tonight.  I’m super honored and excited to be here.  Now, one thing you mention in your remarks which I want to talk about a little more is the safety issues in journalism.  Journalists in countries, including democracies, put their safety and lives on the line in order to do their job.  And I know you talk about it a little bit in your remarks what the U.S. is doing, but what more do you think needs to be done to help ensure their safety?
And to the other journalists up here, is that something that kind of worries you guys entering this workforce?
SECRETARY BLINKEN:  Well, I think especially for reporters who are working in areas of conflict or working on societies where governments are engaged in repressive actions, the risk of doing the job is acute.  And as I mentioned, in our own hemisphere just in this year, a year that is only half over, 17 journalists at least have been killed, as documented by UNESCO.  So this is something that we take very, very seriously.
And a number of things I mentioned go directly at trying to help give journalists, especially in independent media where the resources may not be the same as for major media organizations, some tools to more effectively protect themselves faced with these dangers.  And it goes from everything to having the right tools to deal with their cyber security, to deal with their physical security, and also to deal with their legal and economic security.  All of these things are very practical programs that we’re working on, that we’re putting in place.  And not only are we doing it, we’re trying to do it with other countries around the world.  As I mentioned, at the Summit for Democracy that President Biden convened last year, this was one of the lines of effort that we put into place.
It’s also really important that we provide support for NGOs and other groups that are engaged in this kind of work in helping journalists, but we want to make sure as well that we’re hearing from people so that we understand exactly what they’re facing and maybe how we can be more helpful in helping them face it.
MS THOMAS:  Yeah, and do one of you guys want to answer?  Yeah.
MS BAIETTO:  I think part of why I love doing this is because it’s always new every single day.  You don’t know what you’re going to get yourself into, but that comes with a lot of safety issues.  Granted, I’m a journalist right now in Illinois.  It’s not somewhere where there’s a ton of conflict in terms of places abroad like we’ve seen.  There’s a lot of emotion when it comes to that.  But I think it fuels me more than anything to keep on going, and I just hope tonight we can kind of come to a consensus and find solutions and push the conversation forward to make sure that people feel welcomed to start in this path and keep it going.
SECRETARY BLINKEN:  But is this something – as you’re thinking about and are engaged in careers, is this something that you’re actually thinking about that’s a concern, that is a —
MS BAITTO:  Definitely.
MS THOMAS:  Oh yeah, definitely.  Even here in the U.S. when there has been different protests in the last several years, you see videos surface of stuff that happens to journalists.  So me seeing that as someone who’s entering this career field, that’s something that scares me.  You can go out and cover something, emotions are high, and something can happen here and abroad.
MS VILLALOBOS:  There was something in your remarks that stuck out to me because there was a student at Cronkite that was part of her grad program.  She was trying to see if there are some courses that we could put into place about teaching safety to journalists, how to defend yourself when you’re out there, or even just teaching things that might not be common sense to everyone about keeping yourself safe.  And just hearing that in your remarks, seeing that we may be doing things like that on a national level, it just really resonated with me.  And I think that that’s a great idea.
SECRETARY BLINKEN:  Well, it’s kind of an extraordinary observation and comment because the idea that that would have been part, for example, of a journalism school curriculum 25 or 30 years ago, probably not.  So in many ways it’s a sad commentary, but it’s also, I think, a commentary on the fact that at least in different ways we’re trying to step up to this problem.
And I certainly hope that it doesn’t have the chilling effect that it’s designed to have, but that takes incredible courage.  It takes determination.  But what I found is a common denominator in the many years that I’ve been either a journalist myself for a brief period of time or working with journalists is an almost unquenchable desire to get at the truth, to get at the facts, including our two friends who raised questions just a few minutes ago.
That’s what we need.  We need to continue.  We need to be held accountable, but we also need to make sure that the structures, the protections are in place to allow people to do their jobs without fear of retribution of whatever kind.  And yes, the only way this should really happen is for our friends in the press to be yelling at me, not to have other people yelling at them.
MS THOMAS:  Of course.
MS BAIETTO:  And one thing that I think is significant, you wanted to kind of get into the journalism field and have had practice in it.  Do you think, when you had the idea to possibly go forward with this, was there – as a – was it as pervasive back then to be scared and to have some apprehensions in possibly becoming a journalist?
SECRETARY BLINKEN:  It really depended what you were doing.  I had a good friend when I started out; we were on our college newspaper together, and then after school he went into reporting professionally and he wound up going to Central America in the 1980s.  So that was a challenging time, and that was not without its own kind of dangers.  Other reporters famously were in Asia and other places in times of – in places of conflict.
So I think there’s been a long history of reporters obviously being in places of conflict.  I think what’s changed in a sense is that the terrain of conflict has broadened out, and the kind of practices that some governments and others engage in has changed to make it more challenging for journalists in a broader variety of places than before.
MS THOMAS:  Yeah, and one thing I’ve noticed is as generations go on, I feel like there’s been a loss of trust in media.  I was actually talking to my grandfather about this the other day, and he said when he was growing up, he would watch the news, he would listen to Walter Cronkite, and you just trusted.  You had this trust.  But now I feel like we’ve lost so much trust as journalists, and I think in the past few years we’ve definitely seen people in power say things about the media and it obviously – other people start to believe that too.  So how can we rebuild that trust to get it to where it was once or even better?
SECRETARY BLINKEN:  It’s one of the $64,000 questions and I’m not —
MS THOMAS:  Yeah.
SECRETARY BLINKEN:  — sure that there’s a good answer.  But you’re exactly right, and the Walter Cronkite example is a good one.  When I started out as a reporter after college – this is in the mid-1980s, just to situate in time – as a practical matter, most Americans got their news from one of the three networks at night: ABC, CBS, NBC.  There was a little bit of talk radio.  There was obviously no internet, no social media.  And there were these curators of the news at the networks and at the major newspapers – the Times, had the L.A. Times out here, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal – and that was where a lot of people got their information.  And of course, there was vitally important local media, which I’ll come to in a minute.  But you had these relatively small number of people who, in effect, edited the news that you consumed.
And in many ways, I think there was an expectation – I certainly had it – that the democratization of information that we’ve seen over the last 25 years would actually be a good thing, because there’s something that isn’t – doesn’t quite sit right with a small handful of organizations having such a dominant role in shaping the information that most people receive.  But we’ve also seen some of the downside of that, to state the obvious, and it’s very well known to just about everyone in this room.  We’ve lost these trusted mediators, trusted curators.  Now everyone is a publisher.  Some claim they’re not publishers, but that’s another matter.  And as a result, we have an incredible ecosystem of information that people, myself included, have a real hard time deciphering, and finding sources that are genuinely trusted is something that is increasingly a challenge for people.
So whether we can recapture that in some fashion, I don’t know.  Now, one of the things that we’ve tried to do is to help give people some of the tools to have digital literacy, to be able to separate the wheat from the chaff, to try to make their own judgments about the news and information that they’re consuming and not simply to take it at face value.  But this, of course, gets into all sorts of other complicated complications about where people go to look for their information, and the fact that we’re all, in effect, relegated to silos of our own choosing.  There’s a tremendous amount of self-selection, and we are all constantly looking for affirmation of the views that we bring to the table to begin with.  That also doesn’t make for the most healthy ecosystem.
So there’s a lot that goes into this, and ultimately, it ideally starts with the individual consumer to somehow demand that that kind of trusted information be what is – what’s out there on the market.  But there’s a lot that we could talk about.
But let me ask the three of you:  So how do you see this?  As people who are going into this field now at a time when trust for most institutions has been on a downward slope, including the media, how does that make you feel about the profession, and what would you want to do about it?
MS BAIETTO:  So I’ve been working for two years, now that I graduated – I was the first class to graduate during the pandemic – and I started journalism school 2016, when I think that’s the year we saw a huge shift in trusting the media.  And so this is all I’ve ever known.  I’ve only known that people don’t like us and that they don’t trust us, right?  I mean, there’s – the majority of us – people realize what we’re doing and I think so, but there’s bad actors there that totally might not really get behind what we’re doing.
But I think if I have been able to navigate how to ethically and factually report during this tough time, I’m ready to be thrown whatever is ahead.  But just to be frank, I think we talk about the future of journalism and there’s a lot of responsibility put on the new generation, as we should, right, because we’re the ones on the front lines – the next ones.  But if you guys don’t have the answers, we definitely don’t either, right?  But I think together we can find them.
But it’s going to be a give and take.  It’s going to take some time.  It’s going to take a lot of time, and it needs to start with education.  It needs to start with media literacy.  People need to understand how to transparently obtain a news outlet where they should go, where shouldn’t they go; what is factual, what is not; how do you figure that out on your own computer, on Facebook, on all these different outlets; and, honestly, to lead with compassion.  I think a lot of us as journalists and some of the ones that have been veterans and have had great, long careers get desensitized, as they should.  And I’m sure one day I will, too.  But I still have a lot of feelings towards everyone that I interview and all the stories that I tell, and I hope I don’t lose that because I think when you do, you lose humanity and what we really are here to do is – and it’s just give a voice to people that are – that don’t have a platform.
SECRETARY BLINKEN:  Yeah, well, that’s a wonderful way to look at it.  I think it’s a wonderful motivation.  I hope you don’t lose sight of that.  But here’s the hard truth:  We’re looking to you —
MS BAIETTO:  Of course.
SECRETARY BLINKEN:  — and to your generation for the answers.  We —
MS BAIETTO:  We’ll get there.
SECRETARY BLINKEN:  You’re the ones who need to figure this out.  We’ll try our best.
MS BAIETTO:  Yes, yes.
MS VILALOBOS:  One of the points that you brought up earlier was about information overload, and that was actually one of the points that was brought up in a panel here earlier.  How do you personally sift through your social media feed and everything?  And I’m sure sometimes your own face pops up on there.  How do you handle that?  How do you find what you think is the sources that you want to trust and things like that, and how can – if you’re handling that, how can the public handle that as well?
SECRETARY BLINKEN:  It’s the single biggest challenge that I think anyone in government faces, and it’s a challenge that I’ve seen evolve again over the last almost 30 years that I’ve been doing this.  When you had just a relatively limited number of sources of information 25 or 30 years ago, not only could you manage your day, but the pressure to respond was much less acute than it is now, than it’s been for the last decade or so.  There was a cushion, there was a gap in news emerging and then it really getting into the bloodstream of your community or your country.
Now it’s instantaneous.  It’s an intravenous feed, and that puts incredible pressure on people who are actually in government to react, to respond, to do something immediately.  Having the discipline to try to take a little bit of distance – to not just jump at a report that concludes X, because maybe it’s not conclusive; to actually have the distance and the remove to say no, we need to get to the facts, and even if there’s tremendous pressure to respond to what seem to be the facts – that’s not easy.
When I worked for President Obama, one of the, I think, thoughts that he had about this was that his job in a sense was to be something of a circuit breaker and to try to create that distance that no longer really exists, that moment of reflection, of deliberation, of trying to understand what the facts are before you simply reflexively respond because there’s pressure to do it and because you’re perceived as somehow weak or feckless if you’re not responding immediately.  That’s not an easy thing to do, but I think it is incumbent upon those of us who are in government or positions of public responsibility to at least try to do that.
And I think the challenge that media faces between – it’s a perennial challenge, but it’s gotten worse because of the immediacy of information.  The challenge between getting it right and getting it fast – there’s a huge responsibility that comes with that, too.  And that’s a responsibility you’re increasingly going to have to face in your careers, because the pressure on you to get it immediately – even if maybe you’re not getting it right, right away – is pretty intense.
MS THOMAS:  Yeah.  And then going on to like another topic, people these days with social media – anyone can be a journalist.  Anyone can get their phone, livestream something, post a picture that could be taken out of context and post it somewhere, and then people start to believe that this is true and then you have the spread of fake news.  But another issue with fake news I think we’re seeing a lot is people will see something that could be factual, but it doesn’t align with their preconceived ideas and this other thing that is actually fake does, and they call that fake news, and that spreads.  And that’s another issue with social media.  Do you feel that there needs to be any more regulation with social media?
SECRETARY BLINKEN:  Well, one of the things I’m going to try not to do is to delve into anything that smacks of politics or —
MS THOMAS:  Yes.
SECRETARY BLINKEN:  Because, happily, my job lets me stay out of that.  But I think we’re – clearly this is a fundamental debate that we’re having, and now to get the – how to find where the right balance is is incredibly, incredibly challenging.
You mentioned as well, and these – a lot of these things join together – having the appropriate literacy to try to pull apart the information from the disinformation, the real from the fake, that’s something that needs to start really, really early.  One of the things we’ve seen, for example, is that as we rightly devote a lot of resources, for example, to STEM education or STEAM education in our countries, well, usually they’re finite budgets.  And when you look at budgets in schools, one place that the money that goes to STEAM or STEM often comes from is civics.  But if we’re not teaching civics, we’re not teaching the foundations that you need for something like digital literacy.  And that creates a problem very early on that just builds and builds and builds, and then if you don’t have a citizenry that has the tools to be able to deal with this information system, it makes it very, very challenging to deal with.
MS BAIETTO:  One thing that I’m a little curious with, just checking your Twitter, there’s been about more than a dozen tweets put on in the last 24 hours.  Clearly you’re not the social media influencer behind all of them, but what —
SECRETARY BLINKEN:  (Laughter.)  Every single one.
MS BAIETTO:  Every single one, word for word.  But what is the process in which your team or one person, whatever it is, what is kind of the process that a tweet has to go through or any social media content has to go through when it has your name on it?
SECRETARY BLINKEN:  Yeah, it’s a great question and one that I and we take very seriously, because if I’m putting something out, then I’m simply here as a representative of the United States Government, so anything that we put out is supposed to be – to represent the government, to be reflective of it, to be reflective of our policies, and I’m simply a vehicle for doing that.
So we have a very carefully married-up operation between the folks on our communications team, the folks on our policy team, myself and other colleagues depending on what the subject is, and they need to know and understand each other in – almost intimately, because we have to make sure that whatever is going out under the State Department banner, whether it’s in my name or anyone else’s name, is an accurate reflection of the policies of our government and the President.
So a lot of care goes into that.  We don’t always get it 100 percent right, but we work at it every day.
MS VILALOBOS:  And this social media topic, I think that it’s interesting.  We as journalists are always writing headlines, writing topics, things like that.  This era of clickbait culture and at-times sensational journalism, I think this is more of a – not so much a question as an idea.  This is just taking over, and I think that – I think that just the – there’s so many things that can go wrong when there is more drive for engagement in the headline rather than actual content in that headline.
SECRETARY BLINKEN:  Well, this goes to something we were talking about, and I was talking about a little bit earlier – is that there is a race to survive too.  The economics of this business are increasingly challenged, increasingly complicated.  That’s especially true, of course, in print media.  And so even social media, the clickbait phenomenon is part of – is partly making sure you get as many eyeballs as you can on something and then maybe drive the advertising revenues or drive your – so what used to be called readership.  So all that pieces together.
One of the reasons we’re trying to look for ways to build support for independent media is to help take some of that pressure off, and at least create a space where journalism is not motivated by that necessity.
Now, having said that, I often thought it would be really great fun writing headlines for tabloids.  (Laughter.)  That just sounds like a great job.  And just to date myself, again, one of the – I think the greatest – and I know I shouldn’t comment on individual publications, but I always thought growing up that the headline writers for the New York Post have one of the best jobs in the business.  (Laughter.)  Because the inventiveness of those headlines are incredible, and there’s just one that stuck with me from many, many years ago, back in the days of the Soviet Union.  One of the leaders of the Soviet Union passed away and the headline in the New York Post the next day was “Red Head Dead.”  (Laughter.)  That’s pretty good.
MS BAIETTO:  And I think for everyone we were really able to really talk about hopefully a good idea of where the future of journalism is going and hopefully inspires others.
SECRETARY BLINKEN:  Well, let me —
MS THOMAS:  Thank you for joining us.
SECRETARY BLINKEN:  No, let me just say to the three of you, first of all, it’s really inspiring to be with you.  It’s inspiring to see others out here, both colleagues who are engaged in the profession today, people who are just joining it.  I am so glad that you’re doing this, as I’m dead-serious about the proposition that this lies at the heart of our democracies.  And as goes journalism, as goes a free media, so go our democracies.
So what you’re doing is incredibly important.  It’s also incredibly challenging.  It goes to, I think, what you were saying about, first of all, trying to find the humanity that’s usually at the heart of things – to remember that, ultimately, you’re reporting on, writing about real people, complicated, imperfect as human beings are, to try to reflect that.  I know how hard it is too, because having been on both sides of this – when you’re in government and you’re in a room with 10 people and you’re talking about a policy, and then if you ask the 10 people in the room who said what and what were the conclusions, you’d probably get 10 different answers from people who were actually in the room.  You’re not in the room and you’re trying to figure out what was said in the room.
It’s incredibly hard, but it’s incredibly, incredibly powerful and incredibly necessary.  And I think having that drive to try to learn about something, to understand it, to know it, and then to be able to communicate it to your fellow citizens is a wonderful thing.  So it’s great to see all of you going into it.  Thanks.