you're watching booktv on c-span2. here's our prime time lineup for tonight. coming up at 7 eastern, john prendergast and michael matteocks talk about "unlikely brothers." at 8, jason berry exposes what he says is the secret life of money in the catholic church. at 9 p.m. eastern, watch the book release party of "muzzled" by juan williams. and then at 9:30, rusty bradley talks about his experiences in afghanistan. and "after words," jay bahadur is interviewed about his book, "the pirates of somalia." up next, victor pickard, co-editor of "will the last reporter please turn out the lights," and a panel of experts discuss the problems facing the

news industry today and what can be done to preserve it. it's about an hour and 20 minutes. >> so good afternoon. my name is tom glazier, and i'd like to welcome you to the new america foundation to what will be a fascinating discussion about the current state of journalism in today's media landscape. i lead our work here on media policy as part of a team housed within new america's open technology initiative. and for just under the past two years we've been considering how the changing media and technological landscape affects citizens' participation in a democracy. backdrop for our work, a report that concluded that individuals need three things to participate in a democratic society. relevant and credible information, the education needed to engage with that information, and opportunity to participate in the public life of their community. how this will happen in the 21st

century has brought a vigorous debate and even the engagement of the fcc. a report on june 9th focused on the changing media landscape in the broadband age. the report was long in if making and long on form, its 468 pages have received a lot of media attention, and it makes our meeting and event today very timely. so our event today focuses specifically on a book that bring together many of the most significant contributions to this debate about journalism in the future that come from many perspectives. the book and our event today have the same title, not particularly optimistic. [laughter] "will the last reporter, please, turn out the lights?" [laughter] as the co-editors note in the first paragraph of the introduction, american journalism is in an existential crisis, and if that doesn't make you think this is serious, it goes on to state this is

impossible to conceive of effective governance and the rule of law, not to mention individual freedom, social justice and effective and enlightened solutions to daunting problems. without a credible system of journalism, in short, just about everything rides on how the crisis in journalism plays out. these are the questions that form the backdrop for the book and our event today. the contributions the book contains contain a wide range of perspectives from journalists, scholars and activists. to introduce us to the book, we've invited co-editor victor pickard who's a research fellow with us and a professor at new york university to share his thoughts on the book and what it covers. subsequently, we'll move to a round table discussion and be joined by four additional chapter authors, nicky usher who i had written down here as professor at george washington university for several days, but

actually she informs me it's -- she's not yet to start, so she's almost a professor at gw. thomas frank, a former "wall street journal" journalist, author of "what's the matter with candice? is" jessica clark, also a fellow at the new america foundation as well as at the center for social media at american university. finally, craig aaron, former editor, another president and ceo of free press. i'm also very pleased to see some familiar faces in the audience, especially professor michael carpini, dean of the annenberg school and also a chapter author. before i start there's a little housekeeping that i mentioned before, the event is live streamed on the web as well as being recorded for c-span. everything is on the record forever or at least as long as c-span, google or wikileaks can index it. [laughter] for those of you on twitter, please, use the hash tag if you

are watching remotely, and we normally have about twice the audience in the room watching remotely. please, use that event, and we'll pick up your questions in the q&a session at the end. if you do wish to ask a question in the final section of the event, please, wait for the microphone. we need to respect the online audience and make sure they hear us too. so without further introduction, i would like to invite victor pickard to the podium to share some reflections as a co-editor. victor, should we be as optimistic as your title suggests? please. put your hands together. [applause] >> thanks. that's a great question, and i'm afraid my talk will be a little bit in keeping with the pessimism of the title. but then we'll rely on the panelists to bring it back up. um, it's, it mean a lot to me to be able to talk to you at the new america foundation. i haven't been here since the spring of 2009 when i was

working here full time as a research fellow, and when i reflect back on that period, i remember that there was something in the air at the time as we were moving in to these new offices. it wasn't just the fresh carpet smell, but there was a sense of optimism about the media policy reforms that were possible before us. and what was also interesting is that at this time there was a lot of talk about the future of journalism as a problem for public policy. and if you recall in the spring of 2009, journalistic institution seemed to be imploding. we had major papers like the seattle post intelligencer and the rocky mountain news going under. jobs and revenue were in precipitous decline. but to use an old cliche, we also saw this or at least certain circles here at new america and within d.c. saw this crisis as an opportunity, an opportunity to explore

structural alternatives to the commercial media model for establishing a public service model for journalism. and is that was one of the original motives for this book that bobby and i co-edited. now, a lot has changed in the last two years, but unfortunately, the journalism crisis is still here. the hemorrhaging has slowed down, but the long-term view of these journalistic institutions remains bleak. and just to be clear, the conversation should never just be about newspapers, of course, it's about the future of journalism. but it is still with newspapers where most of our original reporting comes from. and it is the newspaper industry that is under the greatest, undergoing the greatest decline. according to the pew research center, newspaper newsrooms are 30% smaller than they were in 2000, and there's little evidence that the advertising revenue that once supported these vanished jobs will ever return. but, instead, will continue to

gradually fade away. so what this suggests is that the advertising-supported journalism, the model that has functioned for the past 125 years or so, has come apart. so what comes next? that's a core question in our book. and bob mcchesney and i and others had hoped for a transition to some kind of public subsidy model. but in a tragic irony just as we see convincing evidence for the failures of commercial media all around us, we as a society are barely maintaining even the current meager levels of funding for public media. and what's worse is that many of the highly-touted alternatives have not panned out, specifically pay walls or online subscription models where readers pay for content which some have likened to a hail mary pass for the newspaper industry. it may work for certain niche markets, but it doesn't seem to be a systemic fix. i recently watched the new documentary, "page one," has anyone had a chance to see that

yet? a few of you? i thought it was generally very well done, but i was struck by how much "the new york times" journalists seem to be pinning their salvations on the success of pay walls. and this in despite of the fact that recent reports are showing that the revenue that's being generated by pay walls is not coming close to offsetting other losses. now, other digital start-ups are emerging, but it's questionable as to how much news they're producing given the number of journalists they employ. to just give one example, i exchained e-mail -- exchanged e-mails recently with josh marshall, i'm sure a lot of you are are familiar with it. i'm a big fan. it's often trotted out as an exemplar for what the internet can produce in terms of news production. and i asked josh how many journalists they were employing, i had always heard somewhere around ten. he told me my information was dated, they're now employing 14, and they hope to expand to 17 very soon.

so 17 journalists on the surface, that sounds promising, but then if you juxtapose that with the thousands of journalist jobs that have been lost in just the last few years, it leads to a more sobering assessment. so i don't want to sound too pessimistic. there are reasons for hope. new experiments continue. and there does at least seem to be consensus that new journalistic models are required. but the consensus ends there. this crisis really is as much about how we think about journalism as it is about the journalism crisis itself. if you think of journalism primarily as a commodity, then its profitability dictates its existence. but if you think of it first and foremost as a public service or as a public good, then you recognize it must be sustained regardless of market support. and how we frame and understand the problem lead to different emphases and different approaches. now, overall there's been a compelling pluralism to these debates about the future of journalism, and a lot of

assumptions are being challenged, new ideas being advanced. that's why bob and i put together this book of 32 essays of the future of journalism which i'm going to briefly discuss in my remaining time. we had three basic aims for the last reporter to bring in the structural nature of the crisis, to organize the debate according to many of the major positions on the future of journalism and to advance the discussion with fresh proposals. the book, basically, divides evenly between these three objectives. we reprinted some classic pieces from 2008 and 2009 to give a sense of the run up to and the early stages of the crisis. we tried to capture some of the more innovative policy proposals for supporting journalism. this is something i hope we can get into more in the discussion, and we also have pieces that look at the implications of the changing media landscape like bruce williamson, the aforementioned michael carpini that says people are getting

their information from fake news like "the daily show," and this raises troubling questions about accountability. there are a number of contributors to the book that look at what kinds of content are rushing into the void left by departing traditional journalists. we tried to fairly represent diverse views, many of which we did not agree with. we have david simon advocating for pay walls, we have benkler suggesting that wikileaks will organically provide an alternative if given time, and the editor of "reason" magazine suggests the crisis is written by its losers and people like us are being overly alarmist. so we deliberately sought views that did not necessarily correspond with our own. yet, like many books, we saw this as a vehicle to intervene in policy debates, and we make clear that we come down in support of public subsidies for sustaining experimental and independent media. another aim of the book was to

remind people that our current media policies are not inevitable, nor are they natural, nor necessarily ideal. the book does this in two ways. one is by internationalizing the problem by showing what other democracies are doing in response to their journalism crises. rod benson and be craig aaron who you will hear from later both do a great job of showing this by showing how the u.s. is unique among democracies for how little it spends on its public media system. rod benson also debunks many of the myths associated with a government-supported press like the idea that it leads to less journalistic independence or a totalitarian society. his research actually shows the exact opposite happening. in addition to internationalizing the problem, if we his to toricize the debat, we can see that the internet did not simply break the news a few

years ago. it's been in a slow decline for decades. one could even argue that there were structural vulnerabilities built into the commercial system's original design. history also shows us that the u.s. government has always supported news media. the historian richard john has uncovered a tradition of large postal subsidies for newspaper distribution and others have expanded on this scholarship including jeff cowan and david west fall in the chapter they wrote in our book. and even less known are the roads not taken when the government merely intervened to permanently create a less market-dependent media system. my chapter in the book focuses on one of these critical youngtures in the post-- junctures which what might be referred to as a social democratic approach to media. and in response to a crisis with some similarities to the one we're facing today, progressive policymakers sought to lessen profit pressures on key parts of the media system. for example, they called for

experiments in nonprofit print media and more of a public interest model for broadcast media. so to give one example of that, if broadcasters didn't adhere to strict public interest man davids, they would trigger -- mandates, they would trigger a public discussion and likely termination of their broadcast license. that's, of course, inconceivable today although commissioner michael copps who spoke here just last week on many of these issues has often tried to reinsert some of these ideals back into the media policy process. ..

>> and the mills in question are what are referred to as content mills development all -- mills. you all know what this is? there's probably dozens of them by now that have figured out a way to produce journalism that's really, really, really, um, inexpensive. and the way you do that is by, you know, hiring, you know, people via the internet to write about -- you have hundreds of topics out there that you're looking for stories on, and, you know, and whatever, 300 words or something like that. and they -- what makes it really wonderful is that they pay these writers very, very, very little. i've got the amount somewhere in my harper's story, what is it, 15 cents -- no, it's not 15 centss. that would be really generous. that would be dark and today tannic if they paid them that much. -- dark and satanic if they paid them that much. they get $15 per story, okay?

and the copy editors, this is at a company called demand media. that was on average people got $15 per story, and the story is 300 words long. and the copy editors there get $2.50 for each story that they correct. so the idea is you have to do a whole bunch of these in a day or something or a week or whatever in order to make a living at this. but, you know, people insist it can be done, you can, you can earn a living this way. you just have to crank out lots and lots of stories. what really intrigued me about the content mills is the way that they choose what stories to assign to people. they do it with a computer program. it looks at what people are searching for on google and then assigns stories on that basis. well, they combine it with another factor which is what would an advertiser pay to association themselves for a given topic?

practice along the model of the content to. the answer is it is the guy that . that is the only winner. i have another idea. >> $15. so different perspective. how about the more expansive vision. plus, you can expand to journalism. the future, i suppose, pokes it will be paid $0 in contributing.

>> sure. how many people in this from actually know what journalism means? of cape. we've got a very special crowd. when asked by friends, they don't know what susan journalism means. to give us on the san pedro like to think of it as he blew permit random everyday acts of journalism, sometimes without knowing it. this has existed for a long time. i think the d-day fund might have been taken by a random person. is he think of great moments in history that had been taught with the snapple will flow unhindered ten newspaper, it has been letters to the editor. citizen journalists had been active to what they have given. so they have been around for a

long time. the question becomes, there has been in decline in traditional. what can we do to give new news update? one thing people are looking for is people like you and your neighbors. the paula have is kamal of the time the kind of content the people want citizens like you to be producing is very much like the kind of content that you see in your newspapers and tv. all of us have problems. so i'd like to think about journalism as a little bit more expensive and because some of the things that journalism could be that it is in right now. >> thanks. i question.

the analysis of the context of where we are. the hygienist must operate in a network environment. perhaps you can talk to us about that. we have seen the demand the future. provided kittens. tell us more about the context. >> so, chapters in the butt, and hampshire -- excerpt available at your local bookstore. we wrote it about the news cycle from 04 to 08 buckingham money was flowing into the progress of our arena to chide talent with the gym stuck in the nation in new ways of operating and to

find some says some journalism and interactive. use them as part of the largest. ♪ campaign. part of what we look at and what we encourage journalists to do in the book has become truisms'. part of a week encouraged talk kind of the horrible pleasure of writing about the current events. so, it is complicated debate that is happening and around what is the compact and to nine journalists and their users. how should these uses the position? citizens, cheap labor? ambassadors, activists. it is kind of -- it depends on what you're trying to do with your journalism which is a point that is often missed. al monolithic definition.

in the book we take a look at the ways in which i just individuals and journalists in direct job but have no work shut being activated. activists come in the works of organizations in the works of other institutions and how high performance of journalism are emerging as a result. >> this idea that this guy has brought up around not people marilyn audience, but playing a range of roles. that seems, my view, we are in a different age where we can't think of engaging with an audience in new ways. if he could show me from the other chapters if you have as a media historian, the audience

complied to know whether there is something to that. there always was a starkly. >> absolutely. always been potential for the audience to be more of a media producer than just a media consumer. a lot of times people said this was something a was invented on the internet, but there is a launch addition of that. to bring it back to the area i have done research, at that point it was generally enlisted that there was not a the economy of people creating their own media and then been the policies from up above. reformers saw that these areas were very much linked. focusing on media policy reform in a bold the new ways that the audience could create new media.

so those five reforms were made in the 40's which was short-lived blessed because of political steps. you can draw a lot of parallels the chair what is happening then and now. one of the benefits, it breaks through this a historical amnesia. threepeat -- keep thinking that with the and that it will change everything. that's why it's always been to bring some history back. >> thank you. in favor of public service media but in the last six months, but battles that have gone on in d.c. to invent you finding.w the rescue. ñz welcome a more realistic and we

allow ourselves to believe. there is this thing that happens in washington where limits are put on blood as possible the attached below what people want and need. and discovered it after turning in.oy there was a survey of people asking them, you know, how much of the federal budget to you think of support public broadcasting? it is under attack. people's answer was 5%. 5 percent. now, it's actually only&p $400 million a year. that works out to a dollar 25 verso. people thought it was 5%. even more so they thought that was okay.nsx they supported funding. here we are in washington having a political debate or people of fighting over table scraps and yet the actual audience out.p there, the actual voters up

there have no problem with a spending arguably hundreds of millions or billions of dollars. this is never the way has been presented. they are not aware that while we are spending the dollar to , dahlia 37, in england it is $80. scandinavian companies. even in canada it is sorted $2 per capita. welcome a lot of we spend $5. what might that looked like? i think it is a woman need to have. one that the public media institutions themselves have.q been afraid to ask.6y they bought into this idea is it not ask for more. every time a republican member of congress sneezes they have to fire somebody. i think there is a better approach, and one worry step back and look to the important

role that journalism place in our society. how are we going to fit with these gaps? the king of the policies, some very interesting things you can do around the edges. will we really need is a lot more money and the political will to say it should go toward supporting the social good. i think there is a surprisingx amount of energy for it. our group took a million petition signatures in support of maintaining public media funding.>1 probably put in that many on more. like all the people. part of this fan culture. we're talk about millions and billions of people who are potentially a political force. yet all we ask them to do, keep your toque bank. really in trouble, help us defend his tiny slice of the

pie. well, what if we put these people to work building that more robust boat reassessed andx discussed beyond just pbs and npr in the broader universe that includes community, radio, interesting online nonprofit experiments and many things that others are talking about.ñ6 i think that opportunity is staring us in the face, yet we let ourselves believe that all we can do is fight over, you know, this tiny that'll bit of pocket change. >> thank you. feeling optimistic. >> optimism. >> that might be that take away line. basically the critique of commercial media, dec any hope? are we left --

>> i don't deal in hope. c'mon. bitterness, cynicism and alienation, that's me.9÷ >> i was just trying. >> you have been doing this with no communication. but tough words. being produced. to you see any hope there of a modeling behavior to of this? >> i didn't go to journalism school. i went today history school, and that fell apart before journalism. there were cranking out historians like matt in the 1990's. people with ph seasoning is, there are more of them. we all went on on to the job market. you know, there should have been something like content.

abject teaching, which is one of my friends were doing. to this day a lot of them still can't get tenure track jobs. we are in our 40's. delicate the situation and i can make more money ready for the alternative newsweeklies in chicago, so i did. that was the end of that. academia. it would. ♪ i thought about this. you know, the models for the future is the mall, the continental. that is one system that works anyway. people get paid, look, let me take a step back. the reason i wrote about this stuff is because my -- throughout my career i have been documenting the way out. market populism, a term i made

up. of space then we have in markets in that we think our going to speak with the forest and the perfectly democratic and deliver these wondrous results. the way that this chart is all-american fails and pharaohs and fails unveils. what you're seeing is one of the most spectacular affairs since the financial crisis. one after another low we are seeing, the demise of the professional model. what model is going to take its place? all of us, hansen is getting paid $15 per story. it is, you know, the public subsidy model. the first time i heard about it i thought it was the greatest said the average, and i know that's how it works. scandinavia, you know, the newspapers are heavily subsidized in all kinds of waste. that seems so awesome until i thought about the world of real

live and where you basically have one of our two political parties. smash that. it would be destroyed. they're talking about the debt ceiling. so gold will be valuable. okay. that's my joke. "we will succeed to 1901i have been reading tonight it is ultimately horrifying and yet to avoid it. a, a biography of william randolph hearst. this was the guy. citizen kane. it you know, give yourself a gold mine. be born into of relief help the family. by of all the quality riders and pursue your idiosyncratic political vision which, by the

way, when you started off your pretty much on the left. a war going on his own. amazing man. then moved way to the right. in the 1930's wants these bizarre raid hunting sprees and witch hunt that this kind of thing. fascinating. that model is going to survive and thrive. that model, that is the fox news sort of model. in fact, all kinds of ways in which they take pages from the biography. é@lb÷@÷@m@]@ñ@]@@l@ó >> thank you. we had the commissioner here last week, and he spoke about the museum.

in prior decades the sec played a role of public obligations. in no way lapsed. i wonder if you could talk and bring some context of the audience about where we are right now and talk about what you said in the book but also about the sec report. perhaps they will demand media to do more than they have. >> the interesting thing was that it really did in amazing job chronicling the problem, which was the big phone book on top of the debate we have been having. classic pieces from 2008 in 2009. only in the world demand media can those be glasses, but here we are. the report did a great job of describing the problem.

very vocal about this to his credit. when he got to talking about it this is kind of threw up their hands. this has become this thing where i was checking earlier with a colleague. we can do anything unless. and it sort of infected the fcc in debt they seemed very unwilling to use the powers they had. you're using the public airwaves for free. that has been completely brought down. even getting a call from the sec used to scare a local broadcaster and make the nervous. as this report chronicled have not taken a while lessons in something like 30 years. eventually that toothless watchdog does not scare you anymore and the failure in some ways of the current sec has been in not reclaiming that role. they have an opportunity to take something like this and say, we

really do have a problem here. let's do something different. here are some innovative policies, things that we can do. they threw up their hands.n? our responsibility to say that is not enough. we need to get beyond. at some pa we have to get beyond that and got engaged with the public. journalists, we are not going to get anywhere, and we are going to get a fox news model. it's going to take a different attitude from journalists. you were asking about journalism school. i did go. unsuccessfully be out all of the opinions. did not quite work with me but it did with others who said the

you can't be involved in politics and probably should not even so. it very good reasons for being objective for fair in your reporting. of course the bosses that spent the last 30 years at the sec, you know, is consolidating inúó concentrating. when they toppled over there really took the rest of them with -- west of us with them. out of crisis comes opporunity, and we are among the smallest of opportunity. it will be a fleeting moment. if we don't get out there and in case the public in this discussion and begin to reintroduce them to this crazy idea, we really will stand a chance. ♪ before we engage the public and contest a couple of questions. you ought to familiar with the

community of journalism. what promising models to use the ? change within the journalism profession? which ever. >> part of what we're seeing is a deconstruction of journalism for different functions. taken up by members of the public with a compact between users and makers. so for fact checking, coming through databases, trying to not just go out and find the news story, but to the pull together collections of data, pictures, and anecdotes that tell a larger story. adding that lying to work in this way, it both democratizes the news gathering prices and those in some of the gaps if you don't have a millionaire in your back pocket. we were at the university of chicago at the same time.

while he was trying to make something out of a discipline that was crumbling i was trying to make my own discipline in a multi disciplinary. i think i have a certain faith and innovation. the old and the new. i'm seeing a lot of that. encouraging, and part of the deeper mystery of what we now think of as public broadcasting. just a bunch of small educational stations. people trying to do something good for the public that controlled up into a larger activity. the same thing needs to happen now. taking a critical look at what the new technologies could do. a rewarding good behavior set represent real innovation. >> you sound like randolph. >> so, one of the points i really want to make is that is really important that we don't

patronize the public and say that the public needs to be told about how important the information is. we think about journalism not just as journalism, but as the commission has put out. what that means is not to ask citizens to be replacements or surf as models for good journalism or to look for them to be journalists standing for what is missing in public media. but to see people as acting, civic actors. seeing journalism, it is important to recognize the people to what you. people don't need to be told what you. people are already chronicling every part of their day and already chronicling what they see in their communities.

if you look at facebook you see local news all around you. it is not defined as local news, but, hey, down the hall. some graffiti. we don't call it as such. i think it's really important. to not necessarily be so concerned, it doesn't quite resemble that journalism. >> thanks. here's the michael the questions. so, will have to wait for the mike because is not here. the mike is here. great. we'll take it. take some questions.

>> couple of questions. i've been a journalist for 15 years. i like to address briefly. this is in journalism. the wonders of blocking. >> what she is suggesting it might go with local news, but not national or international. people who have access, training, funding. what is this is in journalists going to do? going to be nothing. the second point, the original menu was talking about whipping the public broadcasting, that is a great at dieppe.ññ

>> i don't think there is any chance at all. a moment appropriating any money that question. in the book as well. international. >> i think nobody out there is arguing that you or me is boeing to somehow suddenly become the next white house correspondent. but the question is whether we can supplement some of these organizations on the decline. local news organizations. if communities can have people who are in their communities covering news, that's a great thing. it is important to remember how much we can ask people. more about encouraging

journalism as a civic act than it is about encouraging particular types of journalism. that is the difference out like to make. in no way am i suggesting that they should be replacements. it many of the things we're talking about are ways that we can sustain and provide alternatives for funding to make sure that the good journalism we care so much about continues to exist. >> sure. >> one of the more innovative comes from a professor from georgia state university. it may have been part of his dissertation research, but he looked at the funding for international broadcasting. for example, the voice of america that the u.s. puts out almost $700 million a year. there is a law, the smith mountain act which prevents any of that international

broadcasting within the borders of the united states. he is suggesting that perhaps that is an outdated law and we should look into that or lease look at ways to provide international coverage three those sources. >> public-service media print. >> in terms of the old broad sheet, that is probably not going to happen. in terms of subsidizing reporters, that's a very an idea. what we need to be doing, and there will probably be multimedia. i think, of course, talking of on-line journalism, we are still talking about the busy word which is absolutely what we dog@ need to be supporting and subsidizing. in terms of the politicalgú environment, you know, i'm notg@ blind to who is in charge of certain agencies and parts of congress right now.gú but i also saw that when we saw the incredible response to it the attempt to cut there were

six of seven senators sending m@ requests for money.g@ at think that there is -- we can demonstrate the public support, if we can organize that those political realities can change. how do we mobilize people? i think citizens journalism has a role. folks can go sit at the cityg@g@ council meeting.gú supplemented by things happening in the community and increasingly there will be talking to each other. from a policy perspective we don't start to do that good old fashioned organizing work andg@ such to accept that politics is going to be part of the solution to this crisis, then we really don't stand a chance. that is the best chance i have found so far. >> next question. in the back.

yes. >> on last comments, politics is part of the solution. but like to suggest politics is the solution. you know, i want to challenge a panel to deal with the question of whether this whole idea of, you know, getting more money for public -- for public television and radio isn't really kind of stepping over, you know, stages of development. the model that was suggested, the closest thing to a good model of what would like to see was from the 1940's. we all know that there have been a few generations of change in the wrong direction. obvious, maybe not obvious, but fundamental reasons in the country. so i want to argue for you to respond, you know, we are dealing with in this country is

changes which translates into political changes that transcend the sort of, you know, putting forward the idea of more money for subsidizing journalism as a solution. we need something. we need to start organizing to do with the political issues before we go to this kind of solution. >> of just start with a few think is a very provocative and truth comment that the journal and just made, which is this idea that we will need a transformation in our political culture in many ways before we can really get to some of the for. i mean, when i started out my talked earlier saying that in 2009 there was this optimism. that was a window of opportunity where there could be this kind a

paradigm shift. a critical juncture. i don't want to see the windows closed, but it has been a right that at a moment when we see market failure all round us, we often hear the most is from the tea party movement calling for even less government intervention and public policy. so the first step would probably be at least liberal policy makers to stop buying into the logic that the government has no legs of a role in trying to address this crisis in journalism. >> in order to bring about the political change we need to reform the media. they have such an incredible sway in shaping those perceptions. i don't think there's any question that we need to attack the problems, but the elderly believe that there may be some relatively simple things and

relatively inexpensive things in the millions and billions that we can do that might help bring about that shift. i don't think there's any question there is an uphill climb. on the other hand real living in a tumultuous moment and we could find ourselves in a couple of years may be still talking about the tea party committees something else. we should at the very least be ready to seize those opportunities. for example, public media, almost a trillion dollars stimulus package, the american recovery act, and they had nothing in there. did not even ask. the government is about to put in trillions of dollars to stimulate the economy. why aren't journalism jobs just as important? they had nothing to even put in there, and that was on mr. opportunity. >> the original man and a black

shirt and the back. yes, the back of the room. >> when commissioner cox was here i came, and i'm so glad this panel follows because i also think that the media is use the important for all kinds of reasons that i won't bore you with. this, to finals. i agree with the thrust of the discussion. public investment in the media has all kinds of uses, and that is where we should look. everyone is singing a want to point out one thing that i don't think should be forgotten. i think if the people are going to be investing in the media there are some flaws in how the media has performed until now.

that should be looked at. it might even be a way of mobilizing support. my own work as u.s. foreign-policy. i am dismayed at how the media covers outside the u.s. you know, last week i mentioned the new york times. horrible. sunday 60 minutes repeated the same mistake were basically there is no telling the american people some of the things that the u.s. government is doing wrong outside. people are not well informed about it. my point is i do agree, but if we are going to be asked to invent in the media, and that think we should, the media should also find ways of correcting some of its flaws. one of the biggest is long-term

u.s. support of dictators from africa. that is very important to me, the american people who have no clue about how much the u.s. government props up dictators in africa. >> questions of governance. i think as i spoke, we think about it. commercial media. a share some of the pessimism. then the community media. is not had the greatest reputation. public media. embroiled in some critiques this year. i wonder if this does bring up a question of governance that the key are just go or craig would like to address. >> well, one thing should be clear. i don't think that everybody on the panel should be assumed to be -- well, i very much believe in public media. i don't think that everyone on

the panel should necessarily be supporting broad public investment for all sectors of public media or of media because i certainly don't think that i should be giving subsidies to the new york times or "wall street journal." but i think their is a really important question about media literacy here. how can we make sure at a time when the media is increasingly fragmented and confusing and there is more and more and more, and your attention is limited. people, as we learned from an sec report that came up this past week, people spend nine minutes per month reading local news. what can we do to make sure that those nine minutes of the best nine minutes that they can spend reading logo this? how can we make people the smartest newsreaders that we can't? and so there definitely problems with the media, and that is with the role of academics and the

role of public policy folks are to point out and hold the media accountable. but i think it is very important to realize that the, you know, part of what we are going to see in terms of this is not necessarily a future of public support, but, perhaps to my future where there are bigger media institutions and then a lot of smaller media institutions that are much smaller than they once were. so i just wanted to recalibrate and a little bit. >> i think obviously if we're going to seriously talking but investing in media we have to invest in inning of the money. i think that starts by removing the public media system with a more robust system from the annual appropriations process. you know, one of our big

problems, the mercy of the political winds of washington. a better share energy would be proactive policies, something that would relief fund public media for the long term, avoid the cyclical nature of funding depending upon which party is in charge. how much are they being hammered or not hammered as the case may be. i don't think that is that way to do it. i think that is the government's problem and it includes changing the way we appoint some of these people. maybe the president should not be taking all the members. many to look get reforms in how the money it spread out. obviously bringing more money and might help some of that, but we have to look at these institutions and how they relate to each other. i think we have to the debt covenants because you're asking the american people to invest more tax dollars in the media. they need to have good reason to

believe. >> another question. the suggestion. directing advertising dollars, the u.s. government. and billion dollars a year by calculation. more actively directing it toward aires the media where journalism is most likely to be created to my local journalism. a billion dollars is more than $15 in demand media. i just wonder if anyone has anything to say? i will say, the q&a section. the lady at the back. yes. >> my name is susan kim, a reporter in d.c. my question, a lot of discussion about funding the media.

i want to turn the focus to the politics of the media. the fact that there has been a big rise in organization, media outlets. they're not just producing commentary which would traditionally consider blocking. even folks like the new york times. the following. the daily. all these folks. you know, but at the same time along with this development, increasing public distrust in media. where this news is coming from. based on the original reporting. this overlaps with the fact that politics are involved and it is

political. my question is, what is a place for disinterest business? who should be promoting that? was its public funded not, someone should be trying to sustain the midst of all these developments in this. >> and not going to answer that begins have never been this interested. all is a columnist for opinion guy. i have a question. i have another question for them. and get them this time. >> okay. >> i have studied the interested media. so i would say that ideally you would have a set of people who are trying to establish some

common fax and establish the range of opinion, often inside the beltway it's not characterize broadly enough which is part of the reason. and then obviously everyone will argue from their interest, with their corporate or political. so a larger question of moving productivity to transparency. the media literacy question you brought up. how can we understand the different ways in which gays is used as a tool. more transparent. how can we use the monies that go into a federally funded public broadcasting as a tool for developing the standard of ethics. here is a smart woman. innovative.

she was able to go there because she was not held under the same scrutiny in commercial space and she has been over the last year in the public's face. i would like to see equal standards being applied. a primary new source. >> tell me. where are the union still active voice of professionalism. what happened? massive decline going on. >> decimating. a lot of jobs, they can speak to this as well. but i don't think they have been silent on these issues of all. ideas, suggestions. >> there are definitely been an attempt to create worker elements.

other business malls have been tempted. the business models are exploited. so there are other -- i don't think they have been absent. i think they have been engaged. the newspaper guild has been very outspoken in particular while it is decimated. i think the unit the group, but journalists have actually been far out front and challenging companies that they have been relying on for survival which has put in an interesting positions. that said, in terms of truly mobilizing all of the journalists, there is a long way to go, and that knee-jerk skepticism of not just government involvement, but even politics in the newsroom for them is a big challenge. working journalists have been the last ones to speak a panera

on defense. even as all the deaths wererú lobby and pressure policy and eventually there were looking around. >> i can tell you that journalists who are often union members, but in the situation, often the least likely to innovate. something to remember. and we think about journalism, there is often a fear or panic it goes to the hearts and minds a journalist. they tend to think backwards instead of thinking forewords. what we need to be a will to do is to be held to face this crisis on its head and encourage innovation and instead of worrying about clinging for a

job in circulation and readers, how to move forward. >> just a couple more questions. this to comment on the right. >> what have any have you written or spoken about, self annointed media watchdog borders and filmmakers and social media users who have been monitoring and correcting so-called mainstream well-paid and still influential network broadcast and print media? some very serious mistakes in recent years. all over -- today, oliver christian media that i follow very closely i have noticed an uproar about nbc coverage of the u.s. open, the national golf championship yesterday. a reference.

i believe in the pledge of allegiance. nbc, on their apology yesterday, that was not sufficient for the commentators i've been listening to. >> anything? >> i have written about it quite a bit. there are many more ways to hold media accountable and more opportunities to create responses for the people you don't agree with. i think that is the signature of this moment in it is about free speech. i don't know how else to answer your question. >> at think it is a very interesting journalism that is emerging. the role that will play, very open question. whether it will succeed or just

become another aspect of he said she said. a final question, anyone original in the back in the white shirt? >> thanks. if we're ever going to move this beyond the think tanks and academic circles everybody in journalism that thinks that want to put some skin in the game, has there ever been any talk amongst on strike were of journalists who want to participate put their pens down, with their cameras down. of course, like any unionist will tell you, not everyone will agree to participate. maybe get 40%. the point is, you can try to address the issue, call public attention to it. everyone can spend a month -- i

prefer august because congress can do the least damage to us then and we can all enjoy ourselves. following the end everyone can have their articles ready. condemning those broadcasters, networks command papers that did not join the strike would uncover the strike. it is time to take some actions other than just talking to ourselves. it would be a reminder to let everyone know that if we are doing anything, some people might this notice its absence. >> question. i will ask the panelists. >> some of the things that came

out of that, more on-line video from race to get to play around and more reality television. it is a very dangerous proposition. plenty of content for people to consume. i would say it works better. >> any thoughts? have we made you more optimistic? >> it's my business. a solution. it's my business. the guy you asked about the bias critique. this is actually a really fascinating aspect of our culture in the last 30 years. i used to run the magazine. we had a great essay. chris lemmon. you guys know this guy. and he traced the history. basically more less invented deliberately in 1969. i'm sorry. the history of the liberal

media. they could take always with the other way. guys like william randolph hearst. these were very right wing chance. and so the bias critique was always that these guys were, you know, -- the newspaper was doing the bidding a big money. but still, deliver leafleted on its head. instead of the publisher, the real problem in journalism where the professionals. irrigated the power of the publisher to themselves in their little clique, they're a little like a professional riders a whenever it is and are making the decisions for the entire country. what's funny is as that has become less true over the years, fox news, a.m. talk radio. almost completely conservative with an exception here and there, this has become less and less valid description of the

media environment we live in. it's not everywhere. it's everywhere now. a fascinating story. >> well, i am going to defer to just his comment on that. i do want to say something aboux this. this idea of this interesting is.çprp i think their is a really good to journalism's dollars and

there are ways to change the discourse of journalism without necessarily heavenlying on the question, is it objective or not objective, and to say one thing.your idea of where the liberal media bias critique began, there couldn't have actually been a liberal media critique until spiro agnew.

anyway, yeah. so thank you. >> thank you. not quite ready to endorse the strike but i am ready for organizing and that's going to be a key to turning the tide, is really engaging the public and engaging working journalists in these thorny political issues. i do think we do have a lot of public education to do for people to really think about the media and journalism has not just something that happens to them but something they are actually -- they actually can influence, whether that's doing their own journalism or getting involved in larger political questions, and if we can get to the point where those discussions are being had, we're a long way down the road. >> i'm sure you have some thoughts. >> i'm intrigued by the idea of the strike. i'll just leave it at that.

the idea of partisanship or bias in media, there are couple of pieces in the book that deal directly with that. chris hedges savages the idea of objectivity. lard mcgin races the question -- at it not about partisan journalism. it's more about the partisan hacks, like you may describe them as, james o'keefe and andrew brightbard who are not constrained by facts facts and e rushing into this void. mcgann talks about this in the book. i want to end on an optimistic note. this market failure and public subsidies, it's never so much about protecting incumbents or shoring up the status question. it's about transforming the entire system, and once you do that structurally over time, a lot of these cultures will

change, and if we could somehow confer the status to journalism that we give to libraries and public schools and museums -- might not be the best analogy there but you get the idea. i think that would be an honorable objective here. i'll end on that note. thank you. >> thank you, victor, and thank you to all the panelists. a very vibrant discussion. as victor -- just about everything rides on how this crisis in journalism plays out. i hope you will continue to be engaged in these questions and if you're interested in our work on these issues go to media policies.net, and if you have time, join us at the back of the room.

there's'm wine and cheese, and you can get copies of the book and get at least six signatures. so thank you again to the panelists. put your hands together. [applause] >> thank you all for coming. >> what are you reading this summer? book tv wants to know. >> well, two of my economic bible are theocracy by kevin phillips, and i was taught years ago when i was a student that economics is not destiny but it's 85% of it. so i focus a lot of my reading on what is actually going inside -- going on inside the bowels of our economy. this is by kevin phillips, and

by the became, i'm a democrat. he is a republican. i recommend chapter eight in his book to every living human being who can read. chapter eight is about soaring debt and the financialization of the united states. chapter eight -- and in this book there is a magnificent chart that shows the heart of our struggle as a country compared to post-world war ii when most of your jobs were in manufacturing. those have plumb netted and corporate profit inside those sectors have plummeted. sectors. six banks control two-thirds of the banging in this country. that's too much power in the hands of too few. and 'this book talks about saving capitalism, and workers are being asked to compete in an unlevel playing field and how our free market capitalism has

to compete against state capitalism, like chinese, for example, and we haven't recognized this in our policies. i think both are just brilliant, brilliant works. now we have books coming out about what went wrong on wall street. if you go back to kevin phillips, you can understand what went wrong in terms of who has power in this power. in fact too much power, and these other books out too big to fail, the big short, money by kevin phillips, and all the devils are here, by bethany mcclain about the behavior of this financial sector that kevin phillips address when he wrote his book, and so i'm very interested in changing the playing field. and putting more power back in the hands of communities and ordinary people, of businesses that try to play by the rules, not break the rules, but that very, very hard to do when you

have mammoth institutions with their claws around the economic life blood of this country, and a lot of figures in washington just aren't strong enough to stand up to them, and you can see the results of it. >> tell us what you're reading this summer. send us a tweet at book tv. >> well, back in july of 1926, 85 years ago this month, this country was celebrating its sesquicentennial, 150th 150th national birthday, and here in texas, i imagine it was quite a big deal, but in ft. worth, texas, the festivities were overshadowed by a brewing local battle, one that involved political, business, and civic leaders. the catalyst of this battle was a preacher. the issues or both public and personal, and the citizens found themselves polarized.

some talks about conspiracy and others about troublemakers and in 1926 it came to a head when a successful business man, connected to the movers and shakers in the town, went to pay a visit on a local pastor. this was not just any pastor. far from the typical man of the cloth of his day. he was multiphase set personality, ruling over a religious empire ex-more than just a preacher, he presided over the largest protestant congregation in america, america's first mega church the publisher of a popular tabloid newspaper, and he was viewed by many even beyond texas as the emerging leader of a movement then near its amex, movement called fundamentalism, and the language became hot and then gave way to gunshots toward the

business man. he fell dead. no one approached the wounded man to offer help. soon police arrived but before the man reached the local hospital, he breathed his last breath. the dead man was dexter elliott chips, known at d.e. the preacher was the reverend dr. john frank -- franklin norris, or known simply as "that map." and the story that happened 85 years ago and for the following six months ago is probably what i call the most famous story you've never heard. the story reached austin, because the trial, a celebrated trial of the decade, decade known for famous trials like the scopes trial, and of course leopold and so forth. this trial was one of the most

captivating, at the time, but it's been lost to history. it's a footnote in a lot of books. a story that has made it into some places but never received its full treatment, i think. the context, of course, is the 1920s, which i always found to be a fascinating time. it was a time just after the world changed, when the soldiers that -- here we have just this year in march the last living soldier of world war i, a man 110 years old, was buried at arlington national cemetery. there are no more from that era, and fewer, we see, every day from the greatest generation, world war ii. in the 1920s, people came back from world war i, and they had a changed view, somewhat, i think, influenced by what they saw in europe, and what we know about the 19 tos is two things started happening. one is this tremendous revolution in manners and morals in the country.

they're sort of casting off restrainted. you have women voting and you have a lot of independence. you have a bit of a sexual revolution that goes on. you have all the media thing that come along. radio, of course, begins to become a very popular medium, eventually becoming the media of the day. tabloid newspapers are strong. movies, the film industry has been around for a few years but really reached its -- got its traction in the 1920s. and along with that the cult of celebrity came along. what andy warhol would described as 15 minutes of fame existed long before that in the 1920s. sports figures, golfers and baseball players and movie stars became famous. over against that, you had this reaction to that revolution, and it was described in an odd word that was created at the beginning of the decade by warren harding, who ran in 1920,

when he said we want to get back to what he called normal simple there's no such word. he was the first republican to make up words but he said normal simple. setting back to the way things used to be, and people saul the country growing apart, a lot of the values they held were changing, and so you had a number of things that came along at the same time that emerged, and one was a movement called fundamentalism. when you hear that word today, what you usually think of is -- it's associated an awful lot with islamic fundamentalism, and terrorism, and of course also people throw it in with christian fundamentalism and make the mistake of using evangelicalism and fundamental ism as interchangeable and their not. fundmentalism began as a

movement. but it became a culture thing. it was sort of something for people to get involved with. and i think it's hard for us to imagine today but it was such pervasive movement in the 1920s, that the famous sage of baltimore, h.l. menkin, the baltimore journalist, said in the middle of the 1920s, if you were to heave an egg from a pullman car anywhere in america, you're bound to hit a fundallist in he head. so i was a cultural reaction to the way things had changed. another movement that was very big, at least for a time in the 1920s, and certainly even here in the state of texas -- what the klu klux klan. it had seen a revival. there have been many manifestations of the klan, even up into our time, many of them marginal. the most significant emergences of that particular movement were, of course, during reconstruction,