We've all been there. Maybe somebody tells you too much about the twist ending of a movie or they tell you guys at the end. In other words, you run into a spoiler. How should you handle spoilers and put even counts as a spoiler?
Let's tell you how we handle spoilers. It's critics on NPR's top-of-the-track hour. Listen by the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts. October 1st, Mark the first day in over 50 years at NPR in conversations began operating without federal funding.
We are still here. We're not going anywhere. But it's challenging. And it makes me think about why I do this work.
And a story that I always come back to is a story that I did in Selma, Alabama, where I talk to one of the youngest people that were on the bridge on Bloody Sunday, Joanne Bland. And she gives these tours of Selma talking about the history of the civil rights movement that she lived through. And I'm grateful that I work for a place where I'm able to give a voice to Joanne Bland to raise up those people who lived through truly turbulent times and made the world a better place. Even in this moment, I feel like I'm talking to people every day that are living through historic moments, right?
Moments that will be talking about decades from now and that I'm able to bear witness. And I think that's what NPR does. I think NPR bears witness to what's happening that we provide a place where we can provide a record of the truth. And as long as you are here, as long as you want to an end, NPR will be here bearing witness telling the truth without fear or fear.
Thank you. I'm Aisha Roscoe and this is Sunday story from my first where we go beyond the news of the day to bring you one big story. A few years ago, I was at an event for radio people where we were selling our shows to programming directors and membersations. One of NPR's major competitors was presented now.
I'm not going to say which one. But when they got to the Q&A portion of their presentation, my colleague, all things considered, holes merely was Kelly, stood up and started asking them some really tough questions. Fair, but challenging. And I have to stress this was in person, live.
This wasn't hiding behind no computer screen. This was up close and personal. And she was, I could say, you know, given them to business. I remember thinking to myself and I could do not.
This woman is fearless. Don't mess with Mary Louise Kelly. Well, some people have had to learn that the hard way, like back in 2020 during President Trump's first term in office, when Mary Louise sat down with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo for an interview. The interview mostly focused on Iran, but at the end, Mary Louise turns to the topic of Ukraine and Pompeo wasn't happy.
Do you owe a massive amount of time of June apology? You know, every two months you'll get to talk about Iran. That's what I intended to do. Anything else to say about that this morning.
But Mary Louise Kelly, she did not back down. She kept pushing for answers. She was fair and fearless, just like that event all those years ago. I just want to give you another opportunity to answer this because as you know, people who work for you in your department, people who have resigned from this department under leadership saying you should stand up for the time of the time of June.
The interview was eventually cut short by Pompeo's deputy assistant secretary. After the interview Pompeo asked to speak to Mary Louise in private and interactions she later described on air. I was taking to Secretary's private living room where he was waiting and where he shouted at me for about the same amount of time as the interview itself. He was not happy to have been questioned about Ukraine.
He asked, do you think Americans care about Ukraine? He used the effort in that sense and many others. He asked if I could find Ukraine on a map. I said yes.
He called out for his age to bring him in the map of the world with no Reagan. I pointed to Ukraine with him out of the way. He said, people will hear about this. And then he turned into a thing to do.
And I think again for his time and left. Well, people did hear about it. The interview went viral as did the public back and forth between NPR and the Secretary of State's office in the aftermath. What's that to me about this whole situation was how cool, calm and collected.
Mary Louise was throughout the interaction. Even when she was being berated by a powerful member of the administration and how she kept pushing for the truth. NPR's public editor called it quote, exemplary ethical journalism. Now Mary Louise Kelly is bringing that trademark exemplary ethical journalism to a new national security podcast or NPR that just launched last month is called sources of methods.
We'll be right back with Mary Louise Kelly to hear more about a new show. Mary Louise Kelly, what is the story? I'm so happy to be here with you. Thanks for inviting me on.
I'm glad to have you here. I'm glad I'm on this side. I'm glad you were in the time of the time of the time. I've lived to tell the tale.
So tell us more about the podcast. Why is it called sources of methods? Now that's what was that a spy thing? It is a spy thing.
Very common term in espionage and national security circles. And it speaks to how do they know what they know? Who told them? Who are the sources by what methods did the intelligence this secret information get gathered?
And people who work in US intelligence and national security circles will tell you they sweat bullets to protect sources of methods. They don't want it getting out how they know what they know because then that source could be burnt. That could be endangered. If it's a human source or if it's a satellite or something else that that method of collection could be shut down.
If your adversary knows how you're spying on them. So it's kind of cool. You know, a spy term, but it occurred to me it resonates in our world as journalists as well. And it also works.
We also worked to protect their identity. If there are people who are putting themselves in a position of risk to share with a no with us. So it kind of there's a little devil on tonder there and the podcast is about how we reporters work our sources to have a national security source. And what needs to want to focus on national security in particular?
Let's say this moment. Well, it's my background. It's what I always wanted to do. It's, you know, I've always started covering the state department and then launched the intelligence beat for NPR back in the days after 9-11 and the US invasion of Afghanistan and then Iraq.
It's such a fascinating beat because unlike almost any other one, including really important beats, communication for example, or health or whatever. So it's like, you know, you're not going to be with your doing. By definition, they want to keep it secret. And I found that such an intriguing challenge starting out as a reporter trying to cover the CIA.
There is no stuff. You don't get a hard pass. You can't wander around the halls that way you can on Capitol Hill. For example, it was pretty important.
Other big Washington beats. They almost never hold press conference. They don't tell you what they're doing. So how the heck do you cover them?
You have to work sources. I found that really interesting. I still find it really interesting now 20 years later. And we have a great national security team here at NPR who's doing that kind of work every day.
I thought if we could pull back the curtain a little bit on how they are doing it. What links they are going to to try to get stories out there that are in the public interest to try to ask questions. That could be really interesting. What has been some of your favorite topics that you've covered so far?
Or has it been something that's been really surprising to you that you've gotten at on the podcast? So, for example, I was in Alaska for the big Trump Putin summit to try to figure out how do we start to try in this war in Ukraine. It was fascinating to be there and encourage it was fascinating to hear a lighthouse take on what was a huge and what wasn't. But we on the podcast that the first one that came out after that we got our correspondence on the ground in Moscow and in chief.
I mean, this is extraordinary to be able to do that. There's so few major news organizations that have kept a bureau open in Moscow and kept a bureau fully shaft in chief all through this war. We do. We have them and they're sitting watching what's happening in Alaska to be able to push them and say, how's that playing where you are?
When you walk to the coffee shop and morning, what's on people's minds? Greg Meyrie who was then in our chief bureau when we were having this conversation. He had a fascinating exchange where he's trying to tell me how normal daily life often feels in chief. There are kids in the street there people buying our country.
They're getting their nails done. It's kind of normal life. It's not like you see soldiers out and out in the streets all the time. You know, great.
There are a lot of troops in the city in the early days of the war. But now you can really walk around this inner of the city throughout the city and not really see any troops. Occasionally you'll see some here or there, but no, don't really have checkpoints or even just see troops walking around. That's fascinating for a country that's been a war for three and a half years.
You don't see troops regularly out about on the street. Not in civilian areas. You know, I've been to three cities this week. The capital in the south central 60 miles from the front line and now the V and you just don't see that many.
I had just come in on a train. We're walking through Union Station here in Washington. We're three guys with firearms. There are legs walking in front of me and Greg.
And I'm going to go back and forth and realize at this precise moment, you're seeing more soldiers on the streets in the capital of Washington, D.C. Then in the streets of chief Ukraine, a country that has been at war for three and a half years. Huh? Here we are.
What do we make of that? When we come back, Mary Louise Kelly talks about how the national security beat has been changing under the Trump administration. So, you know, obviously national security has been all over the news lately. And I wanted to get your thoughts on kind of the significance of something like, for instance, the administration's rebrand of the Department of Defense to the Department of War.
Obviously that has to be officially changed by Congress, but that's what they are calling it right now. How do you make sense of like that as an approach to national security? What does it say? I don't know how I make sense of that as an approach to national security.
I think it's fascinating. It prompted me to go back through the history of why the defense department was called the defense department. Because it wasn't always. It was changed after World War II by President Truman who said, we've had enough war.
Maybe we should focus on not having a war on having some peace. So let's change it and he changed it to the Department of Defense. So it is interesting to me knowing that history, why our current president, President Trump, who is fond of telling us how many wars he has personally helped to end his campaign for the Nobel Peace Prize, which he feels he's earned, why he wants to have the Department of War. And we had a little bit of that conversation on sources and methods before they changed the name when we were just hearing reports and rumors that that might be where they're heading.
So it remains very much like issues. You say, they're going to try to get those new Congress and they go about changing the name officially, which is a huge process in the season of military installations all over the world. And there also have been a lot of talk about changes in how the Pentagon is trying to deal with reporters. The Pentagon has its own press pool like White House as press pool, etc.
And they want new requirements that journalists not gather any information that hasn't already been authorized for release by officials, even stuff that's like declassified. And if they do, they're losing their press credentials or being deemed a security risk. So how do you think that impacts national security sources? When we talk about sources of methods at the Pentagon, there are briefings people have offices of a little booth there that can talk to the press office.
It's a part of the job. So talk to me about how that can happen in fact. Well, have a huge impact if this does come to pass. It's one of the subjects we're going to tackle on sources of methods because it's a big deal if it happens.
You talked about news organizations having boots of the Pentagon. So we can broadcast live when there's news or you can get the official you're trying to be on a plunking down in front of a microphone and go live. That has already changed for some news organizations including NPR, which is one of the news organizations that was booted out of our Pentagon news earlier this year. Our correspondence continued to work covering that department in every way they possibly can, but this would be unprecedented.
And I say that as someone who's had a hand in covering the wars in Iraq covering the war in Afghanistan covering the wars currently unfolding on a board of Ukraine, a board of the Middle East. And I think that's not the way that the press works and breaks stories. And I think back on how many stories on my time covering national security. We wouldn't know from torture at upgrade prison in Iraq.
That wasn't something the Pentagon was issuing press releases about reporters had to dig and were sources and try to verify what was happening and what wasn't. The black sites. The CIA black sites after 9-11 weren't less wiretapping. It was the original term for domestic surveillance.
It was the national security agency doing with US taxpayer dollars after 9-11. There were real legal questions that needed to be answered and they came to light because of reporting done by reporters who were working sources and bringing information to public attention that the defense department and other institutions in the US government didn't want to be out there. They're off because of that. And I would argue that for the Pentagon in particular, which is sending people sons and daughters to risk their lives that tough questions should be asked and should be answered.
If we lose that, then it will become much, much harder to bring stories that are in public interest. And that's even with stuff like Afghanistan will draw from Afghanistan, which raises lots of questions from people who are now in this administration. Like a lot of that was reporting, right? Reporting, not based on just press releases and press conference.
Absolutely. And it's not just roaming Pentagon hallways. I mean, it happens with reporters who are embedded with US troops around and about in the world. And there's a good faith agreement that they will do their best to report things fairly and as completely as they possibly can.
And of course, we understand security considerations and their agreements that can be negotiated. Nobody's trying to put anybody in harm's way here. But it is important to be able to ask the questions that occur to you as my witness typically. It's unfolding around the world.
And so is there someone who you would really like to talk to on the new show like someone who's like your big get? That's a good question. I have interviewed many of the former still with SCI directors. I interviewed them either when they were in the job or after both.
The couple of exceptions, Gina Haswell, who was CIA director never gave an interview to any journalist ever. I would still love to hear. I will say that. The current director John Radcliffe has been very good at keeping his counsel and has not done a lot of press.
And I would love to ask him questions. Not in any kind of got your capacity. That's not how I operate. But in terms of what he sees as the priority for that organization in a moment where the global world order is changing.
And resources are not infinite and never have been there will be. How's he thinking about how to prioritize things what that agency should be doing with job is that would be really fascinating. And I think that's so central right now to public mistrust of journalism. All these people tell me about something in their opinions.
I want to do reporting where we go out in the world boots on the ground and just say here's what I see. Here's what I hear. Here's what it smells like. Let me describe this road that I'm taking to get to the hospital that's on the front lines in Ukraine bring listeners along for that experience and let you hear the facts as best and fully and completely we can describe them.
Let you hear all the things we don't know that are going to form what we wake up tomorrow and try to get answers to and make up your mind what you want to think. I would listen to that. Thank you so much for talking to us today and for all the work that you think you have this has been an absolute delay. Thanks for having me.
You can find sources and methods where every venture podcast new episodes every Thursday this episode was produced by Michelle aslam and edited by the honest syndrome. It was mastered by Robert Rodriguez the Sunday story team also includes Justin and Andrew Rambo and Jennifer Smith. All right, second producer is Irene Lucie. I'm Eja Roscoe and I'll first move you back tomorrow with all the news you need to start your week until then have a great rest of your weekend.