sue the war in syria hits home with an american suicide bomber. we'll consider what it says on where the war on terror is headed. also, a meal replacement drink some are calling the end of food. plus, is it possible to predict a genocide. how will a driverless future work. >> i'm lisa fletcher in for antonio mora - welcome to "consider this," and here is more on what's ahead.

>> in syria an american citizen reportedly blew himself up in a suicide attack. >> a truck allegedly packed with 17 tonnes of explosives. >> if confirmed it's the first time an american has been a suicide bomber. >> this man's deadly rampage revives the campaign over gun chrome. >> california has some of the strict lawyers, it didn't help. >> mental health issues played a role. >> google is developing a fleet of stars without steering wheels. >> 100 expected to hit the market. >> it's a nerdy vehicle. >> i love this. >> pbs series launched a kick starter campaign to revamp the series for the web. it raised a million dollars in under a day. >> we are changing the world one children's book at a time. the carnage in syria costing

more than so,000 lives - will it come home to america. for the first time, three years ago, an american citizen has been identified as having fought as a suicide bomber for the al nusra front. n.b.c. news was told they'd identified the bomber known in social media as abu harer. they would not reveal his home town. >> his attack in the north is said to have been one of the four suicide assaults that day killing dozens. as many as 100 americans are said to have joined thousands of foreign fighters taking part in training and contact with rebel groups. it's feared some of the americans may return home with combat training, bomb-making expertise and a commitment to wreak havoc here. >> i'm joined in the studio with a group providing strategic

intelligence. he's a former chief for counterintelligence, a u.n. coordinator for taliban issues and author of a report on foreign fighters in syria. thanks for being here. >> thank you. >> what does your report say about the role of foreign fighters in syria, and hundreds of americans that joined their forces. >> there's a lot of them. up to 12,000. that is mainly made up of people from the arab world. nonetheless, 2,500 from western countries. >> where are the people coming from? the americans that are recruited, how are they going found and indoctrinated. >> a lot are finding their own way. by whatever means it is to get to turkey, and crossing the border to syria and joining the nearest group, or else making for their friends or, you know, people they made contact with in

other ways before going there. >> do you find that a lot of these people radicalized ideologies before leaving u.s. soil, or does that evolve. >> it's a difficult question to answer. in many ways they know what they are getting into. everywhere knows what is happening in syria and the al nusra front and other groups that are operating. they probably go more because they want to do something in syria, than elsewhere. >> they go they have radical ideologies, they may stay there, go home - what is the risk once they get home, that they'll recruit people or launch an attack here. >> there is a risk. the al qaeda groups and other extremist groups are interested in doing more than fighting in

syria. these guys will be radicalized and traumatized by their experiences, and part of a network which can pick them up wherever they end up. >> are they just as likely to ally themselves with groups that have u.s. backing? >> well, i doubt it. you know, there are foreign fighters supporting the regime. they are mainly from lebanon, hezbollah fighters from iraq, militias from there and iran. they are more organised. they are not going op in an individual basis like they are to support the opposition. >> one american was convicted when he returned from this country. he was released after a plea deal, and later, apparently died from an overdose. he doesn't seem to have been involved in violent activities here. generally how dangerous are these people. >> when they go, most don't have an intention of being terrorists, there's a difference between going, being a foreign

fighter or coming back and being a terrorist. radical affects are real. the problem is you don't know what happens to them once they are there. the challenge for the authorities is to explore that. okay, why did this guy go. maybe perfectly reasonable reasons. humanitarian concerns. and what happened to him while he was there. who was talking to him, who influenced him, and did he come back because he was disillusioned or he thought he would do something elsewhere. >> there are a whole lot of variables that can happen once they get there. what tracking exists. do we know the scope of the issue in terms of the people going there and coming back. are they falling through the cracks when they arrive home. >> potentially they are, nobody knows they've been there until they get back or die. you see the picture of the

american who was in the suicide bombing. maybe his friends didn't know he was there until he saw the picture. there's the aspect to it. >> let's talk about that fact. u.s. intelligence officials have not released the identity or home town or confirmed that that is a picture of him. whether or not it is him probably doesn't matter as much as the fact that these groups can use a globally disseminated image as soon as propaganda. how dangerous is the propa demand e in terms of -- propaganda in terms of enabling others. >> other people may feel the guy looks happy, he's involved with a good group, had a sense of purpose, maybe i wouldn't blow myself up, but maybe i'd join the guys. it's a strong image, the guy is looking ordinary, isn't he? >> very much so.

>> it's not just men's, there are others said to be fighting for the rebels. what threats do they pose. is there a global concern among officials. >> certainly a global concern because the people can move around. perhaps you are in a country with a visa, an exempt regime. tracking them is a global concern. i think the problems for the europeans are greater than for the americans, because the resources are large. there's only so far about six or 12 people that have come back. they can be monitored. in europe you have hundreds and the resources are stretched to breaking point now. >> we have 30 seconds, we have the justice department, the fbi. where do things go federally to better protect americans? >> it's about leveraging the

authority's relationships with the community. if you have good policing, and policemen who go to the local mosque and families of fighters saying, "okay, what is going on, can you help us? you don't want your child to die in syria or be committing terror attacks in the united states." let's work together and build support to monitor the threat and deal with it. thank you. >> switching topics, as lawmakers debate, what can be done to protect tragedies like in southern california. the parents of the 22-year-old who killed six others before taking his life are speaking out for the first time saying: . >> joining us now to discuss the

latest is dr wendy moyall a psychiatrist at a college in new york, treating psychiatric disorders in children and adults. thanks for being with us. >> thanks for having me. >> when things like this happen, they are visible and gets attention. it calls for gun control and people saying we have to put more money in the mental health system. if you do that, it fixes everything. one of your colleagues wrote a piece saying: >> do you agree with that? >> i agree. i'd like to qualify it by saying mental health - changes in the mental health care system alone won't prevent the tragedies, i doubt we could prevent them over all, but we could twork reduce the -- could work to reduce the

frequency. there's more we could do. >> he calls for stopping people with a history of serious psychiatric illness or. substance abups, from open -- abuse, from owning firearms, is that the solution? >> it's a first step. i would agree with that. i would add that people with a history of violence, those people should have limited access to firearms. and that is not in place at this time. >> how do we, as a society, and how does law enforcement identify people that are to that point with an acute mental illness that could be dangerous or violent. as a doctor, it's patient-client privilege. you can't talk about those things publicly. >> not publicly. we have to start by asking, and part of our training is to become comfortable with asking do you have thought to hurt yourself or thoughts to hurt anyone else? do you have a gun

in the home? we have to ask, and then after that we assess a person's thoughts, their intent and their plan. and if there's an intent or plan, we can take action. we can have that person brought to an emergency room for further evaluation. >> the other thing we can do is people can reach out to therapists and psychiatrists. we want to hear from teachers and parents what are you seeing, what are you concerned about? as a community we have to improve our communication and, you know, the stigma of mental illness prevents that, there's a lot of opportunity to share our observations about a patient. it's just actually doctors are more restricted than anyone. >> you said that you can take action, but legally if a person has not been involuntary

hospitalized or institutionalized there's nothing on the record that prevent them buying a firearm. without that knowledge in the system, i'm assuming there's a lot of people who are mentally ill, who haven't had the diagnosis on been hospitalized. where is the gap in the system. how do you identify people that need help, haven't been to a dr wendy, so we can protect them and society. >> we need to improve access to mental health care. initially there may be subtle signs of someone struggling. they might stop taking care of themselves. if parents notice that they might want their child seen or adult child seen by a psychiatrist. many times they can't access care. >> the parents of james holmes, the colorado movie theatre shooter and usb. the families of both of those people said we knew there was

something wrong, but there was no mechanism for us to tell authorities something was wrong and have something done. >> yes. i think the ideal situation is if we had more mental health crisis teams. which would be a collaboration between mental health practitioners, law enforcement, people that sell guns. new york state though has taken substance -- steps, now if anyone is a credible threat. we now have a state registry that we report threats of harm to oneself or others. this is it moving in the direction, and that goes for several levels of evaluation, and then it's determined whether the authorities are supposed to step in and take away a person's

gun. >> we have about 30 seconds left. as a psychiatrist is it laws like those that will create the biggest deter eps from the tragedies, if not, what is the one thing we can do to help prevent them? >> i think it's laws like this. we have to have a link between mental health and gun sales, and law enforcement, and i think that's a good example of paying that connection. >> dr wendy moyle thank you for being with us. the world continues to witness genosides. coming up, is there a way to predict them. >> plus... ..have you to love charlton history. what may replace food intake what do you think? join the conversation.

>> al jazeera america presents the system with joe burlinger >> the dna testing shows that these are not his hairs >> unreliable forensics >> the problem the bureaus got is they fail, it's a big, big deal... >> convicted of unspeakable crimes did flawed lab work take away their freedom? >> i was 18 when i went in... when i came out i was 50... you don't get it back... >> shocking truths revealed >> the system with joe burlinger only on al jazeera america

can the place and timing of the next genocide be predicted. work is underway at the new york holocaust museum center for genae side for an online system that would forecast mass atrocities. in the six months it predicted violence in south sudan, where thousands have died, and forecasted the fighting in the central african republic, where an untold number have been killed and more than a million displaced in a brutal religious conflict. we are joined from washington

d.c. by cameron hudson, director of the center for genocide. think you for being on the show. it's fascinating that this is coming into existence in terms of technology, i'm curious how it works. what are the elements and key indicators that you look for to create the genocide forecast? >> thank you and thank you for devoting time. one of the things that enabled this is new advances in the data collection that we are able to tap into, and the statistical methodology underpiping the system that we have in place. we are looking at a variety of variables, everything from inequality in society to the percentage of g.d.p. spent on the military. ethnic divisions, birth rates - things that you may not consider and factor in, certainly not an individual analyst may not factor in to an overall scenario for which countries might be

affected by these kinds of op set of mass -- onset of mass killing. using three models, aggregating the results and coming up with a forecast score for each country in the world, and parallel to that we have established what we call on opinion poll or an expert survey, and so we recognise that there are a lot of people out there that might be turned off by a data driven analysis of political events. what we are trying to do is injelent a human -- inject a human element, tapping in to the wisdom of expert crowd, tapping into experts from around the world, people in affected countries and regions that we are talking about, and give them a chance to weigh in and tell us what the likelihood is if it comes to pass. the combination of the human element, and statistical element

provide us with a tool that we've been able to develop. >> why is a system like this necessary, because the people that you are talking about are the one that is are tuned in. they are on the ground. they are the observers, on the front lines warning the world of what is coming. what does your system do? >> we are trying to elevate the discussion around prevention. we are at a point now where effective response is only enabled through a better understanding of what is driving the violence. i think when you look back at cases like rwanda, and the balkans. darfur is an example, where we failed to respond and prevent the actions. we didn't know, we didn't understand the warning signs, we didn't see the contellation of factors at play in society for us to take preventive action. what we are trying to do is analyse and collect those

indicators that are out there, that are measurable and to aggregate them in a way through statistical modelling that allows policy makers, analysts, concerned citizen to make sense of the information and process it in a way that allows us to rank and prioritise countries that may be at great risk. >> it's human nature that we don't react in advance. we react to a crisis. if we are not reacting to a crisis in syria or darfur or berma, what is your system going to do, beyond giving information that will move people to action and do something that will help pt folks on the -- the folks on the ground in the daner zone. >> in government and policy

sector, the thinking is early warning doesn't necessarily mean response. the president alluded to it requires an understanding to factors drive the violence. the field of genocide prevention advanced in the last 20 years, really owe toing the failures -- owing to the failures of policy responses from rwanda, to the balkans and darfur. there has been not just soul searching on the part of the policy makers, but intro expectation on the part of the public about why are we drawn into conflicts once they have started. once they start, the range of options that we have, both for stopping and arresting the violence, but also responding to it are narrower than they would be if we were to take action prior to the onset of new killing. what we are trying to do is move the curve out a little further. give policy makers and the

public time to understand what might be going on in the countries and give them an opportunity to reaction - not in a military way - that may be ab option. but the range of options for intervention, and i use that not again in the military sense, but in a broad sense, the range of options before the killing starts is vast, and the cost, the political and the financial cost to american taxpayers and others is greatly reduced. >> you worked as a special envoy for sudan and the national security council and african affairs. do you think a system like this could have helped you in that work? >> absolutely. i think when you are in those jobs and you have responsibility for a region of the world, and you are scanning the horizon, it's easy to be taken in by your inbox. working the crisis of the day and responding to the countries

on fire, and any policy maker that served in the jobs, if you ask them if you could go back to syria four, five years ago, before the first shot was fired in syria, and you had 12 months to take action, that might have staved off the violence we see now, what would you have done? they probably would come up with a list of things that they would do. the reason they were not looking at syria is they were looking at the country in crisis. we are trying to give them the county, the window of time before the killing starts to think about what can we do. africa is a great case. you went are many countries that may be at risk. how do we pry otherize and hank them? how do we choose which

countries will receive scarce resources for prevention. a tool like this helps to rack and stack the countries. >> thank you for your time. >> thank you very much. the american diet is considered extreme. we have a reputation for offering outrageour portions, but are sed used by a juice-fast for trendy change. a new product heralded as the end of food may trump anything you consider. it's soyland, a meal replacement drink developed by a tech entre preppure, tired of the hassles of food. it claims to contain the nutrients for a healthy diet. at $3 a serving, it's affordable. the name comes from the futuristic movie "soyland greens", a movie about humans eating processed humans. >> i'm not sure i could survive on this alone, unless forced to.

>> for more we are joined by dr ira bright, the man you saw, a clinical assistant professor of medicine and agastero enterologist. we watched him test soya lant for the "new york times". thank you for being here. >> thank you for having me on. >> it has received a lot of attention. as a doctor what do you make of it? >> i don't think too much of it. it consists of multi-dexteran, which is basically starch. it consists of rice, and a top of vitamins. it has all the nutrients we are supposed to have. it's not anything special. it seems more like laboratory food than real food. >> i know it hasn't been extensively tested. i think i read a study coming out of japan that said it may be problematic in terms of animals,

with blood glucose levels and other things. one of the things that the firm making soy u lant says is that you can live on this indefinitely. true? >> unknown. it's true that the drink contains everything that the u.s. government recommends in a daily allowance, the side packaging that you see on food labels. they have it all. there's selenium in there, for instance. very tasty. but we don't know, as people, are we missing certain nutrients, should we have certain bacteria or things like that. as much as they make the claim and cannot dispute it, i don't fully believe the claim from my heart. >> let's go from your heart to your tastebuds, what does it taste like? >> awful. in the times i made the face, we'll not create it because i will not eat the stuff again. it tastes gritty. it has a sort of sweet taste,

and what i remembered most was it tasted like the liquid that we gave people in the hospital that needed extra calories. it had a sweetish taste. it was distasteful and if offered the opportunity to eat anything else, i would. >> what about applications for it in a third world country, where people are starving from malnutrition or a tsunami, where people can't get food in quickly. >> so i thought about this. if you look at the website, they are charge k, you know, $70-$80 a week. compared to new york city, where it's $20 for a bowl of rarman it's a good deal. if you go to the developing countries prices of food are lower. and there are a variety of meals ready to eat. food that supply a lot of these nutritional thing. i don't know the costs are likely much cheaper.

>> is there an argument to be made that this is a complete meal. is this nutrition as opposed to people surviving on rice and corn. >> it has minerals that rice and corn doesn't have. it has fat, because it adds oil. i'm not sure whether there's a benefit to having that as opposed to a rice-based meal. >> you are agastero enterologist. it's all about what is going on in the gut with you. what's in the gut. >> fortunately for me i had a small amount and not much. the main complaint people had about this, if you look on the internet is people complain about gas below. >> excess gas from the drink. >> correct. it's probably a combination of the casho hydrates, the oats, and there's a lot of fibre, that

is good for you and has its disadvantages as well. it's a problem because if you have loved ones or work people or anything like that, you may not be the most popular person in town. >> i'm a vegan, and have been for 25 years. i have eaten everything from sticks, berries and twigs. with some restricted dye et cetera, i love food, i enjoy food and can't wait to smell and cook it. it's part of the experience, a social experience, e love the memories that it envorks, we love -- we love the memories that it invokes, and to taste it. how do you market a product taking the social aspects out of food. >> i was trying to think much that myself. it was difficult. it's not vegan, it has fish oil. so you couldn't have it anyway. >> darn. sounds like i'm missing out, according to you. >> yes.

it's one of those things where the only way i could think of that they could market is under the table. if you were looking to lose weight there are commercial products available that are similar. the liquid diets - two shakes and you'll be fine. if you look at the calorie count, if you have a limited aim, you can get the nutrition in and lose weight. is it a good long-term solution? >> no. in the same way most diets don't work because you don't know how to eat. this is a crux to fit you into a dress for the party. >> you said there were other product out there, is it a grand marketing scheme to duplicate what is out there. >> it's an idea on their part, because it's part of the do it yourself create food concepts. is there foods like this before - yes, there are many others. >> straight ahead - america may

speed towards driverless cars. four out of five of us are not sold on them. we'll go inside technical concerns. also, the most successful female rolls on. why her winnings took an a special influence. and does tom crews have the internet to blame for his image issues? tom hard hitting... >> they're locking the doors... >> ground breaking... >> we have to get out of here... >> truth seeking... award winning investigative documentary series fault lines

how about this - driverless cars may merm to a city near -- merge to a city near you closer than you think. google released a car without a steering wheel, gas pedals and brake pedals - taking passengers away from control of the vehicles. a common concern is what if something goes wrongs. it made itself into hbo's "silicon valley", capturing it in comedic fashion. >> distance to destination, 4.6 miles. buckle up, please. destination override. new destination, 1 gregory drive, ara lon. >> no, no, stop, let me out. that's not good. joining us from austin texas is professor of transportation engineering at the university of

texas, cock ral school of engineering, and an author:. >> join us from buffalo new york is an automotive expert, also an author. google released a video showing how the new cars detect and respond around them. but, a recent poll found that 80% of u.s. adults worry about failures and glitches in driverless cars. highways are predictable. city streets not so much. you have kids, animals, construction, you name it. will the sensors and the computers in the vehicle reliability be able to read and react to every situation that could present itself? >> humans don't react to all sorts of situations, so, no, i don't think they can guess at somebody darting out between two

parked cars. it requires superman, i think. they'll be able to do better than most of us. many rely on them already to parallel park and back um. we see autochauffeuring options and autonomous vehicles in many settings. they are doing well in practice. would you say there's no scenario where a car would take over on its open. >> no, you have two victims, and you have to choose who is the less costly to hit. that's tough for a computer with vision. that does take smarts. but sometimes it is just luck, if the driver managed to choose. a lot of the times you'll hit something, and it depends on how lucky you get that day and how alert you are. many are not paying attention,

that's what causes the crash in the first place. several states allow self-driving cars, all requiring that a driver is behind the wheel, and google is acknowledging in emergencies someone who is not paying attention, who is reading or daydreaming can't take control quick enough to avoid an accident. >> how is the new car without input from the driver able to handle an emergency. >> the drivers onboard and behind the wheel don't mean that they are expecting a correct handoff. if it's a snow storm or a parade. something out of the ordinary reflective ice on the road. those are times where a driver needs to be present and take over, or a tire blow out. they are the settings that they are thinking of, not a quick handoff - here, you take over, i can't figure it out and you're about to die. that's not the setting we'll see. >> google said cars have logged

700,000 miles. there has been no accidents. the inevitable will happen eventually. at this point. who will be liable? >> that is going to be interesting. one of the things you think about - this is great, i won't have to do anything, i get in the car, give it direction, no steering, no pedals. i don't have to do anything. it tends to be a hands-off situation. we are talking about liability in this case. if there's an accident and there's no steering wheels and pedals, that's where you run into a problem where there's no way for a human to intervene and potentially avoid an accident. there are times when a computer can process a decision better, but we think and make decisions based on our experiences. the car was autonomous, an accident, somebody hit them, you hit someone. this is where insurance companies will be involved and it will be expensive for those that own the cars.

i'm concerned about cars that don't have pedals. when you give consumers an inch, they take a yard. how that works is i need to put the car to the vet. set the directions, if you think it won't happen, you know someone will do it. i don't want to send the kids to my ex, i'll put them in the car and send them. we wouldn't do it, people do things like that. these are problems. cars can't process that. if the weather is bad and there's an accident. which vehicle will hit - the more expensive mercedes or mitsubishi. we won't know it based on brand. this is what will happen if there is accident, that computers can't make the decisions. we want to avoid the accident. i think we are opening up an expensive case for the people that choose to purchase autonomous cars, specially initially. it found that more than half the

respondents were worried about driverless cars being hacked, because they'd be operated by a computer. considers already contain a lot of materials handling navigation and have the doors locked remotely. the idea of being hacked is scary. is it a legitimate concern. >> because of heavy computerizition number with relatively little hacking, if you get under the hood of a vehicle you can do a lot more harm more quickly with far less sophistication than getting into one of these vehicles than trying to get it to behave a certain way. the google cars should say it's not connected to other vehicles, something that the federal government is also pursuing. the autonomy means independence,

opportunities to derail it. they can spoof the location and the gps will be potentially disabled. there's plenty of redundancy. i think we'll be firewalling the code. that would connect the vehicles, that can warn each other of things, and it allows the vehicle to be self-driving. >> politics wiggles demoo everything. if these -- into everything. if these cars replaced taxis, fighters unions would fight back, not to intention the electric car lobby, and police departments losing revenue. and you raised driver's side. talk about the politics. >> there's a lot of politics. the auto industry funds not just local politicians, but local

businesses, and the ticket center obtains - that pays for a lot of local up tos. when you talk about the driver's side portion. when you wept, we use and practice driving every day. all of us that own vehicles, you learn the skills of keeping hands at three and nine. when you are a part of an autonomous car it's easy to get lazy, unfortunately when the people get behind the vehicle, they are not going to be as sharp in the skills as they used to be. potentially it means less people hired, less teachers teaching. that impacts not just triple a, but the taxi cab business and other industries will be impacted. i think that there's a lot - when you look at the fringe people that will knack, so it doesn't affect unemployment, politicians will be against it, that's the last thing they need,

higher unemployment. >> thank you both so much for coming on. >> thank you. still ahead - youtube helps to drive tom cruise's career off course. would it have imploded anyway. first, the biggest female winner in history is relatable to a growing number of americans for an industriesing reason -- for a surprising reason - our data dive is next. with the most interesting people of our time. rosie perez >> i had to fight back, or else my ass was gonna get kicked... >> a tough childhood... >> there was a crying, there was a lot of laughter... >> finding her voice >> i was not a ham, i was ham & cheese... >> and turning it around... >> you don't have to let your circumstance dictate who you are as a person >> talk to al jazeera only on al jazeera america

>> start with one issue education... gun control... the gap between rich and poor... job creation...

climate change... tax policy... the economy... iran... healthcare... ad guests on all sides of the debate. >> this is a right we should all have... >> it's just the way it is... >> there's something seriously wrong... >> there's been acrimony... >> the conservative ideal... >> it's an urgent need... and a host willing to ask the tough questions >> how do you explain it to yourself? and you'll get... the inside story ray suarez hosts inside story weekdays at 5 eastern only on al jazeera america >> today's data dive goes to julia collins, the winning es female in history. she won her 19th straight non-tournament gain on an episode which aired thursday. it ties her for second place,

she won about $400,000. good timing since she was unemployed for several months. >> ken geppings holds the -- gepping -- jennings holds the record, but lost to brad rudder who won $4.5 million. more than 300 have come and gone since "jeopardy" premiered. there's so many there's a network devoted to them. the first broadcast live was "spelling bee", in 1938. truth tore consequences was the first to air with commercials. the very young barker took over as host and stayed on. then he famously moved on to the crisis. it's the longest running game hoe in history 42 years since

september. >> game shows have evolved. contests like survivor, and competitions like "pop idle" have been adapted, becoming some of the most successful shows. there's casting, and experts say the more compelling your story, the better. if you are fortunate to get on and win, the irs wins big, taking a major cut. by the way, the first quiz show of "spelling bee", wrapped up in maryland. the national spelling bee was decided on thursday, on national television. coming up, the internet saves one of the most beloved children's shows in half a century.

>> now inroducing, the new al jazeea america mobile news app. get our exclusive in depth, reporting when you want it. a global perspective wherever you are. the major headlines in context. mashable says... you'll never miss the latest news >> they will continue looking for suvivors... >> the potential for energy production is huge... >> no noise, no clutter, just real reporting. the new al jazeera america mobile app, available for your apple and android mobile device. download it now eads - all the w.

al jazeera america, take a new look at news. >> tom cruise wants you to think of him for this >> movie reel: i die within five minutes of landing on the beach, along with every other soldier. [ gunfire ] >> however, while his big action film edge of tomorrow comes out next week most people think of im like this -- him like this... l.a. weekly took a look at an old moment that marked the

first months of youtube. many thought it killed cruise's career. it did anything but. our culture in journalism has been altered. let's bring in bill wyman, former arts editor for national public radio and critic. all this happened after youtube launched, the first video that went viral. you look at this as a demarcation, tom cruise, britney spears and others, whose careers have been altered. so years later has hollywood learnt to control social media culture? >> it's trying. let's remember that this is a push-me, pull-you thing that goes all the way back to the 40s and 50s with the scandal rags and the rise of alternate press. you had a bit of pushback. each time hollywood manages to get a hold and this time they have a slippery eel. the internet is one of those

things you can't get a handle on. some smart ones are trying. >> i link of lindsay lohan, and amanda bins and some of the folks mentioned. would their careers have imploded without the help of youtube. >> yes. let's face it, these are damaged and disturbed people. when you are in the public spotlight it's going to come out. same with tom cruise. this is a guy with a lot of problems beneath the veneer, the surface. i think we saw some of the things coming out back then. today, without youtube it would have put chinks in his armour. >> i think of all the stuff with tom cruise going after brook shields for using post-part 'em depression medication and sign tollingy - there was a lot there. howard dean, he paid the price in the 2004 prime which with "the scream" heard around the

world. >> right. we tend to demonize technology. i am sure the telephone at the turn of the century caused all problems, and it's a factor for life that you have to deal with. these people get so much power out of these media. they get - you know, their lives are pampered and wonderful. once in a while there's a hiccup and people talk like the sky is falling because a politician or rich movie star has a bad few months. they do okay. >> first world problems, right? >> it kind of is. >> switching to someone that is loved. ley var has a kick-starting campaign to put "reading rainbow" into the country. 11 hours they reached a goal of $1 million. >> 30 seconds - yea. [ cheering ] >>. >> i am overwhelmed.

thank you so much this is going to enable us to well, really, really do a lot of good. i am so print-out that this community has come together to support this effort, and it's a people's thing. >> it's touching. are we in a new age when kick-starter has revolutionized entertainment? >> no. i think that there's - again this, is what we are talking about with tom cruise. people talk about the rise of the vinyl record. those are souvenirs that famous bands get their fans to shell out. similarly, he's a famous person. you have the boomers that love the show, and the star trek fans and they are willing to shell out a few minutes. i don't think the reading rain bows would have been popular. some are concerned that people think they are bricking back the

show, but it's about bringing it into the classroom. >> that's a worthy programme. this is not pbs, it's a for-profit endeavouring to make - to turn into an internet phenomenon. it could be pc funding. i think over time this is okay. kick starter will find its own level. and it will know which ones are not scans. unlike other kick starter campaigns, there hasn't been a lot of blowback about a celebrity taking attention. is it more acceptable or does reading rainbow hold a special spot in people's hearts. >> we'll have to see what

happens. it could disappear and go away. they may never get it off the ground. but there is lingering suspicion that he could get funding through normal channels, if it's valid. we have to factor in the celebrity factor. one of them is kick starter and generating a lot of money. >> what do you have your eye on now? >> coming up, let's see, i'm interested in the new comtom c movie, a documentary coming out that i haven't seen some of the films this we have heard about in cannes. otherwise it will be a summer of sequels and franchise reboots. >> the summer of netflix, perhaps. >> i think you are right.. >> thank you for joining us. >> thank you. >> the show may be over.

the conversation continues on the website or on facebook or google+ or switer at aj consider this. see you next time. hi everyone, this is al jazeera america, i'm john seigenthaler in new york. >> i was here 4.5 hours. >> the hurting. they served their country and are falling victim to the growing veterans' affairs scandal. their story. home again - moving out decades ago and coming back. the toll the economy is taking on baby boomers. whizz-kid - the star of the president's science fair. a teenager whose battle with