Podcast: New York Times Reporters Discuss Hunt for Al Qaeda

Eric Schmitt and Thom Shanker, top international security reporters for the New York Times, spoke at a public seminar at the Harvard Kennedy School on Oct. 24 about their reporting on the secret campaign to pursue Al Qaeda since 9/11.

Here is an audio podcast of their talk,
including a Q & A session:

The event was jointly hosted by the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs and the Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy. The co-moderators were Stephen M. Walt, faculty chair of the International Security Program, and Alex S. Jones, director of the Shorenstein Center (and a former New York Times reporter), who introduced them.

Schmitt and Shanker are the authors of an in-depth account of the decade-long U.S. campaign against Al Qaeda, published on the 10^th anniversary of 9/11. Their book, Counterstrike: The Untold Story of America’s Secret Campaign Against Al Qaeda, traces the shift in U.S. strategy from a blunt conventional “war on terror” to a more nuanced strategy to fight terrorism, involving closer cooperation between the military, intelligence agencies and law enforcement. Many Americans remain unaware of this secretive campaign.

Eric Schmitt has embedded with troops in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere, and has been part of two New York Times teams that won Pulitzer Prizes. Thom Shanker is a Pentagon correspondent who has also spent time embedded with U.S. troops. He is a former foreign editor and foreign correspondent.