not having more compassion. there were multiple other people on the platform. so there was a lot of criticism for having taken the picture to begin with. >> host: so being a professor at the university of pennsylvania, what is your reaction to that photographer? what you say? >> guest: my reaction is in regards to all of those. those pictures of natural

disaster. if we were reading the news about these events, we should be willing to see the pictures about these events. the pictures do different things. but they are no less important as vehicles of information. so as long as we say we want to know about this event, but i don't want to see pictures about it, we are not accepting or recognizing how these images bring us up in a way that is different from other ways. >> host: some would argue that this image that we are about to show in "about to die", is very different than a man on a train track or a woman jumping out of the building. >> guest: it was taken in this fashion. there was a small child that was dying of starvation.

this photograph is different. people facing death and their capacity and many awards appeared in time magazine. and the criticism started coming and started coming and critiquing and there were many leaders there as well. and of course, carter was not able to provide the answers. there were many erroneous answers that were offered saying that the child had moved to safety at a feeding center, people picked the child up, then it was said that he didn't pick up the child, and he went and

sat in a tree and he cried, and the following year, he committed suicide, as the ledge and went in newspaper lawyer. he committed suicide because he couldn't handle the critique. and that is showing that these photos are not easy to take orsi, but they do depict what is going on in the news. for that reason, i think it's important to look at that. >> host: would you have taken a photo? >> guest: absolutely. it's not a question that anyone asked him or herself. if the news is taking place from your quarter with whatever device you have available, whether it is controversial or

not. what i try to do is generate an empathetic understanding of why pictures are important on their own terms. >> host: a very well-known picture. when we seeing here? >> guest: they are shooting a general in the vietnam war. it is problematic, as are most of the pictures in this book. this is a picture in which the general was shooting a suspected viet cong prisoner. and the picture came out and it was widely, widely admired, widely recognized. intensely generated discomfort for ed robbins. the argument was that taking the one picture, the other pictures created something that gave him

notoriety, made it difficult for him to live a so-called normal life after the fact. the argument is that these pictures, because they are very important in capturing the moment, there are tensions of what they actually depict. >> host: professor barbie zelizer, talking about public policy issue that we have been facing last couple of years. fallen soldiers, dead u.s. soldiers. should those images be shown? >> guest: i think that those images should be shown. when someone is facing death, it has become so prevalent. across the landscape of events about which they are concerned.

the reason this has arisen with such widespread use is because of pictures of death. i think that is something that we need to be thinking about. it's been involved, death of military, death of people who are dying in tsunamis and earthquakes. it why shouldn't we see them? we see them on television, we see them in film. we see them on the internet. but we are not comfortable about seeing them in the news. i think that that is very important. >> host: professor, her book is "about to die: how news images move the public." his booktv on c-span2. >> visit booktv.org to watch any of the programs that you see here are mine. type the author or search bar

and click on search. you can also share anything you see on booktv.org by clicking on share in the upper left side of the page and selecting the format. booktv streams live for 48 hours every weekend with top nonfiction books and authors. booktv.org. [inaudible conversations] >> it's not that i had any, you know, personal friendship. i did not. it's a case that i've read. but when i was in prison, i read many books. and i read the books and tried for the life of me to figure out

how often someone to prison and others didn't. i read it, i read what he did. but the case is interesting. especially for giving information. >> i'm not sure why some didn't see it as a legal case. but it was just a very fascinating deal. of course, abramoff was involved in this. [inaudible conversations] >> $20 million is not an easy amount. [inaudible conversations]

>> but to what end? this man has been in and out of jail. he was on the road a lot. [inaudible conversations] >> the amounts of money, many one of them. in the midst of the casino on her hands, now, it was interesting and they didn't want it. the administration, i mean -- $300 million in contracts. and nobody knew about it. so this goes to show you.

a judge said 44% of his company -- nobody knew about it. [inaudible conversations] >> i didn't know. i found it very fascinating. i mean, of course, abramoff as well. i thought that was interesting. we have referred to it in our family before. i did something i swore i wouldn't do, which was listen to alan on her telling me that i needed to do radio. i need to be quiet and listen to

this. she said you have working history of politics and government, and i said yes, i do. the first show that i did have to do with tom hartman and two he was, i have a lot of respect for him. today in washington, it doesn't matter how tom would be classified, he is there. and he knows the journalism. he is such an accomplished author and i have been able to see some of his books. we did the show. it really went well. we did our own show for a little bit. that was the interesting thing to do. so i continued to do talk radio and i ventured over to india for

a little bit. what do you when you want to recharge her batteries? i had a chapter in this book is it about five to seven minutes from the tibetans. it provided me the opportunity to write this book. because i was able to go there for a couple of months and then come back in between, you know from watching my granddaughter and the recovery program. i was able to write this book and it was absolutely amazing. i was able to change this and i never thought i would do above, but my cousin, i always told the republicans that he coined the

phrase. and i give him credit. my cousin ali i said, you need to write a book. so i put a lot of thought into it. and then i did 16 minutes with my former chief of staff. i will tell you why we did it. they said, we will have this. and we talked. it was better to have the two of us. if i say that this or that, vice a versa. so having the side-by-side was a much better way to do that.

and then i watched jack abramoff. jack did not do this to me. i watched him and i started to, you know, i could hear empathy and i felt empathy for anybody who has done time. but beyond that, i just wondered where jack was going with his version of history. and i said, okay, i got the short end of that. so i sat there. and i said, i want to tell my end of it. i wanted to make it more than that is part of the story. but i get asked constantly about

what happened. what on earth happened to you. this book tells a very complicated story. it is a complicated story so the perfect storm is we have put together how to help with this that i created in the crimes that are committed. also in the book, what is very important to me, it deals with iran and the opportunity that we have as a country to have a deal where ron recognized and would have had a deal and the white house information was sent. but they chose to ignore it. i think it is important for us

as part of that. the other part is about a million times better. i thought with he was a very high-profile person and i met him in the finance banking committee. the chairman said remove the handcuffs from the man. they did that. he came out and testified on the whitewater deal. that's how i met with hubble the first time. and i was headed to prison. and alan said you have to meet him. and i sat here in washington dc. he walked me through how you

survive. and he also gave me insight as a former attorney general to empathize with the plight of a lot of people in prison. i walked out of prison not angry. i felt a lot of people -- we had bonded. i didn't expect anybody to have sympathy for me. but i have the ability to have a network and the ability to stay here tonight and be on television, to have writers with radio and the media. and i can write a book and say that a lot of people don't have a voice inside the walls. we are human beings. we are not rehabbing them, we are warehousing them. this government, under the current administration as well, it has statistics.

ironically these were not the white-collar criminals. a lot of addicts in prison. they are not getting treatment for their addiction. the other part of this is my own personal struggle of being in recovery with addiction. i have a message in the book saying that you don't have to be in politics and abused substances to make your life go down. if you happen to anybody. i don't care what you do. i don't care if you're a waiter or what you do as a reporter what ever you are. you can ingest instances into your body and you can lose your focus. you can go down a path that will cause you a lot of personal problems. so recovery information is so important.

both sides of the aisle in this book, there are things that will shock both sides. they have the basic things, and i came to the conclusion in this book am i almost didn't write it but i felt compelled to. jack abramoff and i did, on our stuff, you know, to quote the biggest scandal of the time and etc. what we did has been codified into a legal situation today. if i am a lobbyist, i can have a fundraiser. as we have the fundraiser, i can take you hunting, i can take you to vegas, faster they had a fundraiser and either side of

the aisle can do this. i thought john mccain on finance campaign reform twice. he made loopholes and this and that. at the end of the day, he had a situation today where a super pac comes along. the average member, they take their staffer and go across the street. they get on the telephone. and they do that. they are victims of this system.

many members of congress find it delightful to raise this money. a lot of good men. but that comes to the conclusions that jack and i -- we didn't change anything. it did not change things. i put that conclusion there. to paraphrase it, i had a substance addiction. today there is another addiction and it is campaign contributions and they need a public intervention on that. to help make this even better. i addressed a lot of issues and i think that it is not just one issue.

i get to go to india, i get to do radio. a lot of great people like tom hartman to the right or the left or the middle -- they get their voice out there. it is important. and also very critical. i am happy and i am not a person that is unhappy. there are some things that i had to talk about. you know, as my grandmother always said, sometimes it takes the best you can do. [applause] >> i walked into the kiosk and i said that i'm here to report. a guard came up and said, oh, i knew one of your campaign managers in ohio. and he said, okay. got down in there, and the guy

said, here, you have hate mail. it was from california, they gave me the mail. i went through the most embarrassing part of this and then i got into the intake, walked into prison, down into the courtyard. ..

welcome, i'll get you some clues. >> at the end of the working day, say 2:00 a.m., the prime minister would say soup out loud very loudly. staff heard it. that was the symbol of the working day was over. the secretary could lead to type the today's mama said he would have his hot to make, which he always ate before going to bed. churchill loved all games, especially curious. one day at the table he said quote, this goose is a friend of mine. and on my research into churchill's life come i never found a mention of