JJ Green, National Security Correspondent, WTOP

State Secrets

If you’ve done any reporting on national security issues in Washington DC, you already know JJ Green. He’s been covering national security for the city’s most popular radio station for 15 years now. As you can imagine, he’s seen a lot of changes in that time.

I sat down with JJ recently in Washington to talk about how national security reporting works, how reporters and correspondents gain access to news and policy makers and how a they navigate the sometimes tricky task of getting the story right, and getting the story first.

The one thing JJ and I both agreed on – is the fact that the job is harder today than at any time in recent memory. Every administration comes in with ‘gatekeepers’ – they are the staffers who decide which reporters get access to decision makers and which do not. Which reporters get called in for background briefings, and which reporters get those exclusive one-on-one sit downs?