Mary Louise Kelly and Shane Harris on Covering the CIA
The Lawfare Podcast
The Lawfare Institute
4.7 • 6.4K Ratings
🗓️ 2 April 2019
⏱️ 51 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Back in February, we hosted Bill Harlow and Marie Harf, two former public affairs officers at the Central Intelligence Agency, to discuss how the CIA interacts with reporters on sensitive national security topics. For this episode, we thought it only fair to turn that around and also talk about how it's seen on the other side.
Mary Louise Kelly is a voice familiar to many as an anchor of All Things Considered on NPR. She previously spent a decade as national security and intelligence correspondent for NPR News after working for CNN and the BBC. Shane Harris, in addition to co-hosting the Rational Security podcast, now covers intelligence and national security for The Washington Post, after writing about the same for outlets like The Wall Street Journal, Daily Beast, and National Journal.
David Priess recently sat down with Mary Louise and Shane to discuss the challenges of covering national security, to address myths about the intelligence beat, and, unsuccessfully, to uncover their sources.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The following podcast contains advertising. |
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| 0:14.0 | That's patreon.com slash law fair. |
| 0:18.0 | Also, check out LawFair's other podcast offerings, |
| 0:22.0 | rational security, chatter, law fair no bull, and the aftermath. |
| 0:29.0 | When I base a story on anonymous sources, |
| 0:37.0 | it surprises me how many people think I don't know who they are. |
| 0:41.0 | I know who the sources are. I'm protecting their identity to protect their job or their security or whatever it is. |
| 0:47.0 | But if anything, a story I do that's based on anonymous sources, |
| 0:50.0 | I have gone even more above and beyond what I would do for a story where the sources can be named |
| 0:55.0 | to verify they are who they say they are, that they are in a position to know what they're talking about, |
| 0:59.0 | to try to fact check it and confirm it every which way. |
| 1:05.0 | Because I'm asking you, as a listener, |
| 1:07.0 | or reader, trust me, I have verified this information to that maximum extent of my ability. |
| 1:13.0 | And I'm telling you what I don't know, and I'm telling you what I can't confirm. |
| 1:17.0 | I'm David Priest and this is the LawFair podcast, April 2nd, 2019. |
| 1:22.0 | Back in February, we hosted Bill Harlow and Marie Harff, |
| 1:26.0 | two former public affairs officers at the Central Intelligence Agency, |
| 1:30.0 | to discuss how the CIA interacts with reporters on sensitive national security topics. |
| 1:36.0 | So we thought it fair to turn that around and also talk about how it's seen from the other side. |
| 1:42.0 | Mary Louise Kelly is a voice familiar to many LawFair podcasts listeners |
... |
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