Journalists gather at UC Berkeley to participate in panels on whistleblowers, prison reporting and access to information.
Daniel Ellsberg and Reality Winner were joined by Trevor Timm, executive director of Freedom of the Press Foundation to speak about challenges whistleblowers face in the United States. Photo by Noe Magaña.
Representing BenitoLink, I joined over 100 journalists from across the U.S. for the 15th Annual Reva & David Logan Symposium on Investigative Reporting at UC Berkeley on April 28 to discuss issues including the challenges of obtaining and verifying information, crime and police coverage, Chinese surveillance and concerns about the Amazon rainforest.
What spurred the most reaction from attendees was the panel on prosecuting whistleblowers that included Daniel Ellsberg, an American military analyst and researcher who in 1971 leaked portions of a classified report known as the Pentagon Papers, which undercut the government’s justification of the Vietnam War.
Speaking with journalists in a video call, Ellsberg said there is an assumption by journalists that a crime has been committed by a whistleblower when they reveal facts about government affairs.
“That’s not true,” Ellsberg said, adding that the Supreme Court has not taken cases regarding criminalizing speech on government dealings.
Ellsberg was joined by Reality Winner, a former Air Force linguist and intelligence contractor who served more than four years in prison for leaking a classified...
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