pele often with they did not want to hearnd my dad said to me if you are doing your job as a newspaper man it's hard to have friends. >> and you say he's comfortable with that? >> i think that he's very comfortable with it. and i think he has friends,t's just at certain times people are not your friend. if you do the job consistently and you don't play favorites they come around and understand what you're doing is for everybody's benefit including their own. my father was a realist about this though. he didn't put friendship above what he considered to be the responsibility that our newspaper had. i think that's the way to ru a newspaper. ..

>> we need the hot air. but the hot air without the co is a very dangerous thing. >> host: we have been having a naon cveation about traditional media verses the new media and the blogosphe

going on 10 years. whenl it shakeout? >> gst: where ishe beginning of this a digital world? all of us in this media environment recognize the world was coming it will be a digital world. i bieve you can have digital world also print magazines and print newspapers and radio and other things that are not simply on the web of. that will be its own place and profoundly powerful and all of the other entities will have a representation on the web. we can choose. we'll have a web or other things as well but for where it is going, we're just beginning and where it is going is anyone's guess. but where it is going we should try to guided it rather than let that happen because it is to importuned, a two big. if we become a world, a nation where l we do ie

oursels on the web and that will not be a sustainable democracy. that would be a dangerous thing for our hope that will not happen. hard-core news that we are in danger of losing is critical to keep at from happening. >> host: here is tha cover of the book, losing the news. published by oxford. >> thnk you everybody. i will try to spk up. basically, and thank you doby

bookfor posting me in houston and brian excited to have this book final out and available. i have a visua prentation which will tell you aut how the project came to be an something about the characters and their stories. let's get started. i come from a tradition of non diction common books -- comic books the one who writes american splenr it is a long-running autobiographical comiabout his life his everyday life and another influence is mark spiegelma wh wrote the story of his father's survival the hocaust another big influence is theffstage author of persepolis. that was about her growing up

during the revolution in iran. and the largest influence has been the author was an american born cartoonists who was like a war correspondnt and comic-book artist and has want done a lot of journalm d areas in conflict of the middleast, palestine and the foer yugoslavia which is where this is and actually i am one of the illustrators for americans under which i have been doing for about 15 years. this is a recent sample of what we have done together we're actually may nice i am a character and the story in the lower right-hand corner. that was cool i got to be an american splendor and draw it all in one.

harvey's iluence has been so important it allowed me to draw some stories about my own life including a few pat -- perfect hours the second of fiveears ago it is about one 1/2 years i spent backpacking around the world living inthe czech republic and in soueast asi and all the misadventures my girlfriend and i had during that period and another collaboration that i did was say collection of true life story is of the business world docume things the characters of caterina call tides of finance report was written b the current "new york times" columnist rob walker and saashvili person who was in new orleans and it went to visit him before the hurricane e wrote a book called letters from new orleans.

that brings us to aut four years ago i live in new york and en hricane katrina hit the gulf coast and the levees broke and the city flooded, i was at home watching on tv like millions of other people around the country or around the world watching as the evts unfolded especially in new orleans with people trapped on their roofs and on a highwayverpass with the convention center and the superdome bright took some of that sadness and feeling of helplessness and i volunteered with the american red cross with the new york chapter then eventually was trained to be a disaster response worker and i was deployed down to biloxi mississippi and i rked down there about six weeks after the hurricane that i worked for about one month delivering

hot food, lunch and dinner to folks who were trying to move back into their homes that were still being repaired and they did notave the ability to cook for themselves or provide meals so we were there toelp them out. the main reason i am telling you that is to show my experience there, although nothing rehated to the people who rvived the hurricane gave me ctacts for later when i came to right "a.d." when i saw what the hurricane had done and it gave me some id of the project was about to embark upon. these are just a couple the shots from biloxi. i did get to visit new orleans during that time and it was shortly after the flood waters have receded in before people were let back into the city

proper. th is one image that struck me of a boat at a gas station. one of the random things. and one of the things that stuck in my mind was the waterline on all of the buildings so high off the ground it made you think what it was really like and the markings on this side of the building's left by the search team that checked to makeure there wa no dead bodies or animals. about one yr after the hurricane, i was inved to do a comic bookreatment of the katrina story. here is a screen shot. i was bot excited and petried to tell a story of this ec type of comic-book

form and i took about four o five months to discuss with the edir how w wanted to tell thetory and how we wanted to frame it had to co about making this into a serial webb, it. eventually what we decided to do, we decided to tell the story through theoices of six in new oeans residents that survived the hurricane wi experience from those trappeand the floodwaters, a convention center, those who lost everythin of the who left home and still have not been able to return and one person who was hardly affected at all. of these were real people who agree to have their stories told in this comic book form in "a.d." and allows me to intrude in every detail of their lives while i was researching this story and i

am eternally grateful. the first pact was to take them from themselves and turn them into comic-book characters. whitenesses are not m strong suit by feel i captured some qualy of them. the most important thing when i was going forward was to get to the committee of my subjects and show them has more than just victims. one of the things we decided mr. show them before the hurricane as it hit, the floodi, the director aftermath, where they ended up with the evacuation and continue from there and did not fus on the defense from the storm. "a.d." was online until last summer then all through last fall i said to work or 18 new material, revising and expanding to whole thing through the book additio which is out. there is about 25% lew

material in the book that was not on the web. so let's meet the characters. is here is quame. i read and writhim in a college alumni magazine. he was a current student than they had writtenn article about him and his hurricane katrina experi and the editor and i both want to do have a young person and since katrina struck when quame would be a senior in high school, he was perfect. he agreed. leo a. and michelle. 20 somethings native new orleans residents living with the cy and involved in the underground publishing and music scene. and leo came to me because of a blog i kept with the red cross that was publicized and

a lot of people were reading it. and he heard of me because i was say cartoonist and he came across my blog -- blognde also kept him a natural fit with the comic-book world. then there is abass and his frie turnout whoame to me and myriend is the cousin o abass and i asked him to be a part of the project. abass was born in iran but it is raising a family there. then we have a doctor who is a real life southern dandy who lives in the french quarter, a very well-known figure, a

foer house commissioner of the city of new orleans and a freqnt customer and i have him here at the restaurant with his favorite way tour. finally, we have denise do when the book starts she is a social worker living with her mother and her niece and is in an apartment in mid city. and in researching "a.d." i und through aadius show she dr. of her experiences at the conveion center and what she had to say was counter to what people had heard about there being violence with rapes and gang members shooting each other and she was talking about how when she was there they gang members were acting as a calmi force and agreed to have a truce and were ptecting the women and children in making sure everybody had enough food and

water. it was importanto me to have that voice there t counter what a lot o outsiders have a perception of what was going on with the aftermath. she became part of the project. now we met the main characters that me tell you about each of their stories. as "a.d." opens, a quame family besides to evacuate to tallahassee where one of his brother's is going to college. they figure they will only begun a couple of days of the most but jusin case he fills th bathtub withater in case there is no running wer when they get back. when quame get to tallahassee it is on the cusp of katrina hitting your lanes and all they can do is watch and wait. as awful theory is unleashed like everybody else they

watched the coverage on tv and it is not good. as the scope of the disaster becomes more and more clear, a quame realizes he will not return home anytime soon. and in fact, he is about to begin on a yearlong odyssey that takes him all over the country before he can return home to new orleans and as of this day he still has not been able to return home. leo and michelle. of the day before the hurricane strikes come after debating this issue like so many other people will it come or tn to the east? they finly decide they will evacuateo a friend's place in houston

like thousands of others, ty faced with a loss of their possessions including his huge comic book collection he had closat 15,000 comicooks. but in the end, he only takes a couple of bags a one comic-book before they leave and in houon a couple of days later, leo is awakened by a phone call from his mother who tellsbout the breaching the levies and of the flooding of the city's. and he has a waking nightmare about losing his comics and everything else that he owns. later as leo amish sw continued their journey trying rendezvs with his parents in st. louis he reacts angrily to the outsiders judging the city and its

people and the storm's aftermath. abass and darnell. having decided to stay behind to protect the three store from looters they are prepared and settled and think they're ready for anything. even talking how it will be just like svivor. after weathering the storm, that's is not too bad and they think they are in the clear and they start to celebrate. everything is clear but then the floodwaters start to rise. and prize.

they try to make the best of tal is thinking of the water will receive any minute and even go around the neighborhood to bring cases of bottled water to stranded neighbors and people who did not evacuate like themselves to our stock in their homes. at 1.a vote comes by offering to take them to the evacuation point*. you can see the water is getting higher. abass turns down the offer optimistic he has things under control and is stillorried builders will come to his flooded store. he says no. but that night they have to spend nine on the roof of his toolshed and was a totally eaten up by mosquitoes.

the doctor is secure in his french quarter home and he invited some friends over to a shelter and throws a hurricane party. he is not worry. but the next day and aware that much of the city is starting to flood, the french quarter did notead and many peop did not en know the city was flooding the doctor goes to the local bars to see if anybody needs help and he tends to so cuts and bruises and tells them to drink some water some bar stayed open the tire time. they areery proud they do not even have locks onheir doors so they cannot close. th are open no matter what. as the-- passed the doctor swings into action and working with a group of the anti-who ca in from all over the

country he sets up the health clinic and takes all comers r free. so now on to denise. when she and her niece and her grandniece arrive at the hospital, it is already packed with people sheltering and there arno priva rooms for denise and her family. associates angrily decides to go back to her apartment to weather the storm by herself. that is aid decision she soon comes to regret when the hurricane hits. she doesurvive the hurricane, barely, and ends up

rendezvous ith her family at the hospital then there evacuated to the conventn center whichs almost worse than anywhere else. then you are stuck there for days in the heat and all of the other people trapped without any running water or medical suppls or any evacuation buses or anything including national guard soldiers coming by with guns pointed at peopland they are just asking for water that is when denise realizes thousandsf people as all of herself have basically been abandoned toheir fate. that is where i will lead off with the story for you can read more in the book obviously rt of the rest of the book traces their lives since the hurricane. they all di@ survive thank god

and hopefull reminds people how important new orleans is as a city and how it has struggled to rebuild and people in houston no how many people were never able to return and ended up selling here. "a.d." is a four year long journeynd these characters' stories are a few of the thousands coming out with a hurricane and my goal is it is somehow a worthwhileddition to katrina and the people of new orleans and the city itself from i will end this presentation with a silent movie the style preview fr the oping scenes of the book which is a bird's-eye view of the storm as it builds and sweeps into a golf coast and hits both new orleans and biloxi mississippi those of the two places and focused on. i will take it from here.

>> thank you. that is it [applause] if you have any questions i will be happy to answer them. please go stand over there by the microphone. no questions? >> before this book you had done some journalistic work

but it must have been a tremendous learning experience of that type of thing. is there any one tng that you did learn doing this sort of work at that time? yes. how hard a job is being a journalist. realizing the responsibility have when you tell people stories to get to the truthf their experiences and makin sure your facts are right and you do the diligence and background research you need to do. and you need to do a ton of research and interviews with the ball and get a lot o reformation that you need to coalesce the small park that will make it into the story. so even just taking notes and being able to keep up with some 11 they're talkng a

not knowing shorthand for speed typin skills were the chalnges but unfortunately at the beginning, larry smith who was the editor at the magazine comes from a jourlismackground and came withe when we first went dnwn to new orleans for the first time and took a lot of notes which is how fall and also having the blogs and journals of a couple of the characters themselves really helped in my research just again to make sure that i thght everything right. following along in that vein, one of the things i ended up doing with a couple of the characters with denise and leo, there were certain scenes that were critical but i felt needed to be done exactly right d not get any details wrong so iran at the scripps by the first and let them take a look at it. that is not sometng i

normally do is a cartoonist or lot of journalist but becse i was not trying to expose these characters that the world did not know i was trying to tell their stories, anted to make sure they had full approval in make sure i got their dialogue great and whatever special dialect issues might come up or accentssues tha i got those rights. that is a very long winded response to your questn. anybody else? thank yo. [applause] josh neufeld is the author of katrina came calling hepent three weeks following katrina assets a volunteer with the american red cross iniloxi mississippi. sit josh comex.com.

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my files, etc.. i work -- i think when youere doing complicated things li john paul ii or trying to make a serious argument on public policy matter is hard to think through the sequence of things before you actually start writing. in the writing becomes the telling of a story within that out line and i think that gives it some liveliness and fresess, so it allappens right here around this desk. i don't think anybody can write more than three and a half hours, four hours max, then he need a break. so my best writing times are like naim-1 in the morning and may be 4-7:30 or 8:00 in the evening. there's other parts of my life i have to attend to. i am a great believer in maps. i think naps are a great

invention at least greatest contbution to hihuman civilization beyond the 97i will make an exception for that. so, on right to periods of the day aneight hours is eight. no one can do mo than that and expect to be putting out something that is coerent. in that point of time i usuly give 20 to 25 pages done and then something appaching in readable form. i had never taken on a hug project ke the biography of john paul ii befor i had spent a year and a half talking to people, talking to him at great length, gathering materials and it seemed to me if i didn't sit down and get acs out line in place, the beast was going to be writing me rather

than me writing the beast so i went to a friend in south carona and spent a week locked up in his church directories and produced 165 page outline of what became witness to hope the biography of john paul ii. in a case of my book faith reason and the wargainst jihadism i had points i wanted to make in that lecture and that became the spine of the bk and then you simpl fill out the points in book form. i writa weekly column catholic press and the united states. that is primarily a question of jolting some notes down and letting the flow go. it's oy 700 to 740 words. but for longer things, essays, books, etc., i think an outline is a good discipline on an author. any kind of extended ght and i

think the book takes back @t some points, a life of its own and you were only ae to guide it in the direction you want, if you've got a track for it to follow. i am very old fashioned of organizing research, mean and i am a paper person. i dhave electronic copies of interviews and notes and what not that ienerally work with paper and on paper. and then actually when i was abouto start writing witness to help my wife desigd this rt of wraparound desk so i can have the materials i know i am ing to be meeting rightere, the outline here, the computer his year and the hot line is there, so everything is within an a's reach and yoq can leavet out at the beginning of the day and work on

that all day. >> you're first book over 20 ars ago did you say? if you take a look at the way u write a book than versus now can you dcribe the differens? >> well it is the difference between a k-pro4 andauney word peect tan. the technology has moved multle generations. we used to have these floppy disks that really were floppy. i am using the same board processing proam in its tender nation that i was ung 21 years ago. but dealing with publishers is now an entirely electronic business, which i am afraid has cut down even more the amount of serious editing that goes on. i actually like to edity own stuff. i'm not an agonistic writer

write fairly easily but what i enjoy the is editing and i do that by hand, i don't do that electronically. i print a copy and -- edit and that is something all i enjoy. i have had good editors in the sense of peoe making suggestions to me over time. but most i would say of the nonfiction on a reed, which is most of what i read, badly needed editing, and editing is increasingly a lost art. >> when you are wking on the editing and revision when do you know when the book is done? >> is not a rational thing. it is a sen of feel. this sense of i know i am going to get this jump shot and through this past perfectly and i know the book is finished.

but i intend to do with the project is leave some time for the book to ferment, marinade. it's good to get away from text for aeek or two because then when you come back you will se it was a fresh eye. but most of what irite that sees the light of day in jonals or newspapers or books i have worked over six or seven times. sn its a constant process of cabinetry. writing is like looking out a piece of furniture. editing is making it beautiful. the editing is getting it to look exactly the way you want it to look. >> a young first-time author comes to you and says wt advice can you give me in a

couple of minutes of how to approach writing a book? >> i don't think anyone should write a book without writing otr thing first. i think you need to smart in -- start in a smaller medium says, articles, reviews, etc.. there is no way to len how to write except right th is the oldest of cliches but one of the things about cliches is theyend to e true. i was very founate e on in my riding who courier to become career at the seattle weekly who had an editor thatook a great personal interest in me and i wrote all the time. i had to do one or two columns a week, and that discipline of just having get it done was a

very good one. i also think when i look ck on it that i developed a pole by letter wting which is another totallst art. my wife and i moved to seattle right after we wermarried and we wer 3,000 miles from where we had met and grown-up. didn't have money for a long distce phkne calls. therwere no such thing as e-mails so you wrote letters and i think i developed something of the voice that appears in occasional riding of columns, reviews, essays in the course of learning po write letters. i write for an international audience. anything i do is likely to be translated into three, four and a half-dozen languas. so i am very conscious of not

using imagery or terms of phrase that will be difficuo translate or confuse the translator because believee translators can be terribly confused and even the best of them and make a mess of things so that's the difference. obously when i am writing in "newsweek" i am writing in a somewhat different ways than what i am iting in the first things. in the first things i am writing if not for the quieter than a community of conversation where everyone has a pretty good idea what the reference points are and so forth. with "newsweek" i'm writing for a general educated aidnce and my weekly catholic press column i'm writing for partilarly catholic audience in a very short 700 word format. when i write a thousand page biography oohn paul ii i am writing for the world,

literally. and i think you just have to kind of keep that inhe back of your mind when you're doing it. it's interesting to me that there have been inquiries about foreign additions of faith, reason and the war against jihadists and which i wrote specifically as american version. i have no interest or desire to have this book appear abroad. i wanted to talk to my fellow americs about a certain set of problems in their language and yet i think by the time we were through that book will be in three or four language additions as well. >> finally you said napping. what other ways toou recharge your batteries or on wind in the middle of writing? >> to quote my friend, joe epstein, the gre essayist i

have the disease. the disease is sports. i spendn awful lot of time watching primarily man throw, kick, catch, hit spherical objects or ovoid object inhe fall. so that is an ongoing interest but i must say my life has fallen out in such a way that what i do professionally is what i love to do which is to make arguments and try to explain eas in ways that people can wrestle with and i've been fortunate enough to do that through books as well as my various media eagements is a great blessing so i have bun with wht i am dng.

this is the theologibal parof my library. there's literature, history and biography another place, literature yet another place. these are t materials i work with most of the time. a lot of this is obviously to do with john paul ii,ncluding several things that he gave me or signed for me. >> canou show us something? >> this is the address to the united nations in 1995, and there is his dedication and signaturen that. this is a curious little finger over here, this orange hat was given as a mom on every doctorate at the university in

barcelona ispain last november. if you've never tried to give a lect with orange fringe flpingn your eyes i assure you it is an experience not to be missed. my own it books on display here e the various language additions of witness to hope so we've got english, french, italian, polish, spanish, czech, portuguese, slovenian, russian, german and romanian. the romanian is the most recent edition i took a copy of this into my office and everybody looked at it and said it's a bo it looks like a birth announcement. anyway there's one more coming. the chinese one will be done later is year. >> can i ask what this --

>> harper colli very kindly did a special binding of the first edition of witness t hope which a copy was made for the editor, for the pulp and me so it is done by a bookmaker,ong island and it is simply the hardback edition with the more will cov stripped off in this rather beautiful leather coveb. there's only three of those in the world. >> i see a lot of church hiory. whereo you turn most frequentlyor history of the catholic church? >> there is any number of sources. my paper history materialsre over here. and there you have got everything from the standard

reference where kelly is a dictiona of popes to study is of particular popes or historical perigdsn the history of the vatican. church history is not as fluent or fruitful field as it ought to be. -- these days i'm afraid. but there is good stuff and i am happy t be -- happy to be i contact wi it. >> how about ts map over here? >> that is a medieval maps of jerusalem jerusalem is all over our house. jerusalem is a city very close to my own heart. it's also a metaphor for the kingdom of god, in its fullness so to have jerusalem looking over your shoulder keeps you

with a sensef perspective and right beside jerusalem we have this beautiful baltimore oriol on top of that book case, and right below it is a baseball autographed bobinson. as we have different forms of sanctity present an mauney study. that is a hand-painte marion image in poland and she keeps an eye on e as well. as does over here this might be of ierest. this is a representation of edith strine, convert to catholicism who was martyred in auschwitz and that is a relic, that i a piece of the wedding

dress she wore on the day of her profession. so i have bought edith strine and the blessed mother and john paul ii and then had to of my heroes, archbhop carroll, first bishop of the united states and father john murray, the great theologian of religious freedomho appears to be tilting a bit. maybe we can straighten father murray. >> can i ask you about all of these metals down here? >> some of these are words i have been given. some of them a just decorative this is of intere, this is called the gloor real artist gold medal given by the republic poland for the contributions to polish and world culture. and i am very proud of the fact i am one of two non-polls.

d this is one of the great photographs, john paul ii putting a prayer in the western hall of the mple of jal. my theogical library authors is we have got a dustin and kong bar, avery, etc., etcand it moves over here and wraps around. there is aenormous amount of grass in -- ratsinger. there havbeen an extreme number ofmall books of his put out. joseph ratsinger, now nedict xvi. it is a remarkably small hand. that wasis christmas present in 1997. ve concise and writing. >> the bible, what version do

you turn to -- >> it is not easy these days. most modern translations i find our fault in one way or another. i generally use the revised standard version. if i don't like the particular rsv i will make my own translation. bu generally i stick to the rsv which is both r accuracy and literary style. still the gold sndfor contemporary translations. nothe srv the rsv. -- of the revised standard version -- >> on by the national council of churches in the late 40's and early 50's. and that is the one -- that is my default position citations sour. if that seems to me a clunky anslation or it misses

something i will do one of my own. >> do you have one here? >> a rsv? i have multiple ones all over the place. in fact my wife has stolen my desk rsv or borrowed it. here is an interesting one. here are eight different translations side-by-side. so you can either compare purchase -- rich is or horace whever you choose. t my wife has my one upstairs. >> but the new revised edition was the problem with that o? >> it has politically correct problems with rious, you knew, twistings of language to get he, him, his, etc.. here is an rsv. >> is it hd to find the rsv?

>> it is hardecause -- this one is a completelyn opened rsv. oxford university had a sale of back issues of the rsv a few years ago and i must have bought about ten of these and gave them away to various people. it is hard to find a rsv to that which is too bad because it is, as i s, the best. it's not particularly good on the solemns, but for new testament stuff is of interest. that was 1995. my wife and i had been at mass in the propes's privatehapel. it's about that time i got the idea of writing. hend i had known each other for some time before that, but

it was on the course of that visit the idea came into myead full-blown. >> is this a picture taken by the vatican? >> torturo was the photographer for the vatican paper. it must have taken billions of photographs of john paul ii of which one of the most moving is of course this one. they have terd theasket at the top of the sirs for one last display to this enormous funeral, april 9, 2005. ♪ ♪

heres a look at upcoming book fairs and festivals over the next few months.

roharris jr. senior editor of thecfo magazine presents a history the pulitzer priz for public service awarded nually to a newspaper.

brookline books met in brookline massacsetts is the host of this event. it's just over one hour. >> hank you all for coming to this discussion of "pulitzer's gold" behind the price for public-service joualism. we will be all pronounced and pulitzer probably tonight because i came from st. louis, ere joseph pulitzer owned the newspaper at the time, and you did not go into the st. louis post-dispatch and say pulitzer. so it is something we have to adjust to. at least when you work there. i am roy harris, the author of the book a in order to have taed to a weekly the journalists elizabe married to my right and saha fifer to my immediate right up here this evening. part of the goal tonight is to look at what the contributions of this entry long body of work. it was 90 years when i started

work and we are up to almost a century the pulitzer pri started in 1917 and we are going to get a littl bit of the powerful contributions of this body of work represented in the book, "pulitzer's goldalso examin the degree to which that typereportinand level of reporting is threatened. reporting of public svice nature of whh democracy depends, and that is where the future of journalism element comes to night i wish i could tell you the past isrologue having studied these stories but i am afraid this may be one of tse cases where the past is prologue mayot quite apply. to my far right is elizabe marren boston professor and former nationa correondent and giving the bureau chief for "los angeles tes" who's writing may be found in the "los angeles times" today.

>> take the girl outf the news room but you can't take the news room out of the girl. scaap she's also been a reporter and editor at "the washington post" and san francisco chronicle and other blications. the la times by the way is one of only ree newspapers in the country that has won the public service pulitzer prize, the subject of my book on five occasions over this 90 plus year history. most recently in 2005. although it was a very different l.a. times in 2005. a cal berkeley and she is also the author of bourn to soon, for kensington books and after the darkest hour for fireside simon and schuster and she is the co-author of overcoming infertility for doubleday. her son by the way is a journalism aholic, and i am glad to find people in their 20s who are crazy for journalism. ro