“For And About Washington: How The Washington Post brings the world to Washington and America to the world” with Douglas Jehl and Raju Narisetti

Ali: Ambassador Mack?

David: I’m David Mack from the Middle East institute and first of all congratulations to the Washington Post for getting Doug Jehl away from the New York Times.

Douglas: Thank you.

David: That’s a real coup..

Douglas: Yes.

David: But my question is to Doug and it’s good to see you again and that is why did you let the New York Times take Anthony [Shadick] your star Middle East report away from the Washington Post?

Douglas: I was going to thank you for your comment before you stuck a needle into my ribs loosing Anthony was a great lose. We were glad that he won yet another Pulitzer for the Washington Post last year. But people’s careers are long and lives are long and for their own reasons sometimes people feel the need to, they need to make a change and I wish we hadn’t lost Anthony but I’m doing my best to provide Middle East coverage of the sophistication and authority that he’s been able to provide first for our readers and now for the Times.

Raju: And then the Rumi Institute has Bill Keller up here the next time, to ask him on [IB] or if they bring the Wall Street Journal we’ll ask about Doug hiring Andy Higgins one of their best people. So this is you know it happens.

Ali: Any more questions? I’ll ask you this obviously especially after the war on Iraq, the image of US in the world has declined a lot, how has this made any effect on the Washington Post extras to foreign governments or other societies in the world? That’s first part of my question with access, and also I’m curios if your perception with the access with Obama administration how do you compare it with the Bush administration?

Douglas: I can talk about the access to the world which is always a complicated question. When I was based in the Middle East I think I was responsible for 19 countries and I could readily get access to maybe four or five or six of them there others always involved the process of a visa and permissions and all of that and that continues to be a problem for foreign correspondence less I think because of perceptions of the United States over that factors and more because of the desire to control access to their countries. If we’re talking about the Iraq war I think that problem for correspondence and [fall down] on from 9/11 has had to do with access to governments it has to do with security and safety frankly.