production code. >> uh-huh. >> and set up a system which you're familiar with and many people in the audience are where one man, joseph breen, had to okay every single film before it was made which would be so illegal if it was a government system. and let me give you one example. warner brothers in the mid '30s wanted to make a movie about what the nazis were doing in germany. they were, like, listen, this is bad. you know, bad things are coming. joseph breen who described his job as should having ethics down the -- shoving ethics down the throats of the jews -- vetoed the movie. it was never made. and i don't know whether it would have prevented anything, but this is a form of censorship that should be intolerable to anyone in journalism school. ..

trade off between openness, avoiding things, and not having sort of effective mechanism to produce certain kinds of content that requires a lot of economic regulatory, whatever protection. an example that brings to my

mind, although i don't think this will be that persuasive to you is your own field of legal scholarship, which, it sits inside this huge structure of legal licensing and 10 year intuition. if you felt legal scholarship were precious, and if you, arguably there'll be no legal scholarship reduce because there would be the means to produce it. is that a price worth paying or is there some sort of backdoor way of getting, we are interested in journalism, the reporting done and all that in a world that really privileges diversity of opinion and diversity of power. >> so the question is whether we should always accept artificial

barriers essentially on the market or, in order to preserve things that we admire. i would say so but i would say we overdo it. a lot. the legal profession is a great example. it's not as bad as other professions but a lot of people can do legal work that are not lawyers. >> you're not saying this sort of to? to the left of positions and the crowd will provide anything that has real value, right? >> if you want to be to say that -- [talking over each other] i think there are differences. speak of let me ask you. i guess my problem with journalists, or the journalistic way of thinking about things is any industry once it has its

protection, begins to set aside or treasure it and begin to give it an importance which it really is a barrier to trade. the legal profession is great. they say all the stuff about the bar exam. it really is -- that's the danger. journalism is always insulating itself against change continually been calling it something nice like the newsroom, you know? and they give great speeches. i loved. >> but you always give the speech about how great the newsroom and everything. >> but there are organizational capabilities that are built up over a period of time in organizations, large and small, that participated, are hard to put back together again. it is possible for a country, for example, to lose its edge in x. y. or z. technology. those overseas, you're not going to get it back. the miracle of the marketplace is going to solve all of your

problems. the story i tell about telephone is about the guys at the middle level, unsung heroes who you don't write about who may be key changes. but those organizations were pretty large, too. and that's what worries me about the current internet because the average advertising revenue for newspapers, which is generate a passenger at the news stories that we rely on to keep government and business accountable, that as we know is largely vanished. and what are we going to do about it as a nation? if we do not recognize that organizations can do think that individual sitting in the attic or garage is can't and have not done, if we don't realize that, and it seems to be we are not being realistic about the possibilities as well as the limitation of organization as a way of shaping content. >> i haven't denied and i said before i have a relationship with a large organization.

looks like mr. barroso, does crazy things. a mania, that's attractive in its own way. i will not deny that they're all -- that there are certain efficiencies gained by large institutions, but the problem i see it as a dynamic or in some way secular process. that is, let's say google right now is any kind of the golden age, full of smart people. they have swimming pools and volleyball courts. and that only in five years they'll turn their interest innovation into an interest in trying to sustain power. they're trying to make sure this doesn't happen that every organization begins to decay and

become rotten. so i will agree you there are advantages to these gigantic institutions. we need a essentially term limits for monopolist. we understand the politics are like no matter who the president is, after eight years he's going to be crazy. if you let him go for ever he is going to try to set up his own kingdom, become the king. and my belief is not the monopolists are terrible, it's just they stay around too long. at&t was in power for 70 years. by the '50s it already lost it, in my opinion. they have some advantages. we can disagree about that. >> let me switch. i want to get to audience questions and i want to ask one question a little bit off point but somewhat interesting and relevant. probably the most naked a journalistic part of both of your books is the discussion of the relationship between western union and "the associated press." so i wonder if one of you could fill us in on that.

>> just the whole story? >> in brief. i would say what i think it's relevant to today. i think the western union associated press, an example is quite complicated and your book is much deeper on it than minus. that is the danger of unrestrained monopoly power. spiegel its first described -- western union was essentially the monopoly provider of telegraph carriage, and they had a relationship with the then new associated press. they were sort of the exclusive carrier for "the associated press." the associate press was the exclusive content provider to western union. >> there was a quid pro quo here which was explicit in the 1860s, that the western union managers

were terrified as we now know, worked in a letter books, internal corporate archives which he just opened up in the late 1990s. they were terrified of either being taken over by the government, which was are plausible, or being in fx subject to hostile legislation. and they recognize that if the press began to editorialize, calling for regulation, they would be in trouble. so they cut a deal. we will give you low rates. you won't say nasty things about us. and that held for about 20 years. it seems to be google is in a position to strike the same deal here speak of that would be net neutrality by the way. one of the problems with a special deal, to repeat this, in the 1860s the only method of instant long distance to medication. anyone who had control of the new service had an immediate advantage because the news would arrive instantly. that is any tremendous power.

they also had to money to control an election or influence elections. >> the other details that is not obvious here before 1945 the press association, news brokers did not have to get the news equally to everyone. so new york associated press cut deals with certain newspapers and not with others. and needless to say it was those newspapers they didn't cut deals with that began to lobby against them. >> the last thing before we go to questions, just to show you why this matters, one could argue on richard side, i don't know if you would, that these kind of incredibly unfair relationships helped establish "the associated press" which is to one of the great news organizations of the world. on the other hand, all other news organizations cried foul, rightly so, but the special do, the associate press. and why does this matter today? this has been happening and will continue to happen.

the chair of the fcc, another former student, will announce net neutrality initiative tomorrow supposedly. it will be instantly opposed by the industry. this scenario would be something like, you know, people who carry the wires into your house that gives you access to the internet might strike deals with preferred journalistic and other providers that say with this deal you get faster, better instantaneous service. we can help support these news organizations, but there's a downside. so just to know, this is not a relevant history. it's really cute up her right now speak with a strong example in the interest of total deregulate monopoly is that not only does it mean, doesn't mean you don't have diversity. image of a -- is a very powerful

ability to try to move -- it's an effective democracy. >> i see a very different that i think you could make a good case of at&t and apple are innovators, that there doing exactly what your cycle would predict. they are creating all kinds of new content, and that may bring with it benefits. and why should netflix be able to send, use 20% of the internet to send movies? i think you could make an argument, that i'm not taking a policy, but reading your book you could contend that, in fact, you should be arguing against net to john. you should be arguing for apple and against google. >> i think i would burst into flames if i did that. spiegel let's go to audience questions. i hate to make you all schlep to the microphone but this is on c-span. let's just start this process. >> you mentioned in the early

part of 20 century they had to separate these industries in order for them to flourish. so d.c. the same the same kind of separation which advocates an internet industry? >> i think it is important to recognize that in the united states with a long-standing tradition going back to the founders of limiting constitutional power. newspapers were permitted in the 1790s on a non-preferential basis which is enormous important, the structure of the price. the telegraph was not taken over by the post office. the telephone was not taken over by the telegram and so on. this is different from the pattern european countries that didn't happen because they're a clever guys coming up with great ideas. this happened because of public policy and monopoly of public policy. and i think your suggestion about a distinction between content, it should be constitutionalize is i think a very provocative one worth

considering. i would contend a much stronger historical grounding that even you provide in your book spee-2 it's a good point. i will take that. spiegel let me just ask you, if you could just state the separation principle. just tell us what it is. >> from studying the history, it occurred to me the worst problem always came when you had a unity of ownership over moving information and creating information. when people a sense of the game the same of the people who create content because there's always an inherent conflict of interest. the western union, associate press example is probably the strongest. >> the example you give a new book was this was the dream behind a time of the al merger. if you lived in new york city, time and brought the wire into your house. it can only get to the internet through aol and then you can only get the time and content.

it's a dream of a closed system that got blown apart by the internet protocol. >> that is right. and i agree with what you say. traditionally the separation of principle i talked about wasn't industry by industry principle. that is one company, the telegraph, another company runs the telephone. another set of companies run film. there was this policing, but the structure of today can what we need to do is reinvent the principle for today's technologies. and cut industries vertically like that doesn't make sense to more. it's more of a horizontal cut. if that makes sense. speak of the content company is separate from the carriage company? >> correct, and so on. >> and talking about some of these new media that came along and gave us these great golden age let freedom reign kind of things, before hypoxic took over

and killed. allow these businesses were very capital intensive. they were economies of scale that would encourage bigness and squeeze out the locker. and that is what if the internet finding has taken this to another level where the barriers to entry are very low. is anybody blogging right now life as we're here? >> i think we have banned laptops speak of there are people blogging, describing the stuff of what they're doing. and maybe this sunday or pocket he wanted to take over and hijack this thing and people will be able to use the internet. and by the way, all these other costs, you could have a real stage with a website and you can make movies now with cheap cameras that look pretty good. maybe finally the cartels will not run things. >> in some ways that is the question at the center of this book. you know come is the history destiny, or can it in some ways,

things be different? my point would be not assume things are going to be different. because something has changed and some things happen. some of the things that have changed our that the internet itself is fundamentally designed differently than the old communications network. the protocols that are open are not owned by anybody. very different. investment is different. investment structures are different. challenges get funding from the venture capital industry and as you write about, i don't think we also socially of the same worship of size. i think in certain grades of american history bigger and progress with the same idea. maybe i will disagree with it. there are certain things that have changed, but there are certain things that haven't changed. economics, the basic principles of economy to scale, natural

monopoly have not clearly changed. and most important human nature. we have not changed. we are the same. consumers still love convenience almost over everything. here who does not use google? we still love convenience. we still love this sort of benefits of the ease of a single company providing something. we still love the. there are still people who want to run empires and who have an interest in consolidating industries. and that hasn't changed. >> but our differences on what's going on today and we agreed about this, but what when on 100 years ago. bell had a public service mandate which was mandated by the state and federal government. and google today has a mandate to do no evil which is basically backed by the three guys who own google. and it seems to me that a large

percentage of the share, that seems to me it's a real problem is when the and the thousand flowers bloom right now. where any node which very large entity are moving to carve up the information infrastructure. and they are doing it pretty fast and they're doing it in the world which we have powerful voices that say the market range, and the little guy is blogging. the little gal is blogging. i think that is fantasy. >> next question. >> i'm going to try to melt both threads of the. the telecommunications giant, at&t, as you said provided research and such under a regime of regulated novelty. regulated rate of return. they broke up ma bell. it has never consulted and now basically at&t and verizon constitute most of the seven

baby bells. so now have the worst of both world. we have a deregulated monopoly essentially. that they don't compete out of region except in wireless. to bring it to the journalism point of view i would say this story is vastly undercovered, that this would've consolidation between, that public infrastructure is being held hostage by people who now, verizon and at&t both claim to want deregulation, right, that regulation is an evil because -- but they were built, they have these inherited advantages as do others. so my question is why do you see that as coincidental, that it's an undercovered story in journalism? >> no, i don't see that at all. those two interests are aligned speak of net neutrality is the government tried to tell people it will be better.

net neutrality as common carriers. speak of with common carriage there will be winners and losers speak of that's what you're asking for so i don't understand -- >> what am asking for a recognition that telecoms and other big players including google have an obligation to serve the public rather than their shareholders or themselves, or their own vision. that's what i'm asking. >> we're getting near the anti-want to move along to the next question. >> this is a two-part question. one in terms of the over arching arguments of respect attacks, how did you compensate or how do you see the switch between a telephone or telegraph where in one purple is sending to one other person, and then the sort of at least much ballyhooed prospect of one person to me getting too many in bigger content as a quote previous user on the internet? and then, number two, what i see as the feedback look if there is a tiered internet of people who

are i suppose most privilege in society, not only having the recourse of traditional educational and financial benefits, but also to higher tiers, bandwidth, access to further information and how that lived than it is excellent potentialities? >> what's the -- >> so if you're a person of means, you know don't have educational financial advantages, you would any tiered internet also have access to greater bandwidth and an intern more information and more acts as a potential audience as he user/content user. >> let me talk about the first. one of the many -- one of the promises of the internet is the medium with anyone's publisher come in what can do this. but i will tell you 11 thing i will suggest is completely unheard of before, earlier radiohead -- early film in some ways windows a lot of producers, it still wasn't as easy with

blogging, but we have seen some of that before, and the question -- i think one interesting thing is whether we will look back industry 10 years from now and to remember that sort of user content within, there's a fundamental question question as to whether that is a fad or whether that is a fundamental shift. i don't know the answer. steve jobs thinks not. steve jobs is one thing we know about americans if they don't want amateur hour. they want hollywood content et cetera a lot of people come into we think things will change forever, want to make things the way they were. >> let me make two observations. one of the best inclusions by telephone research was a lot of americans are willing to pay for low-quality telephone if it is cheaper. and i think that's relevant to the current debate over net neutrality. not everybody, and, in fact,

folks who insisted on flat rate or same quality service for everyone, those with big business users and they were using power to the people as an argument in order to protect their turf. i think that's worth keeping in mind. second, this idea that decentralized meeting -- me is prima facie democratic, early radio, and use it is in your book, it lost a lot of its potential. if we hadn't had edward r. murrow in the second world war here and now come if we had a lot of little radio stations, no one knew the resource in london to be broadcasting about the nazis. we may perhaps be in a different place today. and i think that is a real problem with this debate over smallest -- there's a really of journalistic professionals. there's a reason of standards, reason you training and a reason that you have a limitation on access from the point of view of ordinary human being.

not everybody is sitting there surfing the net 10 hours a day. we have college students doing it. they tend to come from a rather well off part of the social system. >> let me say since it is late and we can only get two more minutes. ic-3 questioners, right? so you are the last three question. we will do your three questions and and call it a night. >> thank you. perhaps i can ask a question to browse link the two sides. actually antagonistic -- >> that's no fun? >> we both think the album is really important. >> if i was in europe, and asia listening to something like this it would be strange because it would be two people talking about mainly american businesses, innovations and cycles. so perhaps the question that i would like to close -- the

question i would like to pose is the it ability of the american economy at least in the 20 century to produce and dominate these successive waves of media content, software, hardware, whatever term you want to use, is perhaps related to the cycle of open and close. if i close we mean the time when some folks can make some real money, and that motive of the bar or the current cycle drives, decides to the next facebook or to be the next facebook square, whatever it is. >> i've got a. >> basically, you receive the idea, that that shows the citizens of capitalism that the lure of monopoly profits is the real driving force of american capitalism, or any capitalistic

system. not this ad is this competing. this book is situated, maybe it is something unusual about america. i'm canadian so you can't accuse me of being that parochial. the industry -- it's fascinating and industry as to why. >> i do think it's as big a mystery as you do. it has a lot to do with the political order. has a lot to do with the political become. we have extraordinary strong protections of intellectual property. that is why belka into the telephone business. his future father-in-law thought he could make a killing and that was the same story with radio. i rated in the message rather than bring in the first world war? we will buy up all of the british. we will establish dominance in radio because we don't have dominance in cable. the political economy has been unusually favorable to entrepreneurship because you strong intellectual property rights and shoving anti-monopoly tradition or a separation

tradition that try to promote competition. those two things working together is a real engine of innovation, and jupiter was writing about industries, electrical, where patton rights are absolutely essential. it seems to me that's what sold us together. -- that's what holds us together. >> my question is regarding the inevitable nature of monopolies to move towards corruption once their foothold on technology and society society, the way society runs, starts to falter. so specifically regarding that, at what stage do you think facebook and google are at and internet monopolies? and also commenting on your recent wall street journal article that everything their motivation is to stay on top in the future will affect their activities overseas?

>> a great question. i guess i could ask european union about google. i was at google this morning and we're talking about this exact question. google says, google's idea is that they have designed their company to try to avoid internal corruption. we were at the company. they say we still are a extreme and aware of the danger, and we are, we put in measures to try to prevent ourselves from becoming corrupted. [inaudible] >> three guys on what, 30, 40% of the coming? >> i'm just saying -- this is what they think. they believe that this would be their downfall. so they are trying. what do i think what i think we're in kind of a golden age. there's a lot of amazing stuff going on right now. watch very carefully a certain

racial of innovation versus self-preservation measures. you can look at any industry and see what ratio. journalism is like, for longtime journalism was like all preservation, no innovation. it's starting to shift a bit. content industry, hollywood, 80% of the effort is trying to defend a business model, 20% is trying to prove it. i think you watch that ration and it starts to get. then it starts to get abusive when he sought to exclude or destroy their rivals. that's the moment where i think -- i mean, that's the moment antitrust suits coming. >> the last question. >> before you made the comment, or insinuated that people in the reporting world nowadays look down on things because the situation in terms of the newspapers and media business, et cetera.

and i was curious, couldn't you say that we may be now in a trough but things are going to go up? in other words, and would have been before. in other words, we had newspapers. they worried about television and movies, you know, causing problems. but the television critic for jobs for journalists. could we have the same thing happen now? we have new internet companies starting up, by press people themselves were not only writing but now they are owning their little niche oriented newspapers so that in the long-term they would be more jobs for people in the journalism world rather than last. >> there's an argument which i don't endorse the sister of us are like farmers. in other words, they are always complaining. something is always wrong. there's always something wrong. there's always about to be wiped out.

but the underlying function is to spy. i don't know if i endorse that view because i do think, i do think journalism is different. whatever you want to call journalism. news is interesting, and so gather things that people have never heard of before, telling or things they don't know will always be a function that people will pay something for our want. that function will always survive. whether objective journalism can survive, whether newsrooms, truthful journalism can survive that's a very different question spee-2 it's a question that in our history has not been solved by the miracle of the marketplace. marketplace. it's been so by all kinds of monopolies and all kinds of subsidies that are quite artful that made possible the remarkable tradition of journalistic excellence. i think that's important to keep on the table. i think that's one of the issues that will be addressed on thursday because that is a central issue.

okay. that's a good place to them. you want to make one more point? >> i hope that you leave this event stimulated, persuaded that all these kinds of regulatory issues really matter to the future of journalism, and that you feel it is so strong you come back to this very room tonight so now to hear more of the same from commissioner copps. if you come to him you hear him specifically speak to your book and your speech. anyway, thanks a lot to both of you. i urge everybody to read these books and stay up on all this stuff. thanks. >> and they are for sale. [applause] >> template is a professor of columbia law school nfl of the new america foundation and chairman of the free press, a

media reform organization. to find out more visit timwu.org. visit booktv.org to watch any of the programs you see online. you can also share anything you see on booktv.org easily by clicking share on the upper left side of the page and selecting the format. booktv streamed live online for 48 hours every weekend with top nonfiction books and authors. otd.org. -- booktv.org. >> the author reports on the inside the beltway connection of the firm from their defense of president bill clinton against impeachment to the representation of the "washington post." >> this is a book that is not

just about washington, not just about a single washington law firm, but about so the culmination of everything that i've learned from writing about lawyers and law firms back in the day. when you're a newspaper reporter he learned early on that underneath every decision and behind almost every election and every political thing that happened from the smallest down to the biggest city, know it is anything in this country anymore without consulting a lawyer. i started my journalistic career as a reporter in mississippi. and from there i went on to the tampa tribune, and after living in florida for five years i have decided that the only place i could possibly live that would be better than florida because of kind of like warm weather was california. i ended up getting a job at a legal paper out there called the los angeles daily journal, which was known by, i'm ensure looking

back on it if i recall, if ever remembered at the time that it was strictly a legal paper. it's her look like "the wall street journal" and it was owned by charlie munger money from out there. he is charlie mona the associate of warren buffett's. i loved covering court when i was a kid. my father, i'm sure this wasn't intentional but he kept giving me books about lawyers to read. so i had read all the books, and i'm in one of the books that i love the most when i was little was my life in court. i got to interview louis when i was reporter in california which was one of the sort of thrills of my life. and from there i ended up going to -- after writing a couple of stories, about certain internal

law firm problems of one of the big stories was about a crisis they're having. i ended up getting, offered a job at american lawyer magazine, which ultimately to my writing, cutting the demise of finley kumble and writing my first book, "shark tank." and it was while i was at legal times that i had an idea for writing a story about one of the lawyers who i thought would have the greatest dream job in the history of law, which was running a baseball team. and that was larry latino who i went over to his office and he was the president of the baltimore orioles. and larry, i got almost the whole story to the end of the story and then somebody i was interviewing about basic, i guess you know about his illness.

and i were, yeah, sure, right, the illness. it's terrible. so anyway, i begin to piece together the story of how and the age of 39 years old larry had been stricken with not hodgkin's lymphoma and was the 36 person in history of medicine to have an oncologist bone transplant. and while he was in recovery, his miraculous recovery from his illness, he went to the cancer institute in boston and a pipe in the boston red sox game. and ultimately when larry got out of his isolation, they said was the one favor, what's the one thing you most want to do now that you're getting out of the hospital? as i said i want to go walk around fenway park your there's fenway park right here by the way. welcome there is story, i've

always thought of was the most dramatic and wonderful stories because of course larry, 13, 20 are slated, larry not only survived, against all the odds, but managed an even greater, beat the odds in an even greater weight by being the leader of the red sox when they won the world series. nobody thought was possible. it was shortly after meeting larry and telling his story at legal times that i signed on to cover the iran-contra hearings, and that was when i first encountered brenda solon sitting a few seats behind him in the press row in the senate was representing hauling north. when brendan sullivan came in to represent, the room would crack up at that still crackled. when i walked into the ted stevens? no, trial this year, you know,

there's electricity in room that you in the presence was so great live as a lawyer -- as report i've been pretty lucky to be in trials with people like melvin and william counselor and i was going to mention jim coleman is now at you to get -- now down at duke university when he represented ted bundy. when you in the presence of these great lawyers, it's really a spectacular feeling. some of you may have heard, i don't know if some we are watching boardwalk empire, anybody see the last episode where arnold, the guy who picks the 1990 world series is preparing his legal defense. and one of the characters in the program says arnold, you should be a lawyer.

and he replies without sort of missing a beat, he says, no, i'd rather continue to make my living honestly. so, you know, there's a lot of lawyers in this country that sort don't necessarily all showered praise on the legal profession. but for julie i've been able to be around some of the best and greatest. when i used to do my 50 best lawyer story for washingtonian every year, it would occur to me, i would list three commuters i was sort of, there was three, brendan will be on the and david kendall who is right over there would be on there, and then sometimes i would rotate the third spot, richard cooper i think was on their one year. bob barnett was on their one year. i was thinking i could put like 10, williams and connolly has about, there's at least 10, brendan and david cobb is a 50.

so i always thought the story of williams and connolly would make a great book. a few years ago at washingtonian i get a piece called the firm that runs the world. on which i talk about a lot of sort of concentric circles and some might say conflicts that sort of develop this legendary firm. for example, the represented the tobacco industry in the supreme court cases involving whether or not tobacco should be treated as a drug by the food and drug administration. but they also represented the cancer institute. and one of my favorite lines involved bob barnett, who -- this week with david brinkley, you to join every sunday morning and it struck me that williams and connolly represent the network that broadcast the show abc. they represented all of the talent that was on the show.

george will, cokie roberts, sam donaldson. most of the time they would also represent the talent that was on the show, and then sort of capital all of their also the attorneys for archer daniels midland, which for many years. and part of which is retold in the movie, the informant. anyway, as i looked at brendan sullivan's career, the entire of his 35 years, i use is in articles about him when i was talking to people, i was a brendan sullivan has gone 35 years and has never had one client serve any time in jail. which was pretty remarkable because by the time people came to him they were usually pretty far up the creek. it was like he was defending, you know, too many roman

catholic nuns or that sort of thing. and after a while i began to wonder if it was really true. was i just say this? was a just repeating the story so may times that i believe it or not? one of the things i tried to do in this book was to go back and talk a little bit about why brendan sullivan has this passion that he had come and with the pattern is from when he first came to williams and connolly after being, detaining prisoners. and onto this was cases when prosecutors sort of routinely -- he discovered prosecutors didn't always behave in the most correct manner possible. and i sort of came to realize, and i think i explained in the book, why he is the way he is, why his cases turn out the way

they do. one of the best examples was the case of tax fraud case that he handled where he was going through the documents that the government had given him in his very high profile case. and one of them didn't look right to him. it was sort of the others were yellow and this one looked okay. and so he held the paper up to the light, and had his investors check out the watermark. they were able to prove that the paper wasn't manufactured until after the docket was supposed to be tight. and the prosecutor hadn't been able to find, had been able to find original document which it just had a retyped. that was sort of classic brendan sullivan which we saw a lot in the ted stevens? when he was able to prove that once again prosecutors had failed to provide all the

exculpatory evidence that they're usually required to do. and abroad? no, conclude the same result. i do find it interesting to see that a lot of conservative politicians who rail against the awesome power of the federal government, especially in the last couple of months, brendan sullivan has been a foot soldier in the fight against the power, misuse of power by the federal government for 35 to 40 years ago while these other people are perfectly willing to create new laws to make federal crimes of everything that they can and give more power to prosecutors and don't see any inconsistency of these two position. i don't mind which one they take, but it seems a little bit inconsistent. so i had taken office, and i was able to convince the press let me write a book about the world

of daytime washington law, and in looking at it through the lens of williams and connolly, which is what i tried to do, tell how five, the basic thread of the book is to take the five main characters in my book which are brendan, david kendall, gregory gray, bob barnett and larry lucchino, talk about how those in the law firm and by the people that have left the law firm to pursue careers as larry did in baseball, or jeff did with the ceo of pfizer, or other people like bechtel corporation or marriott, have a direct line from the sayings of edward bennett williams, and what he taught these disciples had made in terms of american business and law. and really made this a

tremendous leap steep firm, and a lot of other ways that point out unlike firms that they don't take lateral partners for example. they don't engage themselves in self promotion. bit of offices outside of other places. so that's sort of what the book is about, and kind of like, sort of unlike what you might get from the comment from arnold in the boardwalk, i think that my characters are all exemplify the best in american law profession, which is sometimes difficult to say because when you go from writing for a trade publication, as i did a legal times and american lawyer, although american lawyer was sort of an anti-trade publication, to writing for a general interest magazine like washingtonian, you are sort of expected to hammer lawyers overtime.

not given much of a break. but there are some great people in the profession. dickstein extending a. no, one of the great lawyers in america. at you for coming as well. [inaudible] >> if anybody has any questions, shoot them out here i'll see if i can make some sense. >> in the book you identify that sarah palin and geraldine for our own -- [inaudible] >> robert barnett has built this incredible practice, one of the things that enabled me to call this the world's most powerful firm is the fact that barb barnett's practice, he represented, he represents three presidents, all the vice president of all the cabinet secretaries, all the major media

figures of the country, the anchors of both the networks and broadcast, placing the powerful people in washington around like pieces on a chessboard. and he started it all with geraldine ferraro. and i was interviewing him and i called geraldine farah wrote to talk about her relationship with barnett and how that led to this incredible remarkable practice that he has. is just about the time that sarah palin had been named to be the vice presidential nominee by john mccain, who is not a williams and connolly client by the way. and so i said to just do, at the end of my questioning of geraldine ferraro about her relationship with williams and connolly, i said has -- heady talk to sarah palin? do you know share this distinction of being the only two women in american history to be nominated for vice president? has she to -- has she called

you, talking to see what it might be like? and she said, well, she said no, but then she said, actually senator mccain had called me. and i called him back. he had told me to tell me that what he had done, and i called him back. and i said, which are locked. and he said, well, she's right here. i will put her on the phone. and so he put sarah palin on the line, and she basically had no clue who geraldine ferraro was. the conversation was very short, so, so when sarah palin's book "going rogue" came out, there's a whole page in there about how sarah palin was going around, was going around the country talk about how great geraldine ferraro was there in geraldine ferraro had called her up to thank her for all these chats on the campaign trail.

so anyway, i told geraldine ferraro back and i said, her account a little different from yours. in geraldine ferraro would've repeated the story as she told to me the first time. so i was satisfied to put in the book, but i didn't -- sarah palin is very attractive, a person with a lot of energy. i was having one can't like a. i watched her show the other night. i saw her stand up to the grizzly bear. but she can tell some whoppers, that's all i can say. a woman knows some whoppers. [laughter] >> anybody have any other questions you would like to ask? okay, well i hope you enjoy the evening. and i will go over there and sign some books. [applause] >> kim eisler is the national

editor for the washingtonian magazine. is the author of several books including "shark tank: greed, politics, and the collapse of finley kumble, one of america's largest law firms." to find out more visit kimeisler.com. >> booktv is on twitter. file as fort bragg you updates on her programming and news on nonfiction books and authors. twitter.com/booktv. >> there's a new online enterprise just starting up and it is called the washington independent review of books. david stewart is president of this organization. mr. stewart, what is your organization? >> it's a group of writers and editors and similarly minded people, mostly in the d.c. area who are very dismayed by the shriveling a book review space and sort of the standard media.

a lot of book review sections have been folded. they have shrunk, and it's just hard to find information about what's going on in the world of books these days. the coverage of the publishing industry has shrunk. so we decided to try to do something ourselves. this is really sort of from the old judy garland, mickey rooney knows what they say let's put on a show. we decided we would create our own book review. it's about 70 of us have been engaged in it, and we've just launched and had a great response. it's been a lot of fun and very gratifying. >> what kind of books will you be reading on this i'd? >> a wide range. we are going to really review nonfiction and fiction. we suspect for now we are not going to be looking at children's books and we will not be looking at romance literature. but beyond that we are quite open. and we will be reviewing

recently released books. we hope to get our reviews up within the first 30 to 45 days after publication. so you can come to us for current information about what other new books out there. >> can people submit books to be reviewed as well? >> we would rather not get the books by the concert to bring them to our attention because we will have to decide if we want to review them. you can get a lot of books that way. that are hard to deal with. we certainly invite people to e-mail us, bring the books to our attention, send us their publicity packets so we know in plenty of time that it's coming and we can decided whether it is one we want to take a shot at redoing. >> you said a lot of your reviewers and people involved and the washington independent review of books have backgrounds in writing and publishing. what's your background and give us a snapshot of some of the

people who will be participati participating. >> well, my background, i was a lawyer for many years but i am now an author, had been a couple of books on american history, one on writing the constitution, the summer of 1787. one of the impeachment trial of andrew jackson and i have a new and coming out this fall on edinburgh's western conspiracy. it's called american emperor. the other folks involved come from journalism. there are book writers as well. we are so lucky in recruiting reduce. we have the book on the eichmann trial in israel. were able to get patricia wald on the war crimes tribunal for yugoslavia. we been able to get the leading constitutional scholar, to look at a first amendment book for us. we just had a terrific response

from people, just as an example, an mit professor is a wonderful book at about ratification of the constitution, going to look at a new book by gordon wood. soy been able to get top notch reviewers and it's an exciting thing. you know, everybody in this operation works for the same amount of money. nobody is paid. that includes our reviews. so it's just wonderful to see people willing to pitch in to great this conversation about the book, the world of books which is about what we are all about. >> that has been a decline in traditional media review of books, but online there is quite an active marketplace of reviewers. what do you bring to the table that is different? >> i think we will bring the death and the quality of our reviewers. we also are doing features. we're going to have author interviews, q. and a's. we are having a couple of radio interviewers partners who will

be putting up podcasts. so we will provide a full range of information. and i think the other operations that are trying to do the same thing are doing the lord's work as well i certainly support what they're up to but i think there is room for a lot of voices and that's important when you're reviewing books is there are a lot of voices. so you're not just stuck with one or two, reactions of new books which may be idiosyncratic in the reactions. >> will you be looking at politically slanted books as well? and we be looking at books from the left and from the right and the middle? >> of course. you know, we are predominantly washington area writers. we have a lot of interest in political and historical topics. we will take them all on from every point on the spectrum. >> and how often will you be putting up new material?

>> we'll have new content up every day. either a new interview or review. in the early days we're trying not to set the bar too high for ourselves, but as time goes on we expect the content to become richer and richer and were looking forward to this. >> and you say on your website you've got your seed money to the aiw freedom to write fun. what is that? >> its associate with american independent writers which is a writers organization here in the d.c. area. and the freedom to write fun was a 501(c)(3) that is a fully with aiw. and we have done very modest fund-raising. need to do more. but enough to get us up and running, and it's been a great sponsorship. >> david stewart as the president of the washington independent review of books.