full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Trevor Timm: How free is our freedom of the press?

Unscramble the Blue Letters


So this is jmaes Risen. You may know him as the Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter for The New York Times. Long before anybody knew Edward Snowden's name, rsein wrote a book in which he famously exposed that the NSA was illegally wiretapping the phone calls of aemnraics. But it's another chapter in that book that may have an even more lasting impact. In it, he drbeisces a catastrophic US intelligence operation in which the CIA quite literally hdeand over blueprints of a nuclear bomb to Iran. If that sounds crazy, go read it. It's an incredible story.

But you know who didn't like that chapter? The US government. For nearly a decade afterwards, Risen was the subject of a US government investigation in which psrtceouros demanded that he titfsey against one of his alleged sources. And along the way, he became the face for the US government's recent pattern of picnuotesrg whistleblowers and siypng on journalists.

Open Cloze


So this is _____ Risen. You may know him as the Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter for The New York Times. Long before anybody knew Edward Snowden's name, _____ wrote a book in which he famously exposed that the NSA was illegally wiretapping the phone calls of _________. But it's another chapter in that book that may have an even more lasting impact. In it, he _________ a catastrophic US intelligence operation in which the CIA quite literally ______ over blueprints of a nuclear bomb to Iran. If that sounds crazy, go read it. It's an incredible story.

But you know who didn't like that chapter? The US government. For nearly a decade afterwards, Risen was the subject of a US government investigation in which ___________ demanded that he _______ against one of his alleged sources. And along the way, he became the face for the US government's recent pattern of ___________ whistleblowers and ______ on journalists.

Solution


  1. handed
  2. testify
  3. prosecuting
  4. prosecutors
  5. describes
  6. spying
  7. james
  8. americans
  9. risen

Original Text


So this is James Risen. You may know him as the Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter for The New York Times. Long before anybody knew Edward Snowden's name, Risen wrote a book in which he famously exposed that the NSA was illegally wiretapping the phone calls of Americans. But it's another chapter in that book that may have an even more lasting impact. In it, he describes a catastrophic US intelligence operation in which the CIA quite literally handed over blueprints of a nuclear bomb to Iran. If that sounds crazy, go read it. It's an incredible story.

But you know who didn't like that chapter? The US government. For nearly a decade afterwards, Risen was the subject of a US government investigation in which prosecutors demanded that he testify against one of his alleged sources. And along the way, he became the face for the US government's recent pattern of prosecuting whistleblowers and spying on journalists.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
phone calls 2
brave men 2


Important Words


  1. alleged
  2. americans
  3. blueprints
  4. bomb
  5. book
  6. calls
  7. catastrophic
  8. chapter
  9. cia
  10. crazy
  11. decade
  12. demanded
  13. describes
  14. edward
  15. exposed
  16. face
  17. famously
  18. government
  19. handed
  20. illegally
  21. impact
  22. incredible
  23. intelligence
  24. investigation
  25. iran
  26. james
  27. journalists
  28. knew
  29. lasting
  30. literally
  31. long
  32. nsa
  33. nuclear
  34. operation
  35. pattern
  36. phone
  37. prosecuting
  38. prosecutors
  39. pulitzer
  40. read
  41. reporter
  42. risen
  43. sounds
  44. sources
  45. spying
  46. story
  47. subject
  48. testify
  49. times
  50. whistleblowers
  51. wiretapping
  52. wrote
  53. york