at pointing out the faults of others and other characteristics i think people knew, mather was the target. franklin was a brilliant writer, a brilliant satirist, and here at the age of 16 he was showing this great tendency, something that did not stand him in good stead with his brother. some of us may be eager brother. but i like toward to the next edition of letters after the success of reporting the revolutionary war. >> backtrack. as for your commentary on the role of the local newspapers during the battle of lexington and concord or shortly thereafter and how we kinda briefly mentioned of the boston newsletter was one of the only

newspapers to continue its coverage. but very much was the atmosphere like to the printers on the verge of war and just after war starts? >> well, all of these -- massachusetts at printers in boston and in a couple of the port towns to the north, salem. and when the war started it was, i think there were leaks from the british government that were telling the general and the roh government to start cracking down. the printers, the most radical printers, they got there press is out of boston just a few days in early april 1775. snuck out around the same time. isiah thomas back of the day of lexington and concord crossing the river.

so they were outside of boston as the siege began. they had that outside of boston. quickly set up their prices in watertown in order to serve the patriot cause. another said a printer's came down from salem and renamed their newspaper the independent chronicle to, again, support the patriot cause. one of the ways is supported the cause, the trade reports for the massachusetts government talking about how awful this british attack on contraband and how many, how they had fired without provocation on the soldiers with these farmers wind up in lexington and how they had attacked houses on the afternoon of that day. all -- and a copy of the newspaper with this report and

this version of the battle, the provincial congress permission to ship from salem to carry this across to london. the ship sailed in ballast which meant it did not have any cargo. they did not stop to put in the cargo. the entire voyage was being paid for by the new patriot massachusetts government in order to get their version of a was happening to london first, and it worked because the general has said that his report, but he sent it out on a slow but that went to new york and then across london. so the london government, you can see this in a london chronicle, waiting and waiting for the official report, the report they think is more credible. the entire capital is talking about what the massachusetts government and said. over time there is a bit -- it

is tough for some of these printers because it is or time. at one point as a thomas talked about the raglan that was used to make the paper. the printer would as subscribers to bring in their own ranks descended to the papermakers to be recycled in the paper. so there would have these piles of old rags. sleeping on these piles because they did not have beds during the war. so in the meanwhile we talk about inside boston. on the other side most of the printers shutdown and only margaret draper and their journeyman kept that this did running. the pages are getting smaller. the type is not quite so good. it is becoming a regular. they did their best. both sides were trying to support their side of the war.

they were part of the overall political effort. >> an interesting observation that i made. the quality of the american newspapers to tears the quality of the paper that there were printed on hand seemed of significantly less quality and the middle of the war. and so if you flip through the book and you look just at the american newspapers, you can see in 1777 for about 1780, the quality of the paper is less than you would find before the war starts and at the end of the war. but to your point about the fast ships, another interesting tidbit that i read in the 1766 london chronicle was the issue in which they announced the repeal of the stamp act and one of the ways that the stamp act or of the causes of the repeal

of the stamp act is the boycott of british goods. what that did is in essence made the london merchants become american lobbyists lobbying parliament for the repeal of the act. .. >> and the royal government

sent their own report so when 1775 came around there were willing to spend the money because they knew they could not get the scoop if they did not. >> we will continue questions downstairs with signing copies of the books. let's continue downstairs and ask more questions for the of panelist. [applause]

>> people like to ask me how did you come across this story? and what happens you are supposed to be working on something else that can be frustrating but that is what happened to me with internet

research. look at this photo. on the department of energy web site. they plucked up a newsletter for the facilities with this month in history there was the beautiful vanishing point* and the machines with the dials and knobs and the women looked so lovely with the 1940's here do and i read the caption that these young women, and many of them high school graduates from tennessee were enriching uranium for the world's first atomic bomb however they did not know that at the time.

so i, i'm thrilled about this. i was very thrilled when cindy contacted me to do a package in a new format on coverage of race, social mobility and class. and what i mean by a new format is that for this co [inaudible] ing for that cover story we did the online forum so we had on different voices and thosethose on the panel were the voices and we will not go through a lot of introductions by briefly want to go down the line. richard prince is an amazing rey journalist with a career

lifetime achievement award richa so he says richard prince journ irurnalism taught'' and f senior vice president executive director of the first amendment center.ooks, jeff is the author of best selling books and ahe dow contributor writing dow jones with the tv column. [laughter] for the "wall street rquel journal" and our next guest fm is a long time filmmaker, ictur author and herbird of new book, a bird of paradise a is a fascinating look from famiy to dna.

and it's an absolutely fascinating look at the diversity within the diversity of america. so thank you all for being with us. and, you know, this package is one where we cover a lot of territory, but first, gene, i want to turn to you to, like, set the table for us. >> thanks. we thought we'd start with some very, very basic numbers to sort of, again, give us a broad perspective on where things are in society and within journalism. reported recently among newborns, minorities outnumbered whites for the fist time in the nation's history. and we were discussing somewhere between 2043 and 2050 we will have that minority/majority society -- majority/minority society in which no one single racial group is no more than 50%. so we're moving toward a diverse is society in a way this country's never seen.

the district of columbia, hawaii, new mexico, and texas already have reached that point where there is no single 50%-plus group. 11% of counties are actually in that already. so we watch the nation change in this dramatic fashion, and it's occurring, as we said, sometimes outside the headlines. richard has seep that numbers -- has seen that number on few borns reported in some newspapers, not reported in others. while poverty among african-americans has fallen to 27.6%, it's still nearly three times the poverty rate among whites. even in a recession. younger people of color were more likely to be hurt because they had invested in homes, older whites had invested in 401(k)s and sprung back more quickly when the market came up. so we're see an economic disparry even in the recovery period. let's turn to journalism.

in the 2012 survey by as and e, which the new one will be coming out at the convention in june -- last year it was in april, but the convention moved by a few months -- total newsroom employment fell by 2.4%, but the loss of employment by minorities was 5.7%. that is in newspaper newsrooms or print newsrooms and online. now, the report said those losses were stabilizing compared to a four or five-year period both in terms of total loss and in loss of people of color. but we'll wait and see what happens in the 2013 report, because it does seem there's been some additional layoffs in the news, and we'll see how those impact everybody. in radio and it's, the number -- and television, the numbers actually increased in 2012 for those identifying themselves as minority group members. but again, if you take a longer picture over time, the numbers have declined. and we've seen rather high

profile changes in who is visible on those networks and programs. radio is among the more positive spots. we see employment there up each year. and i think we can stop right there for the moment. >> yeah. >> you know, it's an interesting picture of the dynamic and the change even as the country becomes more diverse. you can say for sure that at least in newsrooms across the board those numbers are not keeping up. something we've seen since the census started in the '70s. >> yeah. i mean, this is a great place for us to start, gene. and one of the reasons, for example, that we linked coverage of race and ethnicity with coverage of class and social mobility is because they are so intertwined. and there's been a spate of articles recently that have talked about is journalism just becoming a playground of the elite? if you, if content is not paying as much as it used to and people are making the most -- not necessarily the most money, but

a lot of money basically repackaging other people's work which has no, you know, financial value to the original person who wrote it, posted it, etc., how do we keep a diverse newsroom? there is a block right from the start when people are looking for internships. i, as a relatively young woman with, i hosted a recent college graduate in my house for six months because she had grown up in foster care, she's african-american, and she wanted to be a journalist. and there's no way she could do an unpaid internship. and that was my way of giving back to my own community. and i don't mean the black community, i mean the journalism community. [laughter] buzz the journalism -- because the journalism community deserves diversity, but why aren't we getting it? >> journalists and americans are far more, you know, soon to be extinct group, you know -- [laughter] than any of the other minorities we're talking about. [laughter] >> the numbers certainly --

[laughter] >> it's a really great point because one of the things which traveled really rapidly as a mean around the social media field to which i belong, actually there were two of them. one was a series of postings on different blogs about when you should actually blog for free. what is the price of content, an era where the value of content hasn't changed, but the willingness to actually pay for it and the supply of it has certainly altered the playing field. the other was a post by an attractive young white female journalist about why she left news which was fascinating to me, because people have been leaving news now for decades. i mean, the organizations that we belong to like nibj, ahaa, the ethnic journalism organizations have now increasingly had to start reshaping memberships and programming to orient around people postjournallist, if you are.

not just postracial, but postjournallist, right? and it's becoming a conversation now where it's really only starting to hit home now that young white journalists who are graduated from journalism school can't get jobs. i mean, that sounds a little harsh, but that really does seem to be where the rubber's hitting the road, if you will. >> it's like documentaries for me. like, i've seen the same thing happen with documentary film making and also the ngo world happening in journalism, where it's only people who can afford to do it for free and be creative artists are the ones who are doing it. when i sat on panels for my last documentary film, i was often the only person of color on the panel, and mostly the films were about the african diaspora. and then you travel and see what's happening in the ngo world, it's always the children of, you know, rich white people and the american ruling class that are having these jobs.

and then what happens is you have societies that somehow holistically become dependent on seeing those images and those figures as people in the position of saving. >> yeah. >> so to me, it's a very organic thing that has multiple repercussions. and, you know, when i was reading some of the articles that you sent and in this being white in philly crap that i was reading as well -- >> how do you really feel? [laughter] >> i feel uninspired. but when i was reading that stuff and everything else and rereading, i kept on doodling, and the only word i kept on writing was gentry, gentrification. and will has to be biological diversity by not only the people being covered, but the people covering. it doesn't matter that there's a latino and a black american or white -- you have to have a socioculture, soap yo political culture within journalists, which you don't see. >> some people argue otherwise. in fact, one of the comments on the article, on the online

version of the columbia journalism review article said, well, we cover communities of color, does it really matter? and i think you make a compelling case, yes, it does matter who goes to out and covers. >> it does matter. >> and, you know, i just want to say that raquel and i both have our little devices, and you can join us on twitter at cjrdiverse, that's our hashtag, and we'll be reading some of your material. let's get to philly. you know, this story about being white in philly. i remember when the first wave of kind of browning of america covers starting coming out. it was almost like, you know, the invasion of the body snatcher. [laughter] one day we'll all be sort that brown or something, you know? [laughter] but did you -- you followed this, being white in philly. can you explain a little bit more about -- >> well, the philadelphia magazine wrote with a cover story called "being white in philly," and it was supposedly the ruminations of a white

philadelphia resident that riled a lot of the population of philadelphia including the mayor and some of the black residents and black journalists in philadelphia. it got philadelphia magazine a ton of publicity. [laughter] sales went up. there were at least two forums that were held on the topic, but it raised some of the issues that we're talking about -- >> yeah. >> -- including the fact that the media in philadelphia, particularly print media, were not very diverse, and philadelphia magazine itself had no african-americans on its staff, on its editorial staff. >> yes. >> there was a piece that was written by somebody on the business staff, a black woman on the business staff who said, you know, this is, you know, horse manure what this guy is writing. but it, you know, it raised the issues that we're talking about in terms of, in terms of

diversity. let me say one other thing about the previous question, and that is that one of the reasons for this diminishing diversity is a lack of will by the people in power, people who have the power to hire and fire and the change in the climate. >> yeah. >> of the country. we have the supreme court, for example, about to pull back further on affirmative action. people talking about this is a postracial society and all these things d. -- [laughter] >> sort of diminish the urgency for diversifying our journalistic staffs at the same time that we have the census bureau talking about, you know, the figures that you raise and the fact -- but, apparently, this other threat here about postracial and we'll worry about a it tomorrow and we've got other things to worry about like the bottom line is outweighing, you know, the facts about the

way the country's changing. >> and i think that's 180 degrees wrong. you know, we talk about this postracial which is a fiction. but then we also forget, you know, we're talking about an industry that decided that classified ads were forever their province. who would or try to monetize that finish. [laughter] >> true. >> then came up with the sparkling idea that if you just gave away your con feint for free, late -- content for free on the web, later people would be so in awe they would pay for it. failing to recognize this audience that is increasingly expectant of people who can talk to them in the exact opposite of what that story in the philadelphia magazine was. being irrelevant, being insulting, being shallow, being bad journalism. there's a host of of too lating for that story. -- titles for that story.

if we miss this audience factor, and from a free press standpoint, i'm very concerned because that aspect of the media as watchdog, that aspect of the constitutional role goes away along with circulation and presence and old name plates and what have you. we cannot afford as journal u.s.es to miss this third or opportunity to do the best thing for a free press, and that is to recognize who our audience really is. stop selling to one little slice of it. >> yeah. but people are so risk averse. >> the quote that stood out to me the most, well, there were a couple, but what gets examined about race is generally one-dimensional. looking -- i can't even read my own handwriting. >> neither can i. >> with almost looked at almost exclusively from the perspective of people of color. >> whoa. >> i'll say it again. what gets examined publicly is generally one-dimensional, looked at almost exclusively from the perspective of people

of color which you know is not true. >> yeah. that's not only not true, it's a little insane. [laughter] but, you know -- >> good way to put it. >> this is what i mean by the gentry and about gentrification of journalism. you have -- and this has how many comments does this article have, 6, 7,000? i mean, white, you know, the white establishment, the ruling class have larger platforms to, you know, to get their, i guess, their messages out. look at limbaugh, look at o'reilly and look at all the untruths they speak versus how many people of color do you see having the same kind of platform? >> well, before jeff jumps in, and i know that you want to -- [laughter] no, i mean, this is getting to the heart. i do think in a sort of bizarre world you can see the coverage as it's the difference between -- i think that that quote shows a misperception of

the difference between coverage about people of color and coverage led by people of color. that's two completely different things. so when we think of race, everyone has a race x a race is both real and picktive. as you discussed in bird of paradise, your book, ethnic identities and racial identities, we've been intermingling ever since the neanderthals met homo sapiens, so once you start talking about intermingling of cultures, it's happened for millennia. but some people were perceived not to have a race in america if you were white, and there's books on how the irish became white. like who has different statuses. and so it seems to me that the quote that you raise really brings up this idea of how, how our media industry can sometimes perceive, perceive a racial narrative as coming from a place it doesn't just pause people talk about -- just because people talk about black, brown,

asian-american, native american does not mean that coverage is being led by a diverse group of people, but death anyway. .. that's why we are starting to get cover stories rick the one "being white in philadelphia ." it's not even the first such article to come out of philadelphia. if you remember a few years back, there was a story written forbes contributor, a lot of

people who are journalists by self-definition, you know, were placed to the pool of -- which is not a bad thing necessarily. >> next to the free press. [laughter] >> the guy in particular was an i.t. consultant who predominantly wrote about issues of technology and decided to jump in the conversation on race and class by writing a article called "if i were a poor black while" became one of the most negative in the viral sen pieces to appear under a forbes brand. not written by a forbes staffer. i'm not sure if it was edited bay forbes. because it came under forbes. from a perspective of suburban residence of philadelphia. >> he caught them to go to con and code academy.

>> exactly. [laughter] if you don't have -- [inaudible] then you spend a lot of time. you know. [laughter] >> his position there was not dissimilar from that of the author of the, you know, article. and it came to the conversation about race when the stand point of looking at it objectively from the outside. i think we'll see more of that. do whoe ntion . . the race and in the race. we can have greater incentive. we're not actually part of succumb, if you will. that's where both of the articles seemed to land. we can say from the interesting about this. we can see from not having been immersed in it. >> yeah. >> the last thing is i don't think you have to be necessarily of color to write of issues of color. >> i agree. >> the response in other countries for generations and one of the things you're

required to is live in the country, learn the language, be a part of the -- [laughter] and even then. >> yes. >> you can't always get it right. >> yeah. i think all of these points are excellent. one thing i want do context you'llize some of this, again race and class linked. there was an assumption in that piece about what a poor black kid should do that everyone has broadband at home. that's not at all the case. there there's poor broadband penetration particularly in some homes and rural home. it's assumption we bring to the table. part is the period of time where assumptions are being deconstructed. that america is a european-run country is decrurkted. but also that the news media, i mean, i think the very question is the news media an objective

authority is being deconstructed in a different way than it has been in the pass. that's always been a question. is the news media objective? we have a prison imof different online outlets, people brogging, fox news and mississippi >> we're seeing this sort of battle of i would call it fiction versus reality coming up. for example in our world in the area of religion. we had a fictional attitude diverse reasoning use society. so now that we are truly reaching this point and recent study said we're first of all more church than ever. that's part of the diversity. we are seeing more diverse religious group. beare watching the struggling there and the fights going on very sharply. we were saying maybe it's

because things have become this approach to reality a little more. we begin to see the intense dpircheses in -- differences in dispute. we also saw, i think within the media, when we talk of news people we talk about the issue of diversity it was organizational institutional. now with the internet individuals everybody is a reporter. everybody or can be a reporter or journalists by self-definition. that's changing this dynamic in a way that the discussion we're having is never able to be conducted. it's always been how do we change the large powerful institutions and ownership of institutions consolidated. people can reach out from the planet from one desk and computer. will they have the impact? that's still to be seen. we are seeing a different change in the nature of how do we diversify and reach out to other

audiences? what do we hear back? i'm dieted to -- excited to hear back from a way we have never been able to from communities before. it's a wonderful ability to hear back if we listen. and that may be . >> and social implead is prompting some of that. there's an overuse of social media platform by people of color, you know, for example on twitter. i think it's interesting. i want to get to the question of resources. anyone can jump in, raquel, i would love to hear from you. the example about the documentary film world is important. anyone can be a journalists, say they can. the resources still are the -- if you don't have the resources to amplify your voice, you will be drown out. so increasingly i see a lot of journalism funding more like venture capital funding like, you know, the vitaminnestments

-- investment in combined, you know, platform meets content or whatever, but how do different groups of color fit in to the role of entrepreneurial journalism world? >> as an extreme example, i think that we talked about this offline that sometimes in order for you to get funding so you to debuts yourself. you have, like, for example world star hip-hop which is like, to me, viral lynching. done by a black man to black and brown people. he's doing no better than what this man wrote, you know, the article about philadelphia. it's terrible. what happens is he got a what new yorker profile or new york magazine profile. i'm not sure which one. we gets a lot of hypes. you have citizen journalists that are out there, for example, i saw the tea party rallies and a lot of citizensism journalism

that i thought was good. people were unguarded. it was one person talking to another. you got feel and see the temperature of what was going on in america. one thing that stood out to me were, you know, people saying shoot them now and ask questions later. ted knew nugent for president. you see how totally remorseful white people were for barack obama in office the first time. you saw it, you you saw the blow back during the tea party rally. i feel like that stuff we need to see, hard to see, will not get the funding the world star hip-hop will get. >> and for people don't know the site, it's rather demeaning site which using hip-hop which is a wonderful art form as a marketing form. >> it's not really hip-hop. it's not what you see. i saw something not on directly

on that site. i don't go to that site. i saw it on the news that the young black man was stripped from the clothing for 28 hours maybe in jersey city and whipped by other black men. and we complain about jane -- jane go un he makes money off the site. >> yeah. let me just -- that's depressing. [laughter] >> let me point out some positive things i have seen. of the daily news wrote a book called [inaudible] about the history of united states. and repeatedly was turned to a film that not wide spread distribution but it is nonetheless out there and we can

hope that it gets wider distribution, and the film praises how the implants -- immigrants came to the united in the first place. which is something missing from the immigration discussion. about point that is made is that a lot of the reason why these people from the various latin american countries are in the in the united states because are actions the united states has taken in those countries to diminish the quality of life there, and force these folks out of those countries and in to the united states. i raise that one to make two points. number one, there are some documentaries that need people on the other end and the media to pub publishize and make

people aware of it. doing something like that requires resources, and it's something you can't get from the proliferation of social media, you know, good reporting requires resources, and as much as the environment is changing, that's something that the fact remains. the other one i saw recently was on pbs, it was by natural black programming consortium, and they spent a year, i believe in the d.c. high school alternative school. it's called "180 days" or something like that. >> yes. >> and frankly i wasn't i wasn't avid about watching another special about what it was like at the school. this one sucked me in. it took the issue of school reform we have heard so much about out of the theory and the

fact and figure proposed but the viewpoint of what is actually going on in the school and what teachers and the students have to deal with. and it gave you a different point of view on that whole issue. in fact what happened -- not giving anything away now, it already aired. what happened in the documentary, it went for four hours, two separate nights. was that the teachers and students have to deal with the social issues before they get to the school. what's going on in the home, what's going on in the neighborhood? it's a tremendous achievement just to be at the school, and the teachers made that point very clearly. but what happened in the documentary was that after the position of these -- downtown about how you have to score so much on the standardize test. the rug was pulled out from the

principal and school before they had a chance to complete the process of getting these kids to the point where they can do well on the exams. so spanning to a year or so in the school's required resources. so, you know, i have to emphasize again that journalism requires resources. social media is not a substitute for good reporting, and that's just something i want to point out. >> again, and also that documentary got very little attention in the media as well. it requires somebody on the other end in the news tends say hey, it's important. >> right. yeah. i mean, that was a real labor of love for the producers, jackie jones, and, you know, funding is definitely always an issue. the question is how can we hack

it? does anyone have any thoughts on how funding perhaps can become more . >> you change the people that more --ed a administer the funding. >> you can argue the that the same tools and the same technology platforms that are to a certain extent leveling the playing term in terms of who has what are offering the opportunities to change the rule and funding. travel funding is something they are experimenting with. >> the biggest challenge what we're seeing here as with anything, you have to -- [inaudible] the kind of thing that tend are things that have a very ideosinc if you look at the kick starters of the world, for instance, if you are putting out a 3-d

printer you get $50,000 tomorrow. if you are trying to get funding for something obscure, it will be much more challenging to get that. that said, i think that is what we're seeing in some ways as a discomfort zone that is occurring at the transition points between a lot of different things. one is, you know, the notion of the establish of media, you know, to some public and crowd media or citizens media. we're looking at the transition from the use of, you know, center outplatforms to, you know, more level peer-to-peer and two i did directional we are looking at demographic shift between a majority-minority society to one. we are starting to have to think

about terms like minority and whether they make sense. all the columnist that say minority outnumber minority. at what point do they no longer become minority. >> i was going strongly with the word. you're more than . >> exactly. >> the historical term of art. i suppose it will go away some point. >> we'll just have new the plurality. [laughter] i want to say something, there's also a generational gap. like, for example, i was talking about the hip-hop more people have seen than anything we talked about. what is going to happen to pbs if they continue to market the way they are marketing to the new generation of documentary film lovers and new generation of social media kids who, you know, pbs doesn't speak to. doesn't do outreach to. the truth is it's going to be

harder for us to make films and make it easier for who want to base their community and spread untruth to create their own productions. >> yeah. i just want to briefly bring up an example from my own career. i love to talk to people from all backgrounds. when i saw all, i mean, i met clans people in a parking lot during a blizzard so, you know,ly go to great lengths to have some interesting discussions. but i -- i think it's important one of the resource issues for me as a reporter, who loves field reporting, getting the money to do field reporting is so hard. like i did an independent radio documentary project with wnyc, i went to a tea party rally and talked to people. i actually, you know, i stay in touch with so. people i met. i think also what happens is when the money dries up for field reporting, we become disconnected from each other.

because, you know, groups can hate groups but an individual can hate individuals. once you start breaking down who is an individual is. i found even common ground with the clans people. i don't mean about race. they loved their family. they cared for the family. they thought that being an active racist was a way to talk care of their family. getting in the field understands the motivation that enable people to think the actions are right. all of us think we are doing the right thing. most people don't think they doing the wrong thing. part of our job is unearth human nature. it's hard at this time. i want to think about if we're moving ahead, gene, the table america is becoming more diverse, the media less so. what kind of iceberg does present? how do we steer around it instead of crashing in to it? >> i think there's a neck and neck race with the institutions

that have resources and this really addressing generational gender race issues. at some point this mass media that has provided resources that has funded so many different ways the kinds of journalism we admire either wakes up to this new reality of the audience, or it will fade away. i don't know what -- [inaudible] we do see that nothing right now sort of individually on the web has the institutional power to do what a lot of organizations can do when they're willing to do it. we're so much in the transition zone, i don't know where it will come out. i have to constantly remind myself the web is what fifteen years old? it's a teenager at this point. it doesn't know where it's going. it's still finding its own way. i worry in term of the free press ability to watchdog government. so often just as example, there's the argument that well,

yes, local newspapers and others who used to cover institutions are gone. there's a blogger and that. the blogger is interested in street paving in the a neighborhood. when the street paved or goes away as an issue the person goes away. there isn't the institutional memory. there isn't the continuity there. along with the other challenges is the idea of continuity. the at least is an institutional memory of what become before to improve on, to build from, i don't know where we've going with that. we have become this sort of, you know, more interested in lindsay lohan's latest something or other. what kind of resources that? >> i'm sorry. -- i go nuts. why? >> it's like -- [inaudible conversations] >> -- i hate to slam, you know, someone for doing their job. it was taylor swift piece in "vanity favor" was drivel.

taylor swift is upset people talk about the love life even though she was talking about all the time. it's like that's a lesson learned. we'll never do it again. the story itself was intent l. >> i guess my feeling is that -- i know we are in the new -- concerns as a result in kind of the archiveial belly of the beast when it comes to cherishing of the collective memory and the institutional status. i think one thing we have to be aware of a lot of the collective news unconscious is not as healthy -- as not of good as what it is supposed to have been doing as we have hoped. right. one of the things we see is that because of the desire to put these standards in place,

because of the privileging, if you will, of the ways we covered news in the past, a lot of standards that reflect was concern to be good journalism, active journalism, or fair journalism come out a world where the news judgment is made in a different kind of social economy. i think you still see that. the kind of classic, you know, rap, if you will on american journalism is the pursuit of balance. we actually lose that. >> right. we overemphasize the points that are . >> right. and false -- indeed. the notion as you get left, right, or, you know, other kinds of partisan conversations around different topics. the more extreme one or the ore side the more likely you to have the middle balance shift in a way. when you talk about race especially think becomes even more so. the person who is an accurate to speak from the perspective of

race is very complicated as we're talking about because of you are a certain race you are expected to be an expert on being that race. even those that are journalists and write from editorial position find ourself in that circumstance of being required to speak for "the race" a little bit too frequently. it's one of those con conundrum -- if you do, then you find yourself being in that small set of people that will required to carry that whenever grow. >> yeah. i want to switch to something we got on our twitter feed. again that's hash i can't tell if it's a -- probably both.

[laughter] okay! thank you. so basically the move away which you wrote about, richard, you can lead us off here. the move away from using illegal immigrant. it was a huge fight brought up by ethnic journalisms. tell us about the shift in news room policy that you tracked on that? >> yeah. yesterday the associated press announced the style book entry on term immigration. and the reason why the associated press put out a report because that's considered the style, the style used by the majority of news rooms in the united states because it's easier than creating your own style book and it's ready available and everybody uses it in the associated press. they decided would no longer use the term illegal immigrant or

illegal alien or any illegal as a noun. and they would consider these people people people first and you talk about people in the country illegally and use terms such as that. this is as -- as i said it's been a fight that has been going on since the 1980s, and represents in the language, you know, language is political, and that is why it was interesting to see the ap spobdzing to -- responding to, you know, after all of this time to what these groups have been saying. we saw the same thing going on the "politico" with pro-life and pro-choice, and affirmative action versus racial preferences, and same-sex marriage versus gay marriage, you know. these are people on a more

advocate for all of those causes fight within the media for their turn to be the preferred term so that, you know, it makes people, you know. so for the associated press to decide that being illegal is not the first thing you should know about someone. you are a human being first is an achievement. >> isn't that crazy that's an achievement in 2013? [laughter] i'm sitting here listening i'm trying to think of something cool and profound to the statement, but especially because i'm latino therefore i represent every latino in america. [laughter] >> yeah. i cannot find something profound to say to that. i think it's ridiculous we are having this conversation. but that brings me to a point i want to get to that, you know, i think, jeff, your point about

having to represent your race. gosh knows question go on and on about that. what do you think is going to happen? i'm going to start with you as we going surface the identity within the group, you know, like for example, i'm half african and half black-american even my ethnicity all of our ethnicity is mixed. my is mixed in a way that traditional. there's a lot of writing about the mixture within the african community like african-caribbean. give us a perspective from your book what you learned from the latino community and the dominican republic and broaden it out to you see latinos changing. >> a lot of stuff i couldn't get placed elsewhere in the mainstream media. people don't want to talk about it or they can't wrap their heads around the idea that the pete try dish, if you will in the new world was in the dominican republic. the essence of being an

american. you should try to be latino. you should try to emulate as much as you can. first the european settlement the successful one in the new world was in the colony that exists today in the colonial zone in the dominican republic. the they came in and the american india indigenous american, slave trade jumped off as well. and the things happen there had that began who we are today. yet you come here and you are illegal or made to feel like you're not part of the so-called american dream. i think i think needs to be debunked. maybe that's separate panel. exactly. but to me at the end of the day it's a holistic thick. -- thing. i see with starting with ethnic studies and en"fantasy." when you learn about history and your people are primitive or they're salve sages and orange -- savage the european came here

with freedom loving and loving that freedom and keep on, you know, you have children that you see in the statistics drop out of school become disinterested in school, feel like they are invisible to society, then you have now journalists part of the gentry writing about the same people, for example, during sandy and write about them as if they are invisible, as if they are props. so, you know, i'm not as hopeful as, you know, the future of the discussion of race. because i don't think there is enough biological, social cultural, social political diversity within even our races. the people that are writing about us within are a -- latino, i don't think there's enough diversity within our groups to have a they are -- thorough and thoughtful discussion. >> maybe you can speak about asian-americans or everybody. >> that's my goal. [laughter] >> that's right. everybody like has, you know, has a hash hashtag.

>> i have mongolian birthmark. >> yeah. you speak for -- yeah. >> talk about what you found out from the dna evidence, you can multitask. >> yes. we can switch your tag. >> i got everybody. >> just how do we, i mean, i think part of the struggle is that we did have, like, black, white, asian, latino, native american, and now finally teasing out of people's country of origin, how that affects, you know, like the korean-american community is different than the many different communities within chinese-american communities, different, you know, all of these cultural differences. will we get to the point where we can understand the nuance and what will it take for us to get there? >> well, a side note on the illegal immigrant thing. i know, it's taking us back a step. you mentioned native americans

and every time i see the word illegal immigrant think i'm sure native americans have a different perspective of what "illegal immigrant "is. it speaks to where we are as a culture. they are terms of art. they are term of the moment. they are snapshot of what the context we live in calls certain things from the perspective of whatever the dominant establishment is. whoever is at the top of the social economy food chain at the current moment. and what i think is -- when we talk about journalists, especially i'm not a subscriber to the, you know, notion of the journalist as pellet as the gate keeper of truth and so forth. but i do believe that journalists have a specific responsibility and specific capability of at least, you know, having really, really good bs filters.

right? which means so you to be diverse. you have to have a i diverse group of people to speak with you're not certain so you it right. the sense of skepticism, the sense of being able to tell when even if you are not of a story "barack obama: the story" isn't quite right blarng blank we're starting to lose a little bit in the pace of news we have gotten to. and that, i think, is where we are right now. especially with the coverage of race. i don't think that question survive as an industry if we try to say that the only way that people can cover a certain thing is if they are a -- have a certain background, a certain specific context to which to speak. that is what journalism is about. it's about telling stories that matter to a broad array of people. not purely one to one customized perspective. at the same time, i think that the take away from this is that

in the discomfort zone for journal toifm evolve it needs to incorporate different types of journalism. there isn't this seemless standard of journalism that fits all occasion and the people making judgments especially need to be able to filter and appropriately allocate resources and deliver and distribute news to the right channel based on not just the understanding of what news is now but what news is becoming, i guess. >> gene? >> this is sort of quick round up. i probably attach a little more importance to the ap change. it becomes better late than never. it matters because it set acetone right from the start when you read the story. although i think i understand to some degree to i don't know -- you know, where were you fifty years ago.

in term of the language, i'm reminded we -- george caroline from the art festival and he choose to do the wonderful riff on language and identifiers and which he posed the question of what do you call a white person from south african that immigrates to the united. an african-american. he did a whole thing on that. he pointed out the inhavehave a -- invalidity. >> it means whatever we make it. >> i hope that we increasingly see that being diminished in our society. looking more at people from the journalistic standpoint and really the election -- selection. i think you put your finger on the next challenge. the people making the decision about resources is -- are they waking up? are they suddenly realizing this new world that is out there? maybe it's been there. which increasingly is going to be in their face.

if only to frankly to monotize the product to push seas, do circulation -- when they say it's the right thing to do but also it's the economic thing do. and i keep waiting for that. maybe we are approaching it step by step. at one point we have to recognize this the diverse aspect of our society in ways we have never done before. >> i'm going to go to questions soon. i see one in the audience -- yeah, okay i see a few. richard, any thoughts before we go to question? >> well, a lot of thoughts -- [laughter] a lot of ground really fast. >> let me say this, that is the success of diversion in

journalism will depend on the diverse in society. and that's why stories about education and standard of living and those kinds of things are important to journalisms also. where are the journalists come to come from? they are going come from places from people who have been well-educate who know how to spell, who know how to speak well. and if those thifers are d things are delivered in an you're not going to get the journalists you need in the news room. that's one of the things that is wrong -- [inaudible] the other thing is that the issue of diverse coverage and who told the stories is also important because i don't

believe that a lot of issues have to be dealt with in isolation. >> yes. >> telling the story about the environment can be a diverse story depending on the frame of reference that are used in each story. the sources that are used, you know, the examples that are used, and if this is woven throughout the entire news operation. that makes for more diversity. i think somebody may not want to read about what's going on in -- toxics waste dump in a poor neighborhood might want to get a glimpse -- might get a glimpse by reading about something else and happen to use that as a reference point. diversity comes in a lot of form. the important thing is that it's there woven throughout the news. >> i could not agree more. so let's go to questions. i see one right there. the lady in the black and white

top. could you give us your name. >> my name is jane -- i don't think this is on. >> you're on. >> my name is jacob -- jane hall. i'm a continuing journalist. i used to work for shelby kofi. i teach at american university. i want to pursue a little further without being too crass the economic argument. i saw in the pugh state of the media story that people -- that people are actually noticing cutbacks and saying there's came your subscription they are noticing. i hear people saying that about news organizations that we all know and love. so that is one economic argument, the brand. let me be crass here. i have friends around lot of pressure at the networks and newspapers and if you're given a choice to cor cover a toxic waste stuff or the wonderful story in the "new york times." it's rare to hear from somebody, she's white.

she's not somebody you normally hear from. what's the economic argument to make in terms of branding or something purely crass about why should they cover poor people? why should they cover people not gentry? that to me, is really the case that has going to object made in a crass way if it's going work. >> i think we have gone through the period of infatuation with eye balls and, you know, analysts telling us that the shallower the coverage, you know, the broader shall lore coverage. and, you know, the thing about the internet when it came up, it was a toy. you know, we got out there and found it was fun to find fifty thousand everyone's to something. it became a tool if we were looking for the nails we went. now it's becoming a necessity, you know, it's gone far beyond that. what is happening in that short period of life in the internet is news that matters. things that are important are coming back to the poor. they are what is propelling sites that are successful.

the news that matters news that counts. and again, there's, you know, i can't tell you why people aren't recognizing -- i see the race between on lifeon that news ratings are down, circulation is done. people are turning off to the institutions that thing have to exist. i hope that the sense of getting back to news that matters and news that reflects communities accurately takes hold before the economic model finally implodes. on a day-to-day basis it's going happen the right way and it's not going happen. it's a repressing question, i think it says about what is the news that is valuable to the diverse community, news that counts? you know, and diversity, to me, is such a thread within the rational for free press and survival of the free press. it has to occur. i'm going to be more a pop -- if

we don't a a industry become more relevant and focus more on news that matters to a bunch of communities and, you know, it's the fact there's still toxic waste dumps fifty years after we founded the epa. and that is in all of their communities. why isn't the story being done? i have one foot in the tar pit, i know in my -- but i still think people want news that is valuable. they want documentaries that teach me not just entertainment. and the economic rash rash tell me write news that counts and see what happens. >> if i can, i'll jump in because, you know, i think about this all the time. some of what i do is entrepreneurial.

it may be going abit afield. stay with me. having worked with abc and there are people in the room with us that also have. when a company is owned bay larger entity, it sometimes gets held to standards that don't suit. so i felt, and this is my opinion, i felt that abc was being held to disney stands in term of the amount of revenue it was expected to generate. news is not going generate the same profit as entertainment. just in general. i think news has been held to a entertainment, particularly tv news, held to the entertainment standard with the revenue it's expected to generate. news was not doing badly by news standards. we changed the standards that news was judged by in term of profitability and got to a fear and panic cycle which neant over time -- meant over time, you know, for example the demographic of networking news has become older and narrower. there's a gap that either can or

can't be filled depending on different management decisions to reach down demographically and out diversity wide. but i think part of the issue was that a lot of different news entities were part of larger companies not just entertainment companies but oh holding company -- other holding companies that didn't know how news worked. didn't know the profit margin. one person said to me that a 7% return is right for a healthy news company. that's not necessarily good enough for some of the larger entities. that creates a huge problem. >> let's go to the next question. we have. we center a qhoal bunch. you csh whole bunch. you chew -- choose. give us your name. [inaudible] yeah! baltimore hometown!

[laughter] [inaudible] >> one second. how about we get him the other mic. can you reintroduce yourself so everybody knows. >> i know a lot about mic -- microphones. we are doing every series about inequality. you talk about the news decision makers and funders will wake up to the stuff. my question is a lot of decision makers are white. i'm a white person in a majority black city doing series about inequality. i find you have to make yourself vulnerable. you have to go out on a limb to do the issues right. which means if you're doing it as a white person you have to make yourself vulnerable. how do you get the decision makers to confront the fact they are making the decision from a place of white pes and make the discussion richer? >> who is going to .

>> i can't speak as a white person. [laughter] >> that's okay. gene or whoever wants -- the point about overall point about making yourself vulnerable being part of the process is really important. >> i agree. i think it's by having people in the news room that tell you about the things you may not know. there's education going on every time somebody within a perspective is in your news room. again the worrying part about the deline in numbers. there are fewer people. if we are losing minority employees in news room. that is declining faster. it's spiraling we're talking about. i think it's education. i think it's information. i think it was lg to say so yourself and everybody has to vote. to go out and say, wait a minute, from an economic standpoint. look at the demographic in baltimore? i don't know them but, you know, you look at this.

if we pitch the same audience or sell stories to the same group we were doing twenty or thirty years ago, we're going die, you know, again i would rather people did this because they felt it was proper and moral and journalistically the right thing to do. but, you know, i'm not adverse to saying there's no revenue there. here's where revenue is. you want to talk about revenue. let's go after the market. ads follow stories, i hope. and so let's do stories that, you know, then all a sudden we get our numbers will be up. groups among age, gender, race, ethnicity whatever it is. you begin to make the argument. we just can't sit and say it's the right thing to do. you know, there's an economic argument to be made here. i have to say that. you center to look at the last -- so you to look at the last political cycle and say, you know, if you want to be a winner in anything now. you need look at the outcome and

see where coalitions and groups have power. to me, that's an economic argument, going back to an earlier question. >> we have a question here in the front row. >> actually -- .. the economic argument is that it's coming at the time when you have a vested take -- stakeholdership in certain platforms that are inherently not channelized appropriately for certain audiences to be able to engage. >> give us a more concrete example of what you mean. you don't have to name a company but a structure. >>let talk about newspaper, why not? the reality is this, when you talk about newspapers, for instance, and who is reading newspaper and whether or not there's a generation of, you know, young people of color or reading newspapers by default, the answer general speaking is well are the newspapers in the right place? are they at the right price?

are they making available the right kinds of, you know, distribution and, you know, circulation modeled to make that content available? even if you were writing appropriately for the audience, you know, are you actually delivering via platform that larger not speaking to is capable -- i think there are experiment with the polled. obviously there are free papers that launched in various cities to some success. obviously most futures at this point have websites. tablets. >> right. this is a newspaper to me now. >> right. speaking of what you were saying, with jeff, i live in crown heights, brooklyn which has been considering a lower income enabled -- neighborhood. i just move there had three years ago after living in high

priced neighborhood in manhattan. i love my neighborhood in brooklyn. and there's now a "new york times" seller as my subway hop. it just happened. gentification rolls in and then the newspaper. there are smart people that lived in the neighborhood. the striver immigrant family who would be happy to have read "the new york times" for years if they saw the keys kiosk on the way to work. wait. [laughter] >> a question about the how to relate to these other folks. i remember i had the interview of the -- milwaukee, i can't remember his name. [inaudible] marty -- right. it was after the shooting of in

the area. and he was saying i love having people not like me around because as a journalist that's what i thrive on that. you know, what is the person like? what is the this group like in that's part of being a journalist and so that's i love what you're saying. you should have people like that around you who are just love learning about new things and different kinds of people. that's what adds to diversity. >> three pulitzer in four years at the paper. one tbhais -- because they had somebody that knew about medical issues who was an expert in that. idiversity, again, a cross of range of talents. >> right. it goes back to the basic curiosity that journalists have. [inaudible] >> so my organization over the ninety three years started with a concern for the freedom of press. we have to do less and less on these days. that is covered very well by the newspaper, the media outlet, the

in-house counsel office. we look for a place where freedom of speech or freedom of the press is shut down. that's less for us. for us the press has become a mentality of our work. how do we work with the press to promote our other issues? and so when reflect upon by twelve years as director of the organization, i have to say that the best relationship i had with journalists have been with white journalists and that's not because i prefer talking to white journalists. i think the -- often i approach relationships with journalist in the deepest way is how can i move the ball forward on the issue i care about? how can we change? policy change, societal change? understanding about con flex

issue. unless you have a journalist that cover the story over and over again like a beat, you don't really have that ability with a one-off. national security reporters, i think they are quite good on this one. >> i want to ask you a ask. why do you think you had, in general, an more constructive experience with white reporters? because they were in the right position? >> cover the stories over and over again. when i had one reporter discovering a story for six years. on race issues it's one-off. it's a different journalist each day covering immigration, housing, employment, voting. you don't develop rapport. i'm not focused as much as moving the policy gender forward. i'm looking for promotional. i want to make sure that our cases are covered. it's not the -- my question to you, those in the journalists world, i know as a puerto rican,

i wouldn't want to be the guy covering puerto rican, that seems like having the beat to cover the puerto rican community would seem like being placed in the ghetto again. we need journalists who will cover our communities that develop the are a port. >> you know what is funny? as a dominican, i'm a dominican-american journalists. i'm covering it i'm in the ghetto. but they have the luxury of covering having a more diversity roster. i think that's microcause m actually what we see in society where, you know, white communities have more social capital than communities of color. you see that in the news room. of course you can develop a relationship with white journalists. they are the staff writers, they have the beat, they have the real estate, they make money. journalists of color get the honor or the, you know, to able to have great space in a major

mainstream newspaper that usually gets rotated out. there are so many you allow. you have to fit . >> bob herbert held ton the column for a long time. he was under pressure for a long time. >> exactly. i hear stories about it all the time. you are dealing with different kinds of social capital here. >> this is something i've been talking about . >> david gone from the "new york times" is puerto rican and he writes beautifully about puerto ricans and other people. the photograph exhibit i went his . >>some is something that we have been [inaudible] i think there is something inherently interesting about the fact that the proxy for journalists who actually has a beat and can kind of cover strategically and longitudinally

a topic is white journalists. all right because that's what you're saying. that's not necessarily saying that's the color of the person's scib or -- skin or race that is allowing you to have a better are a port. these are the individuals that the social capital. more than that, i think, the particular status of being able to focus on a concern in a way that allows them to time whether it's national security or celebrities accrue the credibility in that space. and the ability to actually choose news to judge news as opposed to having it assigned to them. what i was talking about with richard, the one place where journalists of color have been able to sneak in and establish a pratt form where they can talk about race without it being a oneoff is when they are columnists. when they are at contributors and no longer held to the standard of report of the day, you know, general, et. cetera,

et. cetera, et. cetera. that's one place where you're seeing fewer facing of color. you mentioned about herbert; right? i'm a columnist who happens, you know, write about topics that are close to my area of interest and have the freedom to do so. i write about asia and asian-american issues. that's after covering those things. it's a complete happenstance that i've been able to do so. i have never actually gone through the mill of being in a news room, you know, gone through general assignment and the other things that lead many other people to have the accrued not just social capital but news room capital to stake out a beat. the fact is there is no path anymore within news room to did that. >> again, that's another problem that goes back to the systemic of the organization the beat that could have as we increase tire tier any. we brought people through and

gave them the opportunity. the pathway are moved from new kid to apprentice, to expert, to the owner of the topic, if you will. you have the chance to spend time. those are gone. we do a program coverage of federal courts, and, i mean, there are probably that many people now full-time covering the federal court system in america as a full beat. they parachute in, they have many other things layered on you know, you know, complaint we hear from judges is they are not unfairly covered. we don't get any coverage. there's a loss of the systemic ability to stake out your territory. and again, i'm hope ffl we look at the rise of ethnic media which came a part because what they were excluded. maybe on the social media side or in the new media side we'll be able to see people stake out the territory, again, with some funding source. at least there's an audience tipping in to attract people

to. that's the only place right now. i don't see the beat system coming back in traditional media for a long time. , if at all. there's an absolutely necessity to develop that. they have a multiplicity of voices. we are at an impass in term of developing that. >> one caveat about what you said about columnists. it's true that a lot of columnists of color write about race. they also hear from the add -- editor and readers is race. whether they're writing about it or not. there's a counter pressure also that has to be -- , i mean, and i hear about it myself. i'm not writing a column about race -- [laughter] but the fact is, it's less whether or not whether they're getting the pressure or more whether or not they're any getting any sources to the publication. i think what we're finding is

that those column nists in particular are able to speak and even have a little photograph that designates them of a race. [laughter] .. >> did you talk to so-and-so? >> so i see your hand. i'm going to take both of your questions back to back. there's a lot of different people who have questions who when the people to get too.

if you could go and then pass the mic. >> i'm john welsh, a poet, political blogger, cultural critic. my observation starts in particular as i go around four, five, six nights a week of poetry events around the area, i find despite the plurality's that are emerging, great -- i go to busboys and poets, there are 90 blacks in the room and i'm one of three others, two or three whites, maybe a couple of haitians. if i go to the right of center, it's all white and occasionally a black shows a. so my question is, what's the role of journalism in trying to pull these diverse communities back together as we stratified ourselves and life goes with life? >> that's a great question. thank you. we're going to take yours and then rolled them both up together spend i'm a retired physician. i'm struck i heard the word race

a lot but not much the word class. >> if you could stand up. >> or social mobility. the group i'm most interested in the 1%, thing now are approaching 25% of all the wealth and 25% of all the and. where did these three topics raise -- sort of overlap a little bit? mostly raised by the other two are here, to. >> thank you for bringing that a. we do have a very robust, if you go to the print copy come you happen to have the magazine. we going to great depths of crunching the social milled build the issues but we just didn't come we didn't funnel into the track in a. so the two questions on the table, right now the we want to end up with, any thoughts about social mobility and the changes in social mobility and wealth stratification hav have effecte, unicom the journalis journalismd

out of the question about how do we reclaim sort of that town hall face of news. >> that town hall, first question? basically for having more diversity socioeconomic, sociopolitical, gender, biological. diversity and management positions. >> absolutely. >> i mean, i think those things are interrelated in some ways. we have raised a couple of times about fighting social mobility. things like the increasingly common you know, wealth hegemony in some ways of being a journalist, right? you have to be able to afford to do it now. you certainly can't make a living by doing it. that is increasing make it more and more challenging to ensure that there is, there's still accurate coverage in some ways of -- if you are as many of us who end up being journalists of

any race, from again educational context, middle-class backgrounds or circumstances where our own social context, color is the way. it becomes more and more challenging for us to provide a thorough dialogue around issues related to what wealth means and social mobility is diminishing. we do need to have that kind of diversity. but i would argue that in some ways, despite the storied working class, blue-collar journalist that has lived up to the newsroom, that really doesn't happen so much anymore. i think that the news media, especially now that we've started to see more trans immediate type stuff or people or print journals are expected to be on tv, et cetera, et

cetera, et cetera. fess parker cultivating, of a perception around what types of individuals represent good -- and have to be well spoken. have to be presentable and so forth. those also translate very often into issues of class as well. >> i was just struck by the fact that when i got into journalism, if you look around average newsroom, we, the less of in the google where people are talking a car loan. it was very different than what's happened today. but i honestly, i go back to something i've thought of in years. as a young reporte reporter i wn interview with jesse jackson in operation push, so how long ago was that? and he said something that i just remembered. he was really educating me, and he said, you know, it's difficult to perceive right now that race will be the easier question for america to settle.

that it will be class, economic issues, economic issues of class that will be the toughest thing. this had to be 35 years ago, but i think it's been an undercurrent in civil rights movement, and it is probably now just really going to come to for. really depressing myself thinking that we are still struggling with racial issues that this class issue has yet to be. i think as we stratified it may indeed be the bigger challenge >> where to begin? sorry about the march on washington in 1953 which was for jobs and freedom. and during the civil rights movement, there was a conscious decision made to talk about a public policy as rapid economic come but that was -- the civil rights movement had a range of people who had a range of approaches. the urban league was -- that was

their thing, jobs. business community, economics. other people said let's go to the streets. others had their voter registration. but what we remember at that time now are the marches and the public policy. we don't remember that part of it was economic that got overshadowed by some of these other things. >> that's a great place to leave it. the full circle of history, to remember that race and class have always been intertwined, and class and journalism, and race central is in have also been intertwined. this is not anything that we are going to struggle through easily. we got here after many years of struggling with american identity, race and class, and we're going to keep pushing. i think that's one thing we hear. nobody here is shy. everybody here is passionate, and they're still so much passion left amongst us in the media for tackling these issues, and i want to thank everyone

here with us in the room, the "columbia journalism review" of course, and cyndi stivers and everyone on the team. and the aclu, and the newseum. it's wonderful to have all of you here again. richard, gene, jeff, and the new book bird of paradise. thank you all. [applause] the life of her late husband jack nelson. a reporter for the atlanta constitution and los "los

angeles times." after that, todd on his book, "reporting the revolutionary war" the history it was news. north carolina has threatened military action against south korea and the u.s. in response the pentagon is bolstered the military presence in the region. on the next washington journal, we'll get an update on north korea. we'll talk with josh are assign of a foreign policy magazine about the nuclear program and john kerry's upcoming trip to south korea.

it's important to remember a central banker the tools are limited. the central banker can't control everything in the economy. right. >> i read that. and so, you know, writers like us it's important what they go. they shape the course of economies and of the world. that said, at the end of the day, they have finite powers they can use. when you really boil it down, they a dial. they cay is we'll put more money to the economy or less. it's more complianted to that as we know. they can regulate banks. they can try to influence things in other ways. to think everything gone wrong is wrong.

the late photojournalist documented the 1963 march on washington. hundreds of his photographs have been published by the widow, budget, up next a 40 minute discussion of the book that begins with remarks by john kole with the library of congress. [inaudible conversations]

we're pleased to be cosponsoring this. the center for the book was created in 1977 to help the library of congress stimulate public interest in books and reading and literacy and libraries. and we are a private public partnership with the library of congress paying our five salaries but indeed we have raised private money from the beginning to help support our array of programs and projects. there are center for the books now in every state. i know, we broad audience today and i look change you to look up and learn about the center for the book in your state which works at state level and promoting books and reading and libraries. here at the library of congress one of our major project is the

national book festival which i hope many of you know about. it's a library of congress project involving many parts of the library. it is in the 14th year coming up and this year will be held on the national mall september 21st and 22nd. the center for the book also is a administrator of the first young reader center at the library of congress. which is located now in the jefferson building. 16 and under as long as they're accompanied by an adult. and last year we had 40,000 visitors in the young readers center response you can tell that we are working hard not only to raise young readers but to celebrate reading in all ways. one of the ways we celebrate through talk such as this. this is in our books and beyond

author series. based on the resource or the project of the library of congress. it's a special treat to be working once again with the princeton photograph division. i like to hold up for everyone to see a book that has come from the collections of the library of congress. in ways that you will learn about in today's program. today our program is being filmed not only by the library of congress -- which hosts more than 250 of these book and beyond programs. thus where the filming i ask you to turn off all things electronic.

we will progress from the panel discussion to, if we have time, a question and answer session, and conclude with a book signing out in the foyer of the montford room. you will have a chant, if you don't have a chance for a discussion and question and answer period you certainly will have that opportunity at the end. there are also will be a special display in the princeton photograph division of the photograph between 1:00 and 2:00. we have to move along so we can get to the post event features and to get us started. i want to introdpiews the mastermind of today's event. vernon curtis. as i learned today one of four cure raters in photography in the princeton paragraph division. i'm sure they're all here. it's my pleasure to turn her over. let give her a hand.

[applause] thank you very much, john. i have to say we're all in this together. i'm not the mastermind. [laughter] today we have brigitte freed, the widow of the photographer who has the work featured in the book "this is the day: the march on washington" which we are celebrating. we have distinguished dr. michael. and paul farbe are. let me tell you about each individual quickly. because sometime of the essence. i would like to tell you that brigitte freed was formerly --

they decided to live life in united states 1963 a few months before -- i don't think they knew it was about to happen at that time. bijt developed and printed leonard's photographs for over twenty years. including thosed in the classic photograph book black and white america and made in germany and exhibition concerned photographer. in addition, she has had independent careers as well as clothing designers and a real estate broker. she now lives in garrison, new york in the hudson valley and works full time on leonard's prints and legacy. brigitte was born in germany, and after living in the united for over forty years, she recently became an american citizens.

[applause] dr. dyson is one of the most renowned contributors. he's an essay contributor to the book. he published over 18 works of scholarly and culture influence including race, rules, navigating the color line from 1996, i may not get there with you, the true martin luther king, jr. in the year 2000, debating race in 2007, and april th, 1968 martin luther king's death and how it changed america in 2008. dyson's pioneering citizenship has had a profound effect on america ideas. dr. dieson is presently professor of sociology at

georgetown university and cited as 150 most powerful african-americans by ebony magazine. dr. i didson has been called the ideal public intellectual of our time and a street fighter in suit and tie by author nathan mccall. pretty good names, i should say. you may know him by site from the many guest appearances on msnbc as i do. it has been my pleasure to work with both brigitte and paul over the last several years to bring leonard's photographs in to the library's collections. paul was professor dyson's student at the university of pennsylvania, and later his research assistant. currently he is a lecturer in urban study at the university of pennsylvania, and a ph.d. candidate having just completed

his dissertation in american culture at the university of michigan. his work on culture has appeared in the journal criticism and outlet -- and other outlets as well as on npr. he was named inauguration inspire 100 list as a world changer for his use of technology and empowering social change. he is working on a biography of leonard. let us welcome these distinguished guests and learn how leonard's images of the historic march in august 1963, changed the ongoing worldwide struggle for civil rights. [applause]

>> this is the day. how did this book get started? you will ask me, many people do. i say it was president obama in his first term he said "i am here because you all -- [inaudible] " fifty years ago we did -- what did i think america was? it was all things to me, my husband's home country, my new jewish family, [inaudible] and lots of americans. became here from amsterdam -- [inaudible] i have no photograph of myself of our seven month stay in america, but sweet picture of our 4-year-old daughter, her

grandparents, and cousins. leonard was very frugal. he needed all film for his project. "black and white america" nothing but races he said. i wish i had a picture of myself and leonard at the marge of -- march of washington. only had my eyes. these eyes looked and looked and looked i would say all of these faces and leonard asked me how i liked the day i would say all of these faces. the day of the march was america for me. and then the speech of dr. martin luther king. i"i have a dream" the speech was in the air. it moved over the heads of all of those people. the voice was strong.

a preacher's voice. it reached everyone. i had never heard anything like this -- [inaudible] [applause] >> what a powerful testimony. to the multiple means by which people droibt history. -- contribute to history. there's no picture of brijt and leonard because they sacrificeed every moment on film for the betterment of this nation. that is more than an ante-dote.

that is part and parse l, perhaps even wolf and war of the very fabric of american conscience that king -- thread in to. the majestic or story that day as she indicated, oratory that day as she indicated is powerful and luminous testimony to the ability of words to move us of speech, to redeem us, and of rhetoric to call us the higher purposes deeds done in the name of ideals for which we are willing to sacrifice. how appropriate then that brigitte testifies about the magnanimity of spirit of her fallen husband whose shutter bug, whose eye, whoses a

threatic glory has given us the testimony to the majestic sweep of the human soul when it seeks to be free. freed from its constraints. freed from the are narrow obligation of hatred, freed to see. leonard freed even in his name gives us the powerful emblem of freedom that we all seek at the end of the day. i'm honored to be here with mrs. freed and of course my student paul who called me to this project because when he was my assistant he was my boss. [laughter] and he is one of the most thoroughly organized young people i have ever met and i am

as proud as a. papa to have my . [laughter] [applause] right here. and he has sprung from not only the loins of his family, but from the power fm collective imagination of people who love and dedication mark his life as well. the reverend, my wife, his mother is here rhetorically and symbolically his mother. [laughter] i don't want to get to no baby momma drama here today. [laughter] these photographs are not only the emblem of calm dignity and the quite beauty of black people and their allies who are in quest for the basic fundamental

dignity of voting or existing without the artificial constraints of segregation. that day when we listened, when they listened to the majestic words of martin luther king martin luther king, jr.,ic koa echoing from that mighty mall in washington, d.c., who knew that five years later he would lose his life in memphis that on that day this soon to be martyr at the sun lit summit of -- hope and expectations would conjure, the norm, ideal and belief which of the foundation of american democracy. he was reminding america of what it should be. he gave america a blueprint of what it could be. and he called in to vision the sweet and powerful romance that the american people have always

had with the ideal that nurture us but which we have not always perfectly obtained. and so leonard freed offers photographic testimony to these people's dignity. to their quest for decency. they were -- go meet best in 1963 in a nation that frowned upon their lack of humanity that quarreled with them as to the legitimate sei of their claims to be fully human. these noble souls marched to washington, d.c., to tell the nation despite the repudiation of their fundamental dignity, they were indeed dignified. they were blessed with the beauty of moral purpose that could never be exhausted by the inferno and hateful resistance

of bull con are in, of clark the sheriff in alabama, those in georgia, those across the nation and indeed the south who did not understand that what these people possessed was mightier than money, deeper than the river that flowed beneath the nation at the founding. they tapped in to an eternal spirit of vigilant resistance in the name of spirit and of faith and of family of a of the quite dignity of the american dream. martin luther king, jr. colored that dream powerfully that day. his sweet cadence gave voice to people who knew that at our best we belonged shoulder to shoulder with the great figure in american society. that despite the refusal to acknowledge who we are and

indeed then were as people that our rhetoric would apole to the -- appeal to the nation even a president, one soon dead, another rising from the heated center of the south to become our advocate. because the president was not in control of providence. but there was a god who spoke from washington, d.c. now for all of the blather of our christian experience for all of the red ring of our religious roots when we rejected every bit of that evidence by our behavior that shamed any god that we can claim to be our own. these people remind us that ultimately the cosmic sense much purpose in to which they tapped would be enough to see them forward to force political and social and economic transformation and leonard freed

both in '63 and '83 captured that resistance, that relentless spirit, that ed fying power that can never be, if you will, put out by the forces of men and women who fail to see the light. i'm proud to be associated with this project en-- and i'm proud to be with brijt freed and president obama to remind us -- paul and who freed us from the and documented with glory the beautiful calm dig dignity and the wise purpose of human beings in search of freedom. [applause] [applause]

as much as a challenge to be on stage with people you deeply respect, who have been your teachers in one form of another, and to be here is just that in itself is a great honor. it sets up a challenge how do you follow freed and dyson? -- i think about the march on washington in '63 when rabbi was getting up to speak. he was following the great folk singer who sang "oh freedom "and he starts before his written remarks he says simply, i i wish i could sing. [laughter] i summon him here and say thank you, deeply. good day. i want to share a few perspectives on leonard freed's work and a bit about at history and memory of the march as we're

now in the 50th anniversary year. i want to make sure to extend deep grad constitute to a few individuals here. as well as her colleagues at the center for the book, and cure raters and the princeton photograph division. thank you so much. the editor of the book and had such a creative and kind hand -- brilliant hand in shaping this. i want to make sure to name her. ..

>> it was one floater issues among others that included protests, parades, a beauty pageants, to understand the underpinnings is to read

explore the greater context. i want to draw attention to anchoring images to see this march not just as the isolated event but we live through freed to understand what led him to the march and in what ways it brought him forward in his work. born 1929 to russian jewish immigrants, by 1960 he was living in europe on and off for a decade and honed his kraft as a photographer and wrestled with his identity as the expatriate american share. a book of photographs focusing on jews living in germany and the traces of the holocaust. he ventured to berlin 1961

to check out this scene where there was word a wall was coming through the city. with citizens of all sides fearing the brink of world war iii freed wandered close either on assignment or with a predetermined addition we ended up finding to see the most through his camera but here he snapped a photograph of the unnamed black soldier the contact sheets from the trip confirmed this was a single shot. yeasty and with his subject that culminate in to the imposed boundary of the ball behind them. this encounter haunted freed and set him off course and second his return from exile

to come back to america to confront segregation and racism. this would be the first black and white in america and this is set out as a point* of departure that he and i meet silently and part silently as the wall behind him is another wall there on the trolley tracks, the cobblestones across the frontier and ocean reaching home loan to our lives and hearts i am white and he is black. said the towhee started to encroach upon the rachel -- racial buffers with these boundaries freed woodbury his own perspective that measured distance between

the photographer and his substance -- a subset -- subject for humanity and distance. the telegraphed many also embedded with one interconnected system of race and does so by capturing and representing his subjects vision, what they see and how they see each other to make visible the terms and conditions of the segregated society. and the summer of 63 venturing back to america he photographed in the boroughs of new york city the traces of the mark begin to emerge closely as the headquarters were centered in new york. brigitte freed and leonard

freed marked off days than they camped outside the city. august 28, they arrived in washington d.c. add-on. beginning the day on a periphery of them all he walked from the base of the monument to the boundaries self said the lighthouse and to the street surrounding ford theater. he captured some of the first photographs of the day the house where lincoln died and he made photographs of passers-by and envisioned at the foot traffic as a prelude to the gathering at the lincoln memorial. on that day freed was tapping into the deeper current of the on the spot studies and geometry and geography. freed sought damages ready to bring this social

landscape and architecture and to see this day is also the ability to pay attention to a crowd of individuals to walk alongside them and they offered a spectacle from a fixed distance to explore the march at the ground level. freed meandered through his photographic by as well as the active footwork throughout the day. but if we return to thinking about the role of lincoln, of 100 years after the "emancipation proclamation", we see one of the only full shots of the former stature of the president included in this work.

it happens to be the same frame which is the only photograph of the keynote speaker dr. martin luther king. much of the marsh -- march has the faceless crowd behind him but hear the leader and former president can both be seen in the distance atmospheric and collective shot. as king speak ups freed gets the front and the back shot with thousands of marchers separating freed and king with lincoln behind him. this image serves as a complex and collective portrait of the march on washington of the lincoln memorial. within one year he crossed paths as photographed the leader at a parade october

31st, 1964. freed had gone back to europe to return again and king had just gotten back from europe and it was announced he would receive the nobel peace prize and one of the first public gatherings in his honor. freed devoted a full day to photograph linking including a parade and a speech at a local synagogue. this photograph is included in black-and-white american and is taken on prominent status with his hand as the cover of the taylor branch book. he is the centerpiece of the photographs but with the images we need to think about how it it accounts for the crowd around the man and freed potential place within a crowd. we can consider where he was standing was it close enough to touch the car or king?

or the arm reaching a round king or another to the left. but many we consider the deliberate inclusion of the blurred face on the right to we have to consider whether and leonard was close or what his perspective was and if he is part of the scene or being in the way. this was deliberate. freed believed in printing and accounting through the frame with no cropping. and unlike the black soldier in berlin it is not a single shot that shows several frames of perspective. freed is part of the scene and in a way reminds us of the photographs power to mark social distance between freed and king and those

around him. but to represent the division's, to challenge them and remind them of the persuasive power of coexistence. there's more to say about the approach in 1965 and especially after his assassination. we can think about it king as an ongoing subject. this is a shot of the commemoratives 20th anniversary march. here we get a sense to galvanize around the image to we also had the absence truly marked again. as dr. dyson has powerfully written april 4th, april 4th, 1968, changed america we get a sense cascading forward to remind us to think about king and his collectives.

as we close, i want to think about my hopes for "this is the day" and do my part to carry forward the history of the merger washington to summon significant names here with us. while skiing stream is echoed and in addition to and properly so, it serves as the iconic memory of the march by a also hope leonard freed photographs help us revisit the whole message that came before to seek out more of the story of the 250,000 marchers. the veterans of the civil-rights movement, and all those in the home towns they impacted and inspired from that point*. to fully understand the march on washington as the greatest gathering toward democracy on american soil

and understand is a noble blueprint of social change that we still have with us. in other words, , to see that day august 28, 1963 as a living archive began to see this book as one of many potential tools of thought. there are many names to name and more as we approached the 50th anniversary but i offer a few now. carol, my first and second grade teacher in philadelphia who attended the march on washington. a white quaker woman who shared stories with us and what had to do with understanding what your convictions are not just to be present with them but with other people and share them. also dr. martin luther king

whose words and action deserved ongoing elimination and critical exploration and complex consideration. julienne, of young leader and a participant in the march caring for the spirit of the gathering in brought forward the mantle of the civil-rights movement along the lines of race, class, gender, sexual orientation, and the phase of the moral compass and a bellwether for us. although the day was rampant here after remains systematic hatred and violence so as we happily mark the 50th anniversary of the march 1 month later we will mourn five decades of the baptist church in birmingham where children were murdered. they deserve our commemoratives consideration this year and our hearts are heavy with a loss last month

of another young woman of color from chicago who was gunned down as another victim in the city's epidemic of violence days after from returning to march in washington d.c. for the inaugural parade for barack obama. we bring her forward because even at the national mall as the space of healing, the symbolic justice granted for those of us can only be guaranteed further with further forms of action beyond the maps of the boundaries to carry forward through tragedy and transformation we say the names of michael eric dyson and scholars and leaders have taught me and so many others so much about intellectual inquiry expose the head and a heart in zero ways between people. to the 250,000 attendees of

the march whose names we don't know well enough, we hope to know more of you. we want to hear your stories and we want to be able to record them and to seek them out as our history as well as our pathway for work. -- forward. finally leonard freed whose photographs confirmed a profound duty and historical significance of the cabinet -- gathering with action and democratic transformation in his memory and with photographs to inform our future we say his name name, leonard freed come and express our gratitude for all his contributions. "this is the day." thank you.

[applause] >> of course, i want to express our gratitude. this has been a terrific program and they have made it such. we will continue the gathering in the foyer with the book selling and a reception and a display but first i want to say another word about this beautiful book that is on sale and you can get autographed in the back. not only produced by the getty museum but speaking of julian bond who produced the foreword and dr. dyson has an essay and taken by itself it is a wonderful commemoration and the event by itself just as paul did

at the end of his talk and example of how a book can be a catalyst, something beautiful its self and a call to action with the spirit of the event and the best collaborative publication event and a wonderful collaborative revenged on the part of many people at the library of congress and in the publishing world. before i call you out to get your book, get it signed come and meet each other to see the photos between 1:00 and 2:00 and the gift to the library, let's give our speakers another round of applause. [applause]

>> has been a problem. not just the region for many years. the responsible powers in the region with national security council in japan have been a part of talks for a number of years. reid tried to work with the doors koreans to persuade them. it does not in their interest and we have spent a

part of this as wall. they have nuclear weapons and nuclear capacity. they have missile delivery capacity and and some of those were the last few weeks. to present a real and discerning with south korea and japan and also the threats the north koreans have leveled directly at the united states regarding power base, a threat and hawaii, the west coast of the united states.

the secretary of defense beginning with the president of the united states and all leaders take those threats seriously. we have to take the threats seriously. i think we have had measured serious responses to those threats. as you know, we are undergoing an exercise now with south korea to do everything we can to work with the chinese and others to diffuse that situation on the peninsula. but as i said last week you only have to agree -- be wrong once bridal want to be that secretary of defense. we will take the threats

seriously. i hope the north will ratchet the rhetoric down. there is a path with it is responsible to get on a path to peace working with the neighbors there are many, many benefits to the people but they have got to be a responsible member of the world community. you don't achieve that responsibility with peace and prosperity by making nuclear threats and taking provocative action.

>> she was out there in a

way when respectable women did not do. this is a time when the women's movement is under way and interestingly enough, someone like to viet tither fits then to a certain extent. she is conservative in some ways but breaking the traditional ways a woman should be paid, she is doing it in a way of the redmen are not at that time.

>> good evening, everyone in. it is good to have people here. i will be moderating the panel today as us journalist and co-author of a book of the civil-rights movement movement, it features jack white prominently. i want to think the carter library and museum for hosting this and cosponsoring and also emory university with the manuscript and archives library that houses the papers and the wisdom of a great number of southern journalists wait --

white, african-american, we' re so pleased five of those are pulitzer prize winners and the latest is jack nelson. barber was so generous to make his papers our position now and there is rich history. i encourage everyone to take a look. we're here to celebrate the life of jack nelson with people who knew him extremely well. he was a man of enormous influence and influence the story of jack nelson is of news reporting in the latter half of the 20th century. if you look at his career and the then honorable way

to begin is how i got my start. [laughter] he gets his first job at the daily herald just serendipitously that is where i got my start. [laughter] he portrays himself openly as a gullible reporter. a so we hope you were as entertained as we were. having great faith everyone was telling the truth. as you find out later, they weren't. but then to develop a reputation which gets and beat up and sent him fleeing to the atlantic constitution or he continued to be beaten up. he but he was a terrific

gumshoe and reporter is easy to overemphasize it was investigative but his career was standing for the first amendment and he worked with the number of organizations, or created them that to this day are quite prominent asking for freedom of the press, the student law center and they all have jack's imprint on them. one less thing, as many of you know, , atlanta and the world lost a great but he was the editor of the atlanta constitution and she told a story about jack being a celebrated reporter when gene got a call from the publisher and --

publishing of otis chandler and he said the "l.a. times" wants to set up shop in a land tepper you have a big story there in the south, a civil-rights, you merging southcom i need a reporter to staff that bureau in atlanta for the los angeles times. do you have been reporters? he said we have tons of reporters and started to list them and he purposely left off the name of jack nelson. he would not give him up and one week later otis hired jack nelson that's how he got to the "los angeles times" and he brought investigative reporting to the civil-rights story that was elevated to a new double and moose but the "l.a.

times" did that every imprint and tell jack got there. when he was done there was 70 reporters and afterwards they had 57 so i called the bureau the house that jack built. [laughter] i will turn now to our wonderful guest. we have barbara matusow, jack's wife, who took on the completion of "scoop." it was 80% done the landsat and southern parts were done she polished it and it is a spectacular reid. everybody knows jimmy carter, former state senator [laughter] >> all day i wondered whether i try that? [laughter] president carter's new jack trout his career if not directly but his works but

we have been chewing by mrs. carter. good to have you here tonight. [applause] and ambassador andrew young who is part of the movement jack comfort but he would have covered him as mayor of milan today and it is an honor to have you here as well professor young. [applause] terry adamson worked it deal mantic -- a man to a constitution later and got to know him well. and every graduate was editor of the paper which we are proud of and when to

fight it did say special assistant he is that the executive and owner of "national geographic." it is a pleasure to have you back. [applause] i will start with barbara. i want her to you tell us what is it like? this is a moment others have faced when jack dies and you are faced with his papers and go through them what type of emotional experience is that? tell us about going through his papers. >> i must say what up privileges to be on the same stage as ambassador young and president carter and

another pulitzer prize winner. [applause] and also of to say how pleased i am that jack's papers are at emory. this is where they belong because you may not know it, it has an astounding collection but the curator mated deal with this special the out of southern journalist and have a distinguished roster. marshall, but we are proud that his papers are here with a prolonged.

but initially i had a very negative approach to jackson papers. it did not start off well. when jack retired he came back and brought home with him about 20 by -- boxes of the biggest mess you ever saw. he was opposed to disorganization. i started to help them sort the papers. i bought file boxes, folders , i would say where does this go? marvin griffin the administration and he would say give me back and read it. he read every single paper and could not part with the single one and after two days i gave up. and the second reason was they brought silver fish into the house.

[laughter] after he died and i decided that memoir needed to be completed with a wonderful reid and important book i knew that meant tagging his papers and i could not do what another way. and to my astonishment i find the pearls, the gems, articles he had written, about him, oral history, speeches he gave that was a mother lode of information. i began to see it is possible to the teams and was compared to a jigsaw puzzle and you see the pieces fit and it was an

enjoyable experience from what i expected. the deeper i got into his papers the more i learn to. i thought i knew everything about my husband. but i really didn't know him in the days and married to somebody else at that time but i learned a lot by reading these things. one they're all sitting out there including one great grandchild and they could tell you better. caring, his daughter said he

was gone so long they plan designed in the yard welcome home daddy. [laughter] there were constant telephone threats, interruptions domino titter went without the phone ringing. there was a and a the fire engines and come screaming and one time was drawn gun saying they heard a report he murdered his wife. there were lots of things that must've been very, very difficult. another thing that surprised me or shock to me really was the patients he displayed as an investigative reporter. he was the world's most patient person.

from my point* of view. [laughter] and his granddaughter was supposed to drive up from florida today but is stuck in traffic, said i don't know how you stay married to him. but it was totally different when he was on the job. investigative reporting is hard and one time it took two years to track down the lottery ring and when he was finding the operation physically he went door-to-door knocking and tell a woman told him that there was the auto repair shop without auto repair but cop's going back and forth. [laughter] i thank you are right. but many spent 11 days he

documented the whole thing and to prod a photographer. so it was reported and took patience. i knew he was tenacious but did not understand the scope of his reporting, a particular they -- in particular at the atlanta constitution just to read a list of the scandals he broke, expos a on a legally -- illegal gambling parlors parlors, elections and fried , us a truck stop problems, marriage mills, a

state payroll padding, embezzlement of tax funds and nepotism and i could go on. [laughter] many of the expos a took place during the griffin and administration that president carter could attest was notoriously corrupt reader's digest said nominee -- never had so many stolen so much. but griffin was a forgiving croaked. quite a few years later soap margaret and used to tell him to know what i think walking in with a notebook?

i would think i wonder what that beady-eyed, son of a bitch has on me today. [laughter] jack left "the constitution" in 1965 to pursue the civil-rights story for the "l.a. times." i think we have to watch our time so i will end by saying how happy i am this book is published because he had such a wonderful career in washington that tended to overshadow these earlier phase of his career in the south and although it events halfway through his career career, not in washington except in the epilogue, i think it helped to cement his reputation. his co-author, gene roberts called him one of the most important journalists in the

20th century and the story of his life and career hope to cement the place in history to five. >> very nice. president carter, given jacks reputation, were you ever afraid of him? [laughter] tell us of your experience with him. >> all of these remarkable events are described in the book. how many of you have read the book? how many of you will? don't forget that. [laughter] i knew jack when i was a peanut farmer and i had no interest in politics but he came to the atlantic constitution but my first cousin was the city editor and faber in competition with each other. but eveready began to know jack nelson says the incisive and aggravating an

incisive reporters that ever lived here. i cannot say all of the epithets but the most prevalent was piss ant. [laughter] but that has a connotation somebody always burrows in rebate ought not to be and exposed to these -- decent people but he would do that with incredible success and under unbelievable danger for himself. the first time he ever came to georgia, he was in the national guard to go to the korean war and he became a staff sergeant although he never learned how to shoot a rifle, no basic training and was promoted from anyone that came with him because

he was a reporter and an expert at publicizing his commanding officer's exploits. [laughter] and he did it by becoming friends with the editors of been down that coast. he ingratiated himself and went back and then ask to work for "the constitution" and never got back to mississippi. that is how you first got here and was given of a crash course how to load and shoots a rifle the last week in the army just so they could get rid of him. [laughter] he was involved in the most exciting and dangerous event in a community and at that time there was no legitimacy of the georgia political system.

it was shot through with absolute corruption when georgia was so-called wet. dry. you cannot buy liquor but there was liquor to find. the share of supported the of liquor dealers. jack would find out about the ongoing crimes as well as prostitution and bribery and would investigate and would certify a it was accurate and brought to our attention. so we would have to go down to do something about it and with atlanta he had the whole state as a target and was singled out individual

places to shoot at and go in to find out the most horrible thing going on to hurt the people of georgia and he would expose those embarrassing things. cover not embarrassing and tell jack told about them. [laughter] one of the cases was a senator who became famous but jack exposed the fraud and 15 people were indicted. the names are never revealed by the grand jury. also at that time in 1962 i decided to run before the state senate how i became famous. [laughter]

but the lecture was stolen -- election was stolen and he said pending 10 was set down to help me and eventually i became the state senator because of that he would always resented by did not call on him to haul me. [laughter] but i knew jack pretty well. he was not in the forefront of reporting on the civil rights issue but basically finding out crux even at the top level of coverage and exposing them in such a way that they were corrected and that is what he did

concentrated so the people in georgia would know if they had experience in their own community someone who was chief dealer violating principles of human rights they could call jack nelson but they could not call the sheriff and jack would take care of it down to a county commissioner level. i believe he went on a fellowship then he came back for the last time and from there he went on to be an employee of the "l.a. times" they offered him a 50% increase in salary. [laughter] he could not turn it down with a wife and three kids to take care of. that is why when i got to

washington i was not afraid of jack nelson. one reason is i was not a crook. [laughter] [applause] i did not have as much opportunity as others and was not in washington before but i recognize him for his true work and i said before he passed away of all reporters i have known and i have known as many as anybody in georgia he had the most integrity and the most human personal courage to expose the truth of any human being i have ever known and i am proud to have known jack nelson. [applause]

>> take it away ambassador young. >> to talk about another jack nelson, i did not know this jack nelson. [laughter] our problem with the civil-rights movement was people who were raging about us made us the problem. jack never did that. i was is in albany just before christmas because it occurred to me was exactly 50 years ago that i was down there. i started to drive around and remember things and sitting at "the new york times" writing the obituary of martin luther king that violence was dead and rejected and the story

really was the kennedy's administration wanted carl sanders to win in 1962 and there was a federal injunction placed on martin luther king. so we weren't up against georgia, we had to take on the federal government and jack seemed to understand we are not but for quite a bit, they were being polluted by information they were kidding, a distorted information they were getting and that jack never

did that and understood where the program was. i always saw him as a friend anything he ever asked me and i could answer him candidly and truthfully with no down side. there were quite a few. actually those days were rough. in 1964 in mississippi that abc reporter who was the first to suggest, the story was these three civil-rights workers were in hiding and the students just there were some good guys that new the southcom the dirt, and that

we were not the problem. [laughter] we felt we could get our story told. that's and he was not trying to find who was winning the popularity contest. would like power defeat margin is hurricane? he understood the south and the party and was he had a

practice where all the staff for the "los angeles times" and anybody else would come in and we would talk very candidly and openly about anything and everything in washington and that kind of trust that i remember. >> very good. [applause] >> he was a dear close friend of yours he was the emcee at the giant memorial service for jack were a lot of these stories were told and the bauxite is -- and

blog sites the then president carter came along after me then by sheer luck i am still here. [laughter] rise sort of feel like a the rest of the sandy koufax pitching staff. [laughter] and from several different perspectives and even more green with the atlanta constitution and was 21 years old 1969.

these states are interesting because the book is called evolution of a southern reporter. i think that is the important part of it. jack was 23 years old at 29 he won the pulitzer prize. and 75 as mentioned he went to the "l.a. times." 70 he went to washington. 65. excuse me. 65, 70. he was a young man during that period of time and accomplished all those stories. when i arrived he was still based in atlanta but traveling all over the place at the time. those stories were not the

race story. i learned this from the book frankly that the last story that jack covered from "the constitution" with eisenhower and the federal troops route as jean patterson said jack was never the same after that. the common theme running through the stories corruption, a state government, officials, and doctors, he battled justice and exposed it and he started at 22 and went until the time that he died. that is my belief in the first amendment.

and it was stated as gospel truth that jack did not stay at the land to a constitution because the management would not give a $5 raise. $5. that is still being stated as true and as president carter's stated he was paid tens thousand dollars at "the constitution" and got 15,000 at the "l.a. times." it was not so bad. and jacket in this book tells a wonderful story of the evening.

i will not say any more. [laughter] i remember him a couple times. he doesn't remember about one time mr. president, you will appreciate this there was a certain candidate for governor that i was giving attention to and we had a youth leadership retreat at the american hotel in downtown atlanta you worked out of the plaza and why i had a pile and jack came and spoke to the group