quorum call:

quorum call:

a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from massachusetts. mr. brown: i ask the quorum call be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. brown: thank you, mr. president. i rise today to speak about something very serious. that issue is about sexual assault in the military. in support of the shaheen amendment which i cosponsored in the senate armed services committee markup, today i wrote a letter to house majority leadership expressing my concern for this issue and asking that it be addressed immediately. the senate armed services committee recently considered and passed the national defense authorization act for f.y. 2013, and it awaits full consideration of the senate. as we all know, our troops need the tools and resources to complete their mission. it's imperative that it gets brought up right away. as a member of the committee, i join with members of both sides of the aisle in supporting this amendment which would ensure that women who serve in our armed forces and their families

are provided access to abortion services in cases of rape or incest. sadly, sexual assault of women service members has been recently exposed as far more prevalent than anyone previously thought. as a matter of fact, the pentagon believes such crimes are vastly underreported. and there's evidence that there are as many as 19,000 assaults committed every year. that's approximately 50 each day. furthermore, women are serving in harm's way. we know that. and they're often in dangerous locations without access to safe, nonmilitary health services and given their courageous service they deserve our care and protection. put quite simply. the language of the amendment is consistent with the long-standing hyde amendment which prevents federal funding for abortions except for the victims of rape and incest or when the life of the mother is at stake. mr. president, it's a simple issue. those who are serving in harm's way who are victims of such

horrific crimes should be afforded the same rights as citizens they protect and who rely on federal funding for their health care. our amendment passed out of committee 16-10 on a bipartisan basis as i referenced earlier in committee and i will continue to work with my colleagues to ensure it remains included in the version that passes the full senate. as i said, unfortunately, the house armed services committee did not include a similar provision in their version of the bill and i'm not quite sure why. i would urge the house members to think about the real-world implications of their actions and not block this legislation. i hope that we can work together in a truly bipartisan and bicameral basis to ensure that our amendment language becomes law so that the president may sign it as such. extending these provisions to our military service women is the right thing to do. i thank the chair and i yield the floor. thank you, mr. president.

i note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call: the presiding officer: the senator from massachusetts. mr. brown: i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the senate is in a quorum call. quorum call:

quorum call:

i

the presiding officer: the senator from illinois. mr. durbin: i ask consent the quorum call be vitiated. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. durbin: i ask consent to speak in morning business. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. durbin: 30 years ago the u.s. supreme court handed down a landmark decision, plyer versus dow. in 1935 the state of texas passed a law that allowed public schools to refuse admission to children who were undocumented. the law also withheld state funds from local school districts if they were to be used for education of undocumented kids. in the plyler case the court struck down the texas law and held it's unconstitutional to deny public education to children on the basis of their immigration status. justice william brennan who authored the opinion wrote -- and i quote -- "by denying these children a basic education, we deny them the ability to live within the structure of our civic institutions and foreclose any realistic possibility that

they will contribute in even the smallest way to the progress of our nation." the year was 1982, and in the 30 years since plyler vs. dough was decided millions of immigrant children received an education and become contributing members of today's society. they make us a better nation. since it was decided, plyler has been under attack for anti-immigration forces. on the very day the decision was announced, there was a lawyer at the justice department who wrote a memo criticizing his superiors for not arguing support of this texas law that was stricken by the court. keep in mind at the time plyler was decided, the justice department was not under the control of a democratic president. ronald reagan was president. who was the justice department lawyer criticizing the reagan administration for not being tough enough on immigrant

children? his name was john roberts. 23 years later, in 2005, he was nominated to be chief justice of the supreme court. during his confirmation hearing, chief justice roberts said that he would not vote to overturn that case, and he said in his quote, "well settled law." for example, he said brown vs. board of education, the supreme court decision that ordered desegregation of schools, was also well-settled law. plyler is often called the brown vs. board of education of the immigrants of america. when i asked him whether he considered plyler to be well-settled law, he refused to answer my question. over the years there have been attempts to overturn the supreme court decision. representative elton glagley offered an amendment to overturn

plyer and permit schools to bar the children from schools. at the time i was in the house and voted against the amendment. but most republicans for it and p passed. president clinton threatened to veto if it was included in the bill and the amendment was opposed by a bipartisan group of senators including the late great senator ted kennedy and our colleague, senator kay bailey hutchison of texas. as a result of this opposition, the glagley was dropped from the final version of the bill. the latest threat to plyler is a spate of state laws targeting legal and illegal immigrants. on june 9, 2011, one year ago this week, alabama governor robert bentley signed into law h.b.-56, the strictest immigration law in the country. under alabama law, h.b. 56, it is a crime for a legal immigrant to fail to carry documents

proving his or her legal status at all times. police officers in alabama are required to check the immigration status of any individual if they have -- quote -- "reasonable suspicion that he or she is undocumented." i am especially concerned about the provisions of the alabama law that involves schools in enforcing immigration law. in alabama schools must check the immigration status of every student and report that information to the state and schools are authorized to report students and parents they believe to be undocumented to the federal government. last year the u.s. justice department and the u.s. education department sent a letter to every school district in the country warning that enrollment practices that discourage students from attending school could violate federal civil rights laws. the letter reminded school districts of their obligation to provide access to undocumented students under the supreme court's decision in plyler vs. stow. supporters of the alabama law

argued it doesn't prohibit immigrant children from attending schools. but involving schools in enforcing immigration laws will clearly discourage immigrant children from attending. last month tom perez head of the justice rights civil rights division sent a letter to the department of education about alabama h.b. 56. mr. perez said the justice department included in the immediate aftermath of h.b.-56 implementation hispanic student absence rate tripled while absence rates for other groups of students remained virtually flat. and the rate of total withdrawals of hispanic children substantially increased to 13.4% of all hispanic students in alabama schools. mr. perez also said hispanic children reported increased anxiety, diminished concentration in school, deteriorating grades and increased hostility, bullying

and intimidation. the author of the education provision of the alabama law has made it clear his real goal is to overturn plyler vs. stowe. if this challenge should make it to the supreme court, it could find a receptive audience in the chief justice who criticized plyler when it was decided and refused to say it was well-settled law when he appeared before the senate judiciary committee. i think this is the wrong approach for america. instead of challenging the case, we should be building on its legacy. 11 years ago i introduced the dream act, 11 years. the dream act is a bill that would give a select group of immigrant student whose grew up in america the chance to earn their way to legal status if they do one of two things: serve in america's military or at least complete two years of college in good standing. these young people were brought to the united states as children. i am sure the presiding officer

knows many in his state. they grew up in this country. they are the valedictorians, star athletes and rotc leaders in so many schools. their parents made the decision to come here. the fundamental premise of the dream act is that we shouldn't punish i hads can for any wrongdoing -- kids for any wrongdoing by the parents. that isn't the american way. as senator rubio has said, just because the parents got it wrong, we shouldn't hold it against the kids. as justice brennan said, legislation directing the u onus of a parent's misconduct does not comport with fundamental perceptions of justice. the dream act isn't just the right thing to do. it is the right thing to do for america. the dream act would help our economy by giving that's talented immigrants a chance to become part of it -- tomorrow's engineers,ent preen new york teachers, doctors, small business owners. the dream act would strengthen

america's national security by giving thousands of highly qualified, well-educated young people chance to serve in america's armed forces. it is one of the greatest levelers in america. when we decided to integrate the armed forces under president truman we really set the stage for the civil rights revolution in this country. when men and women in the military were recognized for their inherent worth and commitment to this nation rather than the color of their skin, it set a standard that now guides our nation. almost every week i do my best to come to the senate ploor to tell a story -- the senate floor to come tell a story about one of these young people who would equaqualify four the dream act. al was born in nigeria in 10. in 1991 his father was killed by the nigerian police after he wrote newspaper columns criticizing the nigerian

government. it was documented by the state department's annual human rights report. in 1995 al's mother fled nigeria and brought her little 5 dwreerld bo5-year-old boy to thd states. al's mother because of the killing of her husband applied for asylum, application was denied. and she was deported in 2005 when al was 15. after ten years in the united states. today al is 21 years of age. he lives in the state of washington, his mother's sister who is a u.s. citizen is al's legal guardian, has raised him since al's mother was deported. al graduated from rogers high school near tacoma, washington. he is currently attending central washington university, an honor student, 3.5 gradepoint average. an avid football and basketball plashings an active volunteer in the community -- he recently headed up a fund-raising drive for the hope children's

hospital. i asked a lot of these dreamers to send me letters about their view of the united states and their hope for the future. this is what al wrote to me. "i've been in accelerated academic programs most of my educational life and hope to be a medical doctor someday, to contribute to the well-being of fellow humans. i hope to continue to walk in the shoes of my late-father who earned a ph.d. from the university of paris in france. it gives me zeal to work hard in my studies to be able to lend a hand to others in need, to realize a bright future. close quote. unfortunately, al has been placed in deportation proceedings. his aunt can't sponsor him for u.s. citizenship. now, al grew up in america, he has never committed a crime. we've already invested in him.

he's received his entire education from kindergarten through checollege in the unite. he didn't get any help from the united states. he's barred from that because he's undocumented, so he had to find other sources and work his way through college. but he canadian. he -- but he made it. he has a great potential to contribute to merge he doesn't remember a thing about nigeria and doesn't speak any of their native languages. despite all of that, the laws of america say that al should be deported. here's what al said about that possibility. "i don't remember anything about my mother's country of nigeria. i can't even speak the language. every experience that i have a had in life that i can remember has been in the united states of america. everyone i know and care about is here except for my mom, who was sadly removed and remains in hiding in fear of her life." despite that the department of homeland security has decided to put al's -- i should say, the

department of homeland security fortunately has decided to put al's deportation on hold. i support this decision, but i know it's only temporary. it doesn't give al permanent status of any kind, and he's still at risk of deportation in the future. the only way for al to become a citizen is for the dream act to become a law of the land. mr. president, would america be a better nation if al were deported? of course not. al is not an isolated example. there are literally thousands of others just like him only asking for a chance, only asking for justice. plyler v. d.o.e. gave people an opportunity to obtain cangs in america. the dream act would give him the dhoons fulfill their god-given potential and become our future doctors, engineers, teachers, and soldiers. it was a couple weeks ago that a

lot of these dream act students keep in touch with us and one contacted our office to say he'd given up. he had lived in america all his life, been educated here, made his way through college, was looking forward to becoming an engineer. he had decided that he had no choice but to notif move to can. so now his talents wil talents o canada. i have nothing against canada, but why would we give up someone we've educated and trained to be a part of america? on the 31 sts anniversary of plyler v. doe, let's give al and so many of the other young people like him a chance to participate more fully to the only country they've ever called "home." it is the right thing to do and it will make america a stronger nation. mr. president, i yield the floor. i suggest the absence of a quorum.

the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call: is

quorum call:

quorum call:

the presiding officer: the senior senator from new jersey is recognized. mr. lautenberg: i ask unanimous consent that further calling of the roll be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection, so ordered. mr. lautenberg: i also ask unanimous consent that a fellow in senator sanders' office, rebecca french, be given floor privileges for the duration of the consideration of s. 3240, the agricultural reform, food and jobs act of 2012. the presiding officer: without objection, so ordered.

mr. lautenberg: mr. president, i come to the floor today because there is an epidemic hovering over america, and we ought not to stand by and let it continue. a staggering one-third of americans are obese, a condition that can endanger health and shorten life span. among our children, the situation is becoming a plague and leaving too many young people unable to participate in physical activities like sports or games. now, i salute the first lady michelle obama for bringing attention to this crisis by educating parents, teachers and kids about the need to be more

active and eat nutritious food, but it's going to take the involvement of this congress. we need to protect our children, our economy and our national security. our nation's childhood obesity rate is one of the highest in the world. here we see it. obesity -- childhood obesity rates here are displayed worldwide. obesity epidemic as seen among american youth. if we look at the other major countries in the world, going from the lowest, china, 5.2% upwards to france, 20.1%, we get to america and 31.7% of our children are obese. that's discouraging, very sad for the individual and for the

country at large. people who are obese are at a higher risk for heart disease, stroke, diabetes and even certain types of cancer. obesity-related conditions kill more than 110,000 americans every year. we don't want to see more children with diabetes. excuse me. we don't want our children to be burdened with a lifetime of disease and disability. public health advocates have been sounding the alarm for years but this problem has only gotten worse and this congress and the federal government have largely ignored the problem. now, over the last few decades the rate of childhood obesity in

america has doubled, doubled. here, in 1973, we were looking at 15.4% was the percentage of obese and overweight american children. but if we look ahead to only 40 years -- only 40 years, we see that the rate has gone from 15.4% to 31.7%. it's almost a third of our children -- our childhood population. mr. president, this issue has even affected our military, and the statistics are shocking. 25% of our young men and women who want to join the military are too overweight to serve. mr. president, we need to take

bold action. this farm bill is not just about making sure that businesses stay profitable. it should be about keeping our citizens healthy, too. we owe it to our kids and our country to learn what's causing this calamity. and that's why i filed an amendment to focus in on a particular suspected contributor to the problem. the federal government can and should determine whether sugary drinks suspected are causing obesity and accelerating the damage that goes with it. americans are drinking or -- more high-sugar drinks than ever before. children and adults drink twice the amount of sugary soda than they did just three decades ago. these drinks are cheap and

available everywhere, in convenience stores, movie theaters or vending machines and we've seen children and teenagers holding giant cups of soda or other sugary drinks. some of these sizes are so big they look like a barrel. mr. president, when a child drinks 32-ounces, takes a 32-ounce cup of soda, it's the equivalent of ingesting 41 sugar cubes. now, can you imagine anyone permitting their children to devour 41 sugar cubes? who in this body would give their child or grandchild 41 sugar cubes to eat? the city of new york is taking a bold course of action and other communities have done their own studies and have decided to act. and here in congress we need to

step up and do our part. we need to know what role sugary drinks are playing in the childhood obesity epidemic in america. now, my amendment would initiate a study on the impact of these drinks on obesity and human health in the united states. it would require an examination of public health proposals regarding the cost and the size of these drinks. the amendment is endorsed by organizations like the american academy of pediatrics, the american heart association, the american diabetes association, the american public health association, and the center for science in the public interest. so here i reach out -- i urge my colleagues to support this

amendment. i ask that for once and for all that we work together to do what we can to protect our children and protect them in this case from the obesity epidemic. and i hope that, mr. president, that we will join together to fight for the well-being of our children. with that i yield the floor and i note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

the presiding officer: the senator from ohio. mr. brown: i ask unanimous consent to dispense with the quorum call. the presiding officer: without objection, so ordered. mr. brown: i ask unanimous consent, mr. president, to speak as if in morning business for up to ten minutes. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. brown: thank you, mr. president. the agricultural reform food and jobs act is in my state called the farm bill represents the

most significant reform in u.s. agriculture in decades. it's the result of months of late-night deliberations guided by chairman stabenow and senator roberts. there is a reason why county leaders are paying attention, the bill benefits all americans. one in seven jobs in ohio is related to food and agriculture industry. to get the economy back on track, the farm bill must remain a priority in congress. the agriculture committee's worked to craft a farm bill that is informed looking and realistic. the centerpiece of the bill's deficit reduction efforts is based on a bill i authored with my colleague john thune, a republican from south dakota, along with senators durbin, a democrat from illinois, and lugar, a republican from indiana. our aggregate risk and revenue management program proposes streamlining and making more market orinterred the farm safety net. the earaway of direct payments

of billions of dollars that editorial writers and constituents complain about that went largely to large corporate farmers, the era of direct payments annually regardless of need upped this bill is over. instead the new ag risk program will work hand in hand with crop insurance to provide farmers the tools needed to manage risk making payments only when farmers need them most. the program relies on current data instead of arbitrary numbers in statute. it's more responsive to farmers' needs and more responsible to taxpayers. the bill reforms a number of long-standing unjustifiable practices. for the first time this farm bill ends payments to landowners who have nothing to do with farm management. it ends payments to millionaires. it puts a firm cap on how much support any farmer, any farmer can receive from the direct farm support programs every year. commonsense reforms that ensure the taxpayer dollars go only

where they're needed. is there more to be done to make sure taxpayers get the most efficient, effective and affordable farm policy possible? of course there is. in the coming years we'll continue to improve our farm and food policy but this is a good start. it's good for farmers, good for taxpayers, continues to move our nation's food and ag policy in a positive direction. the farm bill is a jobs and innovation bill. every $1 billion in exports supports 8,400 american jobs that cannot be shipped overseas according to the usda. in 2011 the u.s. enjoined a ag surplus of $42 billion, $42 billion we sold more than we brought both from abroad in farm products, the highest on record. contrast that with the billions and billions, tens of billions, hundreds of billions of dollars in trade deficit we have in manufacturing and other parts of our economy. there's so much room for growth not only overseas but also at home.

biobaseed manufacturing, renewable energy are two examples of the potential that american ag holds for u.s. economic growth and job creation. farm-based and renewable energy production such as advanced biomass energy can serve as the energy of the rural economy for decades to come. it's investments in agriculture like this, like the ones this bill maintains in research and energy and biobased products and food production that will enable continued creation of good-paying jobs, again, that won't be shipped, that can't be shipped overseas. the farm bill provides economic relief to millions of americans. we call it a farm bill, this bill is fundamentally an economic relief bill. the farmers, the bill provides financial assistance to weather tough times to adopt conservation practices that protect clean water and healthy soils and wildlife habitat. for millions of americans, this bill helps put dinner on the table when wages are tight and families are struggling to make ends meet and cheap children

from going chung hunkry. -- hungry. that's why this bill is so important. the presiding officer of new jersey has been a strong advocate of nutrition programs. we both understand more than a third of people who are getting snap, who are receiving what we used to call food stamps, are working families, people who are only making $9 or $10 or $11 an hour, sometimes in two jobs, can't make it without some food assistance. the bill includes resources for snap, which is one of the nation's most essential antipoverty programs. in addition to supporting people who are struggling to feed their families, snap supports retailers and businesses and the farmers and ranchers who grow the food. at a time of high unemployment snap participation now exceeds 44 million americans, half of whom are children. many of them working -- many of these families are working families, half of the people served by snap are children.

snap participation is expected to fall as the economy recovers. the bill continues to support snap with minimal modifications. continues an heave increase for commodity distributions at a time when food pantry shelves are bear. i have serious concerns with the cuts, not large cuts like the house agriculture committee wants to do and that senator paul tried to do, very unsuccessfully here and that congressman ryan with his budget from the house of representatives, nothing even close to the tens and tens and tens of billions of dollars they want to cut from nutrition. but i'm concerned about this $4 billion cut. when you compare to the $130 billion in cuts to the snap program in the ryan budget, the modification of this bill was done carefully. so the farm bill is a deficit reduction bill, a jobs bill and an economic relief bill. it affects every american every day. i commend again chairwoman

stabenow and ranking member roberts. their joint effort to work across party lines is to be commended. these months of work and deliberation are at risk today because some insist on debating dozens of unrelated amendments and others seek to score political points at the expense of american families and at the expense of american farmers. this is not the time to debate, conceal and carry laws or american aid to pakistan or the future of the labor relations board. not that any of those aren't debatable, any of those aren't a place where people can have reasonable differences on public policy, but conceal and carry, american aid to pakistan, the future of the labor relations board should not be part of the farm bill. i urge my colleagues to work together and halt the impasse that keeps us from making progress on this bill. mr. president, i as a member of the senate agriculture committee i'm the first ohio senator on

the agriculture committee in 40 years. i got on this committee, i requested senator reid in my first month in the senate to join the agriculture along with other duties because of the importance of agriculture in my state. one out of seven jobs in ohio is related to agriculture. it's the largest business, industry in my state. it matters so much to ohio. my position on the agriculture committee has helped as i've done round tables around ohio and met with literally hundreds of farmers, grain farmers, dairy farmers, specialty drop farmers, nursery farmers, tree farmers, experts at ohio state and the ag school, and come prepared to help to write this farm bill both back in 2007 and this year. this is a major step forward. it's something we can be proud of, mr. president. i yield the floor.

mr. brown: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from ohio. mr. brown: i ask unanimous consent the senate proceed to a period of morning business with senators permitted to speak therein up to ten minutes each. the presiding officer: without objection.

mr. brown: i ask unanimous consent when the senate adjourn today it meet at 9:30 on june 4014, the morning business be deemed expired and the time for the two leaders reserved for use later in the day, the majority leader be recognized and followed -- following any leader remarks the first hour be equally divided and controlled equally divided and controlled between the two leaders or their designees with the majority controlling the first half and the republicans controlling the second half. mr. president, if i said 9:00 which i was told i did i meant 9:30 a.m. tomorrow. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. brown: thank you, mr. president. we continue to work, mr. president, on an agreement on amendments to the farm bill. we hope such an agreement can be reached. votes are possible during tomorrow's session. we'll notify senators when they're scheduled. if there is no further business

to come before the senate i ask it adjourn until 9:30 under the previous order. the presiding officer: the the presiding officer: the live coverage of of the british investigation into the relationship between the

government and the british press. tomorrow prime minister david cameron takes questions. that's life if i am -- 5:00 a.m. eastern here on c-span2. from the aspen institute, a discussion on trends in public attitudes towards content in the digital age. panelist spoke about the development of social media, blogs and other digital media and their effects on the content industries. cohosted with tmg custom media, this is just over an hour.

>> welcome. this is the first in a series of dialogues on the future of content with kelly firestone communication program. i want to thank tmg media, jane otten burke, mitch creighton among other things they published the aspen idea magazine for us, but the great custom publishers and custom media and in the forefront of that. they came up with his idea for a series on the future of content and it's our great leisure to thank them for doing it. the event is on our web site, aspen institute.org and it's also on twitter with the hashtag true content and one other quick announcement, our communication society program will also be holding a symposium on the state of race in america and moderated

by juan williams and josé diaz-balart on april 9 at the museum so if you want to hear more about it, it aaron who is putting it together, in the red dress the thank you very much. this is the first of our series, one that you will notice is you have three guys from the old media up here and i think this is part of a trajectory that we are going to try to do in this future of content series. this first will look at the vantage point of people who have been in present traditional media, how are they moving things forward and as we move along in this series we will invent new forms of media and then perhaps people who have only worked in new forms of media and never -- and i do hope the last of that series will bring it full circle of people who have worked only in new forms of media but now want to work magazines and other things and feel that having a broad

portfolio of media and content delivery is the way to go. so if you're wondering why we are starting this way, you will see the trajectory and we will be going to people who have been involved in media for -- from different vantage points but first to people i have respected for a long time, chris brauchli who is the editor of "the washington post" and the editor of "the wall street journal." you have your bios. ken i've known for 30 years and he has been the young manager from the writers team. also since 1992, he has been the author of the communication column in "the new yorker." he also has written 10 books, the latest of which is google, and every one of these books, yes everyone of them has dealt

with communication and people who are changing the nature of communication. i want to start with what i think is a historical overview to get this thing started, which is it's been about 50 years since the advent of the digital age and its impact on content. for the first 25 years of that period of the digital age, the format of the content in digital form tended to be community and discussion. it was the only day the internet with a vbs system and then eventually on line services starting with the well and eventually leading up to consumer oriented ones like aol in which people form communities. they were in chat rooms and they were on bulletin boards am a discussion groups and everything was shared socially in terms of information and discuss. and approximately 1995 when the

mosaic rouser and other things, there was a dramatic shift in the way the internet worked and that was that it shifted to the world wide web and the protocols of the web. the reason i think it was a huge shift is it shifted us away from having an internet paste content on community and war on publishing. it was actually a regression in some way and once again people just sort of published things or put things out even if they were bloggers or newspapers or magazines or new newspapers and magazines. it was much more of a you put your content, your pictures or whatever out for people to see in the community would kind of relegate to come in two sections at the end. now we are having another major shift that started three or four years ago for the next 25 years of the web. its being based much more in social networks and social

media, everything from facebook to twitter which is bringing us back thankfully i think to a combination of people who are publishing things but also people forming communities, forming circles and forming discussion groups and in some license set of resembling the web, the social media i think will resemble the first aid to the internet that was based around immunity bulletin boards and sharing of information and internet chats and internet rewrite chat does so with that introduction i'm going to start with marcus because marcus at "the washington post" has been in the forefront now of not so much the web but social media with a good partnership with facebook. i was wondering how you think of the next five years will give partnership with facebook and social media will change what you do as a traditional newspaper editor? >> thank you walter and thanks for putting this on.

being called the expert by walter isaacson who probably knows more about media than i do by far given his experience but thanks also for spear driving this paleolithic members of the media establishment. even win a paleolithic period have our eyes on the future and "the washington post" is actually had a close relationship with facebook and don graham as you may know is on the board of facebook and is a friend of mark zuckerberg's. we have been -- pretty much a social media has grown. today we have seen people in our newsroom who are focused on getting our content out to where the audience is in number when he can't do anymore than deliver news in template form from the mountaintop to the audience and what you have to do is figure out where the audiences are that are interested in the kind of content you are producing and put that content in front of them. their compositions that take place over many other platforms

then obviously "the washington post" web site and rather than assuming people are going to come to us and look for information which is i think still the attitude of people, paleolithic people who read newspapers and go to web sites thinking they know what "the washington post" has to say, think what happens more and more is people go where their friends are. they engage with their friends and in that community they learned what is interesting. the truth is probably the reason many people are most people even read any information or look for any news stories is because they want to be informed of me want to be able to share whatever information they get what their friends. facebook clearly recognizes this in a big way and folks refer to their homepage is a personal newspaper. social reader takes not just "washington post" content but content from reuters, and puts the content in front of audiences that they been read

and as they read their friends are seeing what they read because if i know for example that don graham has just read an article about walter isaacson i'm curious to know what god is reading so i can talk in one way with don and talk to you about the article. the conversation is very different or the interaction is very different than going to newspaper or web site and reading the article. i am much more interested in what my friends are talking about. >> it used to be the traditional editors and the anchors of the news media were the gatekeepers. they would say that's the way it is and they would say this is the important story and this is the important story. what you are saying is in the future your circle of your social network will be the gatekeepers for you to say hey this new album by coldplay is really cool or this new story by catherine is really good or whatever.

>> it's about the future. i guess i should say this is now. if you talk to people, to a large swath of the population, the people that advertisers care a lot about and people we want to develop his loyal followers of "the washington post," they see with their friends -- if craig treat something about an event or craig treat something about an article he reads in "the washington post" i don't know how many followers he has but i would imagine quite a few that they will see it and they are in just a because he in. if you are interested in something i'm interested in something and that is how a lot of people consume media. i don't know the exact verse image but the percentage of leaders -- readers that we have reading "the washington post" content on social media platforms is rising dramatically. >> let me ask one more question if i can which is one of the things i get from "the washington post" is, here is today's front page. i don't necessarily mean just in

print. i will go to it right now and it will lead with the supreme court discussion let's say and those are the stories i should know about. could you ever imagine producing on the web a front page that is tailored just for me, based on a what you think is important and b the type of content i would go to so you learn what i think it's important c the stories my friends are reading so everybody gets a different front-page. >> i want to answer by saying i'm not setting these questions the way they're coming out but in fact we have personal post about a month ago which is a product that does something like that. is an early stages but if you go to the "washington post" web site and sign-up for the personal posted knows what you're reading and you can tell this stream of content or that stem content and and and it starts to tailor the content to to you and ideally what we would like to be able to do is get people who are interested in that a front-page of content that they're most likely to be

interested in based on their past habits or including what their friends are interested in. than the experience of reading news becomes a much more tailored and focused experience and probably a much more engaging experience which naturally giving we are also in business is what we would like to see happen. >> now the 1995, the year you launched here, andy grove, then the head of intel had a platform at the american society of newspaper readers and i was interviewing him and i said to him astir grove out of a thousand newspaper editors in the room, what is the value of the future? he said, zero. because in the internet age which was then coming apart, he said i can create my own. i don't need an editor. i can pick and choose if i want sports, i want health, business. i can get just what i want in my

newspaper. two years later, i was in a meeting again and i quoted what he said. i said mr. grove, candy -- do you still feel that way and he said i was totally wrong. he said, i need in a jim. there's too much information out there and i need help. i need editors to help sort it out for me because i would never have known to read about rwanda or serbia which was not on my radar screen. so i need editors telling me what they think is important. actually that is one of the most hopeful stories i can think of on the importance of editors and i hope we don't see individual newspapers. let the readers have a serendipitous experience of the news and you as an editor feel as a citizen is more important. >> but i think it's amick spurred i'm not suggesting everything you read is what you will want to read but i think it has to be a mix of content.

not everybody wants to have exactly the same information delivered to them. there is clearly a role in any newspaper. the front page of newspaper is a way of signaling what we think is important and we do that on our web site now too. we need to be attentive to what the audience's areas of interest are. the audience does not know what it's interested in and the underlying point to andy grove was making was you don't know about rwanda. i guess i don't think that we are going to abandon that anytime soon but i think what you have to feather into the mix is some kind of personalization so that the news really is what people want to know about and the news is what their friends are talking about. >> one of steve jobs's great line when they asked him should we allow users to figure out whether they want -- and he said well how do they know what they want until we have told them? there is a sense that you are trying to do three things in the

next five years as an editor. one is to allow people to tailor based on their own interest in two is to allow their friends to be a crowdsourcing filter for them but three is for you to say and also on this front page you should know -- or even what i would call serendipity which is you have no interest in sports but by the way, you should know that jeremy lin has just emerged as a phenomenon or something. so that is that serendipity. >> we have a story on the front page today which is gone viral this morning about this guy in maryland who dress up in a batman outfit and drove around in his lamborghini. nobody would know to look for that. but it clearly is working. it is gone viral and is drawing a huge amount of attention. >> you know, you talk about in

this luncheon session today, content king and the debate for decades as to who is king, distribution, content and the truth is, and it flows from what you are saying about social media, the consumer is king and technology gives them the armament to become king. basically they choose to lower the prices on books through digital books which is technology that comes along or do free google searches and get news on that. and to say what they like and say what they don't like in the newspaper or use the generated content on youtube. so that is something that we -- and that sometimes collides with traditional media and our desire to play the gatekeeper or editor. eat your spinach. you should know this as a

citizen. maybe i don't want to know that, maybe i find it boring and that is an ongoing conflict that is always in the media. >> what happens to trust in a particular story or trust in the media when there is nobody particularly responsible and it's all crowdsourced? the argument that markets would make and "the new york times" and "the wall street journal" and every reputable news urbanization's make is that we have a brand value and if we put out a premature on that story, you should trust it. the problem is that on the web, you often don't know where that story is coming from. you do a google search and you get with your friends on facebook and inevitably, risk diminishing the value of that grand. >> you have done a lot on google. what do you think google is going to do in the next five years to try to navigate this environment? >> well, people think as google of the search company and that's

a mistake. they are much broader than that. steve bauman ahead of microsoft likes to say that google is a one trick tony but in fact they have got four ponies that they are writing for searches one and by the way as smartphones grow so does search share because people are doing it on their mobile phone so that is and business he now. second, they have got the android operating system which is now the largest operating system. they will figure out a way to monetize that either by charging the phone companies for it or ads or something. location-based advertising, whatever. third day of cloud computing which is a very hot area. when you do it on your blackberry or or or iphone server that is a cloud. the information is stored in a cloud and bayard doing it in companies. obviously advertising. this is a huge area, and

youtube. 40% of the videos downloaded are done on youtube and if you look at youtube that is relevant to what we are talking about content today. youtube is losing about a billion dollars a year a couple of years i generated content. what they discovered is advertisers would not want their friendly ads next to some dog on the street. so it is morgue at content. increasingly, google like apple or amazon or netflix is going out and buying special content. [inaudible] >> well it does in one sense. it makes an it important. on the other hand, the user gets to vote. which they didn't have that same capacity in the digital world. >> i mean i think content clearly has a great deal of power. you can see some evidence that content's powers outlasting some of the platforms that came

before. cable television is a really interesting situation. i don't presume to be an expert, but if you think about what cable television does, cable television charges 130 bucks a month to deliver a whole bunch of content that you are not actually consuming and you can buy on line just the espn that you want to watch urges the cnbc want to watch for five or eight or 10 bucks a month. you just have the content you want and anytime there is this kind of anomalous situation where the amount that you are spending is actually more than what you're getting for that technology has a way of compressing it out. i think that platform is facing some challenges and maybe it's one of the reasons that comcast wants to buy nbc universal. i think what you are seeing is content still has great value. what youtube is doing and what comcast and nbc universal and we see it too.

our audience has been growing terrifically in the last couple of years. "the washington post" -- is already up to $18 million which is extraordinary in a few months and people are now reading "the washington post" content in larger numbers than they do with some of the other's. >> there is another major shift that is about to be happening and what i would call internet or digital base content which is not only the social network's by the way for desktop computers and the web-based and mobile, but more importantly to -- which is not actually the same, necessarily the same as a web-based application, where the apps tend to have more functionality, and they can be paid for and often are paid for. do you think the move to an app based digital content from a web

based digital content is a major shift? >> you not clear. i did a while. there is now a new technology that people are writing, starting to write their web sites on called html five and html five works across platforms and the app, i mean the app really became commonplace with apple so that with the ipad and the iphone before that. now you can actually create a web site that is the same web site with you on the mobile phone, tablet on your desktop and you might have all the qualities and attributes of the nap but it might not in app and therefore abide not be unique. >> so there is a distinction between an app in a web site. goes beyond with soap. the other thing is i think in silicon valley there are two basic streams. amazon and apple and through the middle ground is facebook

which has 850 million members and makes technology available for people to build things on. you may see a lot of apps built on facebook that are unique to facebook and you are seeing that and that may be the way a lot of people consume content that it's different from the notion of the app that you have on ipad for you often pay money for an app. >> html five across platforms, it's hard for people to pay for them. >> the financial times charges for people and they charge people on the html five platform so i don't know. i wouldn't say that we are necessarily going to end up in an app world. i know microsoft and some big companies think that's the direction were going in but i don't know. >> i think the battle is the platform. it's not an app that'll. apps are within the platform. it used to be that the powerful platform was cable and broadcasters and others had to go through that an increasingly

be think about it facebook's a platform. youtube, google is a platform and amazon and their new kindle fire is a platform and apple is a platform. netflix is of platform and these platform companies are competing in diminishing the power of cable, the gatekeeping power of cable and increasingly traditional media is saying i want to be on that platform. and what kind of money will facebook offer me to have one of my pbs shows or amazon or apple? that increasingly is the battle to think that is taking place. >> last of the great gatekeepers in a way or the cable companies. they have some control of what gets them curbside into your living room. you know they own some of that. do you think that disappears the next five years? >> becomes more commoditized and what what is cable do? cable tries to buy content and

so cable programming company, fx, amc, hbo become very valuable and they can then sell that content to some of these various platforms, not just keep it exclusively. >> but will i ever be able to just take out an ipad and be able to watch espn or will it always be -- >> time warner will let you extend -- [laughter] >> only if you go to the cable people. >> or you can watch al's is it -- al-jazeera. during the arab spring you are riding around in a taxicab in new york as i was in her ipad you could watch streaming al-jazeera live and you suddenly realize hang on, how come i can watch what's going on in tahrir square but i can't get an answer from cable. >> so the second blown up in the next five years? >> it has to at some point. >> the other thing, i don't know

whether you follow this. it didn't get a lot of publicity but very dillard announced a new technology which is cable and broadcast potentially. what it is a little box you have in your house like an old antenna but wirelessly you can get television cable from broadcasters in your house. he is set up a big plant in new york city and they're going to roll it out in new york and bring it to other cities. they charge nine or $10 a month as opposed to what you pay for your cable. they are not going to pay broadcasters. they said they will sue you. they said no it's free over the air broadcast. i can get it over the air. a huge battle is about to take these because one of the ways the broadcasters -- one of the interesting thing is if you believe in content, one of the ways that cbs or nbc or abc and the broadcasters have been able to pay for content is they have gotten retransmission fees which are quite lucrative

for them. why would cable pay them hundreds of millions of dollars a year if terry dillard is competing with them for free? they will want exclusivity so it's a huge battle potential if the technology works down the road on this. >> looking further down the road, each new technology and medium eventually creates its whole new form of content. if you can go back to the printing press -- you can look at television and at first it was the old wind being poured in a new bottle which was radio shows but with pictures and suddenly people in that new forms of content for television. it seems to me that with the inception of perhaps blogs there really isn't a new of content that has been invented for the interactive digital age. >> i'm not sure i would agree with that.

if you go onto "the new york times" web site and you read that, what is different about that in the paper you are getting tonight or tomorrow morning? >> for instance in "the new york times" today i can find out what happened in the supreme court at 11:00, 12:00. finally i would have questions about that in terms of how much time they had to report that story and you're compelling to market to file, file, file and maybe they are not and able to report it but on the other hand in addition to that i am on my ipad and i'm watching video, and i'm reading about an obituary of someone who died and i can actually look at their artwork and go to the archives. i mean suddenly a newspaper becomes a live event and i can talk back and contact the reporters who wrote the story. it seems to me that is change the nature of what a newspaper is. >> i think there are several strands of content that are different.

the first one is, when ken goes to our web site at 11 of the morning not only can he see an early version of the news, and we are competitive now, but at "the washington post" we have a lot of very talented and smart loggers who write staff analysis and it's a different form than we would have published in the print newspaper. ezra klein for example is a group of people who work with him on his blog site, they turn around 300, 400 word analysis throughout the day. things are coming out of the transcripts. we were writing houses. so there is that form. i think there is also a new form of content that is the conversations that readers themselves have and the content stream on different news organizations are different quality and i can't say "the washington post" always -- but you do see sometimes really interesting, thoughtful commerce

stations taking place in the comment stream on web sites and i think that is a different form of content. >> oh please. >> the comment sections that have grown up are so much worse than we had 20 or 25 years ago. >> like i say i'm not proud of "the washington post" commentary. [laughter] there is a limit to how much you can gate keeping her readers however i think you can look on some of the web sites, i mean take my former -- "the wall street journal" web site has terrific conversations taking place on the extremely congresspeople on matters of economics. we do occasionally have -- >> but we don't relegate it readers to a comments section. as opposed to wiki news where readers actually shape the story but perhaps under the curated supervision of your editor, that

would seem to be a new form of content rather than telling them to write a story and having comments at the bottom. >> if you file a story for "the washington post" and you get back tons of responses from readers including criticism of your report, the reporter is reading that and you can't tell me, and reporters -- is having an impact. >> it's not that much different than the pennsylvania gazette which always had letters from the various readers but it's not a home the thing. a homely thing with the -- >> i mean your earlier question about -- what happens is first of all all the digital transfer me is exposed in the last 10 years is

that we have massive overcapacity in the media. there were too many journalists into many organizations doing exactly the same thing and when the internet came along at the liberated the walls. the next thing that the conversation that took place among readers became much more part of the general news flow, the general information flow that readers engage with on the site and i think the combination and the transformation that is taking place today, i lost my train of thought. >> i will pick up on that, which is imagine 10 years ago that the supreme court was hearing arguments on the health care law. and i don't know who the supreme court reporter was that an. in. how you would handle it and how is that different from what you did yesterday when you wandered around and how is that different from what you say you'll be

doing five years from now? >> the first thing is, much of what happens on a day like yesterday or in the last three days takes place the night before because there is massive planning. massa planning. basically we program the way tv does. we think about what people want during a certain point of the day and second of all you are trying to extract as much multimedia content as you can. the supreme court hopefully as wedding video but they can provide audio and transcript and you have armies of people who are turning around journalism based on what is available as quickly as it becomes available so we have immediately looking at the transcripts trying to find a critical moment to highlight the 10 critical moments during the hearing today. that is a really different kind of thing that would have happened 10 years ago. >> all in one newsroom in one physical area which is good for "the washington post." >> "the washington post" used to be two areas and when i came to an half years ago we

consolidated it into one-room. >> is at the same people? >> in many cases more and more dissent it has to be and the fact is there some people who are still writing longform projects that will appear over tool full print pages on a sunday, but they are working closely with teams of producers and full-time media people thinking about what kind of other content we can pull into it so when it does launch its a pretty vital and exciting experience. to take an example, couple of summers ago we did dana priest did a big article looking at the contracts in the u.s. government and the creation of this huge secret national security apparatus since 9/11. we spend nearly three years on that. when we launched it within the first week we had 10 million pages and much of that was people coming in and completed the experience on the informed issue than people would have had before because a it could go into her database and if you work in montana you could go

into her database and find out that there in a contract given by the cia for somebody doing something in anaconda montana which for the person who is interested in what is going on in montana had been different information and somebody who came to the newspaper and just read our articles of experience is going to changes we have more information and get access to deeper databases. the experience each reader has his different. >> how does it change in the new platform, change the basic fundamental nature of content? >> well i mean i remember a couple of years ago i went to the white house and i was stunned. if you think about how the business of journalism and how journalists behave differently today. i mentioned covering 11:00 in the morning that peter baker for instance who is a great white house reporter. how you guys let him get away i

don't nobody went to "the new york times." and peter baker was filing three or four times a day. a guy who likes to write longer form. and i watched the tv guide and the cable news guide. they were popping up every 25 minutes and going outside. they were on their doing on their black areas, sending e-mails. i said what he doing? they said we are doing interviews. they are afraid to do it on -- in a crowded room on the phone because everybody can hear them. they're popping up and doing these quick pieces. increasingly, the content of what we report is affected by the technology. not just at the white house but think about campaign contributions. it used to be 25 years ago they had filed time and the campaign, you flew on the campaign plane which oftentimes --

but they went at 4:00 and there was a typewriter set up in the room and they would file their stories usually on their phones and then maybe 15 years ago they were filing on their laptops. now they are filing on their cell phones and they're calling an editor at 1:00 and saying i think the story tomorrow with santorum -- he said no, there is something i just saw gone facebook or cns -- cnn or whatever. there is very little time to report the filing for tomorrow and i think what you wind up getting in the content is inevitably changed and becomes less reflective, more fast and more gotcha. >> let me and my part open it up with one question that is sort of a shout-out to your publication which is "the new yorker" does a phenomenal job of of the bible narrative longform that is deeply reported.

your piece on shell sandberg, facebook being a recent example of that, and yet it's also, it's very well-positioned in the digital age. it has a great app. i now take "the new yorker" and i also find that ipads and tablets tend to be a nice place to read blogger form journalism unlike the past 25 years where you are reading on line and you were one short tweet and that sort of thing. how do you think "the new yorker" has figured out navigating the new platforms in the new media? >> well i think one of the things "the new yorker," one of the virtues it has and forgive me for singing for my supper here, but "the new yorker" knows who it is. and one of the problems with journalists today is too many journalists don't know who they are. they are grounded and they know they have a mass audience but

their audience are going to be 1.2 million subscribers. when i started writing for "the new yorker" actually in the late seventies it had 600,000 subscribers and their average age is older but it's not as old as the networks which is 60 and it's now 48 of 49 so it is dropped. they have a very good as you say, app, but essentially they say we believe as the commonest belief, for instance, and npr police for instance that there is a quality audience for what i do and were going to reach them and we don't have to come down to do it. i think there are publications that do that and they do okay. >> and the ipad is a good development compared to the web sites for presenting carefully cured did log reports. >> you. >> you get it free if you subscribe to the print magazine but i agree with you.

i often before i get on the plane will download it so i can read it. >> we will open it up for questions. yes? we on c-span and other outlets so we need microphones. >> thank you. is this on? thank you walter. to questions that are related. one is, hearing you speak, i am more nervous about the future of democracy than i was before, is a lot of right now, especially in an election year is people are only listening to people who agree with them, and not hearing an alternate point of view and that is a problem for, when it goes back to the ultimate responsibility of journalism and an example of that particularly his radio. what is the future of radio content and how does that play into it because they are even more fragmented and more

extreme. >> no, i have a kind of -- on the one hand intellectually and my brain i believe that we are going to see fewer newspapers, fewer radio stations, more dumbing down of the media and on the other hand emotionally, i can't live my life -- so i look for those stories with nice stories that give me some hope. if you ask me just to speak from my brain, i think it's inevitable that you have fewer newspapers and i think it's -- at one point, and they know this was true of "the washington post," the argument was made that local is the new king and we all have to be local. then you start getting patch and local which is just gone out of

business and you have other things like put ago. and everyone can blog and suddenly doesn't necessarily mean that local is going to be the new king on the block. so i think a lot of medium-size newspapers are going to be gone in five years and probably a lot of radio stations as well. >> do you want to add to that? >> i agree that the train that i lost earlier at the station was i was talking about consolidation and ken had it exactly right, there will be consolidation and there are more players than their need to be but i don't necessarily agree that this is terrible for democracy. i don't think it's great when you're only listening to the ideas of the article even. i'm not sure that it wasn't always that way before half a century ago. remember the history of american journalism the anomalous period was from 1950 to about 2000 when everything centralized and newspapers became more centrist

and a prized objectivity and went for longform journalism. they had immense profit margins because they controlled their town but before that period, as kim pointed out, it was the language of the 1930s because the public presses moved at a relatively slow place -- slow pace and started changing the newspapers and reporters were constantly delivering copy and newspapers were heavily ideological and washington had 100 newspapers. i once look it up and the columbia historical society, there were two stars, two sons in a tornado which i don't know what the political line of that would have been. there were all these papers and "the washington post" was founded as the first democratic party paper in washington after this a war because republicans ran it down. newspapers were ideological.

"the new york times" was an abolition newspaper when it started so in some ways we are for -- reverting to a was the norm. they presumably thrived or depend on their ideological loyalist to survive. but i don't necessarily think it's bad. i think this worry about democracy i think underestimates, grossly underestimates the motivation that people have to get good information and make wise decisions because people have powerful civic and economic motivations to make good decisions. they may listen to rush limbaugh, they may watch "msnbc" and only care about what they see on whatever channel they happen to like and they may be misguided but somehow you know society finds its way and we could have a long political discourse on that. >> it think there are two things that compete with each other. on the one hand, there is no

question there are many more sources of information that is wonderful for democracy. you could at your fingertips have a library or search or retrieve the information you want and it's much more two-way information which is more democratic. that is good. the worry is in the contradictory thing is you have more information but not better information. i worry more about that. >> let me speak on the opposite side which i agree totally with marcus, if you look at the grey flow of history benjamin franklin runs a way to philadelphia and their 15 newspapers and he starts the 16th. you have the short period period in american history in which you have mass media partly because broadcast comes along and ben franklin could start a newspaper but you can't start a network unless you are -- sorry thing is centralized. newspapers tend to become

monopolies because everything from department stores and there's a naturally monopolizing situation. this is an blown away by digital media where everybody can blog, so you get back to the way we have been for 450 years before the 50 year slice of mass media. is it good or bad? i think radio was a real example of polarization, but it didn't just happen in the past 10 years. i can remember reading about albert einstein you know in the 50s and he is worrying about the polarization of america and mccarthyism. he says i've seen this happen before. i grew up in nazi germany and then eisenhower and edward r. murrow and mccarthy. he says americans have a gyroscope. just when you think it's going to flip over it's able to write itself in this democracy so i do

think inherent in our democracy and allowing more sources of information is the wisdom of the crowd of american democracy and it does always tend to write itself. people say on the internet is that like talk radio? people go to their end of the spectrum and they go to the left-wing talk radio or the right wing and they get an echo chamber. actually do not think that is the case. i actually think on the internet you find instead of people wallowing in their corner of the blogosphere with their like-minded left or right wing people, there is more interchange, more shooting of barrows back and forth and more people going back and forth in going to different things so there is much more of a dialogue than in the days of the 50s when talk radio fragmented our society and i think it's a really good thing. >> he thanks. garrett mitchell.

walters comments just essentially answer the question i was going to pose which is at the introduction of every new media there are all these predictions not just about what will happen in the media itself but how that changes us as a country. >> you should've seen it when gutenberg do the printing press and all the businesses around the roman catholic church were buying up the vernacular bibles trying to stop it. >> i heard about it. so the question i'm struck by now is listening to the three of you talk about the democratization and i think walter's notion about positive influence of these things. given all of that in the power of these new platforms etc., what relationship do you see between those positive developments and the fact that our politics are as polarized as they have ever been? >> i guess i would challenge the assertion that they are as

polarized as they have ever been. i think again, this tree of the country is full of political vitriol and intense partisan rivalries. [inaudible] >> you the farthest left republican in the farthest right democrat, there is lots of space between them. >> that is true in congress in general but not the nation. congresses to the point of almost dysfunction but i'm not sure, mean i don't know that i would start by laming the media. i think you know there is a leadership question there in terms of -- clearly everything happens faster in today's world. technology accelerates every process so maybe you could argue technology has enabled people to communicate with her case more effectively, to rally people around their cause and maybe that does exacerbate the natural

part of the tendencies of congress or politics. but i am not sure. even if it were true, what the action point with heat, and so what do we do? >> the other thing, you look for positives. politicalization, i am putting that aside but look at fundraising. look at how much, how we are democratizing the presidential candidate to raise money, large numbers of people with small and comes. >> four years ago, the nation nominated the two candidates who were most known for saying we want a red nation or a blue nation or mccain-feingold and mccain lieberman. if the american people want that we will have leaders that do

that. >> it david jackson. walter said -- but no one really picked up on us to let me ask you a specific question. how would you describe citizen journalism and do you think there should be a place for it in "the washington post" or "the new yorker" for example? >> well if you think about it, think about the arab spring. how did we learn about and witness what was going on? people with their smartphones in their cell phones and cameras on twitter and facebook. that is pretty amazing. hurricane katrina. i mean you can go down -- his paper is reliant on information from citizens.

are they journalists? no, and i would make the argument at the risk of being called an elitist which i would plead guilty to, that a journalist should think of themselves as a professional and the presumption is that you have enough experience or training, not necessarily in journalism school, to decide what's on the front page, what is fair and balanced and is this really a legitimate story? and i? and i don't think citizens necessarily have that but they have a very valuable function. increasingly you have people going out who deputize people they call citizen journalists. some of it was very -- remember the person on -- so you have learned a lot. >> are you going to deputize

more citizen journalists? >> we should probably find ways to incorporate more of the reporting of the cumbre stations that take place in communities. i mean, the listserv is probably the thing that is closest to regularize citizen journalism and most favorites of the listserv. people talk with each other and talk to what's happening in the neighborhood. the string of robberies in northwest washington lit up all the list servers in chevy chase in northwest washington. and from that we have picked up the idea of tweeting stories. you can see when the media gets going on something. i guess i don't know, i mean there is a quality to journalism that may be different from just having reporting information and people when china had the big earthquake in the szechuan province there were all the cell these cell phone videos that

suddenly surface and allow the world to know what was happening in the remote part of china who was having this catastrophe. it is raw information and i'd in the end there is a journalism process that makes some sense of it that provides context and historical balance and the kind of independence and stepped back analysis that you need to feel the information is not just one way. otherwise, the danger of peer citizen journalism has an effect. eight people have eight different perspectives on what just happened and journalists aren't always right and we have try really hard but we try really hard to get as close to the truth as we can and that is sort of our core principle. we want to give people as much truth as we can give them. and i'm not sure that what we call citizen journalism, what we call information,