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The Story She Reported, the View She Buried · Question Everything

0:06
Speaker 1: You ever get frustrated with that charade reporters are supposed
0:09
Speaker 1: to keep up where we pretend we don't have opinions
0:11
Speaker 1: or feelings or any kind of human thoughts about a
0:14
Speaker 1: story we're working on? And then the charade that you're
0:18
Speaker 1: supposed to keep up as a listener or viewer or
0:20
Speaker 1: reader or whatever, where you're supposed to pretend that you
0:23
Speaker 1: believe us. You're supposed to pretend that you believe that
0:26
Speaker 1: we're basically like emotionally vacant fact vessels. Plenty of reporters
0:31
Speaker 1: are frustrated with it and sick of it and have
0:33
Speaker 1: been breaking out of that charade for a while now,
0:35
Speaker 1: which I think is exciting. But what you may not
0:37
Speaker 1: know is that the decision to do that, it's often
0:41
Speaker 1: pretty fraught and personal when you're deciding as a reporter
0:44
Speaker 1: whether to reveal your feelings or not. And the choice
0:47
Speaker 1: you make about whether you share your point of view
0:50
Speaker 1: or not while reporting a story, it can have a
0:52
Speaker 1: real impact. It can affect the people you're reporting on.
0:55
Speaker 1: It can affect whether they're seen as guilty or innocent,
0:57
Speaker 1: trustworthy or not. It can have an impact on the
1:00
Speaker 1: policies you're covering, how people think about them, and it
1:02
Speaker 1: can affect you as the reporter, your credibility, your career.
1:08
Speaker 1: This is what we're going to explore today. We're going
1:10
Speaker 1: to go inside this decision that is both personal and journalistic.
1:14
Speaker 1: And we're going to do it by going behind the
1:16
Speaker 1: scenes of an investigative podcast called The Kopernik Affair. We
1:21
Speaker 1: first aired this episode last year, but I've been thinking
1:23
Speaker 1: about it recently. And I know we have a bunch
1:25
Speaker 1: of new listeners here who've been finding Question Everything. So
1:28
Speaker 1: I wanted to share this one with you especially. The
1:32
Speaker 1: Kopernik Affair is about an unassuming sociology professor in Canada
1:37
Speaker 1: who gets accused of carrying out a bomb attack on
1:39
Speaker 1: a Paris synagogue some 40 years after it happened. It's
1:43
Speaker 1: from the Canada Land Network. Kopernik is the name of
1:46
Speaker 1: the synagogue that was attacked. Four people were killed. Dozens
1:50
Speaker 1: were injured. The sociology professor is named Hassan Diab. He's
1:56
Speaker 1: originally from Lebanon. Hassan has always claimed that he's completely
1:59
Speaker 1: innocent of this crime. He says he wasn't in France
2:02
Speaker 1: when it happened, that he never associated with the militant
2:05
Speaker 1: group from Lebanon that suspected of being behind it. Still,
2:09
Speaker 1: Hassan's life is turned upside down while French investigators try
2:13
Speaker 1: to get him extradited from Canada so they can prove otherwise.
2:16
Speaker 1: And they do get him extradited.
2:19
Speaker 2: It was cold. And I had practically no clothes on
2:23
Speaker 2: me except maybe jeans, a t-shirt, and a jacket. And
2:28
Speaker 2: practically nothing more than that.
2:31
Speaker 3: You didn't pack a bag or they didn't allow you
2:34
Speaker 3: to bring a bag from Canada or anything?
2:36
Speaker 1: Zero.
2:38
Speaker 2: At night, they put me on the plane and here
2:40
Speaker 2: we go. It's like you feel or you wish if
2:45
Speaker 2: the plane goes down, I don't care anymore now.
2:51
Speaker 1: Eventually, they do get him to France, where he's held
2:53
Speaker 1: in prison for years, awaiting trial, until two judges review
2:56
Speaker 1: his case... and decide it isn't strong enough, and they
2:59
Speaker 1: release him. He's sent home to Canada. Prime Minister Justin
3:03
Speaker 1: Trudeau says what happened to Hassan Diab never should have happened.
3:07
Speaker 1: And then, French authorities bring a case against him again.
3:11
Speaker 4: On Monday, France's top court put Hassan Diab on trial
3:14
Speaker 4: in connection with a 43-year-old bombing attack outside a Paris synagogue.
3:19
Speaker 4: This trial comes five years after a lower court set
3:22
Speaker 4: Diab free.
3:24
Speaker 1: This time, though, they can't get him back to France.
3:26
Speaker 1: So they try him in absentia. Hassan stays in Canada
3:29
Speaker 1: and doesn't attend his trial. And despite multiple judges having
3:33
Speaker 1: already declared that the evidence against Hassan is very thin,
3:36
Speaker 1: a French court convicts him from afar. So now Hassan
3:40
Speaker 1: is living as a free man in Canada, yet is
3:43
Speaker 1: still a convicted terrorist in France. Actually, just as the
3:47
Speaker 1: podcast series was coming out these last few months, this
3:50
Speaker 1: cross-Atlantic fight over an Arab man's culpability in a 40-year-old
3:54
Speaker 1: attack against Jews was has become an international flashpoint. A
3:58
Speaker 1: right-wing Canadian lawmaker reposted an inflammatory article calling Hassan Diab
4:02
Speaker 1: a terrorist. He said they should send Hassan to France
4:06
Speaker 1: to face punishment. And then, of all people, Elon Musk
4:10
Speaker 1: picked up on the story. He tweeted about Hassan, saying,
4:13
Speaker 1: a mass murderer is living free as a professor in Canada.
4:16
Speaker 1: 21 million people saw this. Just the other day, the
4:20
Speaker 1: Daily Mail sent a photographer to trail Hassan as he
4:23
Speaker 1: went about his daily routine. So the controversy is heating
4:26
Speaker 1: up again, and Hassan's case is becoming a right-wing outrage generator.
4:32
Speaker 1: I enjoyed the Kopernik affair. I liked learning about the case,
4:35
Speaker 1: and the reporting is excellent, diligent. The reporters who co-host it,
4:40
Speaker 1: Dana Balut and Alex Atack, get in-depth interviews with most
4:44
Speaker 1: of the key figures in the case, across five or
4:46
Speaker 1: six countries, including with Hassan Diab. I had a conversation
4:50
Speaker 1: with the reporters, Dana and Alex, and we got to
4:53
Speaker 1: talking about this one part, of an interview they did
4:56
Speaker 1: with Hasan. It's one of the more memorable moments in
4:58
Speaker 1: the series. And Dana, in particular, had a really strong
5:02
Speaker 1: reaction to this section of the interview. So much so
5:05
Speaker 1: that the editorial team decided they should include her reaction
5:08
Speaker 1: as part of the show. It was dramatic. Everyone was
5:11
Speaker 1: on board. And then Dana decided to nix it.
5:15
Speaker 5: There's one section in particular where I went on a
5:18
Speaker 5: little rant and we had it in there for a
5:20
Speaker 5: little bit and then we took it out because.
5:24
Speaker 6: I was.
5:24
Speaker 5: So self-conscious about people perceiving me as biased towards Hassan.
5:33
Speaker 1: For Dana, this choice about how much to insert herself
5:36
Speaker 1: into the story was especially wrenching. Like Hassan Diab, the
5:40
Speaker 1: man she was reporting on, she also is Lebanese. She
5:44
Speaker 1: grew up in Lebanon in the 90s. And while she
5:46
Speaker 1: wanted to believe this shared cultural background was an asset
5:49
Speaker 1: to her reporting the story, she also worried that people
5:52
Speaker 1: might use it against her. and it could become a
5:54
Speaker 1: liability for her reporting. And that did end up happening.
5:58
Speaker 1: So she found herself having to make all sorts of
6:00
Speaker 1: calculations as a journalist as to when to express commonality
6:04
Speaker 1: with Hassan, when to hold back. On today's Question Everything
6:08
Speaker 1: from KCRW and Placement Theory, we're going to pull back
6:11
Speaker 1: the curtain on a single editorial decision and how the
6:14
Speaker 1: complex emotions surrounding it prompted me to revisit a decision
6:18
Speaker 1: a colleague and I made in our own work. I'm
6:20
Speaker 1: Brian Reed. Stick around. Here's the part of the Kopernik
6:31
Speaker 1: affair that I asked Dana about. It takes place during
6:34
Speaker 1: an interview she and her co-reporter Alex did with Hassan Diab,
6:38
Speaker 1: who's accused of the synagogue attack. Dana and Alex want
6:41
Speaker 1: to know whether or not Hassan associated with a specific
6:44
Speaker 1: Palestinian militant group that was based in Lebanon at the time.
6:47
Speaker 1: They're focused on this because the investigators in France claim
6:51
Speaker 1: this group was behind the attack on the Kopernik synagogue
6:54
Speaker 1: and that Hassan was part of the group and carried
6:56
Speaker 1: it out on their behalf. Hassan's alleged affiliation with this
6:59
Speaker 1: militant group is central to France's case against him. Dana
7:04
Speaker 1: and Alex try to get at it by asking Hassan
7:07
Speaker 1: what his relationship was to these types of groups in general,
7:10
Speaker 1: various political groups that were fighting in the civil war
7:12
Speaker 1: in Lebanon during Hassan's college years. And Hassan answers. Again,
7:16
Speaker 1: this is all from the series, The Copernic Affair. You'll
7:19
Speaker 1: hear him first, then you'll hear the reporter Alex, and
7:22
Speaker 1: then Dana.
7:24
Speaker 2: The university was a place where you see all these
7:27
Speaker 2: groups from leftists to nationalists to few Islamists. And you
7:33
Speaker 2: have friends because they are in your class. So I
7:37
Speaker 2: was well known of a person who was anti all
7:41
Speaker 2: these groups. But I was more concerned about, you know,
7:47
Speaker 2: going every day to the sea. I would swim in
7:51
Speaker 2: winter and summer, and I have my motorcycle. If you
7:55
Speaker 2: want to call it hippie life, call it hippie life.
7:59
Speaker 3: You were in this context at university where there were
8:01
Speaker 3: lots of young people interested in being part of these
8:04
Speaker 3: political groups, maybe even fighting with them, and you were
8:07
Speaker 3: able to stay away from all of that.
8:11
Speaker 1: Is that what you're saying?
8:12
Speaker 3: Absolutely.
8:13
Speaker 1: Absolutely.
8:14
Speaker 2: Even some people would say, we envy you the way
8:18
Speaker 2: you can manage with all these different groups who fight
8:21
Speaker 2: for anything.
8:23
Speaker 3: So just so I have it completely straight, you were
8:25
Speaker 3: never part of a group that could be considered a militia.
8:28
Speaker 3: You never fought with any of them. You never picked
8:31
Speaker 3: up arms.
8:32
Speaker 2: It's strange you ask this because most of these groups,
8:35
Speaker 2: everybody thought I was like with another group. They just
8:41
Speaker 2: put the tag on you. Ah, he's with the Iraqis.
8:43
Speaker 2: He's with this.
8:45
Speaker 5: But Hassan, are you able to answer the question yes
8:48
Speaker 5: or no? So the question is, did you ever belong
8:50
Speaker 5: to any political party?
8:51
Speaker 7: Is there a yes or no answer?
8:53
Speaker 8: No, of course.
8:55
Speaker 7: And then also, did you ever fight and pick up
8:58
Speaker 7: guns for any group?
9:00
Speaker 2: For any group?
9:01
Speaker 3: No.
9:02
Speaker 2: For myself, maybe. I used to shoot at birds, but
9:06
Speaker 2: I missed most of the birds, luckily.
9:08
Speaker 8: Okay.
9:09
Speaker 7: So you never fought in the civil war for one
9:13
Speaker 7: political party over another?
9:15
Speaker 2: I told you I would go with all these people
9:18
Speaker 2: out and they would shoot. They would let me shoot
9:21
Speaker 2: maybe at glasses or whatever. And maybe if they considered
9:27
Speaker 2: me a fighter at the time, I would be with
9:29
Speaker 2: all the groups at the same time.
9:31
Speaker 7: So the most correct answer is you had friends from
9:33
Speaker 7: all groups, but you're saying that you didn't belong to
9:37
Speaker 7: any one group.
9:38
Speaker 2: Yeah, correct.
9:40
Speaker 3: Yeah.
9:41
Speaker 7: All right. Because sometimes, Hassan, it's hard to get you
9:44
Speaker 7: to answer yes or no.
9:46
Speaker 2: Oh, well, I have to explain because this situation in Beirut,
9:51
Speaker 2: it's really it's not yes or no.
9:56
Speaker 1: So that's the scene Dana and I talked about, along
9:59
Speaker 1: with her co-reporter, Alex.
10:00
Speaker 5: I think a lot of people see that as him
10:03
Speaker 5: dodging questions and see it as suspicious, and that's totally fair.
10:07
Speaker 1: I'll just say, like, my reaction, it was... Yeah, I
10:12
Speaker 1: don't know if, like, suspicious is the word I'd use,
10:15
Speaker 1: but it's like, it seems like the answer should be
10:17
Speaker 1: simpler for him to give. And why isn't it?
10:20
Speaker 8: You know?
10:20
Speaker 3: Yeah.
10:20
Speaker 1: Is that how you guys were feeling in the interview?
10:23
Speaker 5: Even on our team, that was like, oh my God,
10:26
Speaker 5: that's like, you know, so damning. And I think I
10:29
Speaker 5: viewed it in a different way. I understood why it
10:32
Speaker 5: wasn't yes or no. And this is the rant that
10:35
Speaker 5: I go on and we ended up cutting it.
10:38
Speaker 1: Okay. So here's what happened in the final story, the
10:41
Speaker 1: episode as they released it to the world. That scene
10:44
Speaker 1: ends with Hasan saying, you can't just give a yes
10:46
Speaker 1: or no answer. You have to explain.
10:48
Speaker 2: Because, uh, This situation in Beirut, it's really, it's not
10:53
Speaker 2: yes or no.
10:55
Speaker 1: And then there's music. And then Alex and Dana move
10:57
Speaker 1: on with the story.
10:59
Speaker 3: While our conversations with Hassan circled a lot around the
11:02
Speaker 3: civil war, it was really just the few months that
11:04
Speaker 3: are at the heart of this story. The summer and
11:06
Speaker 3: autumn of 1980, from August to October, when the bombing
11:10
Speaker 3: in Paris took place.
11:12
Speaker 5: According to the French narrative, in this window of time,
11:15
Speaker 5: Hassan took a trip to Greece, then came back to Beirut.
11:19
Speaker 1: Dana had lots to say about that exchange with Hassan,
11:22
Speaker 1: but in the story, she doesn't say it. No comment
11:25
Speaker 1: on Hassan's response to their questions or what it might
11:27
Speaker 1: mean or what it was like to ask him about this.
11:30
Speaker 1: But for a while in that spot, what they'd planned
11:33
Speaker 1: to do instead was include what Dana calls her little rant.
11:37
Speaker 1: It was a conversation she recorded with Alex in the
11:39
Speaker 1: studio where she did react to that moment in the interview.
11:42
Speaker 1: She did give her personal and emotional response to it.
11:45
Speaker 1: This is the part the team ended up cutting near
11:47
Speaker 1: the final hour. I have heard the recording. Dana shared
11:51
Speaker 1: it with me. It's never aired and we're not going
11:53
Speaker 1: to air it either. But I can tell you the
11:55
Speaker 1: way she described it to me when I talked to
11:56
Speaker 1: her about it, what you're about to hear, it's pretty
11:59
Speaker 1: darn close to what was in there and the tone
12:01
Speaker 1: of it too. All right. Tell me the rant that
12:03
Speaker 1: got cut. Let's hear it.
12:04
Speaker 3: Yeah.
12:04
Speaker 5: So Hassan does like, why do we have to get
12:07
Speaker 5: into like shooting birds and this and that and hippie life?
12:11
Speaker 5: Like just answer the question, you know? And so my
12:15
Speaker 5: rant is that I agree with Hassan that in Beirut
12:18
Speaker 5: at the time, and actually even Beirut while I was
12:20
Speaker 5: growing up until today, there is no like black or white.
12:24
Speaker 5: There's no like, I didn't know anyone that was from
12:27
Speaker 5: any militia. And I am like, you know, I've never
12:30
Speaker 5: touched a gun. That is not the context in which
12:33
Speaker 5: he grew up. It's not the context in which I
12:35
Speaker 5: grew up. And I think a lot of people I'll
12:38
Speaker 5: say in the West want black or white. you know,
12:41
Speaker 5: you've either shot a gun with groups, you either are
12:44
Speaker 5: related to these groups or you're not. But in Lebanon,
12:46
Speaker 5: it's a tiny country, you have to remember. And he's
12:49
Speaker 5: right that universities are a hotbed for political parties. So yes,
12:52
Speaker 5: you do have friends from all sorts of groups. And
12:55
Speaker 5: some of them are the kind of shady groups, according
12:58
Speaker 5: to Americans and Europeans. So I understand the context in
13:01
Speaker 5: which it's hard to explain. And I empathize with the
13:04
Speaker 5: dance that he's doing. Because sometimes I have to do
13:07
Speaker 5: that dance too, right? Because that, context when you're living
13:11
Speaker 5: in a city like Beirut and when you're going to
13:13
Speaker 5: university especially the one that he went to it's totally
13:16
Speaker 5: normal that Hassan had friends from different political parties it's
13:19
Speaker 5: just hard to explain to an American audience I mean
13:24
Speaker 5: it's totally normal that he probably shot guns not at
13:27
Speaker 5: people but maybe like shot guns you know here and
13:30
Speaker 5: there shot birds I mean I'll tell you in my
13:34
Speaker 5: village people shot you know birds I shot guns for
13:37
Speaker 5: fun in rural villages just like at glass bottles or whatever.
13:41
Speaker 5: It's changed now a little bit. But, you know, in
13:44
Speaker 5: the 90s when I was growing up, like it's a
13:46
Speaker 5: chaotic place in the 60s or 70s. It was even
13:50
Speaker 5: more chaotic. It was the Civil War. So, yeah, even
13:54
Speaker 5: if it frustrates me and I just want him to
13:56
Speaker 5: be clear, I also empathize with the dance that he's
13:59
Speaker 5: trying to do.
14:01
Speaker 1: Did you say any of this to him?
14:03
Speaker 3: No.
14:05
Speaker 6: No, I didn't.
14:06
Speaker 1: Why not?
14:08
Speaker 6: I don't need to say it. I don't need to
14:09
Speaker 6: say it. He understood. I mean, he probably. Well, let's see.
14:13
Speaker 6: Why didn't I say it? Because we're journalists and I want.
14:16
Speaker 5: To make sure that there's like a little bit of
14:18
Speaker 5: a distance between us.
14:21
Speaker 6: That's probably why.
14:22
Speaker 5: The only time where I was like, oh, I get
14:24
Speaker 5: you is when he was talking about like foraging dandelions
14:28
Speaker 5: from the prison grounds to eat. Like I foraged dandelions
14:33
Speaker 5: with my dad growing up, you know. Otherwise, I tried
14:37
Speaker 5: really hard to keep a distance a little bit.
14:43
Speaker 1: It's interesting the way you're asking the questions there. It's
14:46
Speaker 1: like hearing you say this rant that you cut from
14:48
Speaker 1: the series, I get to see how you're thinking in
14:54
Speaker 1: that moment. But what you're actually saying is you're trying
14:57
Speaker 1: to help translate this very kind of like, like a
15:03
Speaker 1: lifetime of cultural understanding, basically, and political understanding and all
15:06
Speaker 1: sorts of other standing. You're trying to help ask questions
15:10
Speaker 1: in a way that translates it for the West, basically.
15:14
Speaker 5: Yes, a thousand percent. Yes, I am exactly that. I'm
15:17
Speaker 5: trying to translate it. I like, see, I can understand
15:22
Speaker 5: what he's trying to do. I empathize with it. And
15:25
Speaker 5: I'm also like, I just wanted a yes or no.
15:29
Speaker 6: Were you a member? Were you not? And I was like, Hasan,
15:32
Speaker 6: the West needs yes or no.
15:34
Speaker 1: It's funny because I think you could come away with
15:37
Speaker 1: the impression without the rant that you are suspicious of
15:40
Speaker 1: him in that moment, you know, which doesn't sound totally true.
15:44
Speaker 6: No, I wasn't suspicious. I was frustrated. I was really frustrated.
15:47
Speaker 5: And I get, you know, Hasan answering questions for me
15:50
Speaker 5: was very frustrating because as you can hear, like he just,
15:54
Speaker 5: he'll start off.
15:55
Speaker 6: Somewhere and then he'll end somewhere else. But it's true.
15:59
Speaker 6: Hassan does not, there's no such thing as a short answer.
16:02
Speaker 5: Like at one point in the interview was like, you know,
16:04
Speaker 5: my parents, they always answer questions and stories.
16:06
Speaker 6: And I'm like, you are your parent.
16:09
Speaker 5: So I think I was really frustrated in that moment
16:11
Speaker 5: more than suspicious.
16:13
Speaker 3: I also think you can read it in a couple
16:15
Speaker 3: of ways.
16:16
Speaker 1: This is Dana's co-reporter, Alex.
16:17
Speaker 3: Like it's, you could read it that it's like to
16:19
Speaker 3: his credit that he's, you know, he could just say, look,
16:22
Speaker 3: I never went near guns. I never went near political groups,
16:25
Speaker 3: militia groups. Yeah. And- you know we probably would have
16:28
Speaker 3: aired that as well like it's it like it's to
16:32
Speaker 3: his credit that he's like sort of giving us these
16:34
Speaker 3: honest quite sticky nuanced answers even if it takes a
16:39
Speaker 3: bit of explaining and a bit of like yeah.
16:40
Speaker 1: I understand that too he's like yeah no i do
16:42
Speaker 1: got to tell you like i did shoot birds with
16:44
Speaker 1: some of these guys.
16:45
Speaker 3: Yeah right you know that's how i read it and it's.
16:48
Speaker 1: Not in this context easy to share you know um.
16:51
Speaker 3: Yeah But we had a lot of editorial talks about
16:55
Speaker 3: that section because people on our team read it differently
16:58
Speaker 3: as well. I mean, if your conviction is that you're
17:01
Speaker 3: completely innocent, you'd be like, why are you asking me
17:02
Speaker 3: this stuff?
17:03
Speaker 6: It's not relevant.
17:03
Speaker 3: You know what I mean? Everything, I guess, can be
17:07
Speaker 3: read two ways.
17:10
Speaker 1: Have you had second thoughts about maybe wishing that you
17:13
Speaker 1: did put that rant in in the end? And let's
17:15
Speaker 1: not call it a rant. It's context. It's drawing on
17:21
Speaker 1: your considerable, like, both life experience and professional analysis. It's transparency,
17:29
Speaker 1: you know, about you as a reporter. Like, have you
17:33
Speaker 1: thought about, like, oh, maybe on balance it would have
17:36
Speaker 1: been better to put it in, possibly, for the story,
17:38
Speaker 1: for people's understanding of that moment, for people's understanding of Lebanon,
17:43
Speaker 1: of this case? Like, have you thought about that?
17:45
Speaker 5: Yeah, I did think about it a lot because Pretty
17:48
Speaker 5: much everyone on our team wanted that in and they
17:51
Speaker 5: left the decision to me in the end, but everyone
17:53
Speaker 5: on the team thought to.
17:54
Speaker 1: Keep it in. Oh, really? So you're the one who
17:57
Speaker 1: cut it?
17:57
Speaker 7: Yeah.
17:58
Speaker 1: Okay. Why did you ultimately come down on the reason
18:01
Speaker 1: to cut it?
18:01
Speaker 6: I think there were two things.
18:03
Speaker 5: One is that I felt like it wasn't in our
18:04
Speaker 5: style and we wanted to just stick to giving opinions
18:08
Speaker 5: until the.
18:08
Speaker 6: Very last episode.
18:10
Speaker 5: And the second was that it made me vulnerable and
18:13
Speaker 5: I was You know, ironically, like, you're asking everyone in
18:16
Speaker 5: the podcast to be vulnerable with you, and yet you, like.
18:19
Speaker 6: Don't want to show your vulnerabilities.
18:21
Speaker 2: Yeah.
18:22
Speaker 6: You know, I got really passionate talking about it.
18:26
Speaker 5: And so I think to protect myself, to protect against, like,
18:30
Speaker 5: people thinking that I was somehow defending Hassan.
18:35
Speaker 6: I left it out.
18:38
Speaker 1: For Dana, this wasn't a theoretical fear. Her shared background
18:42
Speaker 1: with Hassan was... was held against her during their reporting,
18:45
Speaker 1: specifically as she and Alex were reaching out to interview
18:48
Speaker 1: victims of the Copernic bombing in France and their families.
18:52
Speaker 5: Some of the victims expressed that, um, because they, although
18:56
Speaker 5: they had spoken to the press before, did not want
18:59
Speaker 5: to talk to Alex and I.
19:00
Speaker 3: And, uh, yeah, I had an interview lined up with
19:03
Speaker 3: the rabbi of the synagogue. He was going to meet
19:05
Speaker 3: me at the synagogue and show me around. And he
19:08
Speaker 3: was going to talk to me. He was there that night. And, um, then, um,
19:11
Speaker 3: the week before he basically pulled out because he'd, um,
19:16
Speaker 3: I think, I think there was sort of like this,
19:18
Speaker 3: a lot of discussion on sort of WhatsApp groups about
19:21
Speaker 3: who we were and what our intentions were, and maybe
19:23
Speaker 3: a bit of, um, a misunderstanding around what our intentions were. And, um,
19:29
Speaker 3: loads of, yeah, a bunch of people cancelled interviews with us.
19:32
Speaker 9: Yeah.
19:33
Speaker 5: And one of the victims said it was because I
19:36
Speaker 5: was Lebanese and, um, that I couldn't possibly tell this
19:39
Speaker 5: story without bias because Hassan is also Lebanese, which.
19:44
Speaker 6: Is unfair, I think.
19:45
Speaker 5: Because no one asks an American, you know, you can't
19:48
Speaker 5: report on an American story because you're American. So I
19:51
Speaker 5: had a lot of issues with that. I think I
19:54
Speaker 5: became overly self-conscious about that as well.
19:58
Speaker 1: Yeah, I feel like what you're talking about just is
20:00
Speaker 1: such a, just a dilemma. I've heard so many colleagues
20:03
Speaker 1: and friends talk about, you know, just when reporting on
20:06
Speaker 1: people from the same background as them, and just trying
20:11
Speaker 1: to make those decisions and those calculations about when, as
20:15
Speaker 1: a journalist, it makes sense to invoke that connection, you know,
20:18
Speaker 1: and when it makes sense to downplay it or distance
20:23
Speaker 1: yourself from it. It's so tricky. This dilemma that Dana
20:27
Speaker 1: was talking about, I realized that I had lived through
20:29
Speaker 1: it in my own way and also witnessed a more
20:32
Speaker 1: direct parallel to Dana's experience up close with this podcast
20:36
Speaker 1: series I did called The Trojan Horse Affair. The Trojan
20:42
Speaker 1: Horse Affair, not to be confused with the Copernic Affair,
20:46
Speaker 1: was an investigative story I co-hosted for the New York
20:48
Speaker 1: Times and Serial in 2022. It was about a moral
20:52
Speaker 1: panic in England some years back where the government came
20:55
Speaker 1: down hard on Muslims after a mysterious anonymous letter showed
20:59
Speaker 1: up at a government building in the city of Birmingham,
21:02
Speaker 1: which looked to be plans for a radical Islamist plot
21:06
Speaker 1: to take over British schools. The letter was bogus, and
21:10
Speaker 1: the government knew it. But they used it anyway to
21:12
Speaker 1: ban Muslim educators from teaching, to target majority Muslim schools,
21:16
Speaker 1: and beef up counterterror policies across the country. The British
21:21
Speaker 1: press also played a big role in running with unsubstantiated
21:25
Speaker 1: claims about Muslim teachers, printing scary headlines about a radical
21:29
Speaker 1: Muslim plot that they should have known was not real,
21:32
Speaker 1: and really just driving this harmful narrative, which they have
21:35
Speaker 1: clung to since. I co-reported the story with a journalist
21:39
Speaker 1: named Hamza Syed. We were investigating who wrote the dodgy
21:43
Speaker 1: letter that started the whole mess and trying to correct
21:45
Speaker 1: the media narrative. But a big part of the eight-episode
21:48
Speaker 1: series ended up being about Hamza and my differing perspectives
21:53
Speaker 1: on the investigation itself, the way our backgrounds influenced each
21:57
Speaker 1: of our approach to the journalism. Hamza's as a British-Pakistani
22:00
Speaker 1: Muslim from the city where this happened, Birmingham, and me
22:04
Speaker 1: as a white non-Muslim outsider from America. So we both
22:08
Speaker 1: put a lot of ourselves into the final story, though
22:11
Speaker 1: Hamza in particular had many strong opinions and reactions because
22:15
Speaker 1: it was so close to home for him. Literally, it
22:17
Speaker 1: all happened across town from his flat. Here's one moment
22:22
Speaker 1: from the Trojan horse affair after one of our very
22:24
Speaker 1: first interviews with a city politician who told us he
22:26
Speaker 1: bought into the allegations that Muslims were running a plot
22:29
Speaker 1: to take over schools, even though the letter was fake.
22:33
Speaker 1: As soon as we left the city council building, Hamza
22:36
Speaker 1: could not contain himself. He went on a rant of
22:38
Speaker 1: his own.
22:39
Speaker 8: Just sit here and talk as if from day one
22:42
Speaker 8: you received this letter, you accepted it, you went around
22:45
Speaker 8: and you tried to get other people to reflect your urgency,
22:48
Speaker 8: no one else was on board like you were.
22:50
Speaker 1: No, bullshit, mate. I love how mad you are.
22:53
Speaker 8: Mate, I'm pissed.
22:54
Speaker 10: Why? Look at the power that the letter had on officialdom.
22:59
Speaker 8: Right, look at it.
23:01
Speaker 10: Four years on, it is so ingrained in their mentality that...
23:06
Speaker 10: You know, all these things are sinister as fuck. All
23:09
Speaker 10: these things were happening.
23:10
Speaker 1: It had to be stopped. These practices, these steps.
23:13
Speaker 8: What the fuck was concerning? Tell me what's concerning, mate.
23:16
Speaker 10: Just break it down to me.
23:17
Speaker 1: You're literally poking me in the chest right now.
23:19
Speaker 8: I'm seething.
23:22
Speaker 1: Unlike Dana and her colleagues, Hamza and I, along with
23:25
Speaker 1: our editors, made the decision to include this and all
23:28
Speaker 1: sorts of other personal takes from Hamza throughout the story.
23:32
Speaker 1: But it wasn't an easy decision for us either. We
23:35
Speaker 1: worried about it being cliché. We worried about it being
23:37
Speaker 1: a distraction from the complicated investigative reporting we were trying
23:40
Speaker 1: to explain. It took us some four years to make
23:44
Speaker 1: the Trojan horse affair. And I know Hamza and my
23:46
Speaker 1: feelings about the experience evolved over that long time. We
23:50
Speaker 1: still hang out and talk about it. So I have
23:51
Speaker 1: a decent sense of how he feels about it now.
23:53
Speaker 1: But it was hard to remember at the moment when
23:56
Speaker 1: we were really first talking about this, should we put
23:59
Speaker 1: that rant of Hamza's in and then following from that
24:02
Speaker 1: a bunch of others, how we felt about it then.
24:06
Speaker 1: So I gave him a call to gun check.
24:08
Speaker 10: I had a very specific issue with including that tape.
24:14
Speaker 1: That's after a quick break. Were you ever against including
24:24
Speaker 1: that part where you're like poking me in the chest,
24:26
Speaker 1: kind of unloading your personal point of view and feelings?
24:29
Speaker 1: I'm talking to Hamza to find out what his feelings
24:31
Speaker 1: were back when we were deciding whether or not to
24:33
Speaker 1: include that part I played you.
24:35
Speaker 10: Yeah, I had a very specific issue with including that tape.
24:40
Speaker 1: Okay, remind me.
24:42
Speaker 10: I just was clear from the beginning that the second
24:45
Speaker 10: we use tape like that, we are deliberately pulling ourselves
24:49
Speaker 10: into the story. We are making ourselves characters, not reporters.
24:54
Speaker 10: And the second we do that, all the reporting that
24:57
Speaker 10: we do is going to be delegitimized because the character
25:02
Speaker 10: allows an easy target for... people to aim at. And
25:06
Speaker 10: so I did not want to do that for that reason.
25:09
Speaker 10: The second you make us characters, they're not even going
25:12
Speaker 10: to pay attention to what we report. All they're going
25:14
Speaker 10: to do is focus on us.
25:15
Speaker 1: All right, just to air this out a little bit,
25:16
Speaker 1: because you're saying us, but do you mean us or
25:19
Speaker 1: do you mean you because you're a brown Muslim guy
25:23
Speaker 1: from Birmingham?
25:24
Speaker 10: Yeah, I mean me. You were barely going to get
25:28
Speaker 10: mentioned as just like a.
25:30
Speaker 1: Useful idiot, but like me.
25:32
Speaker 10: So What I was cognizant of is that I think
25:35
Speaker 10: this could potentially damage the story. We're giving people just
25:40
Speaker 10: easy reason to ignore the findings. And should that happen,
25:45
Speaker 10: should all the follow-up be entirely focused on us, you know,
25:50
Speaker 10: it's my primary concern was the way the British press
25:54
Speaker 10: were going to receive the story. I wanted them to
25:57
Speaker 10: focus on the reporting. I suspected they were going to
26:01
Speaker 10: focus almost entirely on me slash us because of scenes
26:06
Speaker 10: like this. So that was my reluctance.
26:10
Speaker 1: And just give me the headlines you were picturing that
26:12
Speaker 1: would come out in the coverage of this.
26:15
Speaker 10: It's going to be very easy to say this guy
26:19
Speaker 10: is a biased activist, Birmingham, dangerous, brown guy, bearded, crazy,
26:28
Speaker 10: you know, irrational. completely just kind of like twisted the
26:33
Speaker 10: narrative to fit his agenda. You know, the classics.
26:37
Speaker 1: That like you had a dog in the fight and
26:39
Speaker 1: you couldn't be trusted to report on this story. Yeah, precisely.
26:42
Speaker 8: Yeah.
26:42
Speaker 10: He's a Muslim from Birmingham. So what do you expect
26:44
Speaker 10: him to say about this?
26:46
Speaker 1: Full stop.
26:47
Speaker 10: I was trying to get this story to a point
26:49
Speaker 10: where they had to engage without reporting.
26:53
Speaker 1: What I recall is like at some point you decided
26:56
Speaker 1: that it wasn't going to work for you personally. to
27:01
Speaker 1: withhold that stuff in your work and instead you were
27:02
Speaker 1: going to lean into it. Am I remembering that correctly? Yeah, precisely.
27:06
Speaker 3: Yeah.
27:06
Speaker 1: Yeah.
27:07
Speaker 10: It was with my full consent that like that stuff
27:09
Speaker 10: got used in the end because I changed my mind,
27:12
Speaker 10: you know, um, and I changed my mind realizing they're
27:15
Speaker 10: going to come for you anyway, you know, so you
27:17
Speaker 10: might as well take advantage of who you are and
27:20
Speaker 10: bring that into the story. Um, and when I say they,
27:24
Speaker 10: I mean the British media, I knew I was about
27:27
Speaker 10: to report the Trojan horse affair that Britain does not
27:29
Speaker 10: want to return to.
27:30
Speaker 1: Well, guess what, mate?
27:32
Speaker 10: You might as well make the most of this opportunity.
27:33
Speaker 10: You know, really say exactly what you want to say
27:36
Speaker 10: because you're not going to get that chance again. Story's
27:38
Speaker 10: going to come out and it's going to get trashed
27:39
Speaker 10: and ridiculed. And then, you know, there you go. You
27:41
Speaker 10: just wave a goodbye. So make the most of it, mate.
27:43
Speaker 10: You have eight hours at the New York Times.
27:46
Speaker 3: Speak.
27:51
Speaker 1: But is the benefit solely personal then? Or do you
27:54
Speaker 1: think actually there's value journalistically or in the story to
27:58
Speaker 1: doing it? Here's the value. Here's the value.
28:00
Speaker 10: Think about the people who listen to your journalism and
28:04
Speaker 10: are reasonable enough to follow it along, listen to the facts,
28:07
Speaker 10: listen to the evidence and believe it, right?
28:09
Speaker 1: Think about them.
28:11
Speaker 10: The reason you should speak is because you want to
28:14
Speaker 10: motivate them. Your detractors are always going to fucking hate
28:17
Speaker 10: on you. Don't worry about what you've done. It's got
28:18
Speaker 10: nothing to do with your journalism, right? But the people
28:20
Speaker 10: who are motivated by your journalism, why you should speak
28:24
Speaker 10: passionately is because you're trying to engender a reaction in them.
28:28
Speaker 10: You don't want them to just listen to your report
28:29
Speaker 10: and understand it and go, oh, that's sad. Or, oh,
28:32
Speaker 10: that seems to be a miscarriage of justice.
28:34
Speaker 1: I'll move on.
28:34
Speaker 10: You know, you want to make an impression. You want
28:38
Speaker 10: to make them feel something. Yeah, you want to make
28:40
Speaker 10: them feel something. So when the people who listen to
28:43
Speaker 10: your podcast and understand your podcast, why you should speak
28:46
Speaker 10: full-throatedly to them is because you want that passion to
28:50
Speaker 10: be imbued in them, for them to maybe do something
28:52
Speaker 10: about it, the work that you've done. So I think
28:55
Speaker 10: it's an essential ingredient. Don't just do the journalism, mate.
28:58
Speaker 10: Make people feel something about it so they go and
29:00
Speaker 10: do something in reaction.
29:08
Speaker 1: I have no way to live out the alternate history
29:10
Speaker 1: where Hamza and I make the choice that Dana and
29:12
Speaker 1: Alex made to keep most of our point of view
29:14
Speaker 1: out of the series. So I have no way to
29:16
Speaker 1: know if Hamza's right If critics would have come for
29:19
Speaker 1: us regardless, even if Hamza and I had played it
29:21
Speaker 1: totally straight. What I do know is that they definitely
29:25
Speaker 1: did come for us. I don't know if you and
29:27
Speaker 1: I personally were, but our story was disparaged in the
29:32
Speaker 1: House of Lords. We're condemned, yeah.
29:35
Speaker 10: We're condemned in the House of Lords.
29:37
Speaker 1: Were we personally condemned?
29:39
Speaker 10: I don't remember here. my name. I remember the podcast
29:41
Speaker 10: being referenced and, you know, whatever they said about us.
29:44
Speaker 9: I thank my noble friend, the minister, for her answer
29:48
Speaker 9: and pay tribute to her. great diligence in having subjected
29:51
Speaker 9: herself to listening to all eight hours of the New
29:54
Speaker 9: York Times podcast on this subject. It was not a cruel,
29:58
Speaker 9: unusual punishment that I intended to subject her to when
30:00
Speaker 9: I originally intended to ask the question.
30:04
Speaker 10: That was exciting.
30:05
Speaker 1: Yeah, that was really exciting. Definitely a bucket list. That
30:09
Speaker 1: was a conservative politician who did that. But the left
30:12
Speaker 1: came first, too. Probably the most influential takedown was from
30:15
Speaker 1: a columnist, Sonia Soda. who trashed our story in The
30:19
Speaker 1: Guardian's Sunday publication, The Observer, and she calls Hamza out
30:23
Speaker 1: for being open about his motivations in the story. She writes, quote,
30:27
Speaker 1: Sayed's apparent determination to make the facts fit his pre-cooked
30:31
Speaker 1: narrative is paired with Reid's meditations on race, which seem
30:35
Speaker 1: to use Sayed's experience of racism to excuse his questionable
30:39
Speaker 1: approach to journalism, the soft bigotry of low expectations, end quote.
30:45
Speaker 1: After that, there was a double-page spread in the Times
30:47
Speaker 1: of London which suggested Hams and I were at risk
30:50
Speaker 1: of going to jail for contempt of court. Not true.
30:54
Speaker 1: National politicians weighed in, saying our work was shoddy journalism.
30:58
Speaker 1: And then, almost a year after our story came out,
31:00
Speaker 1: when we thought this had all quieted down, a hawkish
31:03
Speaker 1: think tank in Britain, the Policy Exchange, which was founded
31:06
Speaker 1: in part by the Secretary of Education, who we had
31:09
Speaker 1: reported on, released a whopping 195-page report. All about our series,
31:14
Speaker 1: claiming to refute it, though it didn't actually disprove the
31:18
Speaker 1: facts in our reporting. It did, however, have a section titled,
31:22
Speaker 1: Who is Brian Reed? That went into my career, my
31:24
Speaker 1: social media, brought up my wife, her family. And with Hamza,
31:29
Speaker 1: they insinuated that he was an Islamist. Honestly, I'd repressed
31:33
Speaker 1: a lot of this until I pulled the report up
31:35
Speaker 1: while talking to Hamza. What did it say about you?
31:39
Speaker 2: Oh, here, here.
31:39
Speaker 1: I'm reading like the abstract here of the report.
31:41
Speaker 3: Okay.
31:42
Speaker 1: Chapter 12 of the report provides an analysis of the podcast,
31:47
Speaker 1: noting the self-confessed prejudices of Hamza Syed. Wow. They spend
31:52
Speaker 1: pages picking apart Hamza's words from the podcast, mostly from
31:56
Speaker 1: all the personal stuff. Yeah, that was that chapter. That's
31:58
Speaker 1: exactly what we're talking about. This decision. Yeah, precisely. To
32:01
Speaker 1: confess your prejudices in a story. Yeah, exactly. I know
32:07
Speaker 1: Hamza and I are chuckling about this, but we're not
32:09
Speaker 1: patting ourselves on the back. It's one of those situations where,
32:14
Speaker 1: I don't know, the best way I have for how
32:17
Speaker 1: to deal with the stress of major publications from a
32:21
Speaker 1: foreign country disparaging me with bad faith criticism is to
32:25
Speaker 1: laugh at it. I talked to Hamza about it, and
32:29
Speaker 1: we both empathize with the difficult choice Dana was faced with.
32:33
Speaker 1: And she made the decision she felt was right for
32:35
Speaker 1: her and for the story she and Alex were telling.
32:38
Speaker 1: There are pros and cons to either choice, personally and journalistically.
32:43
Speaker 1: Reaction is still coming in to the Kopernik affair, but
32:46
Speaker 1: so far what press there has been is pretty positive.
32:48
Speaker 1: They're not getting the pushback Hamza and I did. Does
32:51
Speaker 1: that tell you something about the impact of the different
32:53
Speaker 1: choices we made? Honestly, I'm not sure. The podcasts aren't
32:57
Speaker 1: one-to-one like that. Dana did tell me that Hamza and
33:01
Speaker 1: My Series, which came out a few years before, actually
33:04
Speaker 1: led her and Alex to feel some pressure to go
33:06
Speaker 1: the more personal direction.
33:07
Speaker 5: Trojan Horse was one of the, you know, podcasts that
33:10
Speaker 5: was used as like a comp for us. Like, why
33:13
Speaker 5: can't you be, because we were two people reporting, like,
33:16
Speaker 5: can you be more conversational in the way that Trojan
33:18
Speaker 5: horse was and like, you know, go back and forth
33:21
Speaker 5: off of each other. And obviously that, you know, Trojan
33:25
Speaker 5: horse did it so well, but I don't, we landed,
33:27
Speaker 5: we tried it.
33:28
Speaker 6: Alex and I tried it. It just wasn't good.
33:31
Speaker 3: And ultimately it's not that it wasn't good it just
33:34
Speaker 3: felt like it was too revealing of like we did
33:36
Speaker 3: a bunch of conversations of me and dana kind of
33:38
Speaker 3: talking candidly way.
33:39
Speaker 1: Too revealing you said yeah a bit too revealing of.
33:41
Speaker 3: Like how we i don't know dana maybe you can
33:44
Speaker 3: elaborate more on this but like we had sections in
33:47
Speaker 3: there that was almost like sort of um yeah just
33:51
Speaker 3: us sort of debriefing about interviews and about all of
33:53
Speaker 3: that but it just felt like we were so giving
33:56
Speaker 3: away how we felt too early and it just we
34:01
Speaker 3: did we we and then so we kind of just
34:03
Speaker 3: radically went in the other direction which was like we
34:05
Speaker 3: just want to be completely straight and not kind of
34:08
Speaker 3: give away how we feel until we're ready to at
34:10
Speaker 3: the end and like here are our conclusions and it's
34:13
Speaker 3: based on our journalism and not how we feel it's
34:16
Speaker 3: just like maybe we sort of like worried that people
34:18
Speaker 3: wouldn't trust us as much if we like put our
34:19
Speaker 3: perspective in there which i don't know i don't know
34:23
Speaker 3: what the answer.
34:24
Speaker 1: Is it's a paradox of journalism because it's it's like
34:28
Speaker 1: journalism's supposed to be about sometimes brutal honesty. And yet
34:32
Speaker 1: what we're talking about is calculations made, not to be dishonest,
34:37
Speaker 1: but to hide certain parts of the truth about ourselves
34:40
Speaker 1: to the world and the people we're talking to. So
34:44
Speaker 1: it is a paradox.
34:45
Speaker 5: It's like you're always taught in journalism, at least like,
34:48
Speaker 5: I don't know about now, but I mean, I got
34:50
Speaker 5: into journalism over a decade ago.
34:51
Speaker 6: So, you know, it's always like, it's never about you.
34:54
Speaker 6: It's about the story.
34:56
Speaker 5: And now everyone's like, oh, but the journalistic process is
35:00
Speaker 5: what's so interesting. And we've learned that, you know, people
35:02
Speaker 5: do want to hear about that, but it's still uncomfortable.
35:05
Speaker 5: You know, it's still an uncomfortable thing to do.
35:10
Speaker 1: I realize it's tricky to pull back the curtain on
35:12
Speaker 1: a personal reaction that a reporter purposely removed from their
35:16
Speaker 1: story because they didn't want it public. Because now we've
35:20
Speaker 1: essentially put that reaction into the public anyway. So I'm
35:24
Speaker 1: grateful to Dana for letting us do that. vulnerability is
35:28
Speaker 1: so hard, she wrote me when I emailed her to
35:30
Speaker 1: ask if we had her blessing to run this. But,
35:33
Speaker 1: she wrote, I ask that of the people I interview
35:35
Speaker 1: all the time, so I should be able to do
35:37
Speaker 1: it myself. She also wrote that as time passes, she's
35:41
Speaker 1: even more glad they cut the rant and that she
35:44
Speaker 1: maintained a more neutral relationship to Hassan Diab's story. Given
35:47
Speaker 1: the times we're living in, she said, I'm increasingly aware
35:51
Speaker 1: that my background and lived experience could be a reason
35:54
Speaker 1: I don't get hired or or get my citizenship revoked
35:57
Speaker 1: or something. Which, to me, just brings home that the
36:01
Speaker 1: risks of burying ourselves in the reporting are not the
36:04
Speaker 1: same for everyone. And the stakes are not the same
36:06
Speaker 1: for every story. It's not fair. But sometimes, for some reporters,
36:12
Speaker 1: it can feel like that scene in The Return of
36:14
Speaker 1: the Jedi, where the rebels are approaching Endor on a
36:17
Speaker 1: secret mission, and Luke Skywalker realizes that his mere presence
36:21
Speaker 1: on board the shuttle is a liability.
36:24
Speaker 7: I'm endangering the mission.
36:25
Speaker 9: I shouldn't have come.
36:26
Speaker 1: His connection to Darth Vader might be putting the whole
36:28
Speaker 1: mission in danger. What should he do?
36:31
Speaker 8: It's your imagination, kid.
36:33
Speaker 1: Come on, let's keep a little optimism. Check out The
36:37
Speaker 1: Kopernik Affair. It's six episodes. It's on podcast apps or
36:40
Speaker 1: at canadaland.com. It was executive produced by Julie Shapiro and
36:44
Speaker 1: Jesse Brown. We reached out to Hassan Diab for comment,
36:47
Speaker 1: by the way, when we first aired this a year ago.
36:50
Speaker 1: He didn't respond. Dana tells us he's still in Canada...
36:53
Speaker 1: and still doesn't know if he'll be extradited. She also
36:57
Speaker 1: told us a year later that she's actually changed her
36:59
Speaker 1: point of view on this whole situation. Dana tells us,
37:13
Speaker 1: Today's episode was produced by Sophie Kazis and edited by
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Speaker 1: Neil Drumming. Our show is executive produced by me and
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Speaker 1: Robin Simeon. It's also made by producer Zach St. Louis,
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Speaker 1: managing editor Kevin Sullivan, associate producer Kevin Shepard, and contributing
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Speaker 1: editor Jen Kinney. Sam Egan is a contributing producer. Fact-checking
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Speaker 1: by Annika Robbins on this episode. Mixing and sound design
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Speaker 1: was by Brendan Baker. Matt McGinley composed our music. If
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Speaker 1: you're interested in being a sponsor or partnering with Question
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Speaker 1: Everything in any way, please write us at heyhey at placementtheory.com.
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Speaker 1: Our partners at KCRW include Arnie Seipel, Tejalaj Amera, Natalie Hill,
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Speaker 1: and Jennifer Farrow. We'll be back next week.