anyway, so i just kept pushing it, and finally i was just going to leave because they didn't want to fund a blog i wanted to do. and the publisher didn't know what a blog was. and so we -- >> [inaudible] >> this was 2001 or '2. >> yeah. >> and i was really pushing them, and my partner and i really, essentially, threaten today leave and said we believe in this. we belief this is the way this is going. and there was a very smart executive there who funded it and let us do it, and it's worked out very well. but it's still a struggle within the journal and within the dow jones empire for everybody to understand how quickly everything is changing and how you can do more with less. >> and that struggle, um, alas, is what lots of people in traditional media worry about. ..

>> i do think it's fitting that newspaper wrote i am, i'm here in a museum. and unlike kara did not see any of this coming, was close. like much of the newspaper industry did not see it coming. i think winky decisions were made in the 1990s and the turn of the decade, it's almost like lbj in vietnam, another 50,000, another 50,000, then 500,000

soldiers on the ground. similar with the internet. you woke up one day and everyone was using the internet, and folks are still struggling with that. i come from an industry which has seen its revenues in five years go from 49 billion, to 24 billion this year. they have, crashing. one-third of the folks in newsroom a decade ago are now gone. even though i would agree with you, rick, there's a lot of common greater access, to lots of sophisticated information. look at the local level, the situation is very ambiguous. you cannot have 32 people covering the state legislature in this day, two, three years ago, and now have about 27 major papers like that and the second biggest city pull out of covering the state legislature. financial reasons, and not have some ambiguity about the quality

of local content. so we were born and sort of result, the biggest and most sophisticated news engineering down, and one of the big ones in the country, only 30 tv stations, lots of newspaper as a result of problems. they went into bankruptcy. we started a small nonprofit. good news is our main client, "the new york times" for whom we have produced a couple pages on fridays and sundays, very happy with the product. the not so good news is to have a sustainable business model? i think that is very unclear at this point, and whether one will be able to get the folks, mostly the old fogey who are paying, 800 bucks for print subscription, pay anywhere near that for stuff they may get online. and did you think of we later when it comes to politics, lack of consensus, fragmentation, personalization of media, i

think there are real potential losses where many of these papers essentially serve with a sense of social mission doing things that a new frankly wouldn't necessarily gather them a big audience like the "chicago tribune" 10 years ago on the subject of th the death penaltya state where most people are for the death penalty, writing long exposés about not particularly decent guys on death row but on death row for the wrong reason. they shouldn't have been there. we're doing things despite the fact we knew that no focus group would say oh, i want to intimate and 4000 more words about the death penalty. so i think there's some questions to be raised as we go, and i had the distinct sense of being in a transitional period, as we had somewhere down another path even with all the wonderful new means of twitter and facebook and all at our disposal which can theoretically get a lot more information out to folks. i still think there's some real questions about what happens at the local level if you don't

have enough revenue to support a high enough quality staff. so you can have a kara reported in a very sophisticated way, rather than some kid at 30,000 bucks, $35,000, you know. and to mean that is the big question. what will be the sustainable models for any of these newly flowering, very idealistic, well-intentioned organizations like ours? >> one of the things you put your finger on, and it's a worthy topic of discussion is, is the social mission of what we all do. the constitution protects one industry, and that's meaty. they didn't have the word for me then but it is free press. the idea was that a free press, you could have a democracy without the free press. the mantra of the internet for years has been information wants to be free.

i always think people want for information. information doesn't want anything at all. but you talked about a sustainable model. one of the things you're doing is putting something together that i don't know, will people pay for it? will that preserves some of the traditional values that we have by packaging it in a new form? >> well, that's where trying to do. that's what we have done so far, and think part of our premise starting out was that you can actually do the story that we do with a sort of smaller scale, a smaller scale operation. instead of being a magazine that has 100 people working for it, we are very focused on paying the writers to go out to the world to report on something in depth, find a narrative story, and bring that back. you have a very small system of fact checking. women and house fact after. it's all sort of contain and it's all around each particular story.

so you don't ask have to sell that many of those stories in order to make up the sort of what you put out. so that's kind of like one premise we adopted was we want to have small models that is able to make its money back and perhaps make a profit and make money for the writers as well. if you're going to send someone out for months at a time, that's going to cost them money or you money or both. but i think the other side, the way we approach this is we sell our stories. we seldom on the ipad iphone, kindle. we sell them as short books. part of our premise of that any world where there's so much information, so much instant information, twitter, breaking news, all over the web, "huffington post," there might be a space for stories that are longer to have more depth. or someone is spending time not only to sort of get further into the store but also to find a really compelling narrative that makes it fun to read.

we are kind of attacking that space, assuming that in the digital world that's one of the hardest things to do. that's something the web hasn't done well is sort of great narratives that are longer than 2500 words. and we are fighting it is a nietzsche there, and that as long as you keep your overhead low you can make money. i guess the last thing i would say is a sort of a start up news organization we approach it as text start. we are like half neutralization with a social by should talk about, and we have coders who sit right behind me. i spent half my day talking about whether such and such a video can be shown, do we need to code it, can't be shown on the kindle, on the ipad. we're taking a very technology first approach to how we kind of tell the story. >> they are long but they're not just long. one of, writers on my staff pitch a story to become we should do a long story, i'm with

your pitch. i think that's my blackberry by the way. but i do think what you're doing is you're craving something that people might actually want to pay for. we're talking before about, i don't know if people read keith richards autobiography, but i love the book but i was so frustrated that i could hear music and couldn't see video while i was reading it. the future of book publishing is going to be stuff like that. but joe, speaking of long form, you're a master of long form and you been doing it a long time. the selling of the president which i talked about at the beginning was about how people shape of the view the audience in terms of the content that is produced. one of, you know, controversies that your book has pointed out is this idea that any new media world, because it's all pull and not push, you just, you find a point of view that is in

agreement with you. is that part of the reaction to both? >> i'm not so sure about that. but i do think, i sit here as sort of the dinosaur in the room here, probably the only person here who is collecting social security. but that doesn't mean i'm not interested in the future. i like to think i still have a future. however, the kind of work i've been doing for 40 years has been dependent on the economic model of publishing, reaching an audience with a particular book that makes the publisher feel that if they want to invest in your next book they are not just throwing money down a dream. so it is dependent upon the audience reaction. some books i would love to write i know i can't write because i could never get a contract to write them because the potential audience is simply not big enough.

one of the other things that is happened over recent years that i think has been a real step backwards has been the failure of magazine journalism to sustain itself. back in the selling of the president days, there were so many magazines, weekly and monthly, harper's, the atlantic, "saturday evening post," printed long form journalism. that word didn't exist, but, you know, stories. almost all of them have gone by the wayside. i have a friend named tom junot, one of the best magazine writers in america, works for esquire. we were talking recently about a couple of story ideas and sag, that might be an interesting thing for me to do for esquire. he said joe, they are not hiring any outside what it's all being produced by the stuff. so what does a writer like me to

if i have a story that i want to tell that a magazine is not going to want, magazines are not there anymore. the last magazine story i wrote is about sarah palin's nonexistent natural gas pipeline. this was for the poor politicos in the next-to-last issue. i can quite close up but i came close. i spent three weeks am i spent three weeks in alaska research in that story, and without having my expenses came to $12,000. now, most makes and won't even pay a fee of $12,000 anymore. so what's the writer to do? this is where i look at the gentleman sitting to my right and i look, and i say this is my savior. this is the new model that can allow people like me to continue to do the kind of work that we would like to do. we don't have to get a huge advance from a publisher and make our decisions based on what's going to be simply commercial. we can tell the story we want to

tell, reach a smaller audience. he can make money at it because he doesn't have the big overhead. i think that something like a atavist is one of the most dramatic steps forward towards this dwindling and of nonfiction writers. you know, there's very few people who support themselves solely by writing anymore. i have a lot of novelist friend who always said that the one thing they would never do is teach, and i can find them out on faculties all over the country because they can't sell their books. so now they are teaching. and likewise, the kind of work i'm doing, most nonfiction books are written by people who make a living out of the. people are either connected to an organization like kara writes a book, she writes an excellent book, but she doesn't make her living as a book writer. the book is something extra. john has written some wonderful, wonderful books over the years. he works for "the new yorker." that's how he makes his living.

the books are a supplement. there are very few people, david hauber stein was done, gave was one, david of course the tragically dead. gay is still working, but not many other people are out there. and no new people are coming in to writing nonfiction for a living because there's nobody to be made out of it. if it's not a celebrity biography, which may be we think sarah palin is a celebrity biography, but basically the kind of books the best nonfiction writers have always been interested in writing, the market seems to have disappeared, not entirely, not entirely. obviously, there are good new books that come out every season, but for the mid-level writer who is in the store, isn't a guaranteed bestseller, the publishers are not willing to pay the money to the magazines are not there anymore. so we need something like that to keep this tradition of journalism alive.

>> there are other new forms of that. kindle single, e-books, one of the things we've done at time, particularly when a story, cover story comes and that is way too long, like with a cover story about new thinking about the civil war in the south today. came in like a 10,000 words. were only going to run five. we get the full version, it became a kindle single and a bestseller. didn't make a lot of dough but that's in the future. so ayman i want to turn to you. you're the one person who start out what to use to be new media, broadcast journalism. i'd love to know how it has changed for you. nobody can just do one thing anymore, right? i'm sure you pressure to tweet, to blog, to write stories online. i thought one of the very smart thing she said about going to nbc is that nbc unlike the other broadcast networks that has 24 hour cable networks, it has

msnbc's website, a whole panoply of things but all that means is you have to do all of those things too, right? >> absolutely. in my perspective i think there's a huge difference between information and knowledge. we all sit in this room and a bath and go off in afghanistan in minutes will all get it on our messages and facebook and twitter and what have you. but very few of us will ever understand why that happen. there's a difference between knowledge and information that there's a difference between media and journalism. i think at the end of the day, good journalism will ultimately sell. what we are really challenged with now and what i think the american public has grown frustrated with is one way journalism. one way journalism is where the journalist begins a formal formal second holds the microphone and tells you what is the most important story that they think is the most important story. it may not be what you guys think is important story. what's changing now is the fact there's a much more viewers reported involvement. summary times, just coming out

here i tweeted and asked people what do you guys think is the future of journalism. i got feedback from people who say to me what they think the future of journalism should be. i think what tech knowledge has shown is it is a good product people buy. that's what itunes joseph. that's what kindle shows us. any kind is a good product online people will be willing to buy. as a journalist i think technology has been instrumental in my success as a reporter because i use technology as a two-way street that i use it to gather news and to disseminate. a summary times in the middle east where something is happening in syria, journals are not allowed to get into syria. there's a military attack taking place in a small village and i can get on twitter and message to the 50,000 or people that follow and say can somebody give me a contact or eyewitnesses? and in seconds i will get people saying here's the number, his a contact them to somebody you can go. i will give that information, call that person and to the chosen part of it which is verified, report, and then use the very same technology to get

that information to put it back out online and disseminated to the public. this has become a two-way street. at the same time i wasn't able to decimate the broader audience without the very same technolo technology. >> so you put out to tweet, what's the future of journalism. what was some of the things people said to you? >> i mean, the constant themes i got was not being told, media should not be beholden to the interests of the few that decide what gets to be the rundown, so to speak. it's all about your involvement in your engagement. people want to be able to understand what is happening they don't want to be told information that they want to be involved in the knowledge process in the analyzing of the information. >> but can this go to for the other way? i was just on a fox news show this morning in chicago, and just before my segment, they had

a story about the red sox general manager, probably going to take over the chicago cubs. they put out a thing on the screen, tell us what you think. will he say the chicago cubs? and it was an entire three minute segment where they showed the responses they were getting from viewers and saying this is what so-and-so thinks, this is what so-and-so thinks. well, what value is that? that's engaging an audience, yes, but to me this was like wasting a lot of time. >> one other thing, this is discouraging in a way. if you look at all the surveys about internet use and you look at sites like amazon, people trust. evaluation more than they trust traditional kind of journalism. jim, i will turn to, i think you're going to get in here. but what i want it do people even understand what journalism is and what role that plays? if they've got you the opinions

or views of their peers, what role is there for somebody, a man like us, talking about what's important and why? >> i think there is less and less a sense of that, and what are trustworthy sources versus not trustworthy sources but it's a complicated issue. people not knowing the difference between the person blogging on fox or msnbc, somebody like kara who may have taken two weeks to assess a problem. i think we are also partly to blame if you take in areas coverage. i think we have simply taken the political systems obsession over the last 20, 30 years, from making mountains out of mole hills for going negative, and our obsession with tactics and strategy has fed right into that. and you've got a big echo chamber if you look at a lot of the debate coverage of the

republican debate this morning. lots of mainstream media, including "the wall street journal," "the new york times," "washington post" if you will see stories about stagecraft, about how people are trying to position themselves. because i had a two-year old who was waking up at 5:30 a.m., i got to read more of the stuff that i had planned. and it wasn't until i stumbled upon a bloomberg story, there was a cosponsor of the debate last night, that either not only what these guys were saying a substantial economic issues but a very quick seemly sophisticated analysis of what they were saying, that when romney says that obama health care plan cost a billion bucks, it is bs. when rick perry said that he created something like 50,000 taxpayer funded jobs in texas, that is bs. when herman cain talks about somehow us in the budget in the year, it is absolutely totally impossible. but i do worry about whether or not my kids growing up, working

with an ipad, are going to have some sense of where there's an air of authority. and it's a question i've got for you because it's interesting. you work for a network news operation which is in some ways in peril by some of the very technology that it's employing. so there's street demonstrations in cairo, and i don't have to wait for my friend brian williams but i'm not going to wait for my friend because whether it's on my mobile device or its on my mac, i'm going to be seeing dozens, maybe hundreds of the video from folks there, and i've got no clue who i might trust. how does one sort that out, particularly not from the sophisticated journalist but maybe a person sing in key accounts or paterson, new jersey, and goes on youtube and there are 50 videos of the demonstrations? >> i would have to disagree. made i'm not wearing a blue

blazer but missing a certain chromosome. that said, there is nothing wrong with these people speaking up. there's no reason to abandon ethics, and at the same time, ethics standards, accuracy, fairness. what we believe, all those things are critically important including the brand, the itu trust our brand. at the same time there's incredibly viable things being brought up by readers. i've always thought readers were smarter than i would have always thought that. at the "washington post," we been a wasn't poppe, when it was first coming out, the reporters were like why do what you from the readers? well, they're kind of sport, they know things. and i think the argument that comes about the stuff is this isn't trustworthy, this isn't right, it's not entirely true. one, first of all i had an argument with some of the other day, i love the new times but it's a bunch of white dudes and a lady who all live on the upper

east side. >> westside. >> whatever. it's the same people. [laughter] secondly, people are smart and they can rise above the noise that. there's lots of tuesday to allow them to rise above the noise. at the same time you get a much more rich and viable system. when we do news stories we don't base them on what readers tell us. we do our reporting. at the same time, respect for the story as it is ongoing but it gets better and better and better pics i don't know why, keep in mind, getting more video. adds richness to the story. >> but kara, my question simply -- [inaudible] >> and is wearing a blue blazer >> the tie is fantastic and. >> thank you. got it in london. [laughter] >> i think it's a great all that

stuff is out there, that there is in some ways destruction of a small group of folks as the gatekeepers. i think there's the populism and a lowercase democracy to it all, is salutary. my question is, tell me about the business models where bide his fellow and brian williams can make the sort of money telling you about what's going on in cairo in a day in which you've been submerged with -- i want you to weigh in on that. >> the thing is talking about the importance of that, and you will talk about this, but the time that twitter kind of blew me away was when the iranian uprising like four years ago when people work tweeting in real-time about what was happening. and it's not like they are trusted sources or not. its real-time primary source information. if you have benjamin franklin tweeting from the constitutional convention you would have a lot

fewer books about what happened at the constitutional convention because we would know. we would be able to sort it out. how does that affect -- right, i don't know how -- so much money. but how does that affect your reporting? because in what it's like how do you compete with those folks? >> first of all i want is a very pretty i don't care what anybody watches a single one of a news report. i don't care if they watch on tv, and i got, i don't care if they watch it on their watch. that's not my concern. that's for the really brainiac technology people, and a force of the big corporations who delay the ruling out of the technology and how quickly i can get my report to you. so that's one part of it. i want people to be able to consume news and products in what i think one of the biggest challenges is what i call very timely the steve jobs? no, which is steve jobs died wednesday, i believe it was wednesday night after most of

you met nightly newscast had finished. by thursday the next night, all three networks led with steve jobs' death. there isn't a single piece of information on any of the three networks at 7:30 on thursday that i learned that i didn't learn just by normal regulatory consumption of information that i didn't go out about what to do anything but i didn't pick up a newspaper, but just by logging on the internet, going to my gmail account, friends posting things on facebook. i can't take the number of people who have linked steve jobs 2005 commencement address at stanford and yet somehow the newscast on thursday decided they dug it up. nobody knew about it honestly, had any of you just turn on the internet? that kind of expression, you don't turn on the internet. [laughter] that i don't want to roughly any feathers. not my point is, when you come talk about model, this is just a personal feeling, i could be completely wrong, but one idea i think might work is that the

internet itself needs to be restructured in the sense that all of us today have a television set or most of us have a television set, where some of us will pay $150 to get the premium channels of hbo and a 27 showtimes and the stars an encore. some of us want the basic 11 channels and pay the $50 a month. i don't think that model is necessary to wrong model to apply to the internet. i don't think that all of us here visit detroit and websites that exist it would probably in most technology and systems to show, we visit about a dozen to two dozen websites on the record basis and spent a lot of time there. so why would an internet company, charge me $100 to give that extra to a trillion websites would only use 10 websites? if they're willing to give me access to the new times and to "time" magazine and to the atavist when additional $5 flat free, not paying per usage, i'm still getting the full expense of the new times and "the wall

street journal." but charging $8 for the internet and $4 for every package of websites that want use, a bundle of websites. you can start packaging these bundles are depicted with international news channel for $4 al-jazeera english, al-jazeera arabic, you may not want it. you may be content with a few american newspapers and you pay the $4 for it. at the end of the day once you pay those $4 instead of this going back like to the dollar 99 for the premium article. i don't want to be $2 to his summaries of penny. that's the bottom line. i wanted up to access the internet. i understand that if i'm going to give you guys are really good product, that comes with calls. that's what a go back to the point are you. the american public and consumers are willing to pay for good product. if you increase the quality of the journalism, you increase the quality of the product people will pay for. the final point which was about making a material more enriching, one of the core products in b.c. is working on was that they have an amazing

archive that goes all the way back to the 1921 universities to do the newsclips. so what they did is this book i think about john f. kennedy, the presidency of john f. kennedy called 50 days. they have made an ipad application that goes along with this book. as you are reading, there are pictures of john f. kennedy, if you tap on you get to see the report was filed on the day john f. kennedy gave a certain speech or when jacqueline kennedy on nasa's went to paris to get such an enriching experience. i couldn't put it down. i didn't live around the time of john f. kennedy but he's such a legendary figure that are want to learn as much as possible. also i'm so fascinated by how reporters back and used to cover president and how polite they work and have used to chase them. nobody does that nowadays. it's a real experience but i think the technology is going to take my package from my report, news report, and put it on the website. when there's an article about egypt to be a video from nbc about the revolution. and then press also a link to a

longer format book, you guys are going to get this great product for $3.99. [laughter] >> let's talk about -- >> when will all this happen? >> one of the things is -- >> i want to ask you a question about technology. technology has come up, we're talk about steve jobs and i would like for you to weigh in on it because we think that -- [inaudible] can you hear me? >> no. >> speaking of technology. that cultural forms are sort of organic but i forget the guy who wrote the book called technology back in the 1950s and '60s, he begins this by saying the record album, do you know why the record of exist? because someone invented longplaying technology. it used to be singles like it is now again. but they invented a longer play records that created the album that everybody, we grew up thinking albums are sort of organic.

but technology changes cultural form and i would love you to talk about this. we're talk about steve jobs on the way in and i was the skeptical. how did all that, everything he did change the forms of the things we consume? they have in in a radical way. i'd love you to talk about that because i think a lot of us old media types think what is the value of tweets? only 140 characters. 20 years and now they will have collected books of the best tweets of the decade. bedecked you can also now charge $25,000 if you're a celebrity to endorse products. you can get kim kardashian to endorse a product. >> she has a credit card. >> that woman is a vision in some respects that people should learn from. she's horrible at the same time. [laughter] here's the thing. one of the things i was a, when i go to old in the events, a lot of these formats, the waveform is ours because the media likes it that way.

not because people consume it that way. what's important, i always start every tweet by going the kids love it. the kids loved it and it. they love the iphone. they love their mobile. stop arguing about what would happen. you don't have a right to be in business. the way the media should cover itself, the way he covers groupon, you know what i mean? but they feel like they have a right to exist and not have economic realities. so one of the things you don't want to do is adapt to the way people want to consume media based on the technologies. people like smart phones. people like ipads. people like, they like to get their news in little bursts. people like facebook. stop arguing. start to adapt and create really good quality things. so the technology is important at this smart phone, even that all black or got, you are caring is a more powerful computer than

you had 10 years ago. powerful computing device when you can get almost any piece of information. it's gigantically a big opportunity, gigantic opportunity for media to take events of the. they just have to stop saying i wish it wasn't so and i wish -- and start to do things like doing what we're doing. we don't get rid of quality and we don't get read of accuracy, we don't get rid of fairness but we adapted we don't make as much money as brian williams. maybe nobody wants to watch brian williams. that's too bad for brian williams but it's not bad for the consumer. you have to start thinking what you people want to have and how do they want it? >> but what the technology is doing, i am saying this for 10 years, people will argue with me that people are not arguing anymore, that the visual image is replacing the written word as the basic unit of communication. that because technology now enables us to see everything as is happening, to go back and see

the coverage of jfk and not just read about it, who wants to read about a? it's a more immediate impact to actually see it then to hear. the written word was away of explaining things to a reader, but if you can show them and tell them through live action and the visual imagery, it's much more powerful. basically, the printed word has had a good long run to get started with gutenberg and his run up until steve jobs. and now i think that is ebbing and is being replaced by something to which will be much more visual and impact in which is much more suitable for the new technology that we have. >> you are uniting all of them. what i take exception about that, and it may be a temporary thing, the rise of e-mail, more people around the world type more since the rise of the enough that any time in human

history. island to type when i was 18. my kids learned to type when they're eight and nine years old. they have written more e-mails than i probably ever wrote at that age. >> the ipads or iphones it is tough to die. me if you're a little kid but you can do it, i had to give up on android phone because i couldn't type on those little keys. but i haven't ipads now but even there, you know, i'm just not dexterous enough. >> maybe don't have to choose. it kills me that they have to think that the consumer can choose. at the consumer wants text they can have text if they what they do, they can have it up if they want audio, there's this site called pinter. you paint pictures of things you like up and everybody talks about them. it doesn't matter. we have to stop arguing about the media. like how it's coming through and realize you can get anything. >> i completely agree with you but one of the biggest daunting challenges i think joe's face is

they haven't come to grips with, especially the key decision-makers is they are really annoyed about the fact that when they make a run down they are the ones prioritizing the stories which none of us in this room make important stories. they may decide to lead with this story went around everyone in this room thinks it's something completely different. what's the first thing? i don't think that's the lead story, change the channel but i don't want to waste my time watching a three-minute report about the weather went to think the web is -- >> how do you get around that? >> the consumers. they don't care what i think. >> the evening news -- dinosaur, but even that idea that there is a hierarchy, the hierarchy in 18 is, on the front page of a physical newspaper. people don't want you to say this is more important than that. >> it's like my opinion on this subject is that stop putting so much emphasis on what the lead story is. gave me the best story that you

were going for today, and you know that if there are important stories people will find a way to get to them. and just make sure they getting out of the public on the technology driven resources. and people will choose to i want to watch what all the three networks did about egypt, and someone else may think i want to know what the jobs are. so and they think it's the house story. thinking i 22 minutes i will lead with a house for company was a star and a new job story, i'm going to put egypt on the list, you are monopolies your 22 minutes and you're probably turning off viewers. the viewership of nightly news and others are declining not because people suddenly don't want you, it's everything are telling them at 7:30 p.m. they have consumed in some way shape or fashion. >> what does rick do with the weekly magazine faced with a? >> is there a future for the weekly mags and? >> every form still exists. like radio exists. people still make pottery.

.net and. >> don't compare yourself to pottery. [laughter] >> but there's a range -- please don't we do that. [laughter] >> please do. everybody, "time" magazine equals pottery. >> right there, they are covering this in real-time, blogging about it, tweeting about where it that you wear on every single platform that there is. so in a way, the print magazine is a legacy product come but it's a product from a brand that you might say i love getting on my mobile platform that tweets. i will throw in for you, i'm charging for the ago through a misprint magazine that comes out once a week. there are plenty of people, for example, we have 12 or 13 million users a month online. a lot of them are young people. they read a story on time.com and will be pleasantly surprised to find that there's a print

product that goes with it, too. so i think people of every different form of media. >> here's the other thing you have to do as managing editors, and you have to make judgments of what's going to go into that magazine every week because you don't have room for everything. >> that's too. that's more -- [talking over each other] even online issue again. evan, i would ask you. how does your technology and to some these questions? >> first i would say that i would just agree that really the difference now to me is that have debated argument for the readers. or the listeners or the watches began to make an argument that you are the place they're going to go to for this story and that information. the reason i would read all things, if a stored broke about aol buying up techcrunch or something like that is i know they have reliable reporting. they have the context. they have people who have sources. i could get the actual information of that happening in a lot of places, but i would go

there and they create a community of people who want to go there because they have proven reliable in the past. so we're trying to do that in a different way, which is we're trying to make an argument that we are telling a story that you can read anyone else they can go online and you won't find this narrative about this topic. and the way that technology enables that, your earlier point, is that in this sort of print era we went around to a lot of publishers before we launched and we said we want to do things that are longer than magazines and shorter than books. but there's no one that deals with that. at the time does no one that dealt with that because the magazine, if it's longer, you don't have the ad space for the everett -- but the platform have enabled you to create a form that action was a viable before. it's not an end to all the questions about local news and those sorts of things that i do have and to those questions but i think it is true that rather

than looking at the technology and the i bet on the iphone is sort of taking away from these older models, they open up these new doors, you know, the post into reading their kindle. old kindle all that was ever good for was reading books. you can't do anything on. and millions of people bother to read books. it's opened up the way to reach the readers that didn't exist. >> i brought up the business before about state legislature which i think traditionally were not particularly well covered, and why to think great skulduggery takes place. and another lesson in congress we have three reports for every representative. but at the same time at a place like illinois, the same in sacramento and albany, you've got fewer reporters, when you dig down and talk to some of them, the old grizzled hands come and find out what their work life is like you know, they are tweeting telecine f.u., there are ways you can go online and get video of hearings in the illinois legislature, there's a

whole lot of information that we couldn't get before. every port was done me the other day he had a radio interview in the quad cities the other day and he just let folks linked to it. and he's a very smart guy, a very good guy, five, 10 years ago, what did you say in that radio broadcasts in the quad cities? it's kind of an interesting tension here with sort of the challenge of diminished resources and the upside of the technology enabling you to do what people really want which is get the stuff real, real fast. it will be interesting to see, kara and evan in the era of personalization where you are sort of spending money on what you think you want. what happens to these sort of lower priority items, the illinois department of children and families services, and stuff like that question can imagine many people spending much money to get stuff on that. but it was there once upon a

time, even if you picked up the paper on the way to lifestyle section or the sports section. you might stumble into that little exposé about screwed up foster care system. so it will be interesting to see what happens. >> i think about resources a lot because i don't have a lot. i wish they would give me more. we do a lot more with less people. it's just the way it is. i worked in the "washington post," i love the "washington post" but there were a lot of people there doing a lot of nothing. a very expensive lot of nothing. so you can really -- i pay my reporters better than the general pace, they don't know that but i do. we have great health care systems but we do everything but its like five people versus 25. five people are really dedicated and passionate about it i don't work them in hard that i worked as a general reporter. we broke tories every single

day. they can reporters, we have wondered how does that happen? how does that work what is it because we're smarter? is a because we're working better? we need to realize, besides the fact consumers want what they want and that's something you should respect, you can do it with a lot less. i do think there will be some who covers the illinois legislature better than some of the old reporters used to. come on. >> in fact it's a jeanette. somebody wants to find that can find it. i don't know exactly when we first met but the first presidential campaign i ever covered with 1980. i don't know if you're out there than but in 1988 i had two suitcases. one had closed and one had all the papers, all the speeches, all the white papers of all the candidates, carry that around because this is the information that we needed. as all of us in presidential campaigns know, you go toward whistle-stop, the candidates up and about 20 minute before they give you the text for the

speech, or they used to in the old days and you'd be standing there reading it. goby a rope barrier, and voters, actual american says it will look over and see where did you get that? how could i get one of those? you can't because i'm doing something exclusive. now every voter in america has access to way more information than we had in the days where we had information that seemed exclusive. candidates websites, every speech, every position paper, blogging, tweeting. it's incumbent on citizens to do more. there's more available in other formats. propublica has won pulitzer attributes. they haven't people painful great chosen. it's not charity journalism. it is spun by the guy -- tremendous work they're doing to it's a different system pick someone else will come up with a different system. media has to become entrepreneurial. i don't know why they feel like i'm it's not a priest or. it's not like they deserve to be in business. they need to become

entrepreneurial and have to stop complaining about that. you have to try new things. because the consumer has taken google and they are not getting it back. they are not getting it back in music, movies, entertainment, in any part of their lives. so how do you fit in with accurate, fair, quality journalism in that? >> we have only five minutes left. it's been just like this fantastic fantastic penalty but what i would love for each of you to do, take a couple minutes and say like what, i will let you talk about what you're going to say, and then say what will the media journalist environment look like five years from now, 10 years from now. i mean, how different will it be? and i know in a way what you're doing is actually something that is available now, but two or three years from now that might seem as much as a dinosaur as print. i would love you too can look in the crystal ball and say, for everybody here, like, what are things going to look like five years, 10 years from now? >> i was just going to say very quickly before i answer that, on

issues of radio, i'm a news junkie. i consume news but i do know a single blow in this country for npr. i don't know where to find in any city but i know i can go to npr.org and i will find every store and looking for. same thing on my ipad and iphone. when we talk about the radio, radio has increased because of technology. and i think that's the underlying theme. technology is going to enhance journalism, what some of these corporate institutions of journalism to get that out and stop fighting it but actually embrace it. a cuss like i was saying earlier, once they figure out the best way to deliver to everyone in this room the three-minute story, "60 minutes" story about egypt or the documentary, i'm in great shape because i don't care where you watch it. i don't care when you watch it i just care you have a chance to have the right to watch it. that's the most important thing for me as a journalist is you guys if you're interested in a story about the middle east or

sports or the cubs, yet the right to find it and get to it. my biggest concern and my biggest challenge and one of the reasons why i came to nbc is people never necessarily had the choice but if you're watching that, you are being told what they think is important new story. nothing people will be more engaged, have better choices and without not only more information but greater civic responsibility to be more knowledgeable. that's where reporters coming. you guys can see all the youtube video in the world but you will not understand that youtube video if you have somebody there that you trust, you go to regulate and say i know brian burns is a trusted source, that's what i want to hear his take. that's why people are more accepting a slightly opinionated news. people that are more polemic, people question when the u.s. comes to assess we foiled and iranian plot to kill the ambassador is that how, are we dumb enough to think it's going to be that straightforward that we will buy into a? know, why are you saying just that? why are you gracing the wheels?

that's the spirit of the old journalism which hasn't gone away which will always be there. but now you can hear it in summary different platforms. >> let's go around the horn. jim, talk about what the future will look like. >> my wife, a good surprise winner, is now ensure that early child hood education profit, al rocher aster nccic the second tells all about early childhood education. she actually did it. so like 30 seconds, i can bemoan -- >> you have 90 seconds. >> take out my clay tablet and bemoan some problems i do think we now face, particularly in the political realm, lack of cooperation, it near impossible to reach consensus everywhere. and i can bemoan some of the potential problems of fragmentation, and i think on a local level, lack of social

cohesion, very congregated matter, but lack of social cohesion, lack us community is significant. that said i think journalists like myself are terrible historians. we too often forget what came before us. and that steve jobs, visionary but there will be another steve jobs. just like there was an alphabet and a clay tap it and a printing press and undersea cables and satellites. there's going to be something else which we're going to harness and really intelligent innovative ways, even if guys like me, you know, go into a new world kicking and screaming. i think the technology is so wonderfully powerful as i watch my two year old fiddle with an ipad. i mean, he will never know what a mouse is as he takes his finger, as my seven year old becomes like a mini just shabaab pain passionate playing chess on the macintosh but i think there is a wonderfully bright future, we will figure out someway to get people to pay for quality

and we will harness this technology and data to people where they want it, and whether it is kara's stuff on silicon valley, your stuff on egypt, or go on sarah palin, or evan, a 15,000 word piece on poverty in the horn of africa. it would easily accessible. and i think a golden era potentially is backing. >> i second that. i completely think technology is the key and, all of the examples you just gave, a the end of the day it's all about you, all about the viewers have the right to choose. that's my main concern is that the viewer in power to make the choice of how and when and where they can consume the journalism. that's never going away. people always because of the. they want to make sense and will become a a better informed decision with those choices. >> i'm not quite so optimistic. because -- >> that's because you lived next

to sarah palin for a year. [laughter] >> could be. i learned to keep my head down. [laughter] people have the right to choose, and asked there so much more to choose from, they tend to choose what reinforces what they already believe. people don't seek out -- sarah palin, when she was elected mayor, she presided over her first city council meeting, and a friend of hers, somebody who voted for her as mayor of wasilla, gave her a book at the end of the meeting because she was worried, she was so ignorant in so many ways, and he gave her a book called worldly philosophers to teach her something about economics to the biographies of some of the most influential economists through the centuries. and she wouldn't even take the book out of his hands. she put her own hand out and said no, no, no. i never read anything that might challenge my beliefs. now, i'm afraid that

patronization is spreading through technology and people only want to watch fox news, that tells them what they already believe are going, and people only want to watch msnbc because that tells them with what you believe are going to carry that mindset over to the internet and all the wonderful opportunities that are available. who seeks out difficult information? , something that i already know is right to strengthen my position, but i do want to have somebody arguing with me through technology. that's my less optimistic point of view. >> then again your talking about sarah palin. >> no, i'm way beyond that. >> five things. media will be promiscuous, mark prisk is than ever. mean it will be everywhere. it will have to be everywhere and whatever people want to consider. so people want, if you want to print the news on salon india, fantastic. thomas kidd is one important. number two, in that same ubiquity. it's going to be everywhere.

embedded. one of the important things is screen technologies that are coming. i was in korea and saw some astonishing and screens, and basing screens, touch screens especially that react and active people in an environment. you know, one of the things that's important about screens, my kid is a chiseled and we got a big new screen to detach the television screen and it didn't do thing and he said mom, this screen is broken. [laughter] it is broken. those screens have to start interacting with you and you by the. the third thing is that it's going to be noisier. it's just is. there's no wait it's not be noise. that's okay but you can't panic because i certainly that quality does rise and people want quality. you don't want bad milk that you don't want bad water. please, let me by some bad know. people do care about quality. so there's a certain audience, they to become more active. i don't think people are trying

to seek out differences before. i know my grandmother certainly wasn't. last, the most important is you have to be entirely flexible and entrepreneurial. if you don't he won't exist. you have to change and take some lessons that come from steve jobs and silicon valley. failure is important that it's okay to fail. it's okay if certain things go away and something else will replace it if you have to get used to that because this is what, how people are consuming. it's kind of like arguing against cars. or highways or something like that. it's very hard to argue against, they've had the negative parts. one of the things that is currently important which i think is horrible, our federal government in terms of this has, laying down on the job, korea, china, all these other societies play a big important part on technology learning in math and science and getting all these technologies, broadband highest

band -- high speed internet. we have, i think were like number 26 in terms of quality and in terms of speed and everything else. the government has to get involved much more heavily in getting this stuff out to everybody in our country at all levels of economic levels but if we don't it's sort of like saying you know, 10 pins are good instead of telephone. those dirt roads are fantastic. the really important things to have the federal government behind and they are just laying down on the job and it's all about as people cover washington, private interest taking over, critical important part of our future. if we don't get on that, china will run right past us to korea will run right past us. every country be maxwell said. >> i think anyone has covered it very well. i would just follow up on the entrepreneurial point because i think that there is going to be sort of the rise of smaller news entities, literary entities,

technology enables people to reach a large audience, international audience, very quickly and very easily if they find the right niche. so i think that something like the ipad which has had a row to large impact on how people consume news information is only, less than two years old. it's at the beginning of these sorts of things. and what seems to be happening is small outfits will start but it's not really mutually exclusive. it's not like the new york times goes away, as people like to see. ththe new york times will quit printing or will shut down. "the new york times," they are on top of things now. they know the impact acknowledge he has. i think that you will see this rise of new organizations, whether it's us or someone else that puts us out of this in two years because it's something we didn't anticipate. it's moving faster but i think it's exciting to enable smaller organizations to actually do

quality work and find an audience for. in the same way, i think to joe's point earlier, there might be a little bit of return of the author, other professional writer in the sense that it's possible for individuals to even create their own come to go produce their own work whether direct to kindle or on the web and find ways that even make money off that work. not making the same money you get from a book advance but i think it is sort of spreading out and it's offering an opportunity of the same time taking down some of the older publishing industry. >> actually and kobe optimistic about the future. i think there will be more and different ways of information that is available to people. we have to be agnostic about what forms it takes to i think there'll be new forms that would be great, new kind of journalism, new kind of content, nonfiction and fiction that will revolutionize the way we think about things. some of us were saying their two year old was just, swipes everything here we are moving

into a new era which i think it's fantastic. we just can't keep looking backwards. [inaudible] >> there will be jet packs. >> i'm going to leave this with this notion, because particularly the lunch hour is beckoning. can't i get a decent news on salami sandwich? [laughter] >> listen -- >> and you have to be promiscuous about it, too. [laughter] ..

>> with the iowa caucuses and the new hampshire primary next month, c-span series the contenders looks back at 14 men who ran for president and lost but had a long-lasting impact on american politics. here's our lineup for this week, tonight, five-time socialist party eugene debs, friday, harold evans hughes, chief justice of the united states and on saturday three-time governor of new york, al smith followed by a businessman and member of the liberal wing of the gop wendell willkie, every saturday night at 10:00 on c-span. >> the u.s. house is not in session today but some members

of congress are in washington. they are hoping to come to an agreement on the payroll tax cut extension. the senate did pass a two-month extension of the payroll tax cut over the weekend. the vote was 89-10. but the house on tuesday approved a resolution disagreeing with the senate bill and request formal conference negotiations on the payroll tax. senate majority leader harry reid said he will not reconvene the senate. john boehner and our members of republicans are taking questions from reporters this morning. you will be able to watch that live when it gets underway shortly on our companion network, c-span. and after that, democratic congressman steny hoyer will also hold a news conference with live coverage on c-span. we also expect to hear from president obama today. he's making remarks on the payroll tax cut at 12:15 eastern. you can watch that live on c-spa c-span. >> right now here on c-span2, a

discussion of job training and education for young people. we will hear from several administration officials, congressman danny davis of illinois and the present elect of the national black caucus of state legislators, that group hosted this one-hour 15-minute discussion. >> before i introduce our president elect, i would like to apologize to the panel for running behind. we started our breakfast late but we value your time. and thank you very much for waiting for us. representative joe armstrong, our president elect. [applause] >> thank you, madam president, and certainly we want to get on with this great panel, but first let me introduce our moderator. if you were at the corporate

round table luncheon with melody hobson the other day, you realize the skill level of our moderator because sister hobson told it all. i think she told it all because she was so comfortable in the person that was interviewing her. and the person that interviewed is our moderator today. jill jackson is a freelance correspondent who has worked for cnn, the public broadcasting system and also working for racing toward diversity magazine. she has a number of articles that have been highlighted, not only in this area and this region but across the country. i can go on and talk about this young lady but i think she's going to demonstrate to you her ability, her class, her charisma. let me introduce our moderator, miss jackson, and cheryl jackson will take control of the program right now. >> thank you. thank you.

[applause] >> well, first we'll start i'd like everybody to introduce themselves and tell your title. >> i'm the president and ceo of the chicago urban league. >> i'm congressman danny davis, and i represent bishop smith. [laughter] >> and reverend southfield. [laughter] >> i'm bill sprigs i'm the assistant of public policy for the u.s. department of labor. >> i'm nancy subtly and i'm share of the white house council on environmental quality. >> i'm bob lehman and i'm an institute fellow at the urban institute and i'm a professor of economics at american university in washington, dc. >> okay. [applause] >> let's give them a hand. [applause] >> okay. certainly the economy is on everyone's minds. and i know we have legislators out here but we also have a c-span audience. i think people who normally aren't maybe engulfed in the economy are kind of paying attention right now so i'd like

us to have as simple and as easy to understand a conversation as possible with maybe not so much economist ease. if you could do that, i would appreciate it. we have a president, you know, facing a re-election with over 8% unemployment and i guess no time in american history since fdr has a president been re-elected with an unemployment rate over 7%, so we have sort of a difficult situation and we have a democratic president who is looking at having to make history in order to be re-elected. we have, i think, this country is in -- where i hear people -- even students, graduate students, talking about the economy. you know, people really focused on this right now. you just heard last week obama aligned himself kind of with fdr and maybe believes that he will continue -- that the government has to get into debt to create jobs. that's what they should do. to continue to tax the rich in order to be able to help the

economy and you have people on the other side looking for answers talking about reaganomics and talking about the trickledown theory and i would like to ask you all maybe to comment is it obamanomic or reaganomics or "freakonomics"? what will happen to help with the economy? and i'll start with you, doctor? >> well, in my view we could have a mix of programs that wouldn't be all that costly. i laid out a plan on our urban institute website that for, say, about 60 billion would create about 4 million jobs. but i think we need to be more efficient in the way we create jobs. it seems to me that, for example, the social security tax reduction is going to help mostly people who are already employed. now, i realize there's an attempt to have them spend the money and increase demand. but i think there are more direct approaches that one could

take. and as i mentioned in my plan -- one of them, for example, would be to stimulate a apprenticeship training to have kind of a jobs and skills combination strategy and you can do that. south carolina has managed to double their apprenticeship program in a very short time with a very small tax credit and some additional marketing. but that's the direction i think we need to go. we need to be more efficient in the way we create jobs and -- rather than, for example, have a more general tax reduction, try to target the reductions on companies that expand employment. and finally we do need to do something more in the housing area but i'll leave that for later. >> okay. >> i think this conversation is

important in how we focus jobs and how the president is focused on how we create jobs and he actually put a plan on the table, the american jobs act, which is really trying to -- it's not the only answer but it's an important way where we can begin to provide incentives for employers to -- you know, who have capital sitting on the sidelines to get off the sidelines and start to hire and to create more jobs. and incentives and relief for families look the payroll taxes that are very much under discussion right now but also looking at where through the way that the public sector spends money to make sure that that's focused on creating jobs. so a couple of examples out of the american jobs act is one to put money into renovating schools. there's a huge need out there. most american schools -- the average age is over 40 years old. and they are in need of

renovation. there are thousands and thousands of construction workers who are not working right now because of the downturn in the housing market. they can be put back to work renovating schools, making them safer and healthier environments for children to learn in. and the other area where the president has proposed to put some additional public sector jobs where there's a great need all across our countries investing in infrastructure so he proposed to create an infrastructure bank that will help, you know, put thousands of construction workers who are unemployed right now -- could be put back to work right now making important upgrades and changes to infrastructure all across our country and will get people back to work. and there seems to be some in washington who are focused on everything but doing, you know, having a debate, having a discussion about these kinds of programs that we know can put people back to work right away.

>> well, i get to extend the answer. of course, the administration has actually been quite successful over in the last 20-straight months we've added over $3 million in the private sector so we have the economy moving in the right direction. when the election comes, i think what will be more important is people seeing that we're moving in the right direction. everyone knows that the president did not create this great recession. he inherited this great recession. i think the election will more likely hinge on what direction the economy is going. the american jobs act is real important because it targets those areas that aren't going to be served by just general increases in aggregate demand. so while, yes, there is the tax cut, that's what's on the floor right now with congress because congress took apart the president's complete vision of america's jobs act. there's also a provision under pathways to work so that we can make sure and hire people who are in low-incomed neighbors where we know that just

increasing aggregate demand isn't going to reach them and so we need as bob said an efficient way to get people into jobs. it recognizes that we do have to train for the future so when you look at the infrastructure that nancy just mentioned, and look at the transportation portion, there was $500 million set aside specifically for change so that we could make sure and bring on a next covort of workers that we need and construction and make sure we diversify a set of workers that work there and we need to modernize what we're doing with our unemployment smurns system so we can more effectively connect people back to work once they lose jobs so there's lots of provisions in there to address not just how do we create jobs, but how do we connect people to the jobs that we have so i think there's a lot of components. if you actually look at the jobs act, it's the president going from the down payment that was made during the recovery act

into the next phase which is to accelerate the job growth above the 3 million that we already experienced. >> dr. davis? >> i think the legislative initiatives that have been put forth by the president and the current administration has been quite successful from the vantage point of stimulating job creation in the private sector. and i think most people talk now about private sector stimulation. but i also believe that when the private sector is not able to do what is needed to be done, and that as a last resort, there's something called public sector job creation, i think we saw that historicallically with franklin delano roosevelt, with

that administration we saw some of that with the great society activity. that was actually moving the country out of a level of poverty or beyond anything that some people had ever imagined would happen. and so we still have hundreds of thousands of people with no work. we have seen a tremendous increase in technological advancement and development. i was at a hospital ribbon-cutting two days ago. and all of us were talking about how create the technology was. i went to a restaurant that same day and ran into a guy who worked in the hospital, and he said, yeah, all these robots are putting us out of work. [laughter] >> he say we can't find work to do.

so retraining, reprogramming. and at the same time, i think we have to figure out a way to keep some of the resources, some of the money, from just simply flowing to too few people. and so we got to figure out a way to get some more money into the hands of the average middle class in the united states of america who are living and leaning and trying to make it. >> thank you. >> so i don't think there's too much that i can add at the high level on the economy question that you said, that you raised, but i do want -- a couple points that i can make that are particularly relevant to this audience in terms of things that i think you ought to be thinking about, that are relevant to this question and on the question of jobs. so first, if we're talking about getting people trained and skilled for the jobs that are

there, just a couple of things you should focus on. i absolutely agree with bob about the apprenticeship and making sure that people are retraining them because we're running -- there are not-for-profits and organizations running training programs for people where there are no jobs, right? people will come out and there will be no jobs. the other thing for you want to think about for programs that your states are funding, particularly for construction or your state organizations that when people come out of those jobs, that the unions and the fine contractors in your state will hire those people. in illinois, for example, the department of transportation has a million dollars for training for minorities. no one would apply for that training money. why? because the unions told us that they would not hire the air people coming out of our training programs. and so i just suggest to you that you look not only at are the training programs we're funding the right training

programs? but also, what's the result? and that you look at the numbers and you particularly look at the numbers for african-american because i think what you will find and what we find as we're starting to look at them, which we are at the urban here in illinois that our numbers in terms of -- that effectively spend are lows. i think it's important for you to focus on. the other thing when it comes to education, i just -- i have to say -- talking about education wherever i go, in illinois we have a 60% dropout rate. and earlier this week i was at a program -- trust me i'm going to -- it's going to be relevant to your question, i promise. we did a program on the impact of the dropout rate. and it is everything that you saw. people who dropout have dramatically less earning skills over time. that increases as what bob and everyone is talking about as the job -- the skills required for the jobs go up, right? so it becomes critically important that we focus on those

educational issues because here's what's happening with black people. we are being left behind. we are creating thousands and thousands of people who will not be able to access the jobs that are available if we don't address those issues. so let the other -- and that's just going to be a drag on the economy continually. the last thing i want to say is just for work and the availability of work for small and minority-owned businesses. government business is critically important to growing those businesses that hire minorities. and, again, you all -- we're spending money. we're spending money in illinois to build roads, to create -- to do development. and the question is, how much of that money is going to african-american and minority-owned businesses who will hire minorities? and, again, i just think those things are critical components to growing -- not only growing the economy but also growing it for black people.

>> yeah, if you look at the unemployment rate at over 8%, i think the african-american unemployment rate has been over 16% so that's huge. and studies show african-american businesses, small businesses higher more minorities even those white businesses even if those white businesses are in an african-american community so it looks like small businesses and minority-owned businesses is one of the problems that's going on in the african-american community. did you have more to say about the urban league's national study? >> so the urban league as you know has been focused on jobs since our founding. and recently issued a study on urban businesses. and here's what they said. there's some good news. but here's what they said. entrepreneurs are starting businesses, but the key to their success is a couple things. it's not just -- we talk about access to capital a lot and that's certainly an issue for african-american business. but the other issue is economic opportunities. it's finding -- is what i

touched on. it's finding the businesses and what the study found is that as businesses -- the key to businesses growing, young businesses growing, is access to business to business opportunities and to government business opportunities. and so -- and so again i mentioned it all to you all because i think those have all the ability to have the impact. it's critically important to minority businesses, entrepreneur's success. >> a recent study just showed that young african-american men in their 20s are four times more likely to commit crimes as their white counterparts unless there's opportunities for jobs and then there's no difference. so can some of you just speak to the point when we're talking about the african-american community and the desperation of not having a job and maybe about some next steps or some things that we could do to address that? >> well, i think this is where the apprenticeship idea, technical training come in to play in a much bigger way.

not just black men but men generally in the united states and even in other countries are now having lower educational attainments than women. but in other countries, there's a much bigger role for work-based learning, where people are doing something. they're earning a salary. they're taking courses on the side. they're under a mentor and there's a relevance between what they're learning in the classroom and what they're doing at the working site. plus, there is a sense of pride when you complete one of these, in my case, what i'm pushing, apprenticeships. that covers something like 50 to 70% of young people in germany and switzerland where by the way, they have a much higher rate of employment in

manufacturing. they have very low youth unemployment rate so their young people have more than one room to an exciting career. we have narrowed that and we have said unless you want to sit in a classroom for 14, 16 years, you know, you're not going to do much. so it seems to me that we need to dramatically change that. and we've seen that where we've tried the academies which is a little bit in this direction where people have a kind of career focus, the most at-risk young men do much better. when we've tried apprenticeships, the most at-risk and the middle level young men do much better. there's a very high rate of return. and the other thing about apprenticeship training, unlike many of the other programs is that it's a private sector-led approach. as you were saying, when the

employer themselves are involved in the training -- and they're actually employed, they are employed already, now when they complete the apprenticeship they may stay or they may not, but the employer gets to know them directly. it's not like they have to graduate from a training program and then somehow find something. so this is very, very critical that we move in this direction. and it's possible. some people say, well, the united states won't do it. employers won't do it. that's not true. we have a sizeable apprenticeship program but we have tiny, tiny resources. the budget for the labor department office of apprenticeship for the entire country is about $23 million. it's like zero. it's a tiny part of even of our department of labor training budget. and yet there are hundreds of thousands of people. we could expand that quite

dramatically. in the u.k. and i'll just finish this, in the united kingdom in the year 2000, they had a very low -- where they also have flexible labor markets, employers don't have to create these programs, employers can do what they want. they had very low amounts of apprenticeship. in the last 10 years, they've increased it dramatically to the point where now in a year or two, you're going to have as many people entering apprenticeships as entering higher education. so this is the direction we need to go. we need to continue to work on education programs, continue to work on increasing college graduation rates. but even if we were to double them among african-americans in general and especially african-american men, we'd still have 60, 70% of the males with an interest in trying to find a rewarding career. so let's work on both sides.

but let's not limit ourselves to this academic-only approach. >> you know, as a reporter -- i'm sorry, dr. davis? >> well, and i agree with all of this. what amazes me is when we hear what you just said a moment ago, that even if you're doing the training, even if you have the apprenticeship program, the unions can tell you, we're not going to hire the people that you're training. we're not going to hire. and so i'm of the opinion that all of these things have to be done simultaneously. and the main thing that also to be done is the acquisition and youth of power. i'm sorry. we know a lot of things. i mean, we know the approaches. we know what works. we know what will not work. we know what does work. but how do you make it happen?

>> right. >> how do you get it done? how do you get people to simply be fair? how to get people to do the things that are right. we know what works. power! i think of frederick douglass all the time. power concedes nothing without a demand. it never has. and it never will. and i think that's where we also have to put a great deal of concentration. >> and i think -- >> go ahead. >> just to be brief, however, of course, the reason we have a small apprenticeship office is because it's a coordinating function. it is not a public function, it's a private sector function. so the office of apprenticeship is meant to guide issue regulations and coordinate what

takes place in the private sector and, of course, to encourage private companies to engage in apprenticeship. the big problem we are having right now, however, is the problem that -- whether the unions -- whatever it is that the unions say, we have an aggregate problem. there aren't a demand for jobs. and so even in our existing apprenticeship programs, we're having a hard time placing students because they are employees and so we have to have the president's america jobs act so that we can actually get people employed so that apprenticeships can be put on the job. and the president has been very careful to address this issue of equity. we have increased the department of labor several fold. the number of people we have in our office of federal contract appliance programs and we have put pat scheurer the director to make sure executive 2146 which president johnson nut place to make sure -- put in place so

that we have a even playing field when we're hiring and we're in the process of finally modernizing the regulations dealing with construction. those regulations are over 30 years old. a totally different america existed at that time, demographically. so we know that we have outmoded goals within -- and strategies within that program given the demographic shifts that have taken place. think of california 30 years ago and look at california today. obviously, goals established over 30 years ago don't reflect that current demographic. so part of this is getting the government with the right tools to do the enforcement and having exactly as congressman davis said, a government that's willing to use its power to enforce the law, to make sure that our equal opportunity laws actually mean something when it comes to federal contracting. >> i -- just from my perspective, i was thinking

about what dr. davis said. you know, as a reporter i go into neighborhoods all the time where someone has been shot or someone has been killed and the story is often that someone was trying to run from poverty. he did well in school for a while and then he quit because he needed money for this or that. you know, i just see this cycle of this poverty just running these people down and a lot of people are really trying to. so what is the answer to be able to get like an apprenticeship program and get someone in it? how does it come together for someone who doesn't understand? >> can i just respond quickly? the bill is correct that you don't need the same money for an apprenticeship as you would for, let's say, a totally government-funded training program, where the full cost of the slot falls on the government. however, we do need a lot more than what we do put in. there are two people in indiana, coordinating, trying to market

the program. trying to provide technical assistance, trying to expand that program. two people in the whole state. and yet, when we see many reports by employers, they can't find really quality machinists. they can't find quality welders. and part of it is their own fault, that they're not doing the training. but part of it is a government coordinating function. i'm not saying that we should put in billions of dollars to the office of apprenticeship. but 25 million is trivial. and it doesn't provide that kind of marketing and technical assistance that you need to expand the program. and federal leadership is very important in this area. again, in other countries, they've managing at very low levels just like us to expand dramatically. we do need to expand the number of slots. and aggregate demand is part of

it. and there's also another part which we've been expanding growth, but it isn't as employment intensive as it could have been. and we're still having these vacancies in many skilled areas which are perfect for apprenticeship. finally, one other thing about apprenticeship is that it provides a way of upgrading jobs that otherwise might be relatively low skilled. but, again, this takes leadership. it can't be done by any individual company. it has to be a coordinating function and we have to put much more into it. >> i just want to say a couple things. absolutely, there will be a lot of jobs and people in need of work, but, you know, we work -- we do a fair amount of job training at the league and work with people. and we have people calling us for jobs. the skill sets of the people we have -- there's a gap. and that gap ranges from

everything from people going into our city colleges here who can't do basic math. or have basic computer skill issues. and you all know -- so if you go to work at a wal-mart at an entry-level job, at some point if you're going to go up in those jobs, you have to know how to work a computer. and you have to know how to fill out things on a computer, and you have to have some fundamental -- just to get the job at the wal-mart, you have to have some fundamental basic math skills that many of our young people don't have. so, again, and our city colleges is working hard in doing that remediation. our public schools are working on that. but it is -- it is really important that we continue to focus on -- we can't fix a job problem particularly not for our people if our people don't have the skills for the jobs. and so we better be focusing on

making sure that they're skilled. so -- and entrepreneurship and rewarding small business and particularly minority small businesses and having them grow. so let me give you one statistic from the urban league's report. so the average number of -- the average hires that minority businesses have, african-american businesses have is about 9 employees. when those businesses grow to over a million dollars, the average business gross to 20 -- i mean, 42. from 9 to 42. so if you grow those businesses and they have the capacity to grow beyond small 1 to 42 businesses, they will hire and they largely hire minorities. so, again, you know, and the way you'd focus on that is to focus -- is to have accountability. we don't have sufficient accountability, people get away with tremendous amount of things.

recently, in illinois, the hispanic caucus got the state to pass a bill that says that for every state dollar spent, the state has to report how many hispanics were hired. we don't have that for african-americans. and i'll tell you -- and it will not surprise you to know that the hispanic numbers are higher. so if you look at the construction programs, the hispanic employees are higher. why? because they got to report it. so i just think as legislatures and we as people who are advocates have to think about how do we push that accountability for the dollars we are spending, right? because we are spending some. and focused on. >> do any of you -- >> and i apologize for how horrible i sound. [laughter] >> yesterday, i sounded perfect. [laughter] >> this morning, not so much. so i truly apologize. >> let me -- let me agree with what -- much of what you just

said. the question often to me becomes, where do you start? i mean, when you're wrestling with dropout rates in many places, beyond 50%. and if you're dealing with young african-american males, more than 50% in lots of school districts do not graduate from high school. do not graduate. simply do not. how do we -- how do we get them -- i think there are a lot of reasons for it. i think one of the reasons, of course, is that they don't come in contact with very many african-american male teachers during the early years of their educational development. i was at a school, all african-american students, not one black man in the whole

place. not one. so i submit that many young african-american boys -- by the time they get to be third or fourth grade, they've already decided that education is a female thing. it's a girl thing. and they kind of top out right then and there, never to catch up again. and never to have the opportunities. it's tough remediating adults after city college -- >> exactly. >> trying to teach them how to read if they're 30 years old. and they can't read. i know how tough it is because i used to do it. as a matter of fact, that's how i got involved in doing politics. i was teaching ged at one of the urban progress centers and that led to some other kinds of

things. it is tough. and we've got to find a place to start in many instances. and then build upon that and keep it moving because if we don't, you know, this cycle just gets repeated and repeated and repeated and repeated. >> i just want to say i think we do want to keep the focus on the lack of job growth. training is necessary. we have to have people trained. and we need people educated. but we need jobs for them. so in particular, when you look at the american jobs act, the crisis among young people in this nation is intense. and we need them employed more than anything else. it was unbelievable that we could have had the senate reject the president's offer in our pathways to work to make sure that we would have youth employment. we hired over 350,000 young

people in this country when we had summer jobs under the recovery act. where congress could have said, no, with that opportunity to get them connected to the labor market is creating many of these crisis today, the incidents that you talked about when you go through neighborhoods. we have to get them connected as quickly and as best we can. and that has to be done, congressman davis talked about this -- we can't wait for that money to trickle down to their neighborhoods because they don't have very much money in them anyway. it's not going to trickle down. that's why the president called for direct subsidized hiring of young people so we can get to the answer. we can skip ahead. we can get to the point that we want to get to. i don't want us to downplay the need for training. we need it. we spend a billion dollars of job training and recovery

disproportionately because of the formula and the eligibility standards that money went to african-americans, over 30% of those who got served were african-americans, well above the percentage in the population. and in some programs it's 50, 60 and 70% in job corps. in some places it's even higher. it's not that we don't see the need for the training, but most importantly, we can't lose the president's vision that we need jobs. and we need people hired. and as congressman davis said, we can't wait for other results. we can't wait for the private sector. we can't wait for somebody else to do it. that's why we had that call in the jobs act for that youth employment. >> i'm going to support that particularly the youth employment issue. i mean, the youth employment issue -- if you look at the statistics where african-americans are bad, the statistics are astronomical. so i absolutely agree with that. and, you know, we did a study last year in youth employment and we'll do it this year. the numbers are going to be something on the order of like

75% african-american males don't have a job and youth don't have a job and you wonder why they are running around and shooting each other. i don't disagree with that. and absolutely, that's important. the answer to your question, congressman davis, i absolutely -- it is overwhelming. so i think you can only look at what are the things that are working, you know, and support those programs and hold people accountable. you know, and really, you know, we can't continue to tolerate unacceptable schools for our children. we can't. [applause] >> it is just because those consequences are huge and we have to support the efforts to improve them where they're doing them, the career academies and we're not going to fix. it's going to take time. but what we're highlighting -- that trend now at that place where we ought to be panicked. i'm panicked when i hear these numbers. i'm panicked for our people

because we don't change that trend, we are -- we're losing, we're abandoning a huge number of people who will not -- when you create those jobs, we will not be able to get hired for them and so if they're created and we can't be hired for them, they are pointless -- they will not help the urban communities and so you're absolutely right, bill, i totally agree with you. we need jobs but we also need entrepreneurs who will build and hire jobs and then invest back in our community. so i don't disagree with anything anybody is saying. >> let me say the president, since he came into office, has been, you know, looking how we move our economy along, both in terms of getting people back to work right away, but also in planning for the future. and i think also there's an opportunity certainly in the areas that i work in that, you know, that the world is sort of moving towards, you know, green

jobs and clean energy jobs and this is not just relevant for other people. it's relevant for our whole country. there are 130 million homes in the united states, most of which could use some upgrade in energy savings that will put people back to work right away and save people right away. 130 million homes, there are billions of square feet of real estate. we just announced -- the president just announced that a $2 billion private sector commitment and a $2 million federal dollar commitment to upgrading the energy performance of commercial building. and there are opportunities for entrepreneurs in the area of green jobs and in clean energy jobs that the institutions that, you know, help to prepare people for those and to find and to match people up have to recognize the opportunities there as we see that in the community colleges through the department of labor supported, through the recovery act, $500

million in green jobs training. we see these in community colleges across the country. but there will -- there are jobs now and there will be jobs there in the future if you look at things. in infrastructure, for example, whether it's utilities, water or energy utilities that workforce is aging out. they are all about to retire. i mean, the retirement projections in the utility history are within the next five years enormous number of people are going to retire. and to make sure there are people who can take those which are good jobs, you know, ready-trained, well-educated to take those jobs, those are things that we all have to be working on now. >> you know, i don't think we could have a discussion about people being unemployed and not talk about the schools, you know, i've volunteered to help children in poverty for years and you can't tell me a first, second, third grader they don't have a dream. they are trying to get around so

many issues that they give it up. and so there something that legislators in this room can do to make sure that we all ready to take those jobs when they're available? >> i think there is, especially, as it relates to the schools. there are my colleagues who are legislators who really use the position of being an elected official to help organize -- really motivate. i mean, i've looked at so many approaches that were going to improve schools during the last 40 years until i just hate to look. [laughter] >> every year there's a new something that's going to work. i haven't seen much of it working in the places where i have been. but i am convinced that if you can motivate, stimulate, and

activate a community to say that education is vitally important to us and to put every effort behind that concept that they can where the community itself believes that education is going to make a difference for them, where the young people believe that it's going to make a difference for them, i think that will be more effective than any analysis, any reconstitution of schools, any closing down schools if you can get people to believe that it's going to work for them. i believe that it will work. and i really didn't arrive at that just kind of looking up. i actually read something in an education digest about maybe 35, 40 years ago, about a fellow in

st. louis, dr. stepford who did of the vanica school district which was supposedly the worst district, the lowest performing school district in st. louis, missouri. and he became known as the pied piper of education. went around and challenged everybody that he could challenge and his test scores went up and all of the other things, morale went up. and the school district began to form in a way. and so i've been sold on that notion ever since i read that about 40 years ago. they just don't seem to get it going. >> i think i would want to add in particular for these audience here live is they know -- they're scrambling with their state budget and they are struggling with how to maintain the investment in education.

why the president in response to all the cutbacks we have been seeing in state and local employment -- we've generated 3 million plus jobs in the private sector, but we continue to lose jobs in state and local employment. we can't lose teachers. if we're going to make sure that our kids are going to have a fair chance and that's why in the jobs act we said let's save those teacher jobs. that's why the president put the money there. of course, you know, we got the answer on the other side of the aisle, you don't need to save teacher jobs. this audience can really help us. they need to be talking to their u.s. senators and saying, do you understand what our state budget looks like? they need to sit on the committees with you to figure out where the money is going to come to save those jobs. and if the federal government isn't going to help you do it, those u.s. senators need to figure out where to get the money for you. they need to be held accountable for you so that we can keep teachers so those schools don't fall apart and as nancy we have

to modernize these schools. we cannot train kids in the 21st century with computer labs, with chemistry labs, physics labs from the 20th and 19th century. some of them from the eighteenth century. so if we don't modernize our schools and keep our children competitive, there's no way we can be moving forward. so that portion of what the president put in the jobs act to make sure we can modernize our schools, to make sure that we can keep teachers in the classroom and worrying about the bus line and who's on the bus line instead of on the unemployment line. that's vital to making sure that we can keep our investment that we already have. >> you know, you were talking about -- okay, you were talking about, you know, there's these apprenticeship programs and there's openings where people need welders and it's all about coordination, well, i can go find people for those programs, you know what i mean? what is the problem with the coordination of getting the people in the programs and to

the jobs? >> well, we don't have enough apprenticeship programs. and that's partly the problem of the private sector. but it's partly as i mentioned the problem of a very tiny number of people marketing and coordinating and developing these programs. as i said in south carolina, where they had a relatively modest investment, they managed to double the number of apprenticeship openings but what we need to do is act. in terms of education, though, you have to remember that the amount that we've been spending per student has been going up over the last couple of decades. quite substantially in real terms. so, yes, you know, maybe we shouldn't -- we shouldn't continue to have that increase, but i do think organization is very vital. and here in chicago, there is a program called austin polytech

which is a very example of some of what i'm talking about. now, a whole number of manufacturers, 40 to 60 manufacturers have said, we need people. we're not getting them, the right people. and they help create a high school, a public high school, an open high school. you know, they're in the starting phase of things. but they're teaching high level machining. they're teaching things where a student gets out of that program -- they have nims credentials, national manufacturing metal working skills and they can go directly into jobs paying 40, 50, $60,000. and including some of these companies, small companies, are interested in developing a corps of people who ultimately run the program, run the companies later. these are small companies. so here is an example of a place

where there's an emphasis on real careers, high quality careers, high wages, but most of our educational system is what i call the academic only system. and what we're doing now is even in expanding on that so that students have to take almost all academic courses to get through high school. technical ed has been downplayed. and even in some places, it's not that great. so it needs to improve. but we can't, it seems to me, to only put all our eggs in an academic basket. now, as far as the current jobs things and i agree that we need direct job creation, especially among youth, i think we'd be better off not restricting it to a summer initiative, but more a year-round initiatives where

people are in it for quite a while. but if you look at the total amount of money in the jobs plan, there's like $460 billion, $450 billion, the estimate that would create about 1.7 million jobs, that's a massive amount of money per job. it's like over $200,000 per job. and surely we could have a lot more that would be much more efficiently targeted than that $450 billion. and perhaps that price tag was one reason why it wasn't quite as well received on the hill. i mean, i realize they're partisan and it's well received on the hill as well. [laughter] >> but this is a lot of money, at a time when deficits are a big issue. and so i think it's very important, very targeted to try

to work on combining jobs. there's a big difference between a stand-alone training program and an apprenticeship program. an apprenticeship program, you are an employee. you have a job. you're earning money right then. you're not waiting until after you complete and then maybe try to find one. you're in a job. and people that are training you are using the modern equipment. it's much better in my view to use the equipment at the work sites themselves as opposed to trying to replicating all of that in a school setting. there's a lot of things that you can only learn by being at work. there are a huge number of skills that employers say they need. they need people who communicate, who can know how to take orders but also be creative. they know how to ask questions. they know how to get along with other people. they know how to solve problems. all of these -- they know how to

show up. they demonstrate their responsibility. they -- after that job they improved enough they can get a viable and strong recommendation for the next position. all of those things can only happen in work places themselves. and that's why to me the stand-alone training approach is not nearly as valuable as trying to embed it in a combination of work-based learning and school-based learning. and as i say, other countries do a far more -- far bigger job in virtually every country, every advanced country, they are expanding apprenticeship training very substantially. we are putting much more of our emphasis on community colleges. god bless them. they're okay. but they're not a good substitute -- >> first, the jobs number was

our modest number for direct impact, not for the macroeconomic impact and i think you will recall if you look at the projections that came out of independent economies, not from those of us in administration when you look at mark zandi and others that the job impact was much bigger than that. second, the youth employment program in the jobs act isn't just summer employment. there's a component to summer employment but there is a component for year-round employment and we raised the age to 24 because the difficulty that kids are having in finding jobs isn't just the dropout. we have kids who are finishing college who are having a difficult time making that initial connection. so, yes, that's why we have it year-round and we did raise the age limit so we could get more kids involved. but the president's jobs act was going to generate many more jobs. and independent economists have pointed this out.

this was and still is the only engine running, the only proposal on the table to get jobs created. apprenticeships are great but apprenticeships are jobs and until we create jobs, as wonderful as that model is, we're not getting people into those. we are behind in getting our kids into the construction apprenticeships and getting them through the program because we don't have enough construction jobs right now. they are having a hard time getting the kids placed. it's important, it's vital. it's a really important model but -- but as wonderful as it is, as wonderful as it is, if we don't get the jobs and apprenticeship is a job, if we won't get the jobs we don't get the apprenticeships. it cost money and we have to convince people that you must make investments if you're going to get a return.

austin polytech is my neighborhood school. i live three or four blocks from it. i visit it all the time. i know how much money it costs to run it. and i know how people are always crying that there are no resources. nobody wants to pay taxes, you know? everybody want to go to heaven. but nobody wants to -- [laughter] >> i mean, i love these things that work, but we got to be able to put them in place, to actually have them done so that they can make use. one of the big problems is the coordination even in that sense. they're saying, being able to coordinate with industry in such a way that i've got an appointment that takes people out to melrose park right now to

do just what you're talking about, getting it done is our problem. >> but, bill, we could -- we could, for example, have a tax credit to expand apprenticeships. so, for example, we could have included a tax credit of, say, 6, $7,000 per expanded apprenticeship, and that would have provided much more incentive than some of the other elements. i agree that many of the limits with many of the elements of the president's jobs plan, but i think -- you know, apprenticeships are not going to happen just on the basis of general demand, okay? it takes a leadership as i mentioned. and when we saw in south carolina -- south carolina, no less, an effort to provide a tax credit for apprenticeship,

$1,000, plus, the people, which is very important -- it's not something that's self-implemented. as you said, you need the coordination, and we need female help provide that effort for the employers to see which occupation -- how to make sure those occupational standards are high, how to -- how does it work with the schools? what's the related instructions? but right now, employers that want to start apprenticeships, they have to pay the whole rate, including very often the academic component. why couldn't we have taken some of that money that's going in to expanding community college training to expand apprenticeship training. a $6,000 tax credit for every increase in apprenticeship. >> i think the community college model is a wonderful model for

making sure that we provide the total ladder because what we are challenging the community colleges to do is to not only take the dislocated worker but provide them training for the near term but to provide them with a real career ladder that goes on. .. >> we keep hearing, chicago urban league here, that in the

long run we need to position people for competitiveness and at an even higher level. so i think that the program that we have with colleges is a different vision of where people need to end up to be. >> they don't graduate. >> in large part, in large part, the grant is directly addressed to getting into graduate. >> they don't because there's no jobs. the jobs are not there for them to go into. and i don't know why, in chicago, they are partnering, chicago is partnering with employers to train people in a college program, where they then go work. they are doing for example, with rush hospital where they train nurses. they don't have to be mutually exclusive. the idea is, the problem with community colleges, the presence

program, partner them with develop programs for jobs to train people and give them the credentials for the work that is out there. people don't finish because they see no future. they also don't finish because when they come in by the way, they are not ready, right? so they are failing. and what happens to our young people when -- like any of us. you go into an environment and your failing and your behind and there's no support for you, what do you do? you give up your we see that across -- i want to circle back to something that congress than davis said that i think is so important, and that is the question something i think you'll can do, because when the talk about holding people accountable, it's not just institutions. it's not just the government. it's our own communities. i was at a community meeting -- [applause] eight parent meeting at the school on the south side that is going to get turned around.

there were more security people at this meeting than there were parents. one of the parents at the meeting talked about how hard she has been trying to get the parents to come out to work with them. and here's the difference, let me tell you something. at the school, and these are hard days. we all have been. at the same meeting this. was talking about, they don't have sufficient books for the kids, which just makes me crazy, particularly as a member of this -- but the point is, the point is, the parents don't come to meeting with the kids don't have the books to learn. i don't know, that would unknowingly as a parent, right? we would be up in the school, and they need to be there. we accept the fact that our kids are being under educated, and we have to stop that. you have to go back -- [applause]

because on the north side of the city of chicago, those parents don't accept that, right? they don't accept that. their kids have books. and so as long as we continue to not engage and not fight, we will not accept this, it will be given to us. and so i think the point, what we can do, what we are trying hard to do with the league is to say to parents, your child has a right to an education. my parents fought for education. and their parents fought for them to have an education. our kids parents need us to fight for them. >> i think what dr. davis said, when you talk about education, just working with young people, they are getting around a lot of things. sometimes that is their parents. their parents are sometimes in the way of their education to a parent who works too much or can't be available in same way as a lot of issues around middle-class lifestyle. you take on the books, or your

homework, your mother signs the form and you go home. these little kids, i would see them frustrated, they didn't have their forms, didn't have their books. i don't know, like you said, how you can, they're gonna judged equally, getting around so much just to get to where they are. so i think education is part of it. i would like to kind of switch the focus on top about job diversification, the economy, the importance of it. i grew up in indiana, there is a company, a fortune 500 coming but everybody's -- either in the factor or the office. i was on some diversity board and some leadership boards because we started to look at away as manufacturers try to go and what can we do. one thing was committed to college, expanded programs to retrain employees. what are some the things we can do, talking about job diversification and a comic of how important it is to

exaggerate or is it really important? >> i think there are concepts like microlending. i think there are things like small business. for example, i actually have on monday a business development fair at malcolm x community college, one of the community colleges that we are engaged with. and you know, there are programs for individuals such that you don't have the big manufacturing plant, you don't have the big places where there are assembly lines. individuals could start their own business. i mean, cottage industry type of business that can, in fact, grow. i am obsessed with micro-lenders tremendously. people have been raving about what it's done, but i think we

can do some of it right here. people can sell things. they transport things. they can do all kinds of things where they are not necessarily going to get rich, but they can earn a living. i mean, they can have a job if they create their own job, and work it. and i think that's certainly something that could be done, and i think it is being done more and more. >> and the jobs out there is a role. i alluded to before, we talked about modernizing the unemployment insurance system and how people interact with not only being unemployed but getting an unemployment check. there are eight states that currently allow people getting an unapologetic to become entrepreneurs and continue to get an unemployment check while

they are entrepreneurs. now, of course, we feel, we study them and we put the model program and the presidents act. you need that authority. you can do this right now. what you would get if the president got act passed was the money to help shore up your unemployment insurance, which all of you know, a lot of the money to the federal government right now because they don't have enough in dash if they don't have enough in their trust fund. you have that authority right now. you can on your own mirror that model legislation that we have in the american jobs act in order to make unemployment insurance available to those who are willing to be entrepreneurs and want to put in some equity and learning entrepreneurial skills. but i do want us to know one of

the major ways in which we fought poverty in the 1960s, and that is understand that some people, those are good jobs. secretary solis is in charge of the labor, good jobs for everyone, that doesn't mean we're going to necessary change your job, at every child deserves to be a good job. so until we get serious about enforcing our labor standards, until we get back to understanding that people have to be treated fairly on the job, we have kind of given up on these kind of notions. we have given up on the idea that some people deserve to be paid fairly. we have decided we will train them out of the jobs. so until we get serious about that, the president made a big investment in getting out enforcement staff back up to what was in 2000 so we can have the people to monitor our workforces and stop the

degradation of the types of things we see taking place for low-wage workers, having their wages stolen, wage theft is a huge problem. increasing employment, developing companies not something separate from decent jobs. and we have to not lose vision that all jobs, dignity, and all jobs should be treated with some decency. >> i know you have another engagement and actually. i think your sister was letting you know you have to go. thank you so much for coming. any last words or anything to it like is a? >> the diversification question. it's about the importance as congressman davis talked about. the importance of small business and entrepreneurship and continue to support that. that's where that innovation comes from. and also that's ultimately a huge important part of our

economy. way we can only create jobs but then hopefully reinvestment in our community. so just to give you an example, we have a contractor develop a program that includes an appendage of component, and what we develop contractors and then hopefully so they can get their businesses. those contractors are hired people out of our apprenticeship program. and that's of course the idea, right? so we are working to do that more whether on the premiership center where we can help businesses grow and then train, push, help the people coming in our doors looking for work, push them to are entrepreneurs. so, you know, that is, innovation is what small businesses drive. that's what's going to grow and diversify businesses. so you the opportunity support, entrepreneurs and small businesses, i encourage all to think about because it's important. generally the economy particularly the minority committee. i really tried that that i have to leave.

>> thank you so much. be have anything else to say? [applause] gimmick just before i leave i also want to cut take a step back again and talk about the jobs act and having a very good discussion about things, very specific things that will help move things along. right now, what we have in washington is paralysis, that the president has put forward a plan that it has incentives for employers to hire, that has really for families, that has dollars for training that you can put people back to work right away, whether it's making sure they continue, not have to lay off teachers, keep teachers iin the classroom, or investing in our infrastructure. investing in upgrading our schools. the president has been talking about this now nonstop since the end of the summer, and we have seen very little action. so, you know, the time is now

for us as a country to get serious about, you know, ideas. these are ideas that it had bipartisan support in the past. that was one of the things the president said when he was making his decisions about what to include, and if we're just going to sit on our hands, then you can continue to have these discussions with nothing happening here thank you. >> thank you for joining us. we can take a couple questions from the audited if you go to the mic in the middle of the aisle, we can take a couple of questions. we'll start with you. >> is this on? first one question but i have a statement. representative ernie hewitt, state of connecticut, the professor, what's your name again? >> lerman. >> while i was sitting here i heard you mention the word leadership about five times. and person in my opinion, i'd

probably get some more people in the room to agree with you that the jobs act is seriously -- is bringing forth trying to propose is serious leadership. so i think the president has taken some leadership on that issue. question, you're right. apprenticeship, jobs, you have to get the job before you get your friendship. we have -- before you get the apprenticeship. we have a class of young adults right now, get out of prison for low-level drug offenses, nonviolent crimes, we know, a but in this room knows, when they come back to the street they are forced to check a box on the upper left hand corner of that application. if they check that locks in the affirmative, and not going to get the job and, therefore, never make it to the apprenticeship process. if they check no and they tell a

lie, they will lose their job. just want to know what fonts you have on that, they get. >> i have to say we just been told we have to wrap. i'm sorry. we just got a wrap on that. can we maybe -- made we can talk afterwards but we just got a thing we had to read. we started a little late, so sorry. i was told -- [inaudible] >> answer the question. >> okay. okay. well, i would like to thank the panel is and maybe we could get together and talk afterward or whatever. [applause] >> thank you all for being here. thank you very much. thank you to the audience. sorry about that. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] >> this weekend, three days of american history tv on c-span3. saturday at 7 p.m. eastern visit the congressional cemetery on american artifacts. at eight from lectures in history, university of colorado at boulder professor thomas is either on american prosperity in the '50s and '60s. meet the white house chefs dating back to the carter administration. monday at 8 a.m. and 4 p.m. highlights of c-span's coverage of the seventh anniversary of the japanese attack on pearl harbor. at 7:30 p.m. the history of native american military service. experience american history tv all weekend every weekend on c-span3. >> here is the latest in a

stalemate. the congressional stalemate over the payroll tax extension. house speaker john boehner today renewed his call for house and senate negotiations in extending the payroll tax cut. he says the house will not vote on the senate bill to extend the payroll tax cut for two months. house minority whip steny hoyer also spoke to reporters today and he wants the house to approve the senate payroll tax bill. you can watch both of those news conferences on our website at c-span.org. this is a the very latest from senate minority leader mitch mcconnell today. "congressional quarterly" is reporting he has called on house republicans to pass the short-term payroll tax cut extension and he is asked minority leader -- majority leader harry reid to agree to a conference committee with the house to negotiate a long-term extension of the tax cut. you can read minority leader mcconnell's comments on a website. go to c-span.org. and also coming up in about an hour, at 12:15 p.m. eastern president obama is set to speak about the issue. you can watch the live also on

our companion network, c-span. >> with the death of north korean leader kim jong-il over the weekend, so for north korea analysts this week discuss the future of the korean peninsula. from the korea economic institute, the center for strategic and international studies and the council on foreign relations, this is about an hour and 20 minutes. >> ladies and gentlemen, i want to welcome you to this afternoon's program. two days program is jointly sponsored by the korea economic institute. the city for strategic and international studies, and the council on foreign relations. i want to thank all of our partners for working so quickly to put together this form. we are very honored to partner

with our friends here, and talk about this very timely, timely and relevant issue of the korean peninsula after kim jong-il's death. my name is 9/11, and i'm vice president of the korea economic institute and they'll be the moderator today. with kim jong-il's death, there's no exaggeration that this is a momentous event in a period of great uncertainty, for not only north korea but for the entire region. all of us i'm sure have many questions. will kim jong-un successfully consolidate power over the regime? should we expect instability and violence in the coming months and years? as this inexperienced a leader try to hold onto power. will this new regime the more reform more hardlined? what does it all mean to south

korea, china, japan and the united states? we have three leading korea experts to help address some of these questions, and more, today. to my far left here it is scott snyder, senior fellow for korea studies and the director of the program on u.s.-korea policy, with the council on foreign relations. victor cha, korea chair at csis, a professor at georgetown university. and, of course, jack pritchard, the president of the korean economic institute. today's format is going to be a moderated interview, something we call here at kei the corporate style interviewing. for chili i'm not as stylish as over and help to not make our guests cry during the interview. but i'm going to kick it off with a couple of questions for our panelists to address some of these important questions. they will open up the mic to all

of you. will have a couple of rome and mics in the audience, and get questions from you. to address, to ask our panelists today. so with that i'm going to kick it off. so scott, victor and jack, one of the biggest concerns about the death of kim jong-il is of course the young age of his youngest son, kim jong-un, and a short period of transition. what is your sense for this transition process? will we see a smooth transition, or are you concerned that the next generation leadership will unravel? why don't we start with you, jack? >> thanks very much. let me first start off by saying some of the estimates data certainly i have been saying, and others before the death, was that if kim jong-il were able to survive some few more years, then the probability of a successful transition would go

up, not high, but go out. that didn't occur to with the death of kim jong-il, i stick by my original estimate, and that is there is a low probability that kim jong-un will survive over time as the leader of north korea. the process i think what we are going to see is a period of relatively calm, a united north korea, a rallying around the flagpole, if you will, and then shortly thereafter, whether that is a month or two months, i'm not sure about that, but we're going to begin to feel, we may not see, but feel the maneuvering behind the scenes between the military, between the korean workers party, with the brother-in-law of kim jong-il, to see just who is going to have the most influence. right now it's heavily weighted towards the military. and i came to believe, over time, that they will become the dominant force eyed at the

forefront are certainly behind pulling the strings for a short period of time, the face of north korea, a chubby 28 year old. victor? >> i don't disagree at all with ambassador pritchard. i think, you know, before this weekend, this past weekend, you had asked every person, you know, what would be the most likely scenario for this regime unraveling, i think, you know, if there are 99 out of 100% unexpected and sudden death of kim jong-il. and that's what we have today. so i think if things don't look very good. i could take some time, and i think, that's right, there will be a relative period of calm as the country unifies in preparation for the funeral and

this morning period. but then after that we just don't know what's in store for us. we have to remember that, clearly we all prefer a plan for succession, which really started after the strokes of kim jong-il in 2008 and the plan was essentially to promote this young fellow, surround them with regions, and others, and effectively allow for at least a decade for this process to happen. kim jong-il, when he was being groomed for the party leadership and the leadership from kim il-sung is also grim for a decade and a half. so that was the plan. it's clearly all been thrown up in the air by the fact that, you know, your leader is now dead. you know, these sorts of regimes i don't think are known to be

very flexible. they are quite brittle, and when you have, you have little curve balls thrown at a machine, they can adapt. but this is not a little curveball. this is a big win. this is about the biggest one there is, and for that reason regimes of this nature, they're just not able to adjust. they crack before. they can't didn't even, they just crack. so like that guy -- for the signs will see for the coming weeks and months about whether they'll be able to carry this out, in anything resembling. how about you scott? >> i've often expressed the view in the absence of kim jong-il we don't know if this plan will stick. there may be a high probability that it might not. but i also am thinking that it's

worth exploring the contrary and few a little bit. i mean, korea, north korea is a dynastic system and anachronism and a modern political world. so to argue it does not make sense for it to be possible for this 28 year old to be successful as a leader. but, you know, north korea also is a collective system. there's a collective leadership. and give kim jong-un does not succeed, it also may mean the failure of the camp family. i'm not saying that there shouldn't be challenged or that there won't be challenged, but i think at this stage because the plan, at least what partially unfolded, the question is whether not we can see deviations in the implementation of that plan. and i think that there would be external factors that also may influence this, including the question of whether or not the

regime feels that it needs to reach out, to the economic substance necessary to make it through this transition. >> assure. let's pull the strings a little bit about, let's assume kim jong-un does maintain some level of control. there's some question whether kim jong-un is, some say, that he may be more reform minded and his father, and he may be able to carry out some reforms that his father may not have done during his lifetime. then there are others who think he's sadistic and very unpredictable. what's your sense of kim jong-un as a leader of? >> since i don't know, since i think we all really don't know, you know, as much about kim jong-un as we did in about kim jong-il he took power, i'm going to fall back on this collectively. and i think that, you know, the

question, i think that temperamentally the elite recognize the interest of economic reforms to the regime, to their own survival. but at the same time, you know, they have a felt need for cash in order to be able to sustain their survival. and so i think the big challenge is, you know, whether or not the system is sustainable under circumstances where there is a felt need for cash, and other external sources of cash it will be available in order to sustain them. >> victor, you had mentioned that there are certain signs that you're going to be looking out for, in terms of whether the regime is going to be unraveling or it will be sustainable over the long-term. what are some other think you will be looking for over the next couple months, or maybe couple of years, whether this

regime is sustainable or not? >> hard question to answer. certainly be looking for a lot of what you all in the press and other places have with regard to information coming out of north korea. obviously, you be looking at any formal gathering that they have, and if there are any changes or shifts in position of people. if there are any, you'll also be looking at our any car accidents in north korea with regard to senior officials. i mean come it's one of these things we're all going to be scrapping around for information and trying to basically take all this data and get something from it with regard to how the leadership transition is going. you know, i'm ever going to see a piece of evidence that become sort of a smoking gun? probably not.

but i think collectively you reach a point where if there is enough, if there are enough signals coming out, that lead you to feel it has reached a tipping point, i think we'll all kind of know that when we see that. one of the challenges trying to decipher information, the bit of information coming out of north korea that indicate any sort of change, whether it's on the nuclear issue over on the food situation are on the leadership transition, you know, we get a bit of evidence and we have no idea knowing whether this is, this is smoke from the fire, or whether it is the smoke after the fire. .. but one of the things you

want take a look here is what we're talking about is a breakdown of control of the regime's ability to direct itself with a unified voice. and one of the things that will be critical and it may not come first but it is the breakdown of social order. if we see the cost of the harsh winter conditions, less electricity, that there is disconnect within the population we have not yet seen. different levels. you know, i'm not suggesting that there is an era of north korea spring in the offing. i think that's going to be very difficult but i think there are -- as we have periodically in the past seen indications of

discontent in local areas. if that becomes more widespread and there is either a lack of control or a crackdown on that, it would be one of the indications that would certainly be some of the smoke that we're looking at. one of the things that i kind of jump in on, a question that you asked for scott in terms of reform of mindedness or the ability for an opportunity to exist out there as north korea certainly will be looking for assistance, from my pouch, if you take a look at this, the things we want from north korea are military-related, for the most part. we have human rights concerns that are genuine and they will come about. but our priorities, as we take a look at their nuclear program and our concerns about proliferation suggest that what we want to extract from north

korea has to do with them giving up some military control. in this case, of their nuclear weapons program. my sense is that this is a zero-sum game in which that that you take away from the military, they will be fighting, kicking and screaming. and my suggestion is that kim jong un is not the president doesn't walk in with control, he doesn't command. he is being behind the scenes guided and directed. and as i would suggest that for the near term that's going to be done predominantly by the military. so it suggest that kim jong un shooshd economic reform in which they will have to give up things that are valuable to the military, things that they ultimately believe are necessary for the long-term survival and

necessarily for the short-term survival, i don't think that's going to happen. that doesn't mean we ought not try, that we ought not do things but i don't believe it will occur. >> if i could jump in on this, i think the challenge for someone like him, you know, he has to take control but he also has to define a new ideology to run the country and it can't be the same ideology as his father and at the same time he's going to have to show that what his role does is re-enforce the strength of the state. in that sense he will pull from his father's legacy because the strength of the state, it's defined by this new capability, a new weapons capability in addition to all of the ideology and everything else they talked about in terms of -- in terms of the military strength of the

country. this does not mean that he will not be interested in things that earn cash and hard currency for the regime but i don't think that that will be acquired through some sort of wholesale reform. it will be acquired through the same means that the south has used in the past. making something more progress -- [inaudible] >> but some sort of wholesale change in which they move in the direction of accepting the strategic bargain that has been placed on the table for the north going back to -- [inaudible] >> for someone who is so young who is being rushed into a position like this to really be able to make that sort of change in the system. even if it is a collective leadership, still, i think it's a very -- it's a very difficult

situation for all of them. we have to remember that this leadership -- and some of you heard me say this before, this leadership grew up in a period where their defining event in international relations has been tiananmen square, the execution the arab spring -- i mean, there is nothing comforting about the outside world or interacting with the outside world with this generation of leadership, both, you know, the elder generation as well as the up and coming one. it's a box, i think, that is very difficult for them to get out of. and unless you have a truly charismatic leader, dung xiou ping and i don't see a dung xio ping in north korea. >> let me say kim jong-il's

relationship with the military. this is a critical fatality line that deserves more careful examination. in what we have seen so far in this, you know, admittedly incomplete transition is that all of his positions are really based on the party. he's not engaged which was really at the core of, you know, his leadership base. and so it does raise some very interesting questions about the military's relationship, you know, with kim jong un and his key advisors it's more of a shift of a party-oriented base although admittedly the lines blur in international terms between party and military when you're trying to understand how things work in north korea, but in terms of, you know, a clear -- a potential cleavage that is clearly visible to the outside, i think that the relationship between kim jong un

and the defense commission is one that i would pay close attention to. >> let me pick up there -- scott and i were in pyongyang two years ago and it was just as if we were watching the aftermath of the party congress and things were going on. and i had an opportunity in our discussions with ambassador li gun, one of their six-party talks and negotiators to ask him about what i observed as the revitalization of the korean workers party and he just bristled. there's no revitalization, it's always been strong. and clearly that's not the case and what it suggest to me is that kim jong-il after his stroke had figured out that his son, as a 28-year-old, is not wear a four star uniform and demand the respect of the leadership and it will not happen. and he was looking for a way to rebalance power in north korea and he had begun by trying to

reemphasize on his role that his father had on the korean workers party. and so the idea that as victor suggests that kim jong un will come in with a new slogan, military second is probably not going to go over well. [laughter] >> before i open up the mike there the mics i want to ask you a little bit about the regional perspectives of the changes that are occurring in north korea. scott, let me start with you. what's your sense of how china is viewing the leadership change in north korea? do you see north korea's relation with china changing in this new leadership? >> i've already indicated that, you know, my main metrics for, you know, looking at possible, you know, sustainability of the current system in north korea is basically follow the money. and china is the obvious critical player as it relates to

the possibility of kind of providing north korea with the economic sustainability necessary, you know, to get through any near-term difficulty. and so we've already seen, i think, a very strong show of support from china. we know that president hu jintao paid his respects to the north korean embassy in beijing, you know, yesterday already and one could imagine that china could be concerned out to be reaching out in other ways to provide economic support. i'm very much struck by the openness of doubt in chinese analyst commentary about the sustainability of north korea. and so that must tell me the chinese government is very aware or concerned about sustainability at this critical

time. and i believe that the natural response for this government in china, given its focus on regional stability, is going to be to try to do what it can in order to provide near-term support for sustaining north korea until there's a stable political transition, if that is possible. >> great. victor, how about japan? japan is probably viewing changes with quite a bit of trepidation. and how do you think the japanese government should approach the leadership change in north korea? >> well, i mean, i think first i would agree that they're viewing this with a great deal of trepidation. as we all know for japan, i mean, north korea is an threat, the biggest threat, approximate threat to japanese national security. so in that sense i think they're following the situation very closely. i think the government has

already made a statement about this, about the death of the north korean leader. what they can do is -- it's kind of open to questions for what they can do beyond that. i think visits by the japanese foreign minister this week provided a great opportunity for the u.s. administration and for the japanese to make a strong sign of alliance and solidarity in the event of any sort of change that happened in the region which is always the first thing that you want to do. from that sense, i think that was a good opportunity. in terms of the future for japan, their issues are very clear when it comes to north korea. they're very concerned about the missile threat from north korea. particularly, the note on missile threat. they're very concerned about the abduction issue and at the same time, they have a -- they potentially have a great deal of things to offer in return, in

terms of coordinated packages of economic or development assistance through larger six-party framework. but i think all of that is on hold right now. and the government of japan will again monitor the situation closely. they will look for openings, if any exists, for making inroads on diplomacy on some of these outstanding issues. but, you know, i doubt that they're going to be able to find any of these. you know, the primary road back to diplomacy as we saw is really supposed to happen this week just through the united states. and that's probably going to be put on hold for at least, you know -- for at least the foreseeable future. so japan i think it's really wait and see. they are closely tied with the united states and with the rlk and then for all these countries, also to try to maintain channels with china so china is really the only country

that has eyes on the ground in north korea. and even though they don't know very much about what is going on, they still know more than we know. >> great. jack, how about the united states? how do you think the u.s. government should approach the north koreans during this period? >> yeah. i think there's a two pronged approach that the u.s. ought to be thinking about. you know, if we believe that there's a high probability that kim jong un will not succeed, or if there is some beginning of collapse in the way i put this is the death of the kim jong-il is the beginning of the end of north korea. and if we believe that or we think it's a high probability, then i think one of our first priorities is to think through the consequences. what should we be preparing for event -- eventuality, whether a several years, a couple months whatever that period may be.

and whatever the things we are not up to speed on is our contingency planning particularly with regard to china. china is going to play a significant role in the survival or the demise of north korea and we want to ensure that we're on a relatively same page of music, if you will, when that occurs. that we're not at cross-purposes. that's going to be very difficult to do. the chinese are going to be very reluctant to engage in that. but what we do behind the scenes will be critical in that regard. now, the second part of that is, you still have to live with what you're dealt with, and that is this regime that may or may not be stable, that probably is not is going to move toward reform, but we have an obligation to try to find those opportunities, those fissures that we can exploit and that may be done on

a relatively modest basis, whether we attempt directly or indirectly to engage in human rights. it's interesting that on monday, the day of the announcement of kim jong-il's death of the united nations passed the human rights. there's an area here where the dialog begins. we attempt to reevaluating and re-opening our search for remain. that involve a mil-to-mil dialog and a level of cooperation, i think that we need to increase that and to put as much effort as possible getting u.s.-uniformed personnel on the ground in whatever limited capacity will help both in our

intelligence, our understanding, and a low-level and not very significant dialog with the north korean military. we also have as victor was alluding to, the potential of the new term, nutritional assistants, it used to be food aid but now it's going to come in the form of baby bottles in which no military officer will be seen drinking from, but nonetheless, it's an area in which -- it's going to be difficult because, you know,, quite frankly, i believe there has been a linkage of the potential opening of bringing back the iae inspectors and the delivery of food assistance. however, much we would deny it, i think there is some linkage there, so it's going to be difficult to get back into that area. there's a couple of other areas that we could try to pursue to see if we pull that string and how far it goes. i'm not optimistic that we'll get very far, but we certainly

have an obligation to explore all of those options. and any more that we can think of. >> i mean, i agree with everything that jack said. but i would just add that, you know, this transitional period, you know, to be an opportunity to try to create new decision point for north korea as it grapples with its survivability, precisely because north korea is going to feel vulnerable at this point. it may be a point where they are more willing to make some kinds of tradeoffs. the hard part is getting them to keep them, as we saw, for instance, the basic agreement in 1991 which was also a critical point where north korea was worried about its survival in the context of the fall. >> i partially agree with that. i mean, i think certainly when you have this sort of -- when you deal with a system that's rigid and opaque as north korea,

you should welcome an opportunity for change and there clearly is one here. on the other hand, i think, you know, it's a dilemma. for the united states or for any power outside of north korea because if we take the example of decision points you can create or mold new decision points. but in order for the north to take them, you must have some sort of context. and i just don't know -- i believe this is the u.s. government's position right now, i just don't know if it's an opportune time to try to make any contacts with anyone inside of north korea, you can contact the new leader and you can undermine and outside of the new leader and you would definitely be undermining the great successor, you know, i think it's -- you know i describe it like a fish bowl, we're all kind of looking in, and we're trying to figure out how things are happening but no one dares stick their finger in there because you have no idea what it's going

to be and what sort of counter-reaction it's going to create by the chinese, or the south koreans or others. now, the ideal thing to say, well, we should all just coordinate. u.s.-china we should all coordinate in terms of making these new decision points. and as an academic, i agree, that's what we should do. but in the real world of policy, that's virtually impossible. >> i'm pleased to speak from inexperience. [laughter] >> yeah, well, let me pick up a little bit on that, and that is, whatever we do that is overt and open and whatever way we try to take advantage of, exploit or create new decision points, for me, it's very clear that the underlying message -- and it may be relatively private to the north koreans is there is only one path. we're going to make it as easy for you to choose, but there are

no other long-term options that lead to you keeping your nuclear weapons, you having the type of regime that's so despicable to us. now, that's a message that's going to be very difficult to re-enforce as victor has indicated in a consistent way among all the parties that are involved. but we've got to do our best. >> great, thank you. now, we're going to open up the mics to the audience for questions. just some house rules, basically, please raise your hand and i will recognize you. we have two roaming mics. paul is over there if you can raise your hand, paul. we have one mic and marie who has the other mic on the other side of the room. please keep your questions brief. identify yourself and please ask a question. so with that, we'll go with rob

warren. up here, paul. third row, third row. >> he has the one that has former kei president on his forehead. [laughter] >> thanks for really a fascinating address. rob warren with dot corps. i'd like to ask the panel what should be the short run decision point for the u.s. administration? should we send someone to the funeral? should we send condolences? should we show our concern? >> thank you. >> well, let me just start, one, the secretary of state has already issued -- i don't know if it's condolence, but it is very well crafted as it talks about our concern for the north korean people and the potential for opportunities down the road. i think that is as best as it will be and it will be seen or however the north koreans want but it has a measure of

condolence for the people there. >> yeah. i think as you know well, i mean, the rule of thumb on this, you know -- on the u.s. government, state department, nec side -- it's always easy to talk to the north korean people. and to say you're for the north korean people and you're sorry for the north korean people and that's basically the formula from what they used. my understanding is that the north has said that they're not going to invite any foreigners to the funeral so that basically precludes making a decision on this. i don't think -- personally, i don't think it's a good idea for the u.s. government to issue official and formal condolences about the death of the north korean leader. i mean, i just don't think that's appropriate. so i think -- i think they've got it just about right now. very cautious, very much wait, watch and see and that's about all that they can do right now.

>> i'll just add one thing on this. there is the prior experience of kim they did issue a condolence. it's a dilemma because i think there's a risk at this point the north koreans will compare what did the u.s. government do at this time, you know, with today? now the circumstances are completely different. i think that it's justified, you know, to fall short of that. but at the same time, i do think it's possible that the north koreans could actually see what they've gotten so far as a step short of where they were previously. >> okay. >> i thank you for a wonderful all-star panel my question sort of builds on what ambassador prichard talks about the

strategic planning. i recall constant refrain in dealing with north korea it was very hard to get china to talk about constituencies. .. >> you may not get the result you want out of that. it may be seen as a challenge to the regime rather than an opportunity. questions are accepting jack's point about kim jung-il rebalanced power in the

military, scott, on what basis today if military seeks to have the dominant rule, does kim young un-- jim young un-- kim young unhave any backlash against this? and, jack, assuming that the military is either in the front or behind the scenes going to play this role, dominant role of some sort, what's the implication of that beyond not moving ahead with reform? >> thank you. >> i'll just say precisely because of what you're pointing about transitioning from the military-first role to, you know, something that's probably not called military second but is, you know, a different formulation is a real challenge. and i think that what that means is, you know, kim jong un himself is likely to be relatively weak within this collective. and, you know, the interesting

question is how do they try to evolve into transition from what was there before kim kim jung-id military first, do something else that is sustainable? you know, the critical constituencies are all internal. i think we have to recognize that. that's the limitation of our analysis, but, you know, that's going to be, i think, the reality is probably a weak leader having to deal with constituencies that may make limb look more like a poz sit than a leader. >> let me go back to the kinds of conversations that we have with china. and this is not something that the u.s. government, state department and others aren't doing and thinking about, but you really have to approach the chinese in a very slow process. and that is not one to say we know they're going to fail, so let's start talking about military contingency plans, but to engage them on the other way.

if they were to succeed, how do we do that? and as you begin to engage the chinese, you've got to earn the trust in terms of when those wisps of smoke that victor has talked about appear, then you begin to have as gentle a conversation that will lead to a more serious conversation with the chinese where they cannot dispute where this may be headed, and it's in their own national interests to do that. that's easier said than done. this is an extraordinarily difficult proposition. but you cannot get around the basic fact that the chinese are going to hold the driver's seat with the survival and demise of north korea. with regard to alan's question in terms of the implication, i would start by saying i don't believe any military can govern

over a significant period of time civil society. and so by the north korean military exerting more and more overt control into industry, into business, into social life, it will become the ripping apart of north korea. it will be the demise of north korea. so i think that's the implication from my point of view. >> um, i think the, um, as paul mentioned, you know, the bush administration did try to engage the south korean government on planning for some sort of internal contingency in the north korea, and at that point the progressive government of south korea was totally against, just didn't want to do it. didn't want to be what they saw as party to a regime change strategy. in their own minds. and after the stroke of kim jung-il in 2008, i think the