Jane DOE: The following podcast was released in 2021 on a separate platform. IC leadership, thought leadership, titles, current events, and technology may have changed and evolved since its original release.

Thom Shanker: Because the alternative is not telling the American public that al Qaeda is a threat … not telling the American public that ISIS K is a threat.

Not talking about Boko Haram. I mean, you know, Eric Schmidt and I, in our book Counter-Strike, which looked at the first two years of the campaign against al Qaeda … I mean on 911, you know … there were people, senior people in the administration, who are walking around saying, Al who
Jane DOE: The opinions and views expressed in the following podcast do not represent the views of NIU or any other U.S. government entity. They are solely the opinions and views of Jane Doe and her guests. A mention of organizations, publications, or products not owned or operated by the U.S. government is not a statement of support and does not constitute U.S. government endorsement.

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Welcome back to the Intelligence Jumpstart. I am your host, Jane Doe. For today’s episode, I had the opportunity to discuss the media and national security with veteran journalist and author, Thom Shanker.

Thom currently serves as the director of the Project for Media and National Security at the George Washington University’s School of Media and Public Affairs. After nearly a quarter-century career with The New York Times, including 13 years as a Pentagon correspondent covering the Department of Defense, overseas combat operations and national security policy, most recently, he served as Deputy Washington Editor for The Times, managing coverage of the military, diplomacy, and veterans’ affairs.

Before joining The Times, he was foreign editor of The Chicago Tribune. Thom served as The Tribune's senior European correspondent, based in Berlin - covering the wars in former Yugoslavia. He spent five years as The Tribune's Moscow correspondent, covering the start of the Gorbachev era to the collapse of the Soviet Union and the communist empire in Eastern Europe.

Thom is co-author of a New York Times best-seller, “Counterstrike: The Untold Story of America’s Secret Campaign Against Al Qaeda.”

Jane DOE: Thom thank you so much for being on the Intelligence Jumpstart.

Thom Shanker: I'm honored to be here. Thank you so much. I've often thought that what reporters do, and intelligence officers and analysts do is very similar. Ours, you can just buy for $4 on the street, and yours is a little more expensive and for a smaller readership.

Jane DOE: Huh, I never thought of it that way. Before we get into the ties between the intelligence community and media, I'm interested to know more about you and your career path. After about 40 years in the media, as a reporter, you are now in academia. What was that journey like for you?

Thom Shanker: Sure, it's a great question, Jane. I feel incredibly blessed to have had a 40-year career that literally put me on the front-row seat of history … whether it was the collapse of the Soviet Empire … the end of the Cold War … the war in Bosnia … 911 … the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq … and those long and challenging missions. But after 40 years as a journalist .. 24 at the New York Times, which was an absolute professional … I felt it was time to do something else. And a friend said to me, you can divide your career into three sections .. learn, earn, and return. So now I'm in that return phase working in academia. And my job is to convene on the record conversations with the best national security reporters here in Washington and senior officials to try to elevate the debate, inform the public, and to try to I don't know, cross the bridges that so often get burned between the media and national security.

Jane DOE: So fascinating … you have really witnessed history as its being made. It’s …

Thom Shanker: Also fun, but don't tell anybody that's a secret.

Jane DOE: No, we don't want to have fun, but I’m good at keeping secrets. So, given that you've had such a fulfilling and rich career, can you tell me where you believe the line between the media and national security is today versus when you first began your career?

Thom Shanker: Right … some things are eternal. I often describe the relationship between news correspondents and national security officials as a marriage, but it's a dysfunctional marriage, to be sure. Even so we stay together for the kids. Now, what, what do I mean by that? National security officials, whether it's the military, the executive branch, the IC, you know … despite the sensitivity of their work, they have a vested interest in keeping the American public informed, to the extent possible … and sort of on their side, if I can say that. And they can't do that by themselves, whether they like it or not, they need to work with correspondence … with the news business to help inform the American public. Because the American public is their kids. The population of our great nation devotes trillions of dollars, and the lives of loved ones to our nation's national security. And we don't want to go back to where we were after Vietnam when there was this colossal divide between the public and the national security organs of our nation.

Those of us in the news business, we have a calling to inform the public to support our democracy with the free flow of ideas. So, we do that for our kids, which are readers and subscribers and viewers. That has remained eternal. But to your very good question, Jane, what has changed is … some of its technological … the rise of this thing called the internet, which makes this conversation possible since we're not in the same studio … has given rise to an immediacy and an impactfulness of reports … often absent any kind of credibility, or, you know … yeah, of credibility.

I mean the New York Times, my alma mater for 24 years … even if senior officials kicked the trashcan across their office in the morning … they knew that the New York Times is a serious organization. We vet the reports. We check. We give officials a chance to respond. So much of the junk on the internet is … let's call it what it is, fake news. And that just did not exist before or did not exist with the immediacy and impact before the internet.

Jane DOE: Yeah … it’s so, so very true … the impact has been quite something. Technology it seems … with more information we have at our fingertips, the more we … the more bad stuff – scary stuff. Which is quite the opposite of its purpose.

And to your point, I think that you know, we've all heard director Haynes in her opening remarks for her confirmation hearings … but she made transparency a priority and, you know, strategic imperative for the American public .. to give them as much information as we can, you know, and still maintain a strong national security.

But I also read a discussion you had with retired U.S. Army General Mark Hertling in 2009, in which you referenced the dysfunctional marriage … which was so … so interesting. Specifically, you said that in the information age the first casualty of war is trust, trust between those who fight the wars and those whose job it is to report them. And my question, I guess, is how can the IC and the media work together to keep the American people informed and safe - when there's kind of a lack of trust between us, but also, we share a lack of trust from the public?

Thom Shanker: Right … That's a great question, Jane. And again, it's sort of the solution is also the problem. I mean, the solution is engagement, conversation ... I mean, no responsible reporter expects the intelligence community or the military, or the National Security Council to just hand over troves of documents, every time we ask a question. Right? We get that. But what we also don't get is when these national security agencies and organs and apparatus don't respond at all. I mean, that's, that's just, just wrong. I mean, you have to engage … I often tell senior military officials, senior officials in the IC, across the executive branch … if you engage with reporters, I can't guarantee you'll be satisfied with the outcome, but at least your side of the story will be told. If you don't engage, I guarantee you will hate the outcome.

Jane DOE: Yeah, it’s a complicated situation and my opinion is that it is a bad strategy to put your head in the sand. If someone’s gonna tell our story, and we won’t engage, we can't be upset. So that is a very good point.

But at the same time, when we look at like some of the stories that are out there in the media right now, there's a lot of opinion. And I think a lot of IC officials have been burnt by you know, all of this opinion … without understanding … with a lack of understanding and maybe more importantly the lack of context. So, when the credible organizations … the credible media outlets … they want to do the right thing … and I truly believe that. But what is the difference? Can you define true journalism? And what does responsible and ethical reporting look like?

Thom Shanker: Right … Jane, that's a super important question, but a - a mighty large one, as they say, back in my native Oklahoma. So, a couple thoughts if I could. The rise of opinions, shaping the news report is something that bothers the IC, it also bothers old-school journalists, such as me. I think you do see it more often in the cable news world on television … where anchor personnel and reporters really do express flat-out opinions. And that's just the way it is. And I know it bothers some in the cable news world. At mainstream … I use the phrase mainstream, not as a pejorative, but as a compliment … mainstream news outlets still fight the good fight every day to separate news from opinion. Opinion goes on the editorial page news goes in the news pages.

That being said, journalists are not just scribes to just take down what the President says or what Director Haines says. That's not what, what we do. And so, their interpretation and analysis and context, which adds value to the stories, we believe, is often heard by these officials as opinion. Even though there's a big difference between opinion and context between opinion and analysis. But there is a rub there, Jane, which I absolutely admit it exists.

To your question of what right looks like … Just kind of one war story if I could. There's a set of stories that I'm as proud of, of anything in my career. In the months and even a year before the invasion of Iraq in March of 2003. My then, New York Times colleagues, Eric Schmidt, David Sanger, and I wrote a series of just blockbuster stories describing what the war was going to look like. Now, why did we set upon this task? We thought it was important for the American people to know that the government was, no kidding, marching the nation toward war. Yes, there were off-ramps. Yes, Saddam could have opened his borders to every inspector possible. But you know, that was just never going to happen. And so, the Bush administration was trying to say that diplomacy was their first avenue, and it was a muscular avenue. But the military was no kidding gearing up for war.

And we wrote a series of stories describing what the war planning would look like. We interviewed hundreds and hundreds of people, put together individual threads of war planning and all that, and wrote stories, a dozen or more, you know, in the run-up to the announcement, that were so accurate, that we were accused of having been leaked the war plans. Of course, we never were.

And this is an example of how reporters work the way intelligence officers do. We talked to people, we bought coffees. We had lunch. We went back to people dozens of times. And I really think that most of our sources on the story didn't even realize they were part of those stories because they gave us just one thread. And we wove it together into a tapestry.

When the decision was made to invade Iraq, readers of The New York Times, could not have been surprised that this was happening. But none of those stories said, when the troop ships would sail, or what hour the invasion would start. We gave no tactical information that would help the Iraqis. And before we wrote every story, Jane, we went to the Pentagon, the IC, the White House and said, here's what we're writing. We're not giving you the power to censor. But we will hear your fair say about what you think might put lives or the mission at risk. And we will weigh that carefully. And we did. In those blockbuster stories, we were never accused of putting troops or the nation at risk.

The Bush administration didn't like those stories. And in fact, after the war started, a senior Bush administration official told me their greatest frustration was they actually had a PR rollout plan for the war in Iraq. And it wasn't going to start till the autumn of 2002. And we blew that timetable by publishing our first story in May of 2002, almost a year before the war. So, their biggest complaint was about PR. And so that's what I think, Jane. That's what right looks like. We inform the public about a critically important national security issue, going to war, but in a way that does not risk our nation or its personnel.

Jane DOE: That’s really interesting. So, with the, with the responsible reporting, and doing these great things, you know, telling the story, and getting out there and actually doing the footwork and giving the American people the facts versus all the, you know, mud and everything.

How do we maintain a system of true journalism, when folks can turn to the social media right now and find what they want? If they don't like what's on TV, they can, you know … or in the newspaper, they can turn it off in, you know, throw it out and log in and get any kind of information that they want. I mean, even the well-established, legit, media establishments are being called fake news. Social media, targeted misinformation, and the first amendment are getting a lot of attention on Capitol Hill right now. But I'm interested in your thoughts. Should we be doing more to fix this problem?

Thom Shanker: Sure. It's a very powerful question, Jane. And those of us who have lived and worked and love the mainstream media, wrestle with it every day. I’m an absolutist when it comes to, to the to the First Amendment. So, I really do protect all of the bloggers and tweeters and all of that … even though sadly, who are irresponsible and dabble in fake news … because I don't want Congress limiting media because that's a slippery slope.

I mean, say you, pass a law that limits this one Twitter person. Well, that could lead you to try to limit the New York Times. Now, Twitter can make decisions. Facebook can make decisions. Because those are commercial platforms. But you know, I really don't want Congress passing the kind of laws that other countries have … Official Secrets Acts … those sorts of things. So, what's the answer? The answer is for you know … the New York Times, The Washington Post, LA Times, Wall Street Journal … to just keep doing the best journalism possible, and hope that market forces bring readers to us. And that's working well.

Sadly, the attraction of fake news, polarizing news is also drawing a lot of eyeballs. And what I've been wrestling with is … and that's part of what my job is at the Project for Media National Security … is how to develop news literacy. How to elevate the best, most accurate, and honest news and get it out to a wider public. You know, I know that the whole talk of vaccines and inoculations is controversial given COVID. But, but as an analogy, Jane, how do we help inoculate our nation from fake news? What is the shot in the arm that helps somebody understand, huh, this is a Twitter person I've been following, but this just can't be right … I don't believe it. Let me check it out before I believe it and retweet it. And that's really what we have to do as a nation, as a profession … work for news literacy, as an antidote or inoculation to fake news.

Jane DOE (16:02): Hmm. I think I have to agree that education is key to building literacy, and for me, myself, I’d hate for Congress to get involved. But you know … I think that this may be like a very, very difficult thing to inoculate folks when we are all guilty of kind of closing our eyes to truths we may not want to see. And we have Russia, China, Iran taking advantage of this situation and infecting the internet maybe faster that we can possibly inoculate or educate the American public.

We have political influencers calling, news media outlets fake news – I mean news media outlets are pummeled. And you’ve mentioned, several times, that no legitimate news outlet would do these things, but I don’t know that people know who to believe … the internet, in our, in our social media spaces … they use very comprehensive strategies to spread disinformation to, sow discord, and, you know, to denigrate our, our, our confidence in democracy. So, I guess …

Thom Shanker: I mean, I, yeah, I think I almost have an answer for you. And again, I haven't worked on this analogy. So, it's a really flawed metaphor, please don't get mad at me.

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Manolis Priniotakis: I’m Manolis Priniotakis, NIU’s Vice President for Research & Infrastructure and this is this episode’s Manolis Minute.

In the next episode, you’ll hear from Dr. Mikey Biddlestone from Cambridge University, on conspiracy theories and misinformation.

Years ago, one of the first conspiracy theories that gained some popular traction was the idea that Francis Bacon wrote the works of Shakespeare. It is a fairly well-known theory, dating back over one hundred years … but most people don’t know that it has a connection to the modern intelligence community.

One of the promoters of the Baconian theory was an eccentric and wealthy businessman from the turn of the 20th century named Colonel George Fabyan … note, he was a colonel in Illinois the same way that Colonel Sanders was a colonel in Kentucky … an honorary title given him by the governor.

Fabyan set up one of the first private laboratories in the United States to explore this and other esoteric theories … to include an acoustic levitation device designed by Leonardo da Vinci.

Among Fabyan’s early hires was Elizebeth Smith, a Shakespeare scholar, and William Friedman, a plant geneticist. They studied the Baconian theory using ciphers, which led to early work in cryptography and eventually, frankly, what came to be known as the National Security Agency.

They later married, and today NSA is home to the William and Elizebeth Friedman building. It honors them as among the founders of NSA. And in 1955, they wrote a definitive debunking of the Baconian theory … the quixotic effort that brought them together in the first place.

Thanks again for listening to Intelligence Jumpstart. For more information on NIU, please visit our website, www.ni-u.edu.

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Thom Shanker: If you wanted to compare COVID, which is a global pandemic virus that is getting into our system, with the fake news, hacking and all that from our adversaries … because what you're saying is … it's a very, the assault of fake news is very broad and widespread … it's not just like one artillery shell or one missile. So, if we can compare that to the widespread virus, we can't fight it in only one place. I mean, I live in Northern Virginia, I got my vaccines from the Fairfax County Health Department. As good as they are, and I love the Fairfax County Health Department, believe me, they can't save all of Virginia, let alone all of America.

So, we have to have distributed news literacy efforts all across the nation. It should start in elementary school, go all the way through high school. It should be at the college level ... I do think the private corporations … you know, again, I don't know what the laws are … I don't know what the what the CEOs would say ... But I do think Facebook, Twitter, Tik Tok, Google … I think all of these organizations that host the platforms and build the software, by which this stuff is distributed, have an obligation as well. Again, I'm not asking them to be censors or anti-propagandists. But they have an obligation to the people of the nation that have made them wealthy beyond all comprehension … that they have an obligation to help us get inoculated from the viruses that infect their platforms. Again, that's a brand-new analogy for me, you might hate it. But that's sort of inspired by your question.

Jane DOE: No, I like it. And I'm glad you brought that up, because in preparation for speaking to you, I came across this article that Glenn Kershel, who was the former NSA general counsel. And it was published in the New Yorker, and then he … he spoke with former acting CIA, director, Michael Morale, on his podcast the Intelligence Matters.

Thom Shanker: Yeah, another great podcast.

Jane DOE: Exactly. And well Kershel … Kershel states that we've entered a world in which your national well-being depends not just on the government, but also on the private companies through which we lead our digital lives. What are your thoughts about the media and the private … sector being responsible and helping with national security in that way?

Thom Shanker: Right … so, you know, the phrase helping with national security … I mean, I feel that organizations, like the New York Times, help defend our democracy by operating under the First Amendment, to help keep the public informed. But it's not our job to be cheerleaders or advocates or to help, you know, write the policy papers. We all have our individual jobs. And the New York Times, the Post, you know, LA Times, Wall Street Journal … all of the other great American news organizations ... their obligation is to do what they do … to inform the public.

But I think to what the general counsel told Mike Morale, I think that the private sector organizations who've profited from social media and have become a conduit for bad news and fake news … they have an obligation … because that doesn't go against the First Amendment .. they're private companies. They can have all sorts of internal rules and policies. But we have to make our population not just resilient to fake news but inoculated from I … and that's a teaching process, and it's going to be years.

Jane DOE: Yeah, absolutely. I think in the interview, they also talked about the First Amendment … obviously, it's the basis of a democratic society. And part of the First Amendment is that people have the right to consume bad information. So, I find … I’m curious to see how this continues to develop because I think that leaving the problem will make it 100 times worse than it is today. But I don't know that … like you said, I don't know that there's like one solution … but to switch topics a little …

Thom Shanker: But could I just, just one quick thought on that though. You know, you said that people have the right to consume bad news. Yes, they do. People have the right to consume bad materials. But there are warnings on the packet, for example. I mean, you have the right to smoke cigarettes, even though it's been proven they cause cancer. But the cigarette companies, which are private commercial enterprises have to say on the side … you smoke this, you can die.

Jane DOE: Yeah. Yeah, but, but people still smoke, though … and they feel threatened when you try to take their fix away.

Thom Shanker: That's exactly right. And so even with news literacy, people will still consume bad news. But perhaps some people who might have consumed fake news … just like people who see that warning on the side of the cigarettes will say … you know what, I'm not going to smoke. You know what, I'm not going to believe this tweet without my own research.

Jane DOE: That is a very good point. And I think my next question is … based on a couple years ago, I read an article accusing the media of encouraging terrorists by publicizing their images of, quote, terrorist porn, unquote.

Thom Shanker: Sure.

Jane DOE: They stated that … we've seen time and time again, where ISIS K, al Qaeda, Taliban, Boko Haram … all of these terror groups use Western media as propaganda to recruit and to support their cause … but it also to gives their organization legitimacy. So, I’d like to get your thoughts on this … but also is there such thing as too much reporting? Can we maintain a sense of responsible reporting and journalism and still protect and respect the victims and their families, while not giving so much credibility to terrorist organizations?

Thom Shanker: Right, so I don't think you can have too much responsible reporting. And the phrase terror porn is one that we're all familiar with … and no credible outlet publishes or rebroadcasts still photos or videos that fall into the terror porn category. They just don't. Terror groups are posting on their own sites, it's picked up by, by radicals or supporters. So again, Jane, I'm familiar with the argument. But that is just not something that is a problem for those who consume their news from responsible, mainstream organizations. We all have rules about images that we show and images that we don't show. And I don't believe in any way that writing about the actions of terror organizations, legitimizes them, or acts as a recruiting beyond what those organizations do already. Because the alternative is not telling the American public that al Qaeda is a threat … not telling the American public that ISIS K is a threat.

Not talking about Boko Haram. I mean, you know, Eric Schmidt and I, in our book Counter Strike, which looked at the first two years of the campaign against al Qaeda … I mean on 911, you know … there were people, senior people in the administration, who are walking around saying, Al who … as if Al Qaeda was some terror leader and not an organization. I mean, of course, counterterrorism experts, senior generals, the IC knew, but there were senior policymakers who literally had not really put their arms around what is Al Qaeda … even though the New York Times for the previous year, had written a series of stories out of Afghanistan, talking about al Qaeda and the threat. So, I just come back to believing that the free flow of responsible information is not the problem.

Jane DOE: Hmm. Al, who? Okay. I think one more topic I would like to touch on before, we end today, and I appreciate you so much for being so generous with your time.

To what extent should we expect the media … and by we … the IC … the public … expect the media to refuse to republish classified documents that could cause tremendous harm to the US and its national security? And I think, I think you probably know where I'm going with this the WikiLeaks … Edward Snowden … Chelsea Manning … a lot of documents, a lot of information with no context was given to the public … which could actually in and of itself cause more harm. What are your opinions on leaks?

Thom Shanker: Oh, I have lots of opinions. So, I mean, you asked your question in a very smart way. It's a two-part question. You asked … should the media refuse to publish classified documents that do harm to national security. The answer to the first half is, no, we should not refuse to publish classified documents, because some of them are very important to informing the public about what its government is doing and its name. And as you probably know, lots of stuff is classified, not because it's secret or sensitive, but they're trying to cover up a screw-up.

I mean, so … so, to have a blanket rule … we’ll never publish classified documents … that's just impossible … and that's really a, a, you know … most often heard by people who are going to be embarrassed by stories about their screw-ups, or bad decisions. And so, it's classified.

The second half, Jane is, the really important one. How do we deal with information that may threaten our national security? And again, returning to my story about our articles about the run up to the war in Iraq … you do it very carefully. You always … organizations like the New York Times, always go to the agency or department that owns the classified material. And they say, we're going to publish the story. Once again, we're not giving you the power of censorship. But we're going to give you a fair say, to try to convince us, why shouldn't we publish? What should we take out of the story? And I'm not telling tales out of school, because it's public … The New York Times over the past decades, has held stories out of print, for days, weeks, months, even longer, because the government made a compelling case about the threat to national security. But at the end of the day, either, you know, the decision was made to go and publish because it no longer mattered, or because we felt that the government was trying to stall a story that, you know, would embarrass us.

And then another point on that, you know, in my new job at GW is director of the Project for Media National Security. I convened senior officials and had the great honor of hosting a breakfast for correspondence with General John Hyten the outgoing Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. And he said on the record, Jane, that there's too much classification. And so, part of the problem is, when things are over classified … when too much is classified, then it really devalues that which should be classified. So just as news, responsible news outlets treat this information carefully, I would advocate to you and your colleagues and any of the National Intelligence University students, who may be listening to this, to really think about why is this classified? What would happen if it was unclassified? Are we part of a process that is so over classifying documents that it hurts us?

And you asked about WikiLeaks and one of my favorite WikiLeaks stories … I mean, to be sure, a lot of the articles that came out of the WikiLeaks stuff was brand new, fresh, secret, embarrassing, challenging information. But my favorite story from the WikiLeaks cables, was one written by a colleague who got the WikiLeaks cable about then-Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates … you must know him former CIA director, also. In the classified document, was the cable that Gates had written back to President Obama. I think Obama … I think maybe it was … anyway, had written back to the President after a trip to France, because he had pounded his fist on the table, asking the French Defense Ministry, not to sell the Mistral Navy cruiser to Russia, because they were going to be deployed to the Black Sea. It's a time of crisis with the Republic of Georgia. And Gates said, look, you're hurting regional security if you sell this warship to Russia, just because you want to make some money. And of course, Gates put that in a classified cable back to the President.

When that story ran, I went up to this colleague and showed him the story that I wrote, because I was on that Gates trip to France. Guess what, Jane? After the meeting with the French Defense Minister, Gates came to the podium at a public press conference and said, I just scolded the French for possibly selling the Mistral cruiser to the Russians. I told them not to do it because it would risk regional security. So, Gates's cable back to the White House was classified, because all communications from a cabinet secretary to a president are classified - automatically. But everything in the cable he had said in public. So where is the get of that classified cable falling into a reporter's hands when those of us a year before who were on the trip had already written that exact story?

Jane DOE: I think it’s interesting how widely folks’ opinions vary on this issue. And I think by and large … and this is my view … Jane’s view. We understand there’s a problem. You know, unauthorized disclosure, derivative classification, we have that training every year to help combat this problem. But it's one of those things that, I think, is so ingrained … I don't know how to say this … maybe to who we are as a community … it, it, it’s going to be a long, cultural shift for us to really understand the value of not classifying things … when we are, you know, very cognizant that anything we say … and everything we say, can be misconstrued by the public with no context.

Thom Shanker: Right. But I would say the counter that I mean, I hear what you're saying completely … just another story. You know, I spent two years covering the war in Bosnia, in the 1990s … horrible ethnic war of mass murder, and plunder and ethnic cleansing and mass rape. Not many years ago, the national intelligence estimate, on the breakup of Yugoslavia was declassified through normal channels. And of course, having spent two years of my life chewing through that territory, I read it cover to cover. And I have to compliment the people who put it together, it was an utterly brilliant document. It was like a, a doctoral thesis predicted exactly the kind of violence that Serbia … as the largest component of the former Yugoslavia … and owner of most of the war material … what the Serbs were going to do to the rest of their former republics as it fell apart.

Now, that was classified because it was an internal analysis. But if there had been a way for that to have been unclassified and shared with the American public … there might have been pressure for the administration to act sooner than the three or four or five years, it took from the first village that was burned to the Dayton Accords, in 96. I'm not saying that, that NIE alone could have ended the war or save lives. But the American public was operating in a vacuum of knowledge that the decision makers had with the classified NIE. So, I'm not criticizing the IC, I'm complimenting the brilliant analysis. And it's a shame that that couldn't have been shared more broadly with the public. Because had those warnings been heard, beyond the senior policy levels, maybe the public would have said, you know what, we actually do support an intervention to save lives?

Jane DOE: Yeah, I think we also like realize that, given that information is so readily available to the American public … that we have a responsibility of actually, like you said, educating them and giving them information to … really kind of help us with … we're all responsible for national security. If you see something, say something. We've all heard that, and we're very familiar with that.

But I'd like to close out with … we've talked about a little bit about your Project for Media and National Security and your goals there. Is there a way you see the media and IC being able to work together to build trust … more positive partnerships that are mutually beneficial … are there any strategies or is there anything we can do?

Thom Shanker: Sure, sure. I mean, it's, it's a very important question. You know, again, that the purpose of the Project for Media and National Security is to convene these sessions … not in a newsroom, but not in a government building. I tell officials in the IC and the military and across executive branch that my project is like Geneva, Switzerland, where we're neutral ground, you can come and meet here … and I think that these dialogues, in a calm, responsible manner … most are on the record, some are on background, some are off the record … just so people can meet each other and see, oh, he doesn't have fangs and oh, he doesn't have claws. You just have to … you have to just to maintain that dialogue. Because to go back to my metaphor about the dysfunctional marriage between the news media and the national security agencies. It's kind of backwards because we really have to focus on the engagement part before the marriage. We have to keep engaging. And it's building those relationships, not in time of crisis. But when things are calm. That’s the key.

Jane DOE: Yeah, absolutely … that's the key. Well, thank you so much for your time today. I seriously look forward to seeing how this develops and how we can move forward … you know, as partners in the future.

Thom Shanker: Thank you and I'd be happy to speak with any of your colleagues. But only if you're Jane DOE, I wannabe John DOE next time.

Jane DOE: Okay, you bet.

Thom Shanker: Thank you so much, Jane.

Jane DOE: Thank you.

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Jane DOE: Thank you for listening to the Intelligence Jumpstart podcast. We'd love to hear from you about what you liked and what you'd like to hear more of. If you would like to hear more about a specific topic or issue, send us a note at NIPress@niu.odni.gov. To learn more about NIU visit our website at NI-U.edu.