In

VIDEO

AUDIO

01:00:00:00

TITLE SEQUENCE:
DEMOCRACY ON DEADLINE
The Global Struggle for an Independent Press
FADE TO BLACK

Typing sound

01:00:27:18

FADE IN:

B-roll:

MAN at a radio studio recording.

MAN reporting from outdoor event.

WOMAN reporting from river bank.

MAN: Speaking Russian (no translation)
MAN: Speaking Spanish (no translation)
WOMAN: It is a name that we share with the Republic of Niger...

01:00:35:11

Shot of WOMAN taking notes at a hospital.

CARLOTTA GALL (VO):
People say oh you journalists get too passionate or you support one side or the other…

01:00:40:01

ON CAMERA (INTERVIEW)
Carlotta Gall

CARLOTTA GALL (ON CAMERA):
But they don't get the point because you have to believe passionately in what you are doing.

01:00:42:28

B-roll:
VARIOUS SHOTS:
Big explosion, people docking down.
Ambulance, paramedics carrying wounded people.

CARLOTTA GALL (VO):
Otherwise why would you be running around in the mud, and the blood and the bombs.

01:00:49:16

Shot of WOMAN (Carlotta Gall) inside a military vehicle wearing military clothes.

CARLOTTA GALL (VO):
You have to be driven to get the story.

01:00:51:26

WOMAN (Amira Hass) interviewing a doctor at a dirt road.
Cut to:
ON CAMERA
(INTERVIEW)
Amira Hass

AMIRA HASS (VO):
The first role of journalism...

AMIRA HASS (ON CAMERA):
…is to monitor power

01:00:55:06

ON CAMERA (INTERVIEW)
Ken Silverstein

KEN SILVERSTEIN (ON CAMERA):
That is our job. We are supposed to be watchdogs, we're supposed to be aggressive. We're supposed to be out there championing the public good and defending the average citizen.

01:01:08:00

B-roll: 
VARIOUS SHOTS

Group of journalists meeting at a small room with computer and newspapers.

Shot of newsroom

Man interviewing people in Hebrew.

NARRATOR:
There are passionate, dedicated journalists at work around the world. In different media, in different languages, they drive themselves to dig out the truth and put it in front of the public.

01:01:20:19

Shot of Ken Silverstein and Deborah Nelson meeting at the newsroom

DEBORAH NELSON (VO):
Not only do we have to gather the evidence, enough evidence to persuade people that there's a problem…

01:01:26:22

ON CAMERA (INTERVIEW)
Deborah Nelson

DEBORAH NELSON (ON CAMERA):
But we have to write it in a way that when they read it in the morning at their kitchen table they'll choke on their coffee and they'll jump up and say ‘We’ve got to do something about this.'

01:01:35:29

MAN ON CAMERA
(Standing outdoor interview)
Gideon Levy

GIDEON LEVY (ON CAMERA):
One thing I want to prevent is that there would not be one single reader who would say ‘I didn't know. I never knew we were doing those things.'

01:01:45:10

ON CAMERA (INTERVIEW)
Dana Priest

DANA PRIEST (ON CAMERA):
And now I find myself in this era where people are saying “we don't want to know that, why are you writing that?” “We don't want to know that.” And it's like I still have to shove it in the paper because...

01:01:55:12

Shot of Dana Priest walking down the stairs of a government building and out with view of capitol
in background

DANA PRIEST (VO):
You are going to give away your democracy if you don't take responsibility for the decisions that are made in your name.

01:02:05:14

B-roll:

VARIOUS SHOTS
Shots of journalists interviewing people in different places.

Shot of men reading newspapers in the street.

Camera moving down to busy unpaved street , people walking around.

Man selling newspapers walking towards camera.

NARRATOR:
THOUGH THEY WORK IN WIDELY DIFFERENT POLITICAL AND CULTURAL CONTEXTS, THESE JOURNALISTS SHARE A COMMON MISSION: PROVIDING THE TRUTHFUL INFORMATION THEY BELIEVE PEOPLE NEED TO TAKE CONTROL OF THEIR LIVES AND LIVE MORE DEMOCRATIC SOCIETIES.
EVEN IN A NATION WHERE DEMOCRACY IS ONLY A DREAM, THEY ARE DETERMINED TO LAY ITS FOUNDATION.

01:02:30:06

Camera pan/shot of destroyed and worn out houses and buildings on a main street of town.
FADE IN TITLE:
SIERRA LEONE

ANDREW KROMAH (VO):
I don't see us having a true democracy without empowering the people, without educating the people. 

01:02:38:09

ON CAMERA (INTERVIEW):
Outdoor interview
Andrew Kromah

ANDREW KROMAH (ON CAMERA):
 The vision is to see a country where information can be flowing freely.

01:02:43:25

Tracking shot inside a slum.
Very poor neighborhood.
People walking around, naked children.

ANDREW KROMAH (VO):
This country has gone down for a long time. The life expectancy in this country is really really a problem because of bad government, corruption, violation of human rights, civil war.
(Gun Shots.)

01:03:03:26

B-roll: 
VARIOUS SHOTS

Archival footage of:
Armed rebels in the streets, shooting, killing people.

NARRATOR:
For more than a decade this West African nation Sierra Leone was ravaged by violent civil war. Many journalists were killed. When the rebels invaded the capital in 1999 they specifically targeted journalists.

01:03:28:03

Shot of ANDREW KROMAH at home talking about the attack. Standing near entrance door, pointing.

ANDREW KROMAH (ON CAMERA):
That night soldiers hit at the door, knock at the door for me to open. When I moved on to the door just from this point, I was like ‘Hey I'm coming, I'm coming.’
Just by the time I got there that's when I saw bullets, how the bullets.. I mean the holes are all on here, you see the holes, the bullet holes coming in..

01:03:49:28

ON CAMERA
(INTERVIEW)
Hanna Foullah

HANNAH FOULLAH (ON CAMERA):
We just heard papapapa and that was it, that battle lasted for some days. I had diarrhea for two weeks, I could not eat. It was really scary.

01:04:04:17

B-roll: 
VARIOUS SHOTS

Shot of crowd in street running towards camera.

Men sitting outside listening to the radio.

NARRATOR:
In 2002 Sierra Leone is trying to hold a democratic election. For years elections here have erupted in violence or elected governments have been quickly overthrown.
Now journalists are trying to provide the coverage that will help to ensure a truly democratic election.

01:04:25:19

ON CAMERA (INTERVIEW)
Hannah Foullah

HANNAH FOULLAH (ON CAMERA):
The media has a very important role to play in…

01:04:29:07

B-roll:
VARIOUS SHOTS

Shots of people on streets listening to portable radios.

Women at balcony with portable radio.

People walking with radios.

Man with a sewing machine.

HANNAH FOULLAH (VO):
…the way we develop.

ANDREW KROMAH (VO):
Radio in developing countries is a vital tool that we must develop on. Every household now do have at least one radio.

HANNAH FOULLAH (VO):
In a country where you live with so many illiterate people, not many people read papers, not many people have television sets…

01:04:54:09

Shot of HANNAH FOULLAH walking into radio station’s meeting room

HANNAH FOULLAH (VO):

…radio here is about education

01:04:58:03

VERITE SCENE:
Staff meeting at radio station’s meeting room with conference table.

HANNAH FOULAH: Hello
ANDREW KROMAH: ..and ends at 1. That's the first shift. (To Hannah): How are you doing?
HANNA FOULAH: Fine.

ANDREW KROMAH (VO):
Come this election I kept thinking ‘what should I do?' It would be very good if we have reporters at all polling stations. I couldn't get the funding for that.

HANNAH FOULLAH (To Andrew): Sorry you have to go over that again.
ANDREW KROMAH (To Hannah): Okay.

NARRATOR:
With no broadcasting infrastructure and no funding, Andrew Kromah and Hannah Foullah ask other radio stations to combine resources with them.

Andrew Kromah: We are going to .. for you guys to go to your radio stations tomorrow because you don't need them for the whole day.
BERESFORD: We are talking about from 6 o'clock to 1 o'clock am
ANDREW KROMAH (to Hannah): am...Am I right?
HANNAH FOULLAH: Yes

NARRATOR:
TOGETHER THEY FORMED THE INDEPENDENT RADIO NETWORK TO COVER THE ELECTIONS.

ANDREW KROMAH: Now, second shift...

HANNAH FOULLAN (VO):
This is the first time this has been done in Sierra Leone in this way. I am very proud that I was part of that process.

ANDREW KROMAH: ..We need to tell them that they should not forget they ID card, their voter ID cards...

01:06:00:28

B-roll: 
VARIOUS SHOTS

Shots of polling station. 
People in line to vote.

Noise in background
ANDREW KROMAH (VO):
Early in the morning all we did was start sensitizing the people go out and vote. Go with your ballot papers, don't wear party symbols.
(sound of radio broadcast in background)
Please do whatever you can do so that we can prevent violent or intimidation…

01:06:26:19

VARIOUS SHOTS with some VERITE:

Reporter at polling station walking around interviewing people.

ANDREW KROMAH (VO):

…at the polling stations.

BERESFORD TAYLOR (reporter to MAN): Excuse me sir, which station is that?
MAN: 98
BERESFORD: 98, all right, thank you.
(noise in background)

ANDREW KROMAH (VO):
All our men were out there collecting information.

BERESFORD: What's the problem?
MEN (shouting): Slow, slow...
BERESFORD: Oh, it's slow.

HANNAH FOULLAH (VO):
During this election there's been transparency in the whole process. You have reports as to the problems they were facing. 
(Beresford reporting on background)
The late arrival of ballot boxes, the mix-up of voters registries, all of that went on air.

NARRATOR:
THE RADIO NETWORK'S ONLY MEANS OF BROADCASTING LIVE IS CELLPHONES.

(SOUND OF BROADCAST FROM RADIOS)

01:07:20:16

VARIOUS SHOTS:

Shots of Andrew and other reporters at the radio station while broadcast is going on. Phones, cell phones and a boom box.

SOUND OF BROADCAST IN BACKGROUND

01:07:30:21

ON CAMERA (INTERVIEW)
Hanna Foullah

HANNAH FOULLAH (ON CAMERA):
Thank God this year we have cell phones. All the way in the provinces we could get calls from people. So technology also helped us a great deal.

01:07:39:05

B-roll:
VARIOUS SHOTS
Andrew and the staff at radio station. 

Making phone calls, fixing the transmission, broadcasting, etc.

ANDREW KROMAH (VO):
What I am doing is giving the people the freedom to express themselves and letting them know that you are free to collect information and that you are free to pass it.
Actually I'm a counterpart of the government. Democracy is between..

01:08:14:04

ON CAMERA
(INTERVIEW)
Andrew Kromah

ANDREW KROMAH (ON CAMERA):
.. the people who are governed and the people who govern the people. So, my role is in between them: the poor grassroots there who need to know what the government is doing, what decisions are been taken for them, and the bigger ones out there to know how these people are evaluating and assessing whatever they are doing for them.

01:08:36:06

Shot of radio station broadcasting.
ANDREW and staff.

Hannah's report coming from radio in the background. Beresford on the phone talking. Andrew giving orders in background. 

ANDREW KROMAH (VO):
Throughout the day we carried on with the process until after five. Then we informed the people that it is time for us to start expecting results.

01:08:55:24

VERITE :
People counting votes.

HANNAH reporting from polling station.

HANNAH (ON PHONE-KRIO): RUF party, Mr. Paolo Bangura 15,...Sierra Leone People's party, Jean Kabba 306...

01:09:12:03

B-roll:

CROWD walking and dancing on the street.

People singing.

ANDREW KROMAH (VO):
Today, people went to the polling stations non violently, so the role of the media is very very important in our democratic process.

01:09:28:27

Shot of UN jeep passing through. UN peacekeepers getting out of it.

NARRATOR:
THE OUTCOME OF THIS ELECTION? A DEMOCRATICALLY ELECTED GOVERNMENT INSTALLED WITHOUT VIOLENCE AND STILL STANDING.

01:09:37:18

Shots of:

Radio studio. Hannah and Andrew live.

Radio antenna

Hannah's voice on background broadcasting live.
HANNAH FOULLAH (VO):
There has to be an independent voice, if there's no independent voice then what you'll have is no democracy and we want to really protect that.

01:09:54:10

B-roll 
VARIOUS SHOTS:

People on the street with portable radios. Traffic, busy street.

Traffic noise on background
NARRATOR:
CREATING THE INDEPENDENT VOICE NECESSARY TO DEMOCRACY IS DIFFICULT IN UNDERDEVELOPED COUNTRIES. 

01:10:01:20

B-roll:
VARIOUS SHOTS

American flags waving on a building.

View of the capitol 

Fade in Title: Washington D.C.

NARRATOR:
MAINTAINING THIS INDEPENDENT VOICE CAN ALSO BE DIFFICULT EVEN IN HIGHLY DEVELOPED DEMOCRACIES.
SOME AMERICAN JOURNALISTS FEEL RESPONSIBILITY TO CHALLENGE WHAT THEY VIEW AS THEIR GOVERNMENT'S ATTEMPTS BOTH TO DICTATE THE NATIONAL AGENDA AND TO CONTROL PUBLIC PERCEPTION OF IT.

FADE UP: PRESIDENT BUSH'S VOICE: There's an enemy out there..

01:10:19:29

Shots of President BUSH giving a speech

Fade in: title cards of dates.

BUSH (ON CAMERA):
...lurking around which hates America, they just do. And they hate us because of what we love. We love freedom, that's what we love.

BUSH (ON CAMERA): We believe in freedom of speech, we believe in freedom of the press.(applause, cheers, on background)

BUSH (ON CAMERA): And the enemy doesn't think that way. You see they hate freedom, they hate the idea of people being able to worship freely.

BUSH (ON CAMERA): And you need to know they hate us because we love freedom. We love to worship freely, we love to speak our mind, we love a free press, we love all the aspects of our freedom. But what they need to understand is that we are willing to defend our freedoms at any cost, any place, anywhere.

FADE UP cheers

01:11:05:26

B-roll:
VARIOUS SHOTS

President BUSH walking through a crowd, greeting. People cheering.

President BUSH walking to a podium greeting
audience.

Cheers and music in background
DANA MILBANK (VO): 
It's very hard to do real reporting on the Bush White House. You are just being spoon-fed stories and multiple briefings each day. It is very hard to avoid being a stenographer and  just sort of parroting out information that the White House is giving you.

01:11:24:18

ON CAMERA
(INTERVIEW)
Dana Milbank

DANA MILBANK (ON CAMERA):
They're getting better and better at controlling the message, keeping internal deliberations to themselves and then when a decision is made, having everybody singing ofF the same sheet, using all the same talking points. Basically putting up a wall. And it has become more and more difficult for the media to get around it.

01:11:42:27

ON CAMERA (INTERVIEW)
Ken Silverstein

KEN SILVERSTEIN (ON CAMERA):
We tend to cover what the White House talks about and we tend to frame it the way it is framed. so, you know, even if you set out to disprove it, the starting point is what's been established by the White House.

01:11:56:10

ON CAMERA
(INTERVIEW)
Warren Stroebel

WARREN STROEBEL (ON CAMERA):
It is true that the U.S. government, especially in this day and age has tremendous tremendous ability to drive coverage of events and to set the agenda. It's not just the President getting out there and talking..

01:12:07:08

B-roll:
VARIOUS SHOTS

Shots of news television programs with Condolezza Rice, Donald Rumsfeld and Cheney.

TV news reports on background

WARREN STROEBEL (VO):
..all of the different agencies are coordinated. There’s a morning phone call between all the press people of the different agencies to make sure that they are all on message.

CHENEY (ON CAMERA-to interviewer on TV):..the quality of our intelligence operations, I think we are better than anybody else generally in this area

01:12:19:15

ON CAMERA
(INTERVIEW)
Warren Stroebel

WARREN STROEBEL (ON CAMERA):
Now in the US government people spend maybe 40% of their time worrying about the policy and 60% worrying about how to sell the policy and how to shape the policy and shape public perception.

01:12:30:05

B-roll:
VARIOUS SHOTS

Warren Stroebel and Jonathan Landay at their desks working. 

At newsroom walking and talking.

NARRATOR:
KNIGHT RIDDER REPORTERS WARREN STROEBEL AND JONATHAN LANDAY ARE AMONG THE FEW AMERICAN REPORTERS WHO HAVE CONSISTENTLY CHALLENGED THE MESSAGE DISSEMINATED BY THE GOVERNMENT.

STROEBEL AND LANDAY SERIOUSLY QUESTIONED THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION’S RATIONALE FOR INVADING IRAQ.

01:12:47:25

ON CAMERA
(INTERVIEW)
Jonathan Landay

JONATHAN LANDAY (ON CAMERA):
We started hearing from a couple of people that the intelligence was not there that backed up the administration's public statements.

01:13:00:02

VARIOUS SHOTS of BUSH at the United Nations 

BUSH (ON CAMERA-to audience): We meet one year and one day after a terrorist attack brought grief to my country.

JONATHAN LANDAY (VO):
When the President went to the United Nations General Assembly in September of ‘02, there was dissent over whether Saddam had reconstituted his nuclear weapons program.

BUSH (ON CAMERA-TO AUDIENCE): Iraq has made several attempts to buy high strength aluminum tubes used to enrich Uranium for a nuclear weapon.

JONATHAN LANDAY (VO):
The Department of Energy's own experts said ‘no, we do not believe that these aluminum tubes are for centrifuges.'

BUSH (OFF CAMERA) Should Iraq acquired fissile material it would be able to build a nuclear weapon within a year.

JONATHAN LANDAY (VO):
The Bureau of Intelligence and Research of the State Department said ‘we don't see this.'

BUSH (ON CAMERA-TO AUDIENCE): Saddam Hussein regime is a grave and gathering danger.

JONATHAN LANDAY (VO):
A couple of weeks later the CIA presented to Congress a routine report on proliferation. 

01:14:02:04

ON CAMERA
(INTERVIEW)
Jonathan Landay

JONATHAN LANDAY (ON CAMERA):
What stood out for me was a paragraph that said: ‘there is a difference of opinion among intelligence analysts over whether or not these tubes are for his nuclear program.’

01:14:12:11

Television Program. Condoleeza Rice speaking.

Newspaper article 
graphic (Headline:
Experts dispute CIA appraisal of Hussein arsenal) 

CONDOLEEZZA RICE (ON CAMERA): There have been shipments going into Iran, into Iraq, for instance of aluminum tubes that are really only suited to.. high quality aluminum tubes that are only really suited for nuclear weapons programs...

Condoleezza Rice talking on background

JONATHAN LANDAY (VO):
The more we heard the administration make statements, the more we checked out their assertions, the more we would find there was nothing to them.
I was incredulous about the rote repetition..

01:14:40:20

ON CAMERA
(INTERVIEW)
Jonathan Landay

JONATHAN LANDAY (ON CAMERA):
..that we were hearing from the rest of the mainstream media of the administration's case for going to war.

01:14:48;04

Footage of television program with Condoleezza Rice and anchor.

REPORTER: How close is that government to developing a nuclear capability?
CONDOLEEZZA RICE: We don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud.

01:14:55:16

Shot of Vice President Cheney giving a speech

CHENEY (TO AUDIENCE): Saddam Hussein will acquire nuclear weapons fairly soon.

01:14:59;07

Shot of President Bush giving a speech.

BUSH (TO AUDIENCE): For eleven years he has deceived and denied...

01:15:04;08

Shot of Vice President Cheney giving a speech.

CHENEY(TO AUDIENCE): Containment is not possible

01:15:06:14

Shot of CONDOLEEZZA RICE on television program.

CONDOLEEZZA RICE: There may well have been contacts between Al-qaeda and Saddam Hussein’s regime.

01:15:11:11

Shot of Vice President Cheney giving a speech.

CHENEY(TO AUDIENCE): Pictures of Al-qaeda members training to commit acts of terror, testing chemical weapons.

01:15:16:13

VARIOUS SHOTS of President Bush giving a speech.

BUSH (TO AUDIENCE): He's a threat to our friends, he's a threat to our allies.
BUSH (TO AUDIENCE): He can't stand what we believe in.

01:15:22:17

ON CAMERA
(INTERVIEW)
Jonathan Landay

JONATHAN LANDAY (ON CAMERA):
The totality of it appeared to us to be a deliberate campaign to win popular support for an invasion of Iraq based on extremely spurious grounds.

01:15:40:28

ON CAMERA
(INTERVIEW)
Warren Stroebel

WARREN STROEBEL (ON CAMERA):
I started talking to people whom I trusted and became aware that there was actually this group in the government, in the Pentagon, in the vice-president's office and elsewhere who was trying to make their own foreign policy separate and distinct from what we thought foreign policy was. It was almost as shadow government.

01:15:57:16

B-roll:

Black and White stills of politicians.

Newspaper article graphic (Headline:
Are other goals behind an Iraq War?) 

JONATHAN LANDAY (VO):
Some of these people like the depute secretary of defense Paul Wolfowitz, Donald Rumsfeld, Vice-president Cheney, were not only pursuing their own foreign policy agenda but had set up their own intelligence shop in the Pentagon.

01:16:13:26

ON CAMERA
(INTERVIEW)
Jonathan Landay

JONATHAN LANDAY (ON CAMERA):
They found sources that were telling them information that...

01:16:17:24

Newspaper Article graphic from the New York Times with photograph of President Bush
(Headline: Bush Sees ‘Urgent Duty’ to Pre-empt Attack by Iraq)

JONATHAN LANDAY (VO):
…melded with their policy goals, and they went with this stuff.
And then we would turn on CNN 

01:16:26:16

ON CAMERA
(INTERVIEW)
Jonathan Landay

JONATHAN LANDAY (ON CAMERA):
…or we would read the Washington Post and the New York Times and we'd say, ‘why isn't anybody else reporting this? Maybe we are wrong, maybe we don't have this right. Can this be?’
And feeling at times...I remember times when not being able to sleep.

01:16:44:21

Newspaper articles graphics:

Newspaper article (headline: Bush overstates support, some in administration say)

Newspaper article (headline: Top officials see is as a start in spreading democracy throughout the region)

Newspaper article
(headline: No smoking guns in Iraq)

JONATHAN LANDAY (VO):
I'd wake up in the middle of the night going ‘God I hope I'm right.”
Why isn't anybody else reporting this?
And essentially being out there all alone, for months.

REPORTER (VO):

The President is now saying he…

01:16:58:08

Shot of Reporter on television news show

REPORTER: 

…has no doubt that Iraq is in league with Al-qaeda and bluntly told members of the UN security Council they risk irrelevancy if they don't support war.

01:17:08:17

ON CAMERA
(INTERVIEW)
Jonathan Landay

JONATHAN LANDAY (ON CAMERA):
I think that there was a failure on the part of the American press akin to the intelligence failure perpetrated by the American government when it came to Iraq. And that failure was, bottom line, that the mainstream press for the most part failed to do its job.

01:17:37:27

ON CAMERA
(INTERVIEW)
Dana Priest

DANA PRIEST (ON CAMERA):
The whole question of whether the press was a patsy for the administration going to war in Iraq affects me a lot, because I...my job was to report on that particular subject - Did Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, what was the debate about it.

01:17:50:05

Shot of Dana Priest at her desk making a phone call.

DANA PRIEST (VO):
Now we know the State's Department Intelligence branch was uniformly always much more.. 

01:17:56:03

ON CAMERA
(INTERVIEW)
Dana Priest

DANA PRIEST (ON CAMERA):
..critical than the CIA. But the major intelligence agencies in that one document the National Intelligence assessment laid it all out..

01:18:05:21

Dissolve to:

Graphic of CIA document.

DANA PRIEST (VO):
Were of the mind that he was close to a nuclear capability.

01:18:12:20

Dissolve to:

ON CAMERA
(INTERVIEW)
Dana Priest

DANA PRIEST (ON CAMERA):
So, it's unrealistic to think the press could've made a better call than the intelligence agencies.

01:18:21:09

ON CAMERA
(INTERVIEW)
Jonathan Landay

JONATHAN LANDAY (ON CAMERA):
It wasn't a question of having secret intelligence sources.

01:18:25:14

Various graphics of CIA document.
Different pages and shots

JONATHAN LANDAY (VO):
The classified version of the National Intelligence estimate was published in October of ‘02.
The public version was a so-called “white paper”. The differences were just amazing. The public version: We know he has weapons of mass destruction. We know he's got a chemical weapons program. We know he's got a biological weapons program. We know he's trying to reconstitute his nuclear program. Unqualified indictment.

01:18:57:09

ON CAMERA
(INTERVIEW)
Jonathan Landay

JONATHAN LANDAY (ON CAMERA): 
That was what the American public was being told. But if you look at what policy makers were being told secretly, there was a world of difference.

01:19:07:14

Various graphics of document. 
Different shots.

Newspaper Article
(headline: Officials' Private doubts on Iraq War)

JONATHAN LANDAY (VO):
The secret version was: We judge, we can't say for sure, we think, or we are not sure about this. All of those caveats wasn't in the public version.
The secret version had been declassified by the White House six months before I actually did this, so it was out there for any journalists. But even more astounding was that members of Congress…

01:19:33:24

Dissolve to:

ON CAMERA
(INTERVIEW)
Jonathan Landay

JONATHAN LANDAY (ON CAMERA):
…had access to both these documents and could've done the comparison but didn't.

01:19:38:22

Newspaper article graphics:

Newspaper article (headline: Alleged Al Qaeda Ties Questioned)

Newspaper article (headline: Making the Case Against Baghdad; Officials: Evidence Strong, not Conclusive)

Newspaper article (headline: U.S. Lacks Specifics on Banned Arms)

Newspaper article (headline: Bush Clings to Dubious Allegations About Iraq)

Various shots of newspaper page numbers: A21, A17. A13

NARRATOR:

A handful of other American reporters also questioned the Bush administration’s intelligence on weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Dana Priest, herself, at least once. Washington Post reporter Walter Pincus wrote several articles expressing doubts about the validity of the government’s intelligence. But all such articles were consigned to the back pages of the Post. 

01:20:08:09

ON CAMERA
(INTERVIEW)
Dana Priest

DANA PRIEST (ON CAMERA):
If you were going to say that the President or the Vice President has exaggerated the facts about Iraq you better know what you are talking about. Which means, you might be right, but you better be able to prove it. And in order to prove it you have to do a fair amount of work, you'd probably had to be at the beat quite a while to have that kind of sourcing.

01:20:30:11

Newspaper article
graphic
(Headline: For Bush Facts are Malleable)

DANA MILBANK (VO):
I wrote a story in October of 2002, the headline was particularly provocative, it was on the front page and said: For Bush the Facts are Malleable. And when you get at the truth telling of the administration...

01:20:42:07

Dissolve to:

ON CAMERA
(INTERVIEW)
Dana Milbank

DANA MILBANK (ON CAMERA):
..they are particularly sensitive. So I remember Ari Fletcher at the time literally getting within inches of my nose and spittle sort of flying as he screamed at me and he was also screaming at my editor, that was the phone call from Air Force One.

01:20:58:07

ON CAMERA
(INTERVIEW)
Jonathan Landay

JONATHAN LANDAY (ON CAMERA):
There was a pattern to this. It didn't just happened once or twice. There was a pattern that emerged in which this government disclosed information, information that was partial, or it was stretched or it was...wrong, wasn't true.

1:21:27:07

Newspaper article graphics:

Newspaper article (headline: The Times and Iraq) Various shots.

Newspaper article (headline: The Post on WMDs: An Inside Story; Prewar Articles Questioning Threat Often Didn’t Make Front Page) Various shots. 

NARRATOR:

Over a year after the war in Iraq began, two major American newspapers, The New York Times and the Washington Post, published critiques of their pre-war reporting. The editors admitted they had failed to question the reporters’ sources regarding weapons of mass destruction in Iraq or to feature the work of reporters who did ask such questions. 

01:21:53:19

Dissolve to:

Various shots of President Bush arriving to Mexico and meeting President Fox.
FADE IN: Title: MEXICO

voices and music in background
RICARDO ROCHA (VO): (Spanish w/subtitles)
Frequently the government offers us their version of what happened. But, is this always the truth?

01:22:09:14

ON CAMERA
(INTERVIEW)
Ricardo Rocha

RICARDO ROCHA (ON CAMERA): (Spanish w/ subtitles)
And this happens in Mexico, in the U.S., in Europe, everywhere. governments give a version of the truth. So my idea is to go behind the Government’s story, what is behind that curtain.
Do Mr. Fox and Mr. Bush always tell us the truth? Do they always tell us the truth? Or do we need to jump over that curtain, or go around it to see what is behind these official numbers, or statistics, or these facts?

01:22:44:08

B-roll:
VARIOUS SHOTS

Journalist Ricardo Rocha walking around a square in Mexico City. Various shots of the square.

NARRATOR:
DISTINGUISHED JOURNALIST RICARDO ROCHA REMEMBERS HOW COMPLETELY THE MEXICAN GOVERNMENT CONTROLLED WHAT THE PUBLIC COULD KNOW AS LATE AS 1968, WHEN STUDENTS STAGED A DEMONSTRATION IN THIS SQUARE.

RICARDO ROCHA (VO): (Spanish w/subtitles)
This is the Plaza of the Three Cultures in Tlatelolco, the heart of Mexico City. Here, on October 2, 1968, a crowd of about 20,000 people gathered. At about seven o’clock a flare rose to the sky...like a firework! Some people thought it was a celebration...until many students started to fall to the ground.
Many people were killed, the blood was everywhere. People were running in every direction, soldiers arresting those that were running, students pushed against the walls, battered by the soldiers. It was a time of terrible confusion.
This square was clean by 8 am the next day. Government employees came. Everything was planned, “apparently” nothing happened.
There are some moving words of the great poet Rosario Castellanos: ‘Nothing happened here. The media didn’t say anything. The cover story of the next day was the weather report. The radio and television remained quiet.’
This was a shameful episode for the media in Mexico.

01:24:40:04

ON CAMERA
(INTERVIEW-at the square)
Ricardo Rocha

RICARDO ROCHA (ON CAMERA): (Spanish w/subtitles)
From that moment on, I developed a rage and anger against the media. And I can say now that what happened here is one of the most important reasons why I decided to work in the media.

01:24:57:13

VERITE SCENE:

RICARDO ROCHA reporting from demonstration, recording his report.

Noisy background
(Spanish with subtitles)
RICARDO ROCHA (To camera-reporting): Here in Cancun in a virtual state of siege...146 ministers of commerce from all over the world are meeting. They are discussing the rules for the development of this planet.

01:25:14:00

VERITE SCENE:

Violent demonstration, crowded scene with police and full of demonstrators. RICARDO ROCHA reporting from the event, holding up a cell phone and with camera, interviewing people.
Various shots of the demonstration.

Noise from crowd in background
(Spanish with subtitles)
RICARDO ROCHA (reporting): What I can see from here is that there’s already direct contact with the police. Listen to what the people are saying.
MAN (loudspeaker): ...to all the governments of the world, for everything that happens to the peasants...
RICARDO ROCHA (into cell phone-reporting): that they hold the government of Fox and all the governments of the world responsible…

People chanting and yelling in background
RICARDO ROCHA (VO): 
We always try to give a voice to the voiceless to all these marginal groups…

WOMAN (to microphone): Spanish-no translation

RICARDO ROCHA (VO): 
...So that the camera can record their voices and transmit them everywhere. So that all Mexicans can listen to these minorities…

01:26:00:02

ON CAMERA
(INTERVIEW)
Ricardo Rocha

RICARDO ROCHA (ON CAMERA): (Spanish with subtitles)
...because the majority in a democracy is the sum of all the minorities.

01:26:08:29

Shots of Ricardo Rocha on television show.

Dissolve to:
Various images from amateur video of a massacre.

Spanish with English subtitles
RICARDO ROCHA (on TV show): The number of murders in Guerrero has increased because of the massacre that occurred in Aguas Blancas...an event that disturbed and angered not only the people of Guerrero, but all Mexicans...

RICARDO ROCHA (VO): (Spanish with English subtitles)
When I aired the video about the massacre in “Aguas Blancas,” it had a brutal impact in Mexico by doing more social and critical journalism.

NARRATOR: 
ROCHA CHALLENGED THE GOVERNMENT’S VERSION OF THIS MASSACRE BY BROADCASTING THIS GRAPHIC VIDEO.

RICARDO ROCHA (VO): (Spanish with English subtitles)
It was a terrible document, very revealing. A very dear friend told me: ‘in spite of the brutality..

01:27:20:13

ON CAMERA
(INTERVIEW)
Ricardo Rocha

RICARDO ROCHA (ON CAMERA) 

(Spanish with English subtitles)
“It’s been a big journalistic success. Enjoy it, but remember you will be billed for this sooner or later. The system, the government, does not forget such things. You are going to pay for what you did.”

01:27:37:22

B-roll:
VARIOUS SHOTS

Shots of Mexican politicians.

Shot of Ricardo Rocha on television show talking to audience. Slow zoom into his face.

News report in the background
RICARDO ROCHA (VO): (Spanish with English subtitles)
The government was a bit tired of my news reports. They said I was always destabilizing the country.

Rocha’s voice in TV show on background
RICARDO ROCHA (VO): (Spanish with English subtitles)
I was doing two news shows per week, they asked me to leave one show, I did. It was an order.
My show was supposed to air at 10pm, they delayed it to 11pm. Sometimes they would delay it until 11:50pm.
I really felt that from that moment...that Televisa, for which I had great respect and always will, was no longer my home.

01:28:17;26

Shot of Ricardo Rocha at his television studio broadcasting live, finishing the program and leaving.

Music and Rocha reporting in background
NARRATOR:
EDGED OUT OF HIS JOB AT MEXICO’S LEADING BROADCAST NETWORK, ROCHA FORMED AN INDEPENDENT PRODUCTION COMPANY TO CONTINUE HIS INVESTIGATIVE WORK. HE CALLS HIS COMPANY BEHIND THE NEWS.

RICARDO ROCHA (VO): (Spanish with English subtitles)
I’m currently the conductor of what one colleague calls: A ship of fools.

01:28:48:19

B-roll:

Shots of Ricardo Rocha inside a car, shots of the highway.

Rocha talking to his peers holding up a magazine.

Car noise in background
NARRATOR:
TO KEEP HIS COMPANY FINANCIALLY SOLVENT ROCHA MUST DO SEVERAL RADIO SHOWS PER WEEK TELEVISING SOME OF THEM FOR CABLE AND ONE WEEKLY INVESTIGATIVE PIECE FOR MEXICO’S SECOND LARGEST NETWORK.

RICARDO ROCHA (to peers in car): They list the names of the dug trafficcers that have been linked to him...

01:29:13:00

Shot of Rocha at a seminary in Mexico meeting and walking with Cardinal.

Rocha and Cardinal talking on background
NARRATOR:
THIS WEEK HE IS REPORTING ON THE CASE OF A PROMINENT ROMAN CATHOLIC CARDINAL ACCUSED OF MONEY LAUNDERING FOR DRUG TRAFFICCERS.

01:29:22:19

Shot of Rocha interviewing the Cardinal.

RICARDO ROCHA (VO): (Spanish with English subtitles)
At this time, Mexico is experiencing a very important political moment…

01:29:30:13

ON CAMERA
(INTERVIEW)
Ricardo Rocha

RICARDO ROCHA (ON CAMERA): (Spanish with English subtitles)
…which started with the accusations against the Cardinal Sandoval.

01:29:35:22

VERITE SCENE:
Ricardo Rocha interviewing the Cardinal.

Rocha interviewing Cardinal in background
RICARDO ROCHA (VO): (Spanish with English Subtitles)
...Because this is questioning again the power relationship between the government and the church.
Spanish with English Subtitles
RICARDO ROCHA (to Cardinal): By the way, this next Sunday there is a call for a demonstration by Catholics here in Guadalajara, to support you during this situation. Is this a demonstration of power against the government?
CARDINAL (to Rocha): No, absolutely no. This is a spontaneous act. I’m not sponsoring it. I’m no calling anybody. If this happens, it will happen spontaneously within the Catholic community in Guadalajara, and I hope that it will be very respectful and organized. But I hope it reflects that the Catholic community is hurt.

01:30:26:29

ON CAMERA
(INTERVIEW)
Ricardo Rocha

RICARDO ROCHA (ON CAMERA): (Spanish with English subtitles)
I think journalists should have an ideological commitment.

01:30:31:20

Shots of Ricardo Rocha interviewing the Cardinal

RICARDO ROCHA (to Cardinal): Cardinal, you said that you will demand a public apology...
interview in background
RICARDO ROCHA (VO):
We have a commitment to the public to provide in-depth information.

01:30:43:29

ON CAMERA
(INTERVIEW)
Ricardo Rocha

RICARDO ROCHA (ON CAMERA):
It’s the recognition that we are seeking the truth. We do not own it, we may not find it. But we are seeking it.

01:30:58:02

Shot of WOMAN (Chris Anyanwu) walking with Man holding a hat and a camera. 
Fade in:
title NIGERIA

CHRIS ANYANWU (to man): Call him to come. With this background I want to talk to him…

CHRIS ANYANWU (VO): 
Nigerian journalists have always sought the truth. You watch who is doing things wrong, you write about them, you ask questions: why didn’t you do this? Why are you doing that?

01:31:18:21

VERITE SCENE:

CHRIS ANYANWU interviewing a man with river in the background for a television show.

CHRIS ANYANWU (to man): Is the river Niger dying?
MAN (to Chris): yes, I would say the river Niger is dying.

Interview in background
CHRIS ANYANWU (VO): 
You see the problems, you push them, why aren’t you solving the problem?

CHRIS ANYANWU (to man): Have you heard of toxic dumping on the Niger?
MAN (to Chris): Yes, sometime ago, yes. Not recently.
CHRIS ANYANWU (to man): When? no, no, just tell me about it.
MAN (to Chris): The one we had around...? some years ago...I don’t know.

Interview in background
CHRIS ANYANWU (VO): 
Quite often they label some type of information as secrets.

CHRIS ANYANWU (to man): How did that affect the Niger?
MAN (to Chris): No, it didn’t have any effect upstream, probably downstream.

Interview in background
CHRIS ANYANWU (VO): 
We do not think that all things need to be labeled as secrets.

01:31:58:08

B-roll: 
VARIOUS SHOTS

Shots of CHRIS ANYANWU and other people getting on a boat carrying stuff.

NARRATOR:
FOR SEEKING THE TRUTHS GOVERNMENTS ARE TRYING TO HIDE, JOURNALISTS MAY PAY WITH MORE THAN THEIR JOB.

IN 1995 CHRIS ANYANWU BROKE THE STORY THAT PROMINENT NIGERIAN CITIZENS HAD BEEN ARRESTED IN AN ATTEMPTED COUP, AN ATTEMPTED COUP THE MILITARY GOVERNMENT DENIED HAD HAPPENED.

CHRIS ANYANWU (VO):
When the military came, government was trying to dictate to us what to think, what to say...

01:32:27;17

ON CAMERA
(INTERVIEW)
Chris Anyanwu

CHRIS ANYANWU (ON CAMERA):
No soldier will dictate to me how I’m going to write or how I’m going to report reality. No soldier will dictate that. Because I don’t dictate to him how he does his soldiering.

01:32:42:04

B-roll:
VARIOUS SHOTS

Shots of CHRIS ANYANWU on the boat.

Shots of the river.

CHRIS ANYANWU (VO):
When the rumors of the arrest came my usual source was extremely nervous, he said: they don’t want you to run the story, don’t even touch it. And I said: well, if you didn’t arrest people then I wouldn’t touch it.
Shortly after that I got a call from somebody in the military and he said: If you love your children don’t publish that story.

NARRATOR:
ON JUNE 1ST 1995 DICTATOR SANI ABACHA HAD HER ARRESTED AND IMPRISONED.

CHRIS ANYANWU (VO):
They threw me deeper down to the heart of the northern prisons in the country. It was likE we were walking into an oven. 
People had a lot of ant bites and pests, you know, they were really ravaging them. Even the prison workers were so tartared.

01:33:51:09

Dissolve to:
ON CAMERA
(INTERVIEW)
Chris Anyanwu

CHRIS ANYANWU (ON CAMERA):
When I got into the cell the only reaction, there was this narrow bed and somebody had taken the trouble to make a bed cover. And the man said: ‘Madame, I hope yo”ll be comfortable here.’
And I sat down and I covered my head with my scarf and I... I... I tell you.

01:34:22:00

Dissolve to:
Shots of the river.

Shots of Chris on the boat.

CHRIS ANYANWU (VO):
So, it was a journey that took from June 1995 to July 1998.
By the time I came out everything had crumbled...everything.

01:34:42:26

ON CAMERA 
(INTERVIEW)
Chris Anyanwu

CHRIS ANYANWU (ON CAMERA):
When I finally decided to come back I came to Abuja, because I felt that…that’s where they did it to me I wanted to commit them.

01:34:54;02

Shots of staff meeting with CHRIS ANYANWU and employees.

CHRIS ANYANWU (to young people): There has to be a purpose to a story. We don’t just tinker around like little kids. Every story we run here must have a social significance. How does it impact on the people, the people are our focus.

01:35:07:06

Shots of CHRIS ANYANWU at television studio getting ready to record.

NARRATOR:
DETERMINED TO CONTINUE HER WORK, ANYANWU TODAY RUNS A LIVELY INDEPENDENT PRODUCTION COMPANY.

CHRIS ANYANWU (VO):
I felt that it is better to stay here in Abuja and fight it out. If I’m going to survive let me survive here, if I’m not going to survive let it be here.

01:35:24:29

Shots of CHRIS ANYANWU recording television show at studio.

CHRIS ANYANWU (to camera): This week we bring you a story on a magnificent super structure. One of Nigeria’s finest engineering landmarks, the river Niger bridge and edifice, once a tourist attraction, is crying out for attention. Hello there I’m Chris Anyanwu and welcome to TSM TV.

Recording in background
CHRIS ANYANWU (VO):
I never imagined that they would go as far as arresting me. At the time there wasn’t much in the history of military repression to indicate that they might go as far as they went.

01:36:00:10

ON CAMERA
(INTERVIEW)
Chris Anyanwu

CHRIS ANYANWU (ON CAMERA):
I don’t know if that would’ve made a difference, I would have still run the story anyway.

01:36:05:23

B-roll:
VARIOUS SHOTS
People walking on the street at night.

Cut to:
WOMAN (Deborah Nelson) walking out of office.

Fade in:

Title: Los Angeles Times, Washington Bureau

DEBORAH NELSON (VO):
By nature true investigative journalists don’t work for anybody; they work for the story and that’s it.
Investigative reporting is hard to do and takes a long time. I mean, not only do we have to...

01:36:22:08

ON CAMERA
(INTERVIEW)
Deborah Nelson

DEBORAH NELSON (ON CAMERA):
…gather the evidence, enough evidence to persuade people that there’s a problem, that there’s an injustice and that we should do something about it. But we have to write it in a way that when they read it in the morning at the kitchen table, they’ll choke on their coffee and they’ll jump up and say: We’ve got to do something about this!

01:36:40:00

Shot of 
DEBORAH NELSON at her office with MAN (Ken Silverstein)

Ken and Deb talking in background
NARRATOR:
IN 2001 THE LOS ANGELES TIMES ASKED DISTINGUISHED JOURNALIST DEBORAH NELSON TO BUILD A TEAM OF INVESTIGATIVE REPORTERS.

01:36:52:18

Shot of Ken and Chuck walking down the street.

street noise in background
NARRATOR:
AMONG HER EARLY HIRES WERE KEN SILVERSTEIN AND CHUCK NEUBAUER.

01:36:58:29

B-roll:
VARIOUS SHOTS of Chuck and Ken, entering office, at newsroom, working, etc.

Ken and Deb at newsroom.

DEBORAH NELSON (VO):
Chuck and I worked in Chicago together as investigative reporters. And Chuck is the best. He had put a governor, an attorney general, a treasurer and a congressman in prison.
I’d always read and admired Ken’s work. Nothing gets Ken going like if you put a corrupt regime leader with Washington connections.
My job is to help them overcome the dozens and sometimes hundreds of hurdles that stand between them and getting the truth and getting it in the paper in a readable form.

Investigative reporting is setting your own agenda. It’s not chasing somebody else’s investigation…

01:37:48:13

ON CAMERA 
(INTERVIEW)
Deborah Nelson

DEBORAH NELSON (ON CAMERA):
…It’s having the government chase yours. It’s doing your own independent research to determine what is true and what is not.

01:37:56:20

Shot of Ken and Chuck entering an office building. 

Various shots of Ken and Chuck in an office researching some papers.

KEN SILVERSTEIN (VO):
The justice department has this small office downtown, the foreign agent registration unit, where lobbyists for foreign governments or foreign entities have to register.

KEN SILVERSTEIN (to clerk): Is it easier for you to look by lobby shop or by entity they are representing, I presume...

NARRATOR:
THE L.A. TIMES TEAM IS AT WORK ON A SERIES OF STORIES ABOUT SENATORS AND CONGRESSMEN WHO USE THEIR INFLUENCE TO BENEFIT THE BUSINESSES OF THEIR FAMILIES.

KEN SILVERSTEIN (VO):
We are looking at the lobbying shop run by Karen Weldon, the daughter of congressman Kurt Weldon

CHUCK NEUBAUER (to KEN): It’s this Solutions North America, they have a couple of clients.

Ken and Chuck in background
KEN SILVERSTEIN (VO):
She’s 29 years old and she’s got what appears to be a flourishing lobbying firm that signed up 3 pretty good paying clients real quickly. We have documents and interviews that show that the daughter is lobbying for clients that the member of congress himself has been supportive of in the past. She has filed her disclosure reports there so we wanted to pick those up.

KEN (to clerk): Can we get copies of all this stuff?

01:39:15:00

ON CAMERA
(INTERVIEW)
Deborah Nelson

DEBORAH NELSON (ON CAMERA)
There is a tremendous concentration of power on the hill in Washington, and that power can be used for good or it can be used for personal enrichment, for favors to special interests that support you. And it’s that second part of the equation that Chuck and Ken are focused on.

01:39:40:08

VERITE SCENE:
Editorial meeting of the LA Times investigative unit.

DEBORAH NELSON: We have Weldon…
CHUCK NEUBAUER: ...who’s powerful, he’s a self styled Russian expert, who has gone to Russia 29 times or something... probably all on our dollar.
DEBORAH NELSON (to Chuck) He studied Russian right?
CHUCK NEUBAUER: He studied Russian. He’s a big deal on military procurement.
KEN SILVERSTEIN (off camera) He’s the primary supporter of ballistic missile defense. (on camera) He has very close ties to Boeing.
DEBORAH NELSON: So that’s him, now he has a daughter.
KEN SILVERSTEIN: Who’s 29. The daughter’s lobbying firm has three clients, all three clients Kurt Weldon has done big things for. (off camera) Eterra is the first client. Weldon visited Eterra’s office in May of 2002.
DEBORAH NELSON: May of 2002?
KEN SILVERSTEIN: May of 2002. In June of 2002 Weldon is doing a newsmaker briefing at the National Press Club and he is asked about allegations of corruption regarding Eterra, and he says: ‘Well, I think the allegations of corruption were by people who also were corrupt, so surprise surprise.” so, he poo poos allegations of corruption against Eterra.
He travels to New York on Eterra’s dime.
DEBORAH NELSON: When is this?
KEN SILVERSTERIN: September of 2002.
CHUCK NEUBAUER: In September, like the 23^rd, he introduces a resolution saying that we should get rid of our dependence on mid eastern oil, we should be breaking down the barriers to dealing with the Russians.
DEBORAH NELSON: Okay, that’s good. He introduces a resolution?
CHUCK NEUBAUER: Yes, in Congress
DEBORAH NELSON: So, in September she opens up her shop…
CHUCK NEUBAUER: They incorporate the company in September 16th. They register lobby on September 16th.
DEBORAH NELSON: And when does Weldon…when is he doing his trip to New York?
KEN SILVERSTEIN: September 5th to 6th.
DEBORAH NELSON: Okay, so that’s just before she opens up shop. Eterra still hasn’t signed her up yet?
KEN SILVERSTEIN: Well they have. They formally signed the contract in October 10/10.
CHUCK NEUBAUER: We’ve seen e-mails with Eterra staff saying ‘we want to present this contract, this is what we know the terms are, and when Charlie meets with Marcarov, he’ll...
KEN SILVERSTEIN: Marcarov the head of Eterra.
CHUCK NEUBAUER: So it had already been planned. So late November-December, Weldon goes...makes one of his trips, this is to Georgia, Belarus and Russia. At the same time Karen Weldon makes a trip on behalf of Eterra to meet their business clients. She and Sexton, they go to Georgia, Belaru, Russia.
DEBORAH NELSON: Exactly the same time? Are they there simultaneously?
CHUCK NEUBAUER: Yes, yes.
DEBORAH NELSON: She is traveling as a lobbyist for Eterra.
CHUCK NEUBAUER: Eterra paid for the trip.
KEN SILVERSTEIN: And she charges them...
CHUCK NEUBAUER: And she lists it on her activities as what she did for Eterra
KEN SILVERSTEIN: We have it in her words she says: ‘the purpose is to create good public relations so in the future Eterra may sell goods and services to US entities. So she says ‘I’m going to help them improve their image’ and Weldon has publicly vouched for the company and attested to its good corporate citizenship and character. So, it jives exactly with what her purpose is, her stated purpose.
CHUCK NEUBAUER: Eterra is a half a million-dollar year contract. They got like $170,00 up front. And then they get like $30,000 a month.
DEBORAH NELSON: Holy Cow! That’s pretty a...
CHUCK NEUBAUER: Which isn’t bad for a company that doesn’t have a real office.

DEBORAH NELSON (VO):
That story goes right to the heart of good government here in Washington.

01:43:24:19

Newspaper Article graphic (Headline: Lucrative Deals for a Daughter of Politics)

DEBORAH NELSON (VO)
When you have a situation where a Congressman’s kids are getting paid by special interests that he is helping here in Washington, it throws the entire system into question.

01:43:40:09

ON CAMERA
(INTERVIEW)
Ken Silverstein

KEN SILVERSTEIN (ON CAMERA):
If you look at Congress for example, I mean the house and senate’s ethics committees, I mean, short of somebody being filmed accepting a bag of cash from a terrorist, there’s virtually no way that anyone...there are no consequences in this town. There really aren’t. It’s almost impossible to get in trouble in Washington.

01:44:01:14

ON CAMERA
(INTERVIEW)
Deborah Nelson

DEBORAH NELSON (ON CAMERA):
People have to have assurance that people here are making the decisions for the right reason and if they are not, they have to have the information that’ll allow them to make the right choice when they go to the polls.

01:44:15:17

Panoramic shot of mountains and a plane taking off.

Fade in: 
Title: Afghanistan.

CARLOTTA GALL (VO):
The most powerful thing is information. If people really know the truth…

01:44:28:09

ON CAMERA
(INTERVIEW)
Carlotta Gall

CARLOTTA GALL (ON CAMERA):
…or really know what’s going on there are so much more empowered to have a control over their lives and the fate of their country.

01:44:37:14

B-roll:
VARIOUS SHOTS

Press conference, CARLOTTA at the conference.

Shots of destroyed building
in Afghanistan.

Man talking in a foreign language in background
NARRATOR:
CARLOTTA GALL REPORTS FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES. SHE IS ONE OF ONLY A HANDFUL OF WESTERN REPORTERS LEFT IN AFGHANISTAN, A COUNTRY TORN APART BY FOREIGN OCCUPATION AND CIVIL WAR FOR OVER TWO DECADES.

01:44:57:02

Shots of CARLOTTA GALL inside a military vehicle.

Driving around Kabul with soldiers.

sound of vehicle in background
CARLOTTA GALL(to soldier): This ride is just to accompany them into town, right?
SOLDIER (to Carlotta): Yes, we are just going to Kabul into the compound down there...
CARLOTTA GALL (to soldier): Right. so you are just providing security for them?
SOLDIER (to Carlotta): Pretty much, yes.

NARRATOR:
SHE STRETCHES TO COVER THE MILITARY AND POLITICAL SITUATION HERE AS WELL AS THE SLOW PROCESS OF REBUILDING AFGHAN SOCIETY.

CARLOTTA (to soldier): And these are all civilian guys you are accompanying?
SOLDIER (to Carlotta): That’s right..

CARLOTTA GALL (VO):
Before Iraq got going, my colleagues moved on. To me Iraq was actually a sideline, this was still the important story and Bin Laden, I knew, was still in those mountains.

SOLDIER (to Carlotta): Yes, all these buildings were bombed down right here.
CARLOTTA (to soldier): Were they bombed by the American bombing?
SOLDIER (to Carlotta): All those buildings down there were bombed by us I’m not sure about these...I’m sure they were.

CARLOTTA GALL (VO):
It’s a long haul for the country. People just went through such horrendous times.

01:45:57:06

Shot of tank through the street.

CARLOTTA GALL (VO):
You don’t leave a country to wreck and ruin having piled it full of weapons and trained all these guys to fight and then just walk away...you’ll have mayhem.
Now of course the Afghans are paying the price.

01:46:11:21

B-roll:
Shot of women walking down the street.

CARLOTTA and translator waiting by the door, walking inside hospital.

CARLOTTA GALL (VO):
I heard about cases of women burning themselves to commit suicide. young married women. There’s a huge rate of attempted suicide.

NARRATOR:
GALL’S WORK HELPS AFGHANS RECOGNIZE THAT DESTRUCTIVE PATTERNS FORMED IN DECADES OF WAR MUST BE CHANGED. HER INVESTIGATION ON THIS STORY HAS BEEN DIFFICULT. MANY AFGHANS ARE ASHAMED TO ADMIT THIS WAVE OF ATTEMPTED SUICIDES HAS HIT THEIR ALREADY FRAGILE SOCIETY.

01:46:47;03

VERITE SCENE:
Inside a hospital room. Carlotta interviews various women, burned victims.

CARLOTTA GALL(to doctor): Can she explain how it happened?
WOMAN 1 (to Carlotta) (in Farsi with English subtitles): It was Ramadan and I was cooking. Beside the cooker there was gas burning. And the jerrycan was too heavy. It was full of fuel and I wanted to pour some. The fuel spilled onto my legs…
CARLOTTA GALL (to translator) It spilled onto…
TRANSLATOR (to Carlotta): onto her
CARLOTTA GALL (to translator): onto her legs…
TRANSLATOR (to Carlotta): Yes.
CARLOTTA GALL (to translator): ..17..and she is from Kabul, yeah? Okay, thank you.
CARLOTTA GALL (to translator): Is this another victim?
background noise-people talking
CARLOTTA GALL (to translator): Can she talk or is it too painful?
TRANSLATOR (to Carlotta): she was also burned by gas.
CARLOTTA GALL (to translator) ..oh, by gas...Can she speak? Can she tell us how it happened?
WOMAN 2 (in Farsi with English subtitles) : I put on the gas and found no matches. I went to get matches and the gas had spread all over the room..
CARLOTTA GALL (to translator): So it exploded on her face?
TRANSLATOR (to Carlotta): yes.
CARLOTTA GALL (to doctor): They are all cooking accidents? (to woman2) Okay thank you.
(to doctor) So these are also burns, yes?
DOCTOR (to Carlotta): She has epilepsy problems.
CARLOTTA GALL (to doctor): Also.
DOCTOR (to Carlotta): Yes.
CARLOTTA GALL : What happened to her?
WOMAN 3(in Farsi with English subtitles) : I was baking bread in the over and I got close to unconscious and I fell into the oven..
CARLOTTA GALL (to translator): So she was having a fit and she fell?
TRANSLATOR (to Carlotta): yes
CARLOTTA GALL (to Doctor): Doctor I wanted to ask you are there some of the patients…in fact they burn themselves...Or you think they are all accidents?
DOCTOR: ...We don’t know.
CARLOTTA GALL: You know some of them they say it’s an accident but actually they wanted to harm themselves.. Are there any of these cases?
DOCTOR: No, no. Not now.
CARLOTTA GALL: And have you had some cases like that?
DOCTOR: Yes, yes, sometimes we had but I think they discharged them...
CARLOTTA GALL: Do you have many of those cases?
DOCTOR: Not many but sometimes yes, sometimes two three patients every month..
CARLOTTA GALL: Two. three every month you think..That’s quite bad, actually. That is a lot of accidents.
DOCTOR: Yes.

WOMAN DOCTOR (to translator) in Farsi with English subtitles) : This patient and the other lady are very emotional...Family problems...
NURSE (to translator) in Farsi with English subtitles) : We have a case like this every week. They come to the emergency room and in less than 24 hours they die...so much family problems…they don’t talk about their problems.
TRANSLATOR (to Carlotta): They receive a lot of cases like that and most of them die immediately when they get to the hospital maybe sometimes less than 24 hours and they die.
Because they want to kill themselves of course and that’s why they burn themselves and their case is very serious.
CARLOTTA: And why do you think most of these cases happen?
NURSE: (in Farsi with English subtitles): Our people are not educated. That’s why this happens, that’s why. Forced marriage is another problem, they are not happy so they burn themselves. Many have economic problems, some are sick. When they can’t solve their problems they burn themselves.
TRANSLATOR (to Carlotta): They have bad economy and some others they are given by force in..
CARLOTTA: ..in marriage.
TRANSLATOR (to Carlotta): to get married yes.
CARLOTTA: So this is 9,10,11...Out of eleven you think three did it themselves.

01:51:22:25

VERITE SCENE:
Carlotta meeting with Human Rights commissioner in Kabul

WOMAN: This is totally violation of human rights and violation of women rights.
CARLOTTA: Okay, but what can you do in a society like Afghanistan which is so tribal, so traditional, how can you change people, because in fact it is a family issue often, isn’t it? It’s cruelty within the family pushing the girl to do this. So, how can you change minds, how can you change the situation for these young women?
WOMAN: Actually the main thing that we can do is raising awareness and increasing the rate of education of the public and also this issue should be highlighted at international level, national level, because definitely if we do not pay attention, definitely, the authorities, human rights and other organizations, then definitely it will increase day by day and nobody will be able, no authority would be able to prevent this problem.

01:52:21:06

B-roll:
VARIOUS HOTS
CARLOTTA riding a horse with a group throughout Kabul.

CARLOTTA GALL (VO)
Every conflict I’ve seen, the hardest part is actually after the conflict. Trying to rebuild and try to end the ways that they’ve learned of dealing with problems.

The nice thing is that our stories are picked up a lot by Afghan radio and other Afghan media. They would have programs and they would say: ‘the New York times says this or the New York Times wrote that.’

This women’s story needs international attention, but at the same time you need awareness among the Afghan community that this is happening. They all listen to the radio, every household in every tiny village you go there’s a radio. 
Any Afghan.. 

01:53:10:22

Dissolve to:
Newspaper article graphic (headline: For More Afghan Women, Immolation is Escape)

CARLOTTA GALL (VO):
When they hear the sad stories they will realize this is wrong and we must do something to improve our society. So I think that what I write is having an effect.
Fade up: music and noise background

01:53:24:13

Dissolve to:

Shot of street full of people in Afghanistan

NARRATOR:
CARLOTTA GALL WORKS HARD TO DIG OUT WHAT’S REALLY HAPPENING TO THE AFGHAN PEOPLE.

01:53:29:23

CARLOTTA GALL at Press Conference with Donald Rumsfeld.

NARRATOR:
SHE’S ALSO DEDICATED TO UNCOVERING THE TRUE OBJECTIVES OF THE US MILITARY PRESENCE THERE.

DONALD RUMSFELD: (to audience) Afghanistan has been liberated, twenty five million Afghans have been freed from tyranny because of the bomb process. Afghans have taken hold of this country and are making steady progress to the path of self-government.

CARLOTTA GALL (VO):
Last year we would pride in ourselves on writing quite critical stories on the attacks that killed civilians. Some editors wouldn’t believe it or would say: ‘well, Afghans always lie.’

CARLOTTA (to Rumsfeld): I’m from the New York Times, Secretary Rumsfeld please. Have you brought more troops into the country, into Afghanistan, and specifically, have you brought special forces from Iraq to aid the spring offensive?
RUMSFELD (to Carlotta): First of all, we don’t talk about what we do with our troops for the most part and nor do we talk about operations but...

CARLOTTA GALL (VO):
They are now very good with their PR. They have set press conferences where they don’t really tell you much.

RUMSFELD (to audience): ..it is nothing new or notable...

CARLOTTA GALL (VO):
It’s very frustrating...the war is still on…

REPORTER (to Karsai): After three years of fighting against the Taliban, there’s a reemergence of Taliban in the southern part of Afghanistan. How big a threat do you see the Taliban to the internal security of Afghanistan?
KARSAI (to reporter): We don’t see a resurgence of the Taliban. The Taliban as a movement does not exist anymore. There are Taliban related activities, but the rest of it is normal life. On an average Afghanistan is much more secure than a lot of other countries that you might think of in the world. We have won that war against terrorism. What we are going is the pursuit of them, gentlemen, we are going to take them and finish them completely. 

CARLOTTA GALL (VO):
There are some things that the military clearly kept under wraps, and we’ve done our job and dug them out. One story that I did that really angered them a lot was...

01:55:36:24

ON CAMERA
(INTERVIEW)
Carlotta Gall

CARLOTTA GALL (ON CAMERA):
…Two Afghans died in custody in Bagram Air base. And they released the news, they did admit to it, but they released the news saying one died of a heart attack, one died of a blood clog on the lung. That was it, they didn’t give us any more detail. And it took me three months to dig out the story, but eventually I found the family and I found the death certificate and it said homicide.

01:55:59:27

Newspaper article graphic.
(Headline: US Military Investigating Death of Afghan in Custody)

CARLOTTA GALL (VO):
And it turned out they admitted that the second one, both were homicides.

NARRATOR:
CARLOTTA GALL FILLED HER REPORT ON THESE CASES THIRTEEN MONTHS BEFORE THE REVELATION OF PRISONER ABUSE AT ABU GRAHIB.

01:56:12:13

Shot of CARLOTTA GALL walking with soldier into military hospital.

NARRATOR:
IN MARCH 2005 THE US ARMY CRIMINAL INVESTIGATION COMMAND CONFIRMED THAT THE TWO PRISONERS WHOSE HOMICIDES SHE UNEARTHED WERE ACTUALLY BEATEN TO DEATH BY AMERICAN SOLDIERS.

CARLOTTA GALL (VO):
Maybe we just should be more honest with ourselves. We are patriotic, we are going to regard the enemy as the enemy, even if we are journalists. Maybe our democratic traditions did go out the window a bit after the World Trade Center.

01:56:44:05

ON CAMERA
(INTERVIEW)
Carlotta Gall

CARLOTTA GALL (ON CAMERA):
I think perhaps we just have to be a bit more honest to ourselves that our great traditions in a war aren’t so strong.

01:56:54:17

WOMAN (Dana Priest) walking on the street and then entering a building (The Washington Post)
Fade in:
Title: Washington D.C.

DANA PRIEST (VO):
What are the acceptable practices right now in the war on terrorism. Especially now when the government puts more and more under the bill of secrecy, and makes more and more decision by itself, this really…

01:57:14:00

ON CAMERA
(INTERVIEW)
Dana Priest

DANA PRIEST (ON CAMERA):
...fundamental value of ‘ it’s good for the public to know.’ And our system of government can only survive as it is if the public knows and debates...that is such a core, that is such a core issue for me.

01:57:32:04

VARIOUS SHOTS of Dana Priest at her desk on the Washington Post newsroom.

Shots of Dana Priest meeting with her editor.

DANA PRIEST (on phone):..yes, I have to find someone who knows something about people suspected of links to terrorism.

What I need to find out is what are the immigration laws that govern the deportation slash removal of somebody...

Dana Priest on the phone in background
NARRATOR:
AS INTELLIGENCE CORRESPONDENT FOR THE WASHINGTON POST, DANA PRIEST IS WORKING ON A SERIES OF STORIES ABOUT RENDITION: HOW THE CIA TURNS SUSPECTED TERRORISTS OVER TO FOREIGN GOVERNMENTS TO BE INTERROGATED.

DANA PRIEST (to editor): Who makes the decision to send somebody to a country that they don’t live in or that they are fleeing or that they haven’t lived there for a long time. And what do they make it on and what is the whole process.
Should we send them to a place that we know is going to be bad...

DANA PRIEST (VO):
Right now I’m covering a subject that goes with the question of American human rights.

01:58:25:19

ON CAMERA
(INTERVIEW)
Dana Priest

DANA PRIEST (ON CAMERA):
...Whether or not it’s ethical, proper, efficient to…take terrorists, people we think are terrorists, and give them to foreign governments to abuse because they think they might get more information than they are able to get.

01:58:44:27

VERITE SCENE:
DANA PRIEST at a conference. Full of people at a conference room.

DANA PRIEST walking around and talking to people.

DANA PRIEST interviewing ROHAN

DANA PRIEST (to MAN): Hi! Nice to see you.
MAN 1 (to DANA): Good to see you. You’ve done well?
DANA PRIEST: So very well. Have you been in here?
MAN 1: No, I’m just coming in.
DANA PRIEST: Oh, it’s been great.
MAN 1: Is it been good?
DANA PRIEST: You know, I’m doing something on one of my favorite subjects, renditions. Can I call you up some time?
MAN 1: Sure...you’ve done well. I remember when you were just starting...
DANA PRIEST: I still feel like I’m starting on this every day.
MAN 1: Yes, that’s the problem...But you’ve done really well...

background noise from conference(speaker and audience)
DANA PRIEST (VO):
This new world of secret detentions and interrogations that the intelligence world has created, it’s all by it’s nature hidden by the public.

MAN (to Dana): Thanks again. Let me know. Good to see you.
DANA PRIEST (to MAN): Thanks, yeah, you too.


DANA PRIEST (VO):
There’s not been one public hearing about the CIA’s interrogation and detention. There’s not been one document declassified, there’s not been one document available that’s in a non-classified form to read about this system.

MAN 2 (to Dana): The only option that the Agency had, because we were order to disrupt and break down these cells, was to find partners that would take these people...
DANA PRIEST (to MAN 2): Okay, so 8:30 tomorrow.
MAN 2 (to Dana): 8:30 tomorrow I’ll be there. 
DANA PRIEST (to MAN 2): Okay
MAN 2 (to Dana): Nice to meet you.
DANA PRIEST (to MAN 2): You too, finally.

DANA PRIEST (VO):
This is a secret and they want it to stay that way and ...people’s careers are in risk talking about that.

DANA PRIEST (to ROHAN): I’m still trying to do some stories on renditions and was interested to know, since you seem to be able to get your hands on transcripts that no one else can find, whether you think it’s an effective...
ROHAN (to DANA): It’s the most effective...
DANA PRIEST (to ROHAN): And, why is that?
ROHAN (to DANA): Because you need to hold important people...The most important Al-qaeda people where are they being held? There are not being held in the United States, they are not being held in Guantanamo Bay. And the value of the people you have held, they have cooperated much more, than all the 600 combined together in Cuba.
DANA PRIEST (to ROHAN): What about other midlevel terrorists that the United States basically sends to other countries so that they’re never...so that they are interrogated and they never are let out.
ROHAN (to DANA): Those are terrorists who have not cooperated.
DANA PRIEST (to ROHAN): Who have not cooperated.
ROHAN (to DANA): Actually the threat of sending someone to one of those countries is very important. That threat must be maintained.
DANA PRIEST (to ROHAN):Or else what?
ROHAN (to DANA): Otherwise they would not cooperate. In Europe the custodial interviews have yielded virtually nothing.
DANA PRIEST (to ROHAN):Is that right? Why, why do you think?
ROHAN (to DANA): Because they don’t operate like the Americans.
DANA PRIEST (to ROHAN): So, it’s the threat of torture, really.
ROHAN (to DANA): Absolutely, it’s a very effective method.
DANA PRIEST (to ROHAN): Okay. And do you think it needs to stay as secret as it is? There are some people that think there’s kind of a blow back from that.
ROHAN (to DANA): Yes, otherwise those countries will be attacked, those countries will suffer, the threat to those countries will increase. Countries that are cooperating with the United States.
DANA PRIEST (to ROHAN): Okay. What are you doing these days? Where are you?
ROHAN (to DANA): I’m in Singapore...
DANA PRIEST (to ROHAN): In Singapore... This has really been great. Okay, thanks.

02:02:19:19

SHOT of DANA PRIEST leaving the conference, walking down the stairs to the street with view of the Capitol.

DANA PRIEST (VO):
The big story is, are we changing as a country, if you settle on a new set of standards and laws and ethics? Are you going to be going on the direction that you’d hoped you would be going in? A safer world? Or not. And I don’t know the answer to that, but I know that if you don’t even know where you are at now, you are not going to know where that system is moving you to. So, my goal is to try to describe where are we now.

02:02:49:07

ON CAMERA
(INTERVIEW)
Dana Priest

DANA PRIEST (ON CAMERA):
And now I find myself in this era where people are saying “we don't want to know that, why are you writing that?” “We don't want to know that.” And it's like I still have to shove it in the paper because fundamentally I think you are going to give away your democracy if you don’t take responsibility for the decisions that are made in your name. And we could be doing that right now, in this shift of values and parameters and laws and interpretations of where we are in the world if we cede too much to other people, to the government, then I think we will trade off what has made us a great country. So, that’s a role...for journalists.

02:03:37:29

Panoramic shot of Moscow
Fade in:
Title: Moscow
VARIOUS SHOTS
of the city and people.

VOICE FROM RADIO (Russian with English Subtitles): In Moscow tomorrow there will be snow, possibly a storm. The roads are slippery, temperature -5 to -7... Information service, Ekho Moskvy.

02:03:52:17

Shot of MAN (Alexei Venedictov)
at radio studio reporting.

ALEXEI VENEDICTOV (to microphone): 

(Russian with English Subtitles) Nineteen hours fifty-nine minutes, fifty seconds. We are going to start telling you about possible results in Moscow after the news.

Fade up: Music

ALEXEI VENEDICTOV (VO) (Russian with English Subtitles)
The main problem for Russian journalists.

02:04:14:04

ON CAMERA
(INTERVIEW)
Alexei Venedictov

ALEXEI VENEDICTOV (ON CAMERA):
..Is the fear leftover from the Soviet era.

02:04:20;27

B-roll:
SHOTS of people walking on the street. Advertisements.
Radio Station LOGO.

NARRATOR:
WHEN THE SOVIET UNION FELL IN 1991, AN INDEPENDENT PRESS WAS BORN IN RUSSIA. THERE WAS A FLOWERING OF NON-GOVERNMENTAL NEWSPAPERS, TELEVISION NETWORKS AND RADIO STATIONS, LIKE EKHO MOSKVY.

02:04:37;13

VARIOUS SHOTS
inside radio station.

ALEXEI with staff and guest.
ALEXEI meeting with Senator.

ALEXEI VENEDICTOV (VO): (Russian with English Subtitles) 
We are the first non-government radio station created in Russia, 13 years ago…

Reporter recording in studio (in Russian)
ALEXEI VENEDICTOV (VO): (Russian with English Subtitles) 
We started by using the Western principles of journalism: you need to give all sides a chance to speak, information has to be objective and complete... and step by step we gained credibility.

(Russian with English Subtitles)
ALEXEI VENEDICTOV (to woman): What? What is this?
WOMAN: (to Alexei): That’s from your network.
ALEXEI VENEDICTOV (to woman): this must be gone at the end of the hour, not this one.
I told you this gets updated...and this! No.
Move this to there and leave this.
Ira, I told you this a hundred times!

ALEXEI VENEDICTOV (to SENATOR): Ah! Mr. Senator. First of all I have exit polls from across the country.

NARRATOR:
AFTER OVER A DECADE IN WHICH JOURNALISTS WERE FREE TO REPORT THE TRUTH, THE KREMLIN HAS AGAIN TAKEN CONTROL OF RUSSIAN MEDIA.

ALEXEI VENEDICTOV (VO):
It has become harder to work.

02:05:42:01

ON CAMERA
(INTERVIEW)
Alexei Venedictov

( Russian with English Subtitles)
ALEXEI VENEDICTOV (ON CAMERA):
The authorities and politicians are joining forces, they are becoming a caste.

02:05:46:17

SHOTS of ALEXEI meeting with politicians.

ALEXEI VENEDICTOV (VO): (Russian with English Subtitles) 
Because the people in power are from the KGB, they declare any information confidential. The results of the census: secret. Weather forecast: secret. Economic statistics: secret. To get information you must pilfer, steal, sneak and beg.

02:06:09:06

B-roll:
VARIOUS SHOTS
of archival footage of Putin at different political functions.

Music in background

ALEXEI VENEDICTOV (VO): (Russian with English Subtitles) 
We think that we stand at the doorstep of Putin’s second Republic. And we don’t know what rules the press will have to live by during this second Republic of Putin.
I got the feeling from him that he sees the press as an instrument. An instrument for solving certain problems. Everyone knows that a good instrument is manipulated, a bad one is thrown out.

02:06:39:06

ON CAMERA
(INTERVIEW)
Alexei Venedictov

ALEXEI VENEDICTOV (ON CAMERA):

( Russian with English Subtitles)
He doesn’t see the press as a civilian social institution. He honestly, sincerely doesn’t see it.
So when he came to power he converted first the television press, now the newspapers, into instruments for the righteous goal, I guess, of modernizing Russia. But he refuses to see the press as an institution.

02:07:03:07

Shots of archival footage of Bush and Putin at a press conference in Russia.

BUSH (to audience) ..I also discussed with President Putin the important role of free press in building a working democracy and today we will meet with media entrepreneurs from both countries. Is an issue we’ve discussed before, the President said it makes sense to have a forum where media entrepreneurs can meet and visit and it’s going to take place today. Mr. President I appreciate that.

02:07:25:27

Shot of Russian old man looking at papers on the street.

(Russian with English Subtitles)
ANNA POLITKOVSKAYA (VO):
It’s a return to following the rules established by those in power. Which subjects are allowed and which are forbidden.

02:07:35:09

ON CAMERA
(INTERVIEW)
Anna Politkovskaya

ANNA POLITKOVSKAYA (ON CAMERA): (Russian with English Subtitles)
They call this freedom. I think this is absolutely not freedom.

02:07:46:05

SHOTS OF
ANNA walking to office to meet with editor.

ANNA and editor meeting.

NARRATOR:
THE NEWSPAPER NOVAYA GAZETA IS ONE OF THE FEW INDEPENDENT PUBLICATIONS LEFT IN MOSCOW.

DIMITRY MURATOV (VO): (Russian with English Subtitles)
This newspaper takes a stand. When our current government says that we are an oppositionist newspaper, we say it is they who do not follow democratic principles.

02:08:14:20

ON CAMERA
(INTERVIEW)
Dimitry Muratov

DIMITRY MURATOV (ON CAMERA): (Russian with English Subtitles)
We rigidly monitor who follows the constitution and that’s why the government thinks we’re an oppositionist newspaper. If they abided by the constitution we wouldn’t be such an unyielding publication.

02:08:29:24

Shots of archival footage of the Kremlin. President Bush signing treaty with Putin

BUSH (looking around) Beautiful!
BUSH: (to Putin): Thank you very much Mr. President, I appreciate your hospitality. It’s a magnificent setting for our signing of a treaty that says that we are friends.

ANNA POLITKOVSKAYA (VO): (Russian with English Subtitles) 
We have the freedom to like Putin.

02:08:57:17

ON CAMERA
(INTERVIEW)
Anna Politkovskaya

ANNA POLITKOVSKAYA (ON CAMERA): (Russian with English Subtitles)
In this we have freedom. We can show our love for him in any number of ways. We can even write that he is a sexual deviant. That would be acceptable. That would make Putin and his associates happy.
But we are not allow to touch upon certain things that he does not like. They are: Chechnya, the Chechen crisis, corruption in the government organs corruption of which he is part, and certain other problems.

02:09:37:08

Shot of ANNA riding on the back of a car.
Silhouette.

ANNA POLITKOVSKAYA (VO): (Russian with English Subtitles) 
Over a million Russian troops have gone through Chechnya. They picked up many nasty habits. I steal if I want, I kill if I want, I rape if I want. Whatever I feel like doing. We are responsible for this. In our name and with our money it continues. I don’t exclude myself at all.

02:10:08;21

Dissolve to:
B-roll:
Archival footage of destruction and bombings in Chechnya.

NARRATOR:
ANNA POLITKOVSKAYA HAS COVERED THE CHECHENYA STRUGGLE FOR INDEPENDENCE FROM RUSSIA THROUGH TWO WARS AND UP TO THE PRESENT. SHE HAS PERSISTED IN CALLING ATTENTION TO WHAT IS GOING ON THERE.

sound of bombs and people in background
ANNA POLITKOVSKAYA (VO): (Russian with English Subtitles) 
You understand that people there live according to drastically different rules. They barely survive even though they are exactly like you.
Chechnya is a zone free of law. 
The taxpayers support the army that does this.
It is dangerous for our country to deny human rights on such a massive scale.
You understand that you must do something so that this stops.

02:11:42:11

Dissolve to:
Shot of ANNA in the car.

ANNA POLITKOVSKAYA (VO): (Russian with English Subtitles) 
The crime of the government machine is not only oppressing the Chechens but also oppressing the armed forces, who have no choice but to become animals.

02:12:03;01

VERITE SCENE:
ANNA interviewing a WOMAN regarding her dead son.

( Russian with English Subtitles)
ANNA POLITKOVSKAYA: This looks like they’re in Chechnya. Dagestan.
WOMAN: First he served in some village...I forget where. 
It was very hard. They tormented him, as he wrote they tormented. 
They would hit his hands until they went numb. His heart stopped sometimes.
It was in his journal. They sent it to me.
ANNA POLITKOVSKAYA: Did he write you letters?
WOMAN: He kept writing to calm me.
ANNA POLITKOVSKAYA: You were saying, the military commission came and broke the news. And you went somewhere?
When did the accident happen?
WOMAN: It happened on November 12th. We were called to the procurate.
ANNA POLITKOVSKAYA: When did the military commission come to you?
WOMAN: I can’t remember what date it was. They came to my job and told me that Sasha dad died.
When he boarded the bus he had this look as if he were saying goodbye forever.
ANNA POLITKOVSKAYA: I see you were friends.
WOMAN: Very. We were very good friends. He always shared everything. He always defended me and helped me with everything. He helped me in our vegetable garden. He would say, “Mom, I’ll water them myself.” He did everything. He helped me plant potatoes.
Without him it’s as if I have no hands.
After his death, in just over two weeks, I went completely bald. It all fell out. They said is was stress-related. There’s almost nothing there now. You see?
ANNA POLITKOVSKAYA: There aren’t even roots.
WOMAN: Nothing. Absolutely nothing.
ANNA POLITKOVSKAYA: When did you buy this wig?
WOMAN: I bought it almost right away. I’m glad there’s a market. You can buy anything at the market.
WOMAN: I told him so many times, “Let’s find a way out, maybe we can find a way.”
He only told me, “No mama, I must serve. It’s my duty before my country.”
As a friend of his said, “Only fools fulfill their duty these days.” 
But he considered himself a man of principle.

02:15:08:10

Shots of ANNA and the WOMAN at the graveyard at son’s grave.

ANNA POLITKOVSKAYA (VO): (Russian with English Subtitles) 
Every day, we hear of a new “most newsworthy” event. Putin said this in a speech... But people are dying, that makes this story the most newsworthy event in the country.
Our people should have a glimmer that maybe things in Chechnya aren’t the way the authorities say and that maybe we should demand a change.

PRESIDENT BUSH: (VO)
I want to thank president Putin for his understanding of the nature of..

02:16:10:00

Shot of archival footage of BUSH in a conference with PUTIN.

PRESIDENT BUSH(ON CAMERA):
..of the new war we face together. President Putin and I agree also that the greatest danger in the new war is the prospect of terrorists acquiring weapons of mass destruction. I am confident that by working together we make the world more peaceful.

Fade up:
sound of sirens.

02:16:33:11

Newspaper Article graphic (Headline: Chechens Seize Moscow Theater, Taking as Many as 600 Hostages)

B-roll:
Archival footage of the incident at the Moscow theater.

ANNA POLITKOVSKAYA (VO): (Russian with English Subtitles) 
October 2002 was such a tragedy for all of us. 
President Putin reaped all the possible benefits from the largest terrorist attack in the history of Moscow.

NARRATOR:
POLITSKOVAYA WAS THE ONLY RUSSIAN THAT CHECHENYANS TRUSTED. SHE BECAME AN OFFICIAL NEGOTIATOR BETWEEN THE REBELS AND THE GOVERNMENT. JUST WHEN SHE BEGAN TO NEGOTIATE THE RELEASE OF THE HOSTAGES, PUTIN DECIDED TO ATTACK.

sound of glass breaking, gun shots

ANNA POLITKOVSKAYA (VO): (Russian with English Subtitles) 
He used it exclusively for his own benefit, not for the benefit of the country.
He took all possible measures to ensure that terrorist attacks continue.
So that more people would be driven to avenge Chechen humiliation.
The female suicide bomber became a hero among the Chechen women.

02:18:05:15

ON CAMERA 
(INTERVIEW)
Anna Politkovskaya

ANNA POLITKOVSKAYA (ON CAMERA): (Russian with English Subtitles)
I spoke to them extensively on the subject. They told me, “She was right.” That’s the only thing they can do. There is no such thing in Chechen tradition at all. That’s possibly the most terrible thing that happened.
Of course, I wrote about this, other people wrote. But the horror lies in that we didn’t convince anyone.

02:18:33:00

ON CAMERA 
(INTERVIEW)
Dimitry Muratov

DIMITRY MURATOV (ON CAMERA): 

(Russian with English Subtitles) 
Since all television in the country, except for one or two local channels, is controlled by the government, television has now been completely destroyed. Whereas our newspaper used to be one of the most quoted on television, there is now a direct ban on mentioning our newspaper on television. A direct ban.

02:18:55:27

ON CAMERA
(INTERVIEW)
Alexei Venedictov

ALEXEI VENEDICTOV (ONCAMERA): 

(Russian with English Subtitles)
In the past year there has been an increase in personal danger. Many Russian journalists are killed and may political journalists are threatened. Their lives are threatened. This includes me.

02:19:08:07

ON CAMERA
(INTERVIEW)
Dimitry Muratov

DIMITRY MURATOV (ON CAMERA): 

(Russian with English Subtitles)
Anna Politkovskaya once asked the material question, “Is journalism worth your life?”
Anna thinks it is. I don’t think it is. This is one of our disagreements.

02:19:23:23

Shot of ANNA walking with WOMAN outside the woman’s house.

NARRATOR:
ON THE FLIGHT TO COVER THE TERRORIST ATTACK IN BESLAN ON SEPTEMBER FIRST 2004, ANNA POLITKOVSKAYA WAS SERVED A POISONED CUP OF TEA. IT HAS BEEN WIDELY REPORTED THAT THE RUSSIAN SECURITY OFFICERS ON THE PLANE WERE TRYING TO PREVENT HER REPORTING ON THIS ATTACK. SHE HAS SINCE MADE A FULL RECOVERY.

02:19:47:22

ON CAMERA
(INTERVIEW)
Anna Politkovskaya

ANNA POLITKOVSKAYA (ON CAMERA): (Russian with English Subtitles)
Everyone has a conscience. It is personal, of course. I think that I currently fulfill all the obligations I have to my conscience. Everyone else must do it too.
Pushing aside information about what is happening near you in your time is shameless.

02:20:26:21

Cut to:
Moving shot of empty dirt space and houses around it. Two MEN talking
FADE IN: Title: JENIN

GIDEON LEVY (VO):
My voice is like whispering in the dark, nobody listens now.

02:20:37:03

ON CAMERA
(INTERVIEW)
Gideon Levy

GIDEON LEVY (ON CAMERA):
Israelis don’t want to hear, don’t want to know. Because they are so concentrated on their agony…

02:20:44:11

Footage of suicide bomber attack in Israel.

sound of ambulances, siren, people in background
GIDEON LEVY (VO):
…which is a real agony. But they don’t see the other.

YOEL ESTERON (VO):
Sometimes you have to upset your readers ... to do your job.

02:20:58:05

ON CAMERA
(INTERVIEW)
Joel Esteron

YOEL ESTERON (ON CAMERA):
And maybe it pays off in the long run.

02:21:01:20

B-roll:
Shots of editorial meeting with Yoel Esteron in it.

Shot of GIDEON walking through Jenin with peers.

Shot of computer in newsroom.

Shot of people walking on the street.

Shot of market

NARRATOR:
A MAJOR OBSTACLE ISRAELI JOURNALISTS FACE IN REPORTING THE TRUTH ABOUT WHAT IS HAPPENING IN THEIR TIME, CONSISTS NOT OF GOVERNMENT REPRESSION BUT OF PUBLIC RELUCTANCE TO LOOK INTO THE MIRROR JOURNALISTS HOLD UP.

ONE ISRAELI NEWSPAPER HAS PARTICULARLY PROVOKED THE IRE OF ITS READERS BY REPORTING BOTH PALESTINIAN AND ISRAELI POINTS OF VIEW.

YOEL ESTERON (VO):
To be independent you have to be working…

02:21:29:08

ON CAMERA
(INTERVIEW)
Yoel Esteron

YOEL ESTERON (ON CAMERA):
…in a newspaper with a legacy of independence, with a legacy of not being impressed with the powers that be, being it the government or the business people or readers.

02:21:49:09

B-roll:
Shots of Tel Aviv street 
Fade in: 
Title TEL AVIV

Shots of building of the newspaper . Front of building with newspaper’s name.

NARRATOR:
FOUNDED IN 1919, THE NEWSPAPER HAARETZ HAS LONG BEEN CONSIDERED THE PAPER OF RECORD FOR ISRAELI SOCIETY. HAARETZ HAS BEEN OWNED BY THE SHOCKEN FAMILY FOR THREE GENERATIONS.

AMOS SHOCKEN (VO):
My father said that Haaretz was the independent newspaper...

02:22:09:19

ON CAMERA
(INTERVIEW)
Amos Shocken

AMOS SHOCKEN (ON CAMERA):
...because it was not affiliated with any party, it was privately owned, for the reader who thinks independently. And he used to say that he prefers a reader that argues with the newspaper rather than a reader that accepts what the newspaper says.

02:22:28:15

Shot of reporter’s meeting in a tiny office with a laptop and newspapers.

AMOS SHOCKEN (VO):
If there is one major inheritance from my father is this independence.

02:22:36:10

SHOT of GIDEON LEVY driving while talking on the phone.

SHOT of WOMAN (Amira Hass) getting out of car and entering trailer-office.

NARRATOR:
HAARETZ IS THE ONLY ISRAELI NEWSPAPER WITH TWO REPORTERS ASSIGNED EXCLUSIVELY TO COVER THE PALESTINIAN TERRITORIES.

AMIRA HASS (VO):
I have this need to experience or something. To know what...

02:22:51:22

ON CAMERA
(INTERVIEW)
Amira Hass

AMIRA HASS (ON CAMERA):
...what it means to have curfew at 8 o’ clock or to have it at night or to have a sudden curfew over the day or...to hear the shots above your head. I guess I need it, maybe to feel that I can write better and report better.

02:23:08:11

VARIOUS SHOTS

Shot of car going through dirt road.

Fade in: 
Title GAZA 

AMIRA off camera inside the car. Then on camera riding in the back of car

AMIRA HASS (VO):
I moved here because Haaretz suggested that I become the correspondent and they didn’t think that I would go and live here, but it was 
AMIRA HASS (ON CAMERA):
very clear for me that this is what I want to do, to live here, if I’m asked to report about the place.
So, I’m very attached to the place. (she smiles)

02:23:30:25

Shot of GIDEON and AMOS in JENIN

GIDEON LEVY (VO):
The first attraction was because I understood that there is a big drama taking place there. And you know…

02:23:38:23

ON CAMERA
(INTERVIEW)
Gideon Levy

GIDEON LEVY (ON CAMERA):
...we journalists we are looking for the drama, always we are looking for the drama. I understood there is a big drama going on there. This was the first situation, even before the realization that something very bad is going on there…

02:23:53:14

B-roll:
Shot of Jenin

Various shots of Tel Aviv

Various shots of Haaretz newsroom

GIDEON LEVY (VO):
First I realized there is a drama there and I want to be part of it, I want to witness it.

AMOS SHOCKEN (VO):
In 1990 a new era started in Israel, the Russian immigration started. We had the Oslo Agreement, and this was the decade of the hi-tech boom. The economy prospered. We actually kept increasing our editorial budget year after year, and our circulation grew year after year, it all work very well.

02:24:31:23

Archival footage of bombings in Israel.

noise, sirens, people in background
AMOS HAREL (VO):
The first weeks of the Intifada.. 

02:24:37:09

ON CAMERA
(INTERVIEW)
Amos Harel

AMOS HAREL (ON CAMERA):
…You felt something very very big was going on. We didn’t understand it yet. 

02:24:40:28

Archival footage of bombings in Israel.

AMOS HAREL (VO):
Everything was happening so fast. There were incidents everywhere. Shootings (big explosion), bombs, we were called to Ramallah because reserve soldiers were lynched, massacred, beaten to death by Palestinian mob. We couldn’t enter Ramallah so we…

02:24:58:02

ON CAMERA
(INTERVIEW)
Amos Harel

AMOS HAREL (ON CAMERA):
...sat in a military base outside and all of a sudden an hour later you see apache helicopter gun ships shooting rockets into Ramallah, into a populated area. They were shooting of course at the police station in which these guys were lynched. And this was our partner for peace negotiations a month earlier. So this was actually history in the making.

02:25:23:15

ON CAMERA
(INTERVIEW)
Amos Shocken

AMOS SHOCKEN (ON CAMERA):
I started corresponding with the subscribers after the Intifada started because things that we wrote all the time before the Intifada all of a sudden became more important to them.

02:25:42:04

Shot of GIDEON typing on his computer at home.

AMOS SHOCKEN (VO):
I mean, Gideon Levy wrote his column about the life of the Palestinians under Israeli occupation even during the Oslo years, it hardly brought any reaction.

02:25:53:17

ON CAMERA
(INTERVIEW)
Amos Shocken

AMOS SHOCKEN (ON CAMERA):
But when the Intifada broke and when terror struck and there were Israeli casualties, then readers just, some of them, felt that they can not read about the suffering of the Palestinians.

02:26:08:25

ON CAMERA
(INTERVIEW)
Gideon Levy

GIDEON LEVY (ON CAMERA):
People tend to misunderstand and in Israel they say, ‘you love the Palestinians therefore you do this.’ No, I do it because I want to show us, not them. I’m showing us, the Israelis. I’m showing us to ourselves. I’m putting a mirror. I don’t tell them about the Palestinians, Palestinians are minor, for me the Israelis, as an Israeli, for me the Israelis are the focus. And I show the ugly side, the dark side of the Israelis.

02:26:45:03

ON CAMERA
(INTERVIEW)
Yoel Esteron

YOEL ESTERON (ON CAMERA)
The pressure on the populace media or populous newspaper, don’t come from the government as much as it comes from the readers. The readers that don’t like to be given the harsh reality, the facts of life.

02:27:12:14

SHOTS of editorial meeting at Haaretz.

AMOS SHOCKEN (VO):
My editors were a bit scared. They felt we should pay attention what our readers say and we should not run the risk of becoming irrelevant to our readers, which of course is true.

02:27:30:09

ON CAMERA
(INTERVIEW)
Amos Shocken

AMOS SHOCKEN (ON CAMERA):
I felt that we are strong enough to do the right thing and not heat pressures.

02:27:41:18

ON CAMERA
(INTERVIEW)
Yoel Esteron

YOEL ESTERON (ON CAMERA):
This is what we’ve been hearing from the publisher all along - don’t worry about marketing, you do your job.

02:27:53:28

Shot of GIDEON LEVY driving.

NARRATOR:
EACH WEEK GIDEON LEVY MAKES A DIFFICULT AND DANGEROUS TRIP INTO THE WEST BANK TO REPORT FROM THERE.

02:28:04:08

VERITE SCENE:
GIDEON LEVY and AMOS SHOCKEN with others driving through a checkpoint in Israel.

GIDEON LEVY: We will be in two minutes in the checkpoint. Now, in the checkpoints you always have to be very careful because the soldiers are very, very nervous, and they might very easily shoot or so...So checkpoints first of all you have to drive very, very slowly. So you have to be very concentrated to see what they sign you with their hands so there will be no misunderstanding.
(Hebrew with English subtitles)
SOLDIER (to Gideon): You speak Hebrew?
GIDEON (to soldier): Yes
SOLDIER (to Gideon): Only you have a card?
GIDEON (to soldier):No! Everyone has. It’s coordinated with the IDF. Everything is in order.
SOLDIER (to Gideon): Everyone has a card like this?
GIDEON (to soldier): Yes, and also in the car behind me.
SOLDIER (to Gideon): Israeli citizens, right?
GIDEON (to soldier): They are Americans. They have Israeli press cards from the State Press Ministry. All is coordinated. Everything is done. We went through all this at the previous checkpoint.
SOLDIER (to Gideon): I have to check everything.
GIDEON (to soldier): Check.

GIDEON (on the phone): Hi, it’s Gideon Levy. Who is the NCO there?
from phone-inaudible
GIDEON (on the phone): No, it’s of utmost importance. It was coordinated a week ago in advance. I’m tired of this thing every week. I’m simply tired of it. I want to enter within the minute now. A half an hour ago I called to say I was arriving at the checkpoint.
from phone-inaudible
GIDEON (on the phone): Yes, but I won’t wait the usual hour it takes to speak to the central command. That’s why I called on the way so when I reach the checkpoint they’ll let me pass just once... And I said that within an hour I’d be at the checkpoint. Not a single soldier knows about it. I ask that within five minutes you call me. I’m not going to wait here any more. Thanks, bye.

GIDEON LEVY (to AMOS): That’s how the army conducts itself.
AMOS SHOCKEN (to GIDEON): What else is new?

AMOS SHOCKEN (to soldier): What’s happening?
SOLDIER (to Gideon): Who are the ones in the back?
GIDEON LEVY (to soldier): American journalists...Ah, in the other car? There’s another four I think, and one Israeli. Check them. Check who. I really don’t remember.
SOLDIER: Have a pleasant journey.
GIDEON LEVY and AMOS SHOCKEN (to soldiers): Thank you.
(Gideon and Amos speaking Hebrew-no translation)

02:31:21:28

SHOT OF:
GIDEON LEVY arriving at the house of Palestinian family and going in.

GIDEON LEVY (VO):
In the village of Burkin, on the night between Tuesday and Wednesday of last week, the Shalamish family had gone to sleep. Maybe they went to bed feeling optimistic. The son, Akal, slept on the roof because of the heat inside. The eldest son, Lyad, was asleep at home with his wife and their children in their house on the ridge across the way. None of them imagined that before dawn the family would be destroyed.

02:32:11:20

VERITE SCENE:
GIDEON LEVY inside the house of Palestinian family, interviewing the family.

(Hebrew and Arabic with English subtitles)
GIDEON LEVY (to Father): How old are you?
FATHER (to Gideon): I am 48 years old.
GIDEON LEVY (to Father): How many children do you have?
FATHER (to Gideon): How many? I had seven. No there are six, three are girls.
GIDEON LEVY (to Father): How old is the eldest?
FATHER (to Gideon): The eldest is 27. He is the one who was martyred.
GIDEON LEVY (to Father): Oh, Lyad.
FATHER (to Gideon): Yes, Lyad.
GIDEON LEVY (to Father): Describe what happened exactly.
FATHER (to Gideon): It is better to ask my son, he awoke when it began.
SON (to Gideon): We went to sleep around midnight. And at a quarter to two the army came.
GIDEON LEVY (to Son): And then?
SON (to Gideon): Then, my mother went outside and called to my brother. They arrested him.
FATHER (to Gideon): Afterwards, they fired six bullets. Five at Lyad, one at his wife.
GIDEON LEVY (to Father): Were you all living in the same house?
FATHER (to Gideon): No, Lyad lived in the house opposite to us.
GIDEON LEVY (to Father): The army claims that there was shooting coming from that house.
FATHER (to Gideon): This is not true. Would someone fire a weapon while he sits on his porch?
GIDEON LEVY (to Father): They were sitting on the porch?
FATHER (to Gideon): Yes sitting on the porch
TRANSLATOR (to Father): Outside the house?
FATHER (to Translator): Yes, they were sitting outside.
TRANSLATOR (from Gideon to Father) But the army claims he was trying to shoot at them...
FATHER (to Gideon): Look, if someone fires at an army would he sit there and watch as they shoot him?
GIDEON LEVY (to Father): Where were the wounds?
FATHER (to Gideon): There were three in his arms, on in his shoulder, and one at his ear.
CHILD (off Camera-to Gideon): No, there’s one here, and one here.
TRANSLATOR (to Child): Tell me where.
CHILD (to Gideon): There’s one to his knee and one here on his head.
TRANSLATOR (to Child): How did you know that your father was wounded here and here?
CHILD (to Gideon and Translator): No, not here. Here, here, and one here.
TRANSLATOR (to Child): Did you see him?
CHILD (to Gideon and Translator): I saw him.
FATHER (off camera-to Gideon and translator ): He was crying. The children started calling out to their uncles that their father was wounded and about to die... (on camera) Especially this boy.
CHILD (to Gideon and Translator): And the ambulance came and took them away.
FATHER (to Gideon): The army held back the ambulance for about two thirds of an hour. Then they let it pass, then they kept it again for a quarter of an hour.
CHILD (to Gideon and Translator): I don’t know what happened. There was blood on his face. He wasn’t well.
FATHER (to Gideon): When he arrived at the hospital he was still alive.
GIDEON LEVY (to Father): What did they do for him?
FATHER (to Gideon): He had lost all his blood. They gave him four units of blood, but his body didn’t accept them.
CHILD (to Gideon and Translator): A bullet came next to my foot. A bullet came next to my foot.
FATHER (off camera- to Gideon): A bullet came near his foot.
GIDEON LEVY (to Father): Was the wife taken in the same ambulance?
FATHER (off-camera-to Gideon): Yes. She is not well. The bone of the eye is broken. The jaw is broken. 
TRANSLATOR (to Father): There was one bullet?
FATHER: Yes, one bullet.
GIDEON LEVY (to Father): Where did it hit her exactly?
FATHER: Here.

02:36:10:22

Cut to:
VERITE SCENE:
GIDEON LEVY visiting the wife of Palestinian guy at the hospital.

DOCTOR (to Gideon): Her injury was so serious
GIDEON LEVY (to Doctor): Where was the injury?
DOCTOR (to Gideon): It was near the brain, about millimeters of the brain...
GIDEON LEVY (to Doctor): Oh, the bullet came in.
DOCTOR (to Gideon): Yes.
GIDEON LEVY (to Doctor): And went out?
DOCTOR (to Gideon): No, without out.
GIDEON LEVY (to Doctor): So, it is still there?
DOCTOR (to Gideon): No, we made operation and we take off the bullet.
WIFE speaking Arabic and DOCTOR translating to English for GIDEON 
DOCTOR (translating - to Gideon): There was like an explosion in her face. She was shouting at her husband, Lyad, Lyad I’m injured! But Lyad was not responding to her.
GIDEON (to Doctor-for WIFE): Did her husband hold something in his hand?
DOCTOR (translating - to Gideon): They were just watching what was going on around, when at that time the soldiers entered to their home and make shooting
GIDEON (to Doctor-for WIFE): But her husband didn’t have anything in his hands? Even not a mobile phone?
DOCTOR (translating - to Gideon): There was nothing in his hand.
GIDEON (to Doctor-for WIFE): Now, the army claimed that her husband was shooting the soldiers.
DOCTOR (translating - to Gideon): Her husband is not wanted for the army and he never had any kind of army… before.
GIDEON (to Doctor-for WIFE): We met Tamer, he is so sweet. Her son Tamer .
DOCTOR (translating - to Gideon): Tamer is the one that was going outside and shouting: ‘my father and mother have been injured.’
GIDEON (to Doctor): And this is her mother?
DOCTOR (to Gideon): This is her mother, yes.
GIDEON (to Doctor): Tell her we wish her a very quick recovery.
GIDEON (to WIFE and WOMAN): Thank you.

02:38:30:03

SHOT of GIDEON LEVY driving back to Tel Aviv.

GIDEON LEVY (VO):
Another tragedy, another family, which will grow up with hatred. This child, 5 years old, he will always remember this night that he saw his father being shot dead. He will carry those pictures forever. What will be his memories? What will be his motivation? What exactly did Israel gained out of it? 
Lyad Shalamarsh Shalamish, father of three, 27 years old, at his death in the midst of the ceasefire.

02:39:12:09

ON CAMERA
(INTERVIEW)
Yoel Esteron

YOEL ESTERON (ON CAMERA):
There was this reader who called me the other day and said, you know, it’s annoying to read your newspaper this morning. And I said, You know what, I’m annoyed myself. When I read, for example, Gideon Levy column in the magazine, it’s hard to me, it’s hard for me. It is hard for me to acknowledge that my own people do things, sometimes these are my friends’ kids in the army that are, you know... it’s hard for me to swallow.

02:39:53:24

ON CAMERA
(INTERVIEW)
Amira Hass

AMIRA HASS (ON CAMERA):
The first role of journalism, and that’s how I see my job as a journalist, is to monitor power. This is the main thing.

02:40:01:12

Shot of AMIRA HASS walking through rubble.

AMIRA HASS (VO):
And to observe, to locate centers of power in the society, and to monitor them and to expose them, and to expose the system, because they have the power. We are unelected monitoring team.

02:40:15;17

Shot of
AMIRA talking to a member of Doctors without Borders

DOCTOR (to Amira): People up there, you know, sometimes they are waiting for four hours...

AMIRA HASS (VO):
The Israeli occupation and Israeli control over Palestinian life, this is the center of power here. So I have to monitor it.

DOCTOR (to AMIRA): The gate opened from 7:30 to 8 o’ clock, to let workers get out.
AMRIA HASS (to DOCTOR): From 8:30..?
DOCTOR (to AMIRA): From 7:30 to 8 it was open. And then from 8’o clock, for the rest of the day it was closed.

02:40:41:06

SHOT of AMIRA riding on the back of a car, watching Palestinian guys sitting on the sidewalk.

AMIRA entering and office building and going up the stairs to an office.

AMIRA HASS (VO):
Since ‘91 Palestinians in the occupied territories are not allowed to move freely unless they have permits.
It’s a complete Israeli control over the freedom of movement and it’s extreme expression has been taken form in the last three years of the Intifada, when actually these restrictions are applied to every single Palestinian town and village

02:41:09:15

VERITE SCENE:
AMIRA at office talking to MAN about permits.

Arabic with English subtitles
MAN (to AMIRA): I left for the day, and I wanted to come back. But they wouldn’t let me.
AMIRA (to MAN): May I see the ID, what is written on it? The magnetic card.

AMIRA HASS (VO):
So, Israel has created a whole regime of pass system liked there used to be in South Africa.

AMIRA HASS (to MAN): You go there every day?
MAN (to AMIRA): I went there yesterday and the day before that, and the day before that... and they said it’s not allowed.
AMIRA HASS (to MAN): And your children are there?
MAN (to AMIRA): Yes, my children
MAN 2 (off camera- to AMIRA): His children, his wife, his land. He works his land.

MAN 2 (off Camera - to AMIRA): I want to return them. I submitted a request. Seven have authorization. Seven don’t and they can go to hell.
AMIRA HASS (to MAN 2): Where do you see who received permission and who didn’t?
MAN 2 (off Camera - to AMIRA): From the list...

AMIRA HASS (VO):
Bureaucratic repression has been some kind of specialty of Israel. It’s a political philosophy. Control the movement, control the economy. That’s what Israelis do not understand, they are not ready…

02:42:18:21

ON CAMERA
(INTERVIEW)
Amira Hass

AMIRA HASS (ON CAMERA):
...to pay attention to the cost for keeping the settlements so far. And this is the cost: complete control over Palestinians, complete destruction and complete humiliation.

02:42:31:06

VERITE SCENE:
AMIRA HASS siting on the floor interviewing  a group of Palestinian men.

In Arabic with English Subtitles
MAN 1:What more do you want? To whom should we tell our problems? To God, only?
Make God make things easier. We will do what we can.
MAN 2(standing- to AMIRA): We are entirely forgotten. I am only the name of a Palestinian. But we are in the middle of the Palestinians and the Jews.
MAN 1: We are living in a moving prison, on a large scale. We have been in this prison for three years.
MAN 2: No one in the world feels for us.
AMIRA HASS (to all): You know how I feel? Now I must write an article, and I can’t find the words.
MAN 2: With all these words, you can’t find words?
AMIRA HASS: I can’t find words. Speak.
MAN 2: They turned me away three times at the checkpoint. I had to get a permit for the goat!
AMIRA HASS: What? A goat?
MAN 2: Yes, goats. They require registering.
AMIRA HASS: Really?
MAN 2: I did it.
People talking at the same time in Arabic-no translation
MAN 1 (off camera): A chicken

AMIRA HASS: A chicken
MAN 2: It’s not allowed.
MAN 1: A chicken it’s not allowed. You have to kill it and bring it in a bag. And not all days, only Friday, Saturday and Tuesday.
AMIRA HASS: Tuesday and Saturday?
MAN 1: On Friday and Tuesday is not allowed.
AMIRA HASS: Not allowed but...
MAN 1: You’re not allowed to bring anything.
AMIRA HASS: If you want to bring live chickens?
MAN 1: A live chicken is not allowed.
AMIRA HASS: Not at all?
MAN 1: It’s not allowed at all.
AMIRA HASS: But…
MAN 1: It’s not allowed.
AMIRA HASS: And the goat too?
MAN 2: I tried to get her a permit for a month. I’ve been trying for 30 days.
CHILD (Off camera-to AMIRA): This is a good article about the goat.
MAN 2: This is a real joke.
MAN 1: No, the chicken is even funnier. Take it to Chirac. Take it to Bush. Take it to Sharon. Tell them it’s a goat!
All of them laughing and speaking in Arabic at the same time-no translation

AMIRA HASS (VO):
This has been my main concern for the last 13 years, monitoring power.

02:45:03:00

ON CAMERA
(INTERVIEW)
Gideon Levy

GIDEON LEVY (ON CAMERA):
It is very hard to digest that we are so cruel. It’s very hard to digest, to acknowledge that we are doing those terrible atrocities. So it’s why, as far as we can, to stay away from it, not to know, not to hear, for sure not to realize, for sure not to admit as much as we can. And I do as much as I can the opposite.

02:45:41:20

B-roll:
Shots of exterior of Haaretz and offices with people on the phone.

AMOS SHOCKEN (VO):
We got this letter of Irit Linor, the novelist, who also published it and many people read it and felt that it expressed their feelings as well and we got a couple of hundred cancellations at the time.

02:45:58:05

ON CAMERA
(INTERVIEW)
Amos Shocken

AMOS SHOCKEN(ON CAMERA):
She accused us in a number of things. She said: ‘You are anti-Zionist, anti-Jewish, anti-Israeli…

02:46:05:24

B-roll:
Shots of Haaretz newsroom and people working.

AMOS SHOCKEN (VO):
…It’s not a newspaper that I can identify with anymore.’ So since actually the beginning of 2001 our growth stopped, circulation growth, advertising shrank, we are all the time cutting our budget.

02:46:23:24

ON CAMERA
(INTERVIEW)
Amos Shocken

AMOS SHOCKEN (ON CAMERA):
In 2002 even our circulation shrank a bit. Not a lot but we still see it as an indication of this situation.

02:46:32:26

ON CAMERA
(INTERVIEW)
Gideon Levy

GIDEON LEVY (ON CAMERA):
I was more beloved in Haaretz three years ago than today, I’m sure. Nobody likes to have someone who creates a situation in which hundreds of readers are suspending their subscription on Haaretz, or stopping reading Haaretz because of me, because of Amira...
Yes, it’s not very easy but if you believe in something as I do, you continue very easily because you are so sure of the way you go that you have no, really really no question marks.

02:47:10:17

ON CAMERA
(INTERVIEW)
Amira Hass

AMIRA HASS (ON CAMERA):
More and more Israelis in the last three years say that it is bordering treason. I’ve heard that they’ve got letters that say that I’m a traitor or whatever. If I write about soldiers, if I write about soldiers do, I’m a traitor. And why do I hate my people? And why don’t I write about Israeli casualties?
So, complete misunderstanding of the role of journalism and the fact that a paper gives you…is a collection... is a mosaic of information. It’s not that everyone is supposed to say everything, or to give everything. So, sometimes, you know, when I have the energy I tell them: Are you asking this or that correspondent why he hasn’t written about the Palestinian suffering or what? They don’t ask these questions to Israelis that cover...Israeli casualties.

02:48:05;21

ON CAMERA
(INTERVIEW)
Yoel Esteron

YOEL ESTERON (ON CAMERA):
I’m a father and a husband in this country. I have two daughters, young daughters who, you know, take the bus and go to school and to shopping malls and I’m worried about them and I’m very angry with the Palestinian terrorists.
So, you know, here I am in the afternoon, a bomb just exploded in a Tel Aviv bus, I’m terrified and worried about my daughters. And at the same time I need to write an editorial leader of the newspaper, that says that we have to be moderate, we have to understand the other side, we have to compromise, we have to give a chance to peace, while, you know, inside I … I’m mad. 
So, we all here in the paper live in this dissonance, and we are trying to live between these two edges. It’s not very simple.

02:49:27:11

ON CAMERA
(INTERVIEW)
Amos Shocken

INTERVIEWER (OFF CAMERA): When you have someone on your staff like Amira Hass or Gideon Levy, do you ever go home any night and think, ‘oh, I would just like to get rid of these headaches’?

AMOS SHOCKEN (ON CAMERA):
If you ask me personally never, never. On the contrary, on the contrary. They really do an extremely important job. And I must say that I tend to think that a large number of our readers think the same way. I mean, this is not ...this is not altruism. It’s part of the character of this newspaper that many of our readers expect us to be.
When this thing started, I got also e-mails from readers saying ‘we heard rumors that you are going to fire Amira Hass and Gideon Levy, let me tell you that don’t dare to do it because if you do this I will stop my subscription.’
So, I mean it’s not... I think that telling the truth is always part of our main business and there are no questions about it, I just don’t see questions about it.
FADE TO BLACK.

02:50:56:15

FADE IN:
B-roll: 
SHOTS OF:
HANNAH FOULLAH reporting from polling station.

AMIRA HASS taking notes.

WARREN STROEBEL and JONATHAN LANDAY on the phone.

CARLOTTA GALL at the hospital.

DEBORAH NELSON (VO):
We are here for a purpose, our job is to make the world a better place. By exposing wrong and exposing it in a way that people can see how to fix it.

02:51:08:21

ON CAMERA
(INTERVIEW)
Deborah Nelson

DEBORAH NELSON (ON CAMERA):
And holding out hope that they actually will fix it.

02:51:11:07

SHOT of ANDREW KROMAH on the phone at radio station .

ANDREW KROMAH (VO):
I became a journalist actually because of the love of practicing journalism itself.

02:51:19:22

ON CAMERA
(INTERVIEW)
Andrew Kromah

ANDREW KROMAH (ON CAMERA):
Taking information that the people really want from the field and back into them.

02:51:25:02

VARIOUS SHOTS of guys selling newspapers in the street.

CHRIS ANYANWU (VO):
We know that are people hunger for accurate information, the sort of information that develops the mind, that aids them…

02:51:33;26

ON CAMERA
(INTERVIEW)
Chris Anyanwu

CHRIS ANYANWU (ON CAMERA):
…In coping with life, and we try to give them that.

02:51:38:19

SHOT of ROCHA at demonstration reporting.

RICARDO ROCHA (VO): (Spanish with English Subtitles)
I think that the life of a communicator is necessarily condemned to stress.

02:51:47:01

ON CAMERA
(INTERVIEW)
Ricardo Rocha

RICARDO ROCHA (ON CAMERA):(Spanish with English Subtitles)
But we also have great satisfaction.

02:51:52:09

Shots of CUs of people in Mexico

RICARDO ROCHA (VO): (Spanish with English Subtitles)
For me, specially that I have been able to explore the human soul.

02:52:01:05

SHOT of ANNA POLITKOVSKAYA in graveyard with WOMAN.

ANNA POLITKOVSKAYA (VO): (Russian with English Subtitles)
The truth about what is happening, if you are the transmitter of this truth…

02:52:09:01

ON CAMERA
(INTERVIEW)
Anna Politkovskaya

ANNA POLITKOVSKAYA (ON CAMERA): (Russian with English Subtitles)
...And I think of myself as simply a transmitter. That’s worth a life.

02:52:15:09

ON CAMERA
(INTERVIEW)
Gideon Levy

GIDEON LEVY (ON CAMERA):
What I’ve been seeing in the last twelve-thirteen years, did not only go to my brain, but went to my entire body.

02:52:27;15

SHOT of GIDEON at hospital interviewing Palestinian woman.

GIDEON LEVY (VO):
There is a terrible passion to tell it to everyone. Just to tell it, not to change the world…

02:52:36:16

ON CAMERA
(INTERVIEW)
Gideon Levy

GIDEON LEVY (ON CAMERA):
Not to change the world. But just to tell it.

02:52:39;14

SHOT of GIDEON LEVY typing on computer

Cut to:
shots of printing press.

END CREDITS.

02:53:30:00

 Out