Today’s post can be short and sweet.

After 45 minutes at the American Center of the U.S. Embassy in Prague, talking with its Counselor of Public Affairs and a friendly Czech journalist with a degree from Mizzou who works for them now, one question sparked a response I hadn’t expected:

“Of course everything is off the record.”

Let’s be clear — these are Kent State students writing multimedia stories or research papers as part of the “Modern Media and Democracy” course. Sure, their results will go on the Web. But their topics are designed to help them compare the two countries’ situations on issues like media trust, smoking laws, educational policy. We’re not talking security risks or top secret diplomacy.

I know, I know — what did I expect?  But all the conversation is off the record so tomorrow the students push on, spending the morning with television journalists. I’ll bet they are willing to talk and not need to have their views vetted by anyone higher up.