syria. after full day of debate members vote against a possible military strike in syria. we could hear more about that during this morning's question time. time. now, live to london. >> we explained that yesterday that this bill would not affect and change the law concerning chair decision political activity in the sense of when they go to support or promote outcomes. i am sure that my right honorable friend the prime minister has answer this question to me times to count. >> the governments lobbying proposal would only apply to third party controlled lobbyists who make up a small minority of industry. the association of professional political consultants estimates -- [inaudible] organized by lobbyists will be captured by the legislation. does the minister agree that this bill is so bad and i quote

it will be difficult and will produce a worse bill? >> mr. speaker if that was an attempt to lobby it was rather long winded. i think the point is that we're doing more to register than they ever did and we are -- a transparency gap, and i think he knows it. >> questions for the prime minister. >> number one, mr. speaker. >> thank you, mr. speaker. i'm sure the whole house will wish to join me in congratulating the duke and duchess of cambridge on the birth of their son, his royal highness prince george of cambridge. i'm sure i speak for the whole nation in sending our congratulations and wish them in prince george a very happy and healthy life. i can assure honorable members they will be able to offer the own congratulations next monday when the formal motion is put in

the proper way. mr. speaker, this morning i had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others and in addition to my duties in the south i shot further such meetings later today. >> can i associate myself with the prime minister's congratulations to the royal highnesses. since we last met, mr. speaker, there's been a space of good economic use. employment -- and employment is down an economy is growing. manufacturing is up, construction is up. is a time for those who still propose it to stop messing around, give it up and abandoned plan b? >> i think my friend makes an important point. we've had welcome news over the summer. exports up 5.8% on a year ago. business confidence highest level since january 2008. consumer confidence is up, and all the figures on construction, manufacturing, and services all going in the right direction.

we mustn't be complacent. these are early days but it's because of the tough decisions that this government took that we can now see progress, and we ought to remember the party opposite told us unemployment would go up. they told us the economy would go back up, it's gone forward. it's time for them to explain they were wrong and we were right. >> ed miliband. [shouting] >> mr. speaker, i joined the prime minister and then gradually the duke and duchess of cambridge on the birth of prince george. i wish all of them all of the happiness in the world. at the g20 summit in st. petersburg tomorrow, will the prime minister do everything he can to get other countries to match the uk's a commitment to alleviate the humanitarian emergency in syria? given that we know almost one-third of season families have been forced to flee their homes, and yet the u.n. has left

it has resources that it needs? >> of course i will be taking that action because britain has a very proud record on humanitarian aid not just in this conflict but in many previous complex. in this one with the second largest aid donor that there has been. we've spent over 400 billion pounds but is there important at the g20 to make a number of points clear. repulsion of chemical weapons from our desire for piece process but i think above all getting donor countries together and making sure we do everything we can that they live up to the responsibilities and we do everything we can to help the transfer people in their hour of need. >> mr. speaker, the civil war in syria and the refugee crisis are having profound consequences not just in that country but across the middle east, specifically in jordan, turkey, iraq. especially in lebanon with a population is up by 25% since the civil war began. what specific support beyond the welcomed humanitarian support can britain give to these

countries to help them deal with the burden on their infrastructure, their economies >> having been to the refugee camp in jordan just upgrade the pressures are, that camp in jordan is now one of the biggest cities that there is in that country. we have well-funded embassies, well-funded diplomatic networks, very close relations with lebanon, jordan and close relationship with the turks as well. we are doing everything we can. we are well-placed because we are spending serious money on the dimension eight programs. at the end of the day what we need is a solution to the syrian crisis. we need the piece process to be put in place. we also need to make sure we are clear about our repulsion of, in terms of chemical weapons. and we should be making sure our aid program is also helping give syrian people protection from the chemical weapons attacks they have suffered. >> mr. speaker, the repulsion of the chemical weapons attack issued on all sides of this

house as it is -- i wanted -- to get the talk going between the warring parties. the opposition party is meeting foreign secretary in the next couple of days. can the prime minister tell us what work he is doing with them, with the syrian national council to make those talks in geneva haven't? >> what we're doing with the syrian national council is twofold. one is that we want to support those elements of the syrian opposition that support pluralistic, pluralistic democratic and free syria. that is what engagement with them has been all about. but we go further than that because we recognize that the so-called rebels who back those use also deserve our support. our support in terms of training, assistance and advice because the truth is this. we won't get the piece process in syria and less president assad realizes that i could his regime is under some sort of pressure, some sort of threat

from not just from the rebels, but from the millions of syrians but we must be standing up for the want democracy, freedom, a better future for himself and their children. it is them who side we should be truly are. >> mr. speaker, there is no difference within this house for the need to stand up for the innocent people of syria. the question, the question, the question at issue -- [shouting] >> i think the house is approach this issue so far in a calm measured way and should carry on doing that. the point is how to do that. now, mr. speaker, there are large barriers, big barriers as we found that over the last year or more to the geneva to piece talks actually happening. whether there isn't a case for immediate talks between those parties backing those countries the rebels, and those countries

backing the regime. that happened during the civil in lebanon and it would at least provide a basis for discussion. >> i agree with the right honorable gentleman that britain should use all of its diplomatic muscle to discuss with those countries, back those -- those who back the regime and those who back the rebels and the opposition to try and bring those talks about and that is why i've had repeated discussions for instance, with president putin and most recently last monday, and what i traveled to seem specifically to discuss this issue. but i come back to this point. it's all very well for the countries supporting either side to want these piece talks to take place, would you also need is for those people involved in the conflict ensued to recognize it's in their interests to see a piece process start to begin. i think we can convince the syrian national council it is in the interest because the transition could lead to a genuinely free elections and change for sure you. but we need the regime, assad himself to realize that it is

his and -- it is in his interest. and for that to happen we do need to take and the world needs to take a very tough response to things like chemical weapons attacks. i accept that britain can't depart and won't be part of a note to action on that front. but we must not integrate give up or under repulsion to chemical weapons attacks that we've seen and we must press this point in a reform of which we are a member. >> mr. speaker, nobody disagrees with our repulsion of the use of chemical weapons but as i said the question is how to deal with it. the thing i said is that given the difficulty, given the difficulty of getting direct talks moving between the syrian government and the opposition weather isn't a case for giving the regional partners involved. we all know the role iran has played in fueling this conflict. but given the successful diplomacy and fall talking to those with whom we profoundly

disagree, what is the governments position on iran participating either in a contractor or as part of the geneva process? >> as the foreign secretary said, he will be meeting with the iranian foreign minister when he is in new york for the u.n. general assembly. but let's not forget what iran has actually done to our embassy and to our country. we shouldn't put that on one side. the point i would make to the right honorable gentleman is of course we all want these piece talks to take place. we all want geneva to to happen but we can't want it more than the participants involved in serious bloody conflict. where to make sure it's in their interests that these talks go ahead and that's why yes, diplomacy is important, but the work we do with the syrian opposition and support for democracy that support pluralistic fair and free future syria, that is important. they are stand up for millions of syrians for been bombed and blasted out of their houses. those of the people you need to talk to comment in the wreckage

against jordan and elsewhere to see how they feel about how the rest of the world is currently letting them down. >> mr. speaker, nobody disagrees with it, or indeed the view we take about iran's behavior. the question is, the question is how are we going to bring the parties together including the regional parties? finally, does he accept that the remains of support across the country for britain taking every diplomatic political and humanitarian effort to help the syrian people? last week's vote was not about britain shirking its global responsibilities. it was about preventing a rush to war. [shouting] >> last week the house of commons voted clarity, and i said i respect the outcome out of that vote and i won't breed bring you back plans for british participation in military action. i agree with that we must use everything went in our power,

our diplomatic networks our influence with other countries, our membership of all the key bodies, the g8, the g20, the u.n., the eu, nato, use all that influence to bring to bear. my only regret of last week is i don't think it was necessary to divide the house on a vote that could lead to a vote but he took the decision that it was. [shouting] >> the uk, we hear today the uk business activity is at its highest level for six and a half years. does this not show that the government economic policies are working? will the prime minister commit to ensuring out increase prosperity help us today for the northwest release program? >> i will certainly got the proposal he makes. i know that he wants it to be a connected house in our country and he puts that case regularly. but the good news about this

economic recovery, early days though it is, is we're seeing it in more people in work. the our 935,000 more people employed than they were when this government came to office. 1.3 million private sector jobs, and we need to see further progress because the best route out of poverty, the best way to improve living standards in a country is to see an increasing number of our men and women in gainful work. >> jack straw. >> thank you, mr. speaker. may i press the prime minister on this issue of relations with iran? with respect to them from his previous answer sounded as if you take in their account of the fact that since our embassy was outrageously sacked by ahmadinejad, there had been an election in iran. however, imperfect. that has led to a different individual, the coming president who to my certain knowledge is someone the west and the bridge by minister can deal with. can ask them to look very

carefully with the foreign secretary at home we take steps now to improve relations with iran, identified those matters, interests and try to get a vote in solving -- get them involvou? >> i agree -- a captioning performed by mediacaptioning services mediacaptioning.com to reform is a positive step and i've written to president rouhani to raise a series of issues that need to be settled between britain and iran and above all we need is a progress on what president rouhani has said is important, which is trying to come to an agreement where iran gives up the idea of nuclear weapons and in return we see some relief on sanction. that would be major progress but we should do this not from a position of just hoping for the best. we've seen what this country iran has been capable of in the recent past. so should we go into these sorts of discussions very, very cautiously. >> does the prime minister agree that statistics are vital to

inform public debate? is the prime minister a way that 4% of the people believe that elvis is still alive? double the number we hear today that think that the members -- is not a natural leader? [laughter] >> well, i can see my honorable friend has certainly put his summer to very good use. [laughter] i'm grateful for his question. you need to see a run of opinion polls before you can see a true trend. [laughter] >> ms. margaret beckett. >> why does the prime minister believe why does the prime minister believe that his plans are put by organizations for the salvation army in the countryside alliance and so on right through the conservative verse? >> i was listening to exchange it for again and for prime minister's questions and it seems to me there's a concerted lobbying campaign being run by

the trade unions who mysteriously managed to convince member of parliament opposite to raise his problem. we all know what's going on. they don't want the trade union brought within the law. they want the trade unions to go on spending millions after millions trying to alter an election campaign rather than have it improperly controlled by the law. that's what the lobbying bill is about. >> thank you, mr. speaker. the uk economy is set to benefit from around 50 million pounds by hosting the ethics around the world yacht race which kicks off this week. will the prime minister come to see for himself one of uk's top marine and sailing hubs and personally congratulate those who were literally flying the flag for britain's tourism trade and water sports? >> i think my honorable friend is right. i've seen him all of this

incredible vessel, and i join in welcoming the fantastic on tradition they make to the british economy. it was great to see the race lead london for the first time and even better to see the flotilla was led by british boat and superbly supported by the great campaign. i will certainly take into account her kind invitation to come there but i wish johnson well and all those taking part. >> jeremy corbyn. >> can i take the prime minister back to the and to get to my friend a few minutes ago. can he be more positive about building better relations urgently with iran as one of the keys, one, not all of the keys to bring about a piece process in syria and across the whole region? since he's attacking iran all time is going to bring them to negotiating table, it's much better commute more positive of out at? >> if you're trying to build a relationship with someone it depends on the actions that they take.

given that the iranian government was conflicted in the completely smashing of our embassy and residents in tehran, we will want to see some action so we can build that sort of relationship. now, i have reached out by writing to president rouhani congratulating him on his accession to power, and wanting to discuss these issues. but i said, if we believe the shares some magical key to the syrian conflict by sudden and adopting a totally different posture toward iran, i don't think will make a very good decision. >> last week we saw the proportion of households with no in work at the lowest level since records began. does by right honorable friend agree that it is further evidence that government will form are working to all of which have been opposed by the party opposite? >> i think my honorable friend makes a very good point. in the second quarter of 2013 there were three and a half million workers households in the uk. that is down 182000 on the year

and it's down 425,000 since the election. each one of the statistics tells a story about people who will be able to get into work, provide for the family, make something of their lives. we should be proud of the welfare reform that we have put through every single one opposed by the party opposite. we haven't just saved 83 billion pounds of welfare measures that they opposed, but we have given hope to millions of families in our country. >> i condemn the chemical attack century. but is it not time -- surely an american strike now would squander the opportunities offered by the new iranian leadership, and by the new u.s. initiative in palestine. will the prime minister do what british people want, insist that the g20 searches for a way to bring about a cease-fire rather

than a new bombing raid at? >> as i said, i respectfully the decision of the house came to after the debate last week. and britain won't play any part in military action, but i would just ask her to put herself for a moment in issues of the president of the united states and others. he set a very clear red line that if there was large-scale chemical weapons use, something had to happen. now, we know that the regime used chemical weapons, on at least 14 previous occasions. and i think to ask the president of the united states having said that read like and having made that morning, to step away from it, i think that would be a very perilous suggestion to make. because in response i think you would see more chemical weapons attacks from the regime. now, of course, the honorable lady has a very long track record of supporting piece, supporting piece talks, and i respect that and i will do everything i can to try and bring the geneva piece talks together there but i don't believe it is a contradiction in

taking a top let on use of chemical weapons that are revolting in our modern world and also wanting to piece talks to bring this crisis to an end. >> thank you, mr. speaker. mr. speaker, -- [inaudible] is half that. half. academic research suggests that the current nhs funding formula discriminates against rural areas. and against older people. does the prime minister share my view that the nhs should move as quickly as possible towards more fair funding for rural areas of? >> my honorable friend makes an important point, but he will know we've given a lot of these decisions away from ministers. they have said they're looking at a fair funding formula, and i'm sure they will look at the arguments that he is made. i would also ask him to look at the cancer drug fund which has been a phenomenal set in england. sadly it has not been copied by

labour in wales but i'm full of hope. and the council droid phone has helped many of our constituents to get treatment that they badly need. >> mr. speaker, can the prime minister tell the house what is he doing to support food banks in the united kingdom? >> what we have done is something that the food bank movement have been asking for for years about labour didn't grant them because they're worried about the pr, and that was the ability to say the people and job center plus who needed help that they could go to a good thing. now, that might be something that labour didn't want to do because it was bad publicity. we did it because it was the right thing. >> thank you very much, mr. speaker. does the prime minister agree with me that a combination of the good weather, benefit reductions and our until on public spending has given confidence to do business and individuals to create 1.3 million jobs were however given these encouraging figures, is a somewhat surprise of the

news the opposition believes our policy would cost a million jobs of? >> of course my friend could add into the good weather the fact that andy murray won wimbledon in england retained. much good news over the summer but i think it is important we recognize what has brought this good news about. that was a key judgment that parties had to make about whether in this parliament to get to grips with the deficit and take the tough decisions that we needed to turn our country around. been made of tough decisions on this side of the house but the party opposite docket every single one of them. >> thank you, mr. speaker. the government is right to extend provision to disadvantage of two year olds but they do show, however, figures showed four in 10 councils won't have sufficient places. can the prime minister guaranty that all of those children will have a place of? >> we have put in place the funding to provide that for the disadvantaged to your old and

i'm confident that they were see the services they deserve. >> unemployment in my constituency is lower than anytime since the june election 2010. locally, local organized to very successful there's a more organizing a third. right honorable friend agree with me that this goes to show the government is right to stick to the economic plan despite calls to abandon it by the members opposite? >> my friend is right but when the figures on employment are encouraging. are more people in work in our country than ever before. there are more people and private sector employment than ever before. they are record number of women in work in our country, and almost 1 million more people in work compared with the situation that we inherited. at some stage of the party opposite is going to have to get off the bench and admit they got it wrong. they were wrong. but even today, even today the shadow chancellor is saying he's going to borrow even more. even when we have started

turning around the economy he has learned absolutely nothing. >> [inaudible] windfall what ordinary families face energy bills going up by 300 pounds a year. why has the prime minister failed to stand up to energy companies and get a better deal for the energy market for ordinary families of? >> i don't know where she was during the debate on the energy bill but it's discovered that is legislating to make sure that people are put on the lowest. this government has done that when the leader of the labour party was energy secretary when incidentally bills went through the roof, there was none of this sort of action. >> thank you, mr. speaker. given that the lns has resigned -- there are a number record number of apprenticeship, very good conditions for young people to get into work. does my right honorable friend

think that all of this would have been cute if you taken the advice of the shadow chancellor? >> it's very interesting what my honorable friend says but every time there's cautioned about the economy, about the fact that more people in work, more businesses getting established, that our economy is growing, the party opposite don't want to hear a word of it. they know what the whole country can see. britain is succeeding and labour is failing. >> will the prime minister accept any responsibility for the fact that -- on wages and working people will on average have lost 6660 pounds in real terms while he's been at number 10? >> there is only one sustainable way to get living standards up investigate the economy growing, which we are doing. that is to cut taxes, which we are delivering, and that's to keep mortgage rates low, which we are doing. and effective if we listen to the party opposite who only have one plan to spend more, borrow more and build up more debt, we

would be back to where we started. >> as the syrian tragedies unfolded, i've always had the armageddon question in the back of my mind, which i shall now in an understated form if i may put to the prime minister. if the americans illegally bombarded the assad forces, and assad legally invites the russians in to degrade the rebels, what will nato do? >> prime minister? >> the first point i would make to the right honorable gentleman is that we would never support illegal action, and we debated and discussed it at some length last week, and it isn't the case that the only way action can be legal is a u.n. resolution.

so we would only support action that was legal. we would only support action that was proportion but as i said, britain wouldn't be taking part in any of this action. in a way had to put the armageddon question round the other way which is that if no action is taken following president obama's red line and if no action is taken following for supporting use of chemical weapons, you have to ask yourself what sort of armageddon are the syrian people going to be facing? >> thank you, mr. speaker. the prime minister said it does not support -- [inaudible] over 2 million pounds but because he claimed some people living in these areas are capital rich and cash poor. can the prime minister tell me, how does he --spport for the bedroom tax when he is punishing -- [inaudible] and who have no cash? >> i think first of all he has

to get clear what is a tax and what isn't a tax. currently, before our changes there was a subsidy for people who add additional room they were not using and we believe it's fair that the same rules in private sector rented accommodation and in council accommodation. but the question is now for labour. you have ranted and raved about the spare room subsidy. are you going to reverse it? just in awe do. are you going to reverse it? are you going to reverse it? that means no. that means yes. any chance? absolutely nothing to say, and we get the same time with it. >> mr. speaker, -- [laughter] thank you, mr. speaker. it is no triple decisions that someone can leave their home and the country fleeing for their own safety. how many people must have let syria before it is impossible

for its regime to declare any kind of moral entitlement to govern the backcountry? >> i don't believe that the regime has any legitimacy. i think the way that it has treated its own people, i think the bombing and maiming of its own citizens, and now this use of chemical weapons, i see this as a completely illegitimate regime. but what we now have to do is bring every pressure to bear for a transition so we can end up with syria in totally different hands. that is what is required. >> thank you, mr. speaker. [inaudible] 70% of parents have to take out loans to pay for the uniforms. why has the prime minister failed to act so that his coal policy is now leading -- [inaudible] the profit of companies? >> first of all, like many people and many parents i think

it's right for schools if they want to choose to have a robust uniform policy. i was at the opening of a new preschool in birmingham yesterday where all of the parents in that room were very grateful of the fact that exactly the policy that they had. i have to say what i see from the honorable lady is just trying to find a way to oppose free schools. the fact is that now i appoint hundred 94 free schools in the country. they don't like i like you becae actually parents think this is a good education. they're going to have to listen to the figures. two-thirds of the schools are either good or outstanding, and at some stage just as they get run over the economy the labour party will have to admit they got it wrong about free schools as well. >> it costs the ministry of defence 1.4 billion pounds to extend the life of the submarines in order that the liberal democrats could have a study of alternative.

now that study has shown that there is no alternative to trident. will the prime minister consider signing the contract for the new -- for the 270 we can never again be blackmailed by the liberal democratic in the house parliament? >> well, i have to credit the honorable gentleman with a remarkable consistency on this issue, which basically i agree with them. we have tried and. it is the right approach and we need to renew trident. actually the delay of the main gate decision has saved us money rather than cost us money. his point about the review i think is absolute right. it shows that if you want to have a proper functioning deterrence, then you need to have the best, and that means a permanently at sea submarine base alternative and that is what a conservative only government after the next election will deliver. >> is it not the case that rail

-- is it not the case -- >> order. the honorable gentleman is something of an exotic creature in the house. i think that insights the benches budget which a with honorable gentleman has said andy must be heard. >> is it not the case that rail wages have fallen by nearly 1500 pounds a year since he became prime minister in? >> of course we live in tough times because of the incredible mess with had to clear up from the party opposite but i have to say the party opposite complaining about the economy, complaining about living standards is like the accident complaining to the fire brigade. it's a this, turn the economy around and that's the way we did living standards out. >> thank you, mr. speaker. very recently, an award -- three

prestigious awards. would my right honorable friend wish to congratulate the many businesses your members on their achievement in? >> i certainly congratulate businesses large and small for the enterprise they have shown. the fact about this recovery is it's a private sector led recovery. that is what we needed after the massive excessive government spending and it's been very good. businesses up and down the country come have done so much to take people on and to get our economy moving. >> order. >> we believe the british house of commons not as members move onto other legislative business. you have been watching prime minister's question time live wednesday that 7 a.m. eastern while parliament is in session. you can see this weeks question time again sunday night at 9 p.m. eastern and pacific on

c-span. and for more information go to c-span.org and click on c-span series for prime minister's questions. plus links to international news media and legislatures around the world. you can also watch recent video, including programs dealing with other international issues. >> there's a continuous argument among lincoln scholars about islington with radicals or is he with the others? the reason why that origin at it continued is that there's very strong evidence on both sides of it. and it isn't just that he played both sides of the street. i think it's also that he felt full both sides are again. it's partly an difference between means and ends. i think is worth a radicals as for the in scope but i think he was aware of the temptation of being swept away by those ins, what is it about, except other than about the temptation about being swept away by grant.

and i think that there is in his mind attaining tension between his commitment to this worldly means, i should say legalist means. he didn't say i can abolish slavery because god told me to. there is always something very scrupulously legal about the way lincoln works and i think that's one of the things that saved him. spent how president lincoln's use of language convey the issues at stake in the civil war, sunday at 7:30 p.m. eastern, part of american history tv every weekend on c-span3. >> the transporttransport ation department is considering rules require greater transparency of airline fees for internet travel sites. travel industry representatives discussed the proposal at a hearing of the congressional internet caucus. this is an hour.

>> hello, folks. welcome. thank you for coming to today's event is called buying an excellent ticket online. that includes all of us, people as coach of the member flights back to districts come if they're going to visit people on august recess which include the people here have not. this is an important issue that everybody deals with so i thought it would be a recess flash on this topic. to do that with a similar to a of people to debate this topic, and a great moderator to facilitate that alone but quickly i want to thank the congressional internet caucus and co-chairs congressman bob goodlatte and congresswoman eshoo as was senator thune and senator leahy o on the senate se

who chairs the caucus and help us put together these briefings that debate real key issues without taking positions on them. i think there's a lot of value in both sides of the debate and we tried to host those debates for congressional staffs of you can kind of make up your mind on how you feel about these issues. so with that, let me just thank everybody and introduce the moderator, rob pegogordo is a freelance journalist. is covered consumer technology issues for many, many, many years. he's probably older than he looks. he's been doing this stuff so long. and he freelance journalist but now he writes a column for "usa today." i read him religiously when he did tech reporter for the "washington post." really a great person to moderate this discussion and can tap into how consumers feel about this issue. so let me introduce rob pegogordo who will moderate the event. >> thanks. i thought by can you mentioned not taking an issue. this is one of those things although unpaid have an opinion on everything, i'm kind of on the fence because i've realized

that i'm not actually normal. i overthink the process of buying air travel, i will check airfares at kayak. i will check out flight entertainment. see the guru, connecting airports, but i recognize that some of the people are not like me and have actual lies and the one simple ways to buy a ticket at original price but i thought we would start with briefly, what's the problem you're trying to solve or the problem you're trying to stop from happening. you can start, andrew. >> my name is andrew weinstein. executive director of open allies for airfare transparency. we are a coalition of about 400 organizations and companies that are involved in travel distribution. so our members are everyone from the travel agencies, the brick-and-mortar ones, in fact, more than half the largest travel agencies in the country to the business travel

departments that book travel for corporate travelers, to the online travel companies, people in this room probably use like orbitz and expedia and travelocity, book their own flights, two other players international as was the represent similar constituencies. and the gds systems which are systems that sit at the center of a lot of this travel distribution right now. our organization has a single, simple goal. we want to make sure that travelers have the ability to see and compare all other prices for fares and fees that they give. so when you're booking a trip, you do an apples to apples comparison and say point a to point b. i want to have these options and want to know how much it's going to cost across the there is airlines. our members are working through a coalition to try to achieve the. the problem with this in one way is that the very system of

transparent services has developed over the past 20 years. an explosion in new innovation and technology. anyone in this room, who in this room has used orbitz or travelocity or one of the sites to book a trip? i assume it's pretty much everyone here. the other challenge you probably are facing at the same time though is you may have gotten to the airport are gone to the tail end of the purchase and realize there's additional charges associate with the flight you didn't realize were there. so that could be baggage charges, priority boarding, a flight change fee that you didn't know you would incur if you want to go at a different time on that same day. and those these have made it difficult for travelers to tell how much it's going to cost them to get from point a to point b. the airlines can edit the want to speak for my peers on the panel but from our perspective part of the reason it's got more difficult to tell how expensive it's going to be to travel to get to your destination is that the process in the airline you have become what they call to

monetize. somi'm going to quote just one sentence from the ceo of the international air transport association they are saying the mall, the current model is on finding the lowest ticket price. this has result in the commoditization of their travel. for airlines perspective that means they basically are not able to charge higher fares because consumers are able to do it with the editor and take the cheapest because they are traveling for value the airline to look for a way to increase the cost they can charge for the tickets that they are offer and the fees that they offer. we think that's the crux of today's debate in a couple different places. one, in terms of all these new fees and also in terms of a plan you may hear about called the new distribution capability, or in d.c. which is a proposal the airline to put forward to try and change the way travel is disturbed today. in both cases our fear is that what is occurring is not the personalization of travel which

is a phrase you probably hear from my colleagues, but the personalization of affairs so that your face different than your fair, the person sitting next to in the room today if they did the same search and the same airport. might end up with a totally different price because the airlines think they're willing to pay more. we are opposed to that our members are opposed to the. we think there is a better way to continue to foster innovation and new services and new incredible ways to travel and search and find travel in cooperation with the airlines without having to lower the veil of a city over the fares and fees you pay. i will wrap up saying a point made in his early which is our partners are the airlines but we want to work with them. we can't be in business without them. our members say they are the ones who serve as the interlocutor between the flights and the purchaser, the consumers, for the majority of tickets sold today. we need them. we think they need us.

we want to find a way that actually works for consumers and for business travelers, to be able to travel efficiently, comparatively, transparently search for the flights that they want while also increasing the number of tickets and flights sold to the airline. >> all right. sharon, your turn. i think you may have some disagreements there. >> my name i is sharon pinkerto. on the head of policy for the airlines for america. we represent all of the major u.s. airlines, both the network carriers that you for money with them united, jetblue, american, and also low-cost carriers like jetblue, southwest, center. we also represent cargo carriers. i'm glad you asked the question kind of which the problem and why are we here today because of interested to explore that question a little more. airlines are in favor of transparency. why is that? we want to sell tickets but we want people to travel. you know, airlines are an incredible economic driver in

this country. we contribute a trillion dollars gdp, 10 million good paying jobs, and beyond sort of economic contribution. we enable things like what i'm sure you guys and then over the summer, and that's come you've got home to see families, friends, celebrate birthdays, anniversaries. we provide important medical service in carrying life-saving organs to folks. so i think the key context of all of this discussion is what airlines and aviation do for people in their economy and the fact that hope we are together in our common goal of wanting to grow the industry. there's good news for consumers that want to share with you guys today, and that is that airfare has never been such a great bargain. if you look at airfares come your average domestic round-trip ticket in 2012, and to adjust it

for inflation, it's 50% lower than it was in 2000. when you add in the ancillary fees that andrew talked about, it's still 10% lower, including those fees. so it urge you to take advantage of what is a great bargain right now and a good time to fly. we at airlines for america have been talking a lot about a national airline policy. again, what is it that we're trying to accomplish? we would like to have a rational tax structure in place, and rational regulatory burden. we need to be able to compete globally. we want to get nextgen done. you guys all have gps in your cars. which enables you to get where you want to go. it's not a system that is working today. airlines want to move off the radar thank you to the gps system. finally, we want to do something about oil price. so that's really kind of what we're all about.

i like to frame this debate with the gdss a little bit differently than what you have heard. and treestand represents 400 countries and that's, for hundred companies, that's true, but i think for all transfers to the real debate here is between some global distribution services, companies, and event center, travel port and amadeus. saber and travel port own and control 90% of the distribution market. so that when we sell our tickets through a gds, we pay a fee. as in consumers pay a fee. so that's about $7 billion a year that we paid to gdss ear so in terms of what this issue i think part of it is about, is what can we do to become more technologically efficient, innovative, and bring that $7 billion cost down, quite

frankly. because as you guys know, airlines one on a very, very thin margin. we made 37 cents a passenger in 2012, 37 cents. and gmis i don't care how much you make. but actually you probably do because when were able to make more than 37 cents, what does that mean? that means that we can do to capital expenditures, like to buy new planes. we can provide training to our flight attendants. we can put wi-fi on the plane which is really cool. we all like that speed can we replace that condorcet does while were at it? >> because it's too far to walk it? >> is really awful. pretty crummy place to wait. >> we spend a lot of money on airports every year. therein lies part of the problem is that we have between the $19 billion in taxes that we take him incredible amount of wreckage were inefficiency out there. we need to control costs, bring

costs down so we can spend money in the right places. so what we would like to see is come instead of the regulations that the gdss have proposed, and again, these are the gds is that control 90% of the market, they have a way of providing technology that we think is one way of doing it, but we also would prefer to have a more open architecture in which there are many folks who can provide the distribution of our products. it's funny, people say airlines don't want to do stupid our product. we absolutely do. why do we want to disturb a our product? because we want to sell. it would make sense for us to try to hide our product. we want you to buy our product. there's lots of cool software out there, websites, ita software.com is a great site for going and finding the best price. we think there ought to be competition in the market.

with the gdss have proposed through dot's passenger protection rule number three would essentially narrow the focus down to one way of providing technology. we just want to open it up and have a lot of competition in the distribution marketplace. so i look forward to the debate. >> all right. you to get your say, too. >> looking forward to it. >> i'm charlie oka. i started the consumer tribal alliance backing 2009. before that i was a journalist. i wrote a book called travel rights which it probably the only book that's been written about the rights of travelers, whether they're flying, renting cars, using their credit cards, going to hotels, dealing with organized tours and stuff like that. someone as to whether or not i would like to start a nonprofit and work for consumers here in washington. and i said, i would like to but i would have liked to eat, too.

so i went ahead, like a fool, and started this thing. we have done of the good job inside the beltway. in our building out, building membership out into the country. we've got about 37,000 people signed up to our newsletters that we can reach out to get a pulse of what's happening in the travel industry. when we talk, when sharon and andrew speak, they are talking about airlines, they're talking of the gdss. aand my job is to keep the focus on consumers. i said, and so and so has 90% of the market, so-and-so has 85% of the market. consumers have 100% of the market. we are the ones that your members and your bosses all are really serving. and so what i've been doing here is i've been trying to get as much price transparency as

consumers can get. i think that, i was going to say that we already were went expedia started but i might be overcome all that older than you guys. but when hp came into the market all of a sudden everybody said, wow, look at this. i can see all these prices. we had expedia, travelocity. and it was a new world of setting up your own pricing model. and what's happened is over the years, and especially starting back in about 2008, the airline started to be what they called unbundle their service to in other words, used to be able to buy an airline ticket and an airline ticket you got two bags, you could talk to a real person on the telephone, you got a seat reservation, and you got from d.c. to peoria, or where ever you're going. and all of a sudden the airline said, we're going to take away something. and only because we want to give you choice. guess what? have any of you seen the

airfares going down? no. when you hear the story about oh, it's such a great bargain, they forget to tell you that you can buy computers now for 10% of what they used to cost. up high that used to be able to fly maybe 25-50 people. at the maximum in the old twa constellation. today, the same pilot can spread the cost over 300 something people in larger aircraft. so that kind of an argument about the cost of travel still being low really doesn't ring true and you really look at it across the board and all of the efficiencies which have come into the system so far. so we debate this stuff and we talk about different issues. my single focus is on giving consumers to be able to know what the total price of the ticket is. there's no reason one had to go one place to buy the airfare, go

somewhere else to buy the baggage fees, go somewhere else to get your food, if you want that, or set up your computer internet and so on. if the airlines were really only interested in selling everything, they would release these fees to every part of their distribution network. they wouldn't keep it to themselves. they would be able to make much more money. every study that's been done shows that when consumers are given an option of buying or upgrading, a lot of them do. and, therefore, everybody makes more money when you have more opportunities to do that. and so that's what we are looking at. and we are supporting action by the department of transportati transportation, entering the faa reauthorization bill debates and discussions two years ago, we were active -- we were actively trying to support the same kind of thing. so, okay.

so, we were active in trying to support the same kind of price transparency. and that's what we are trying to move forward on. and the infighting between airlines and their distribution networks shouldn't affect consumers. consumers should know what the total price of the ticket is wherever the airlines decide to sell their tickets. and that decision is totally up to the airlines. they can decide we don't want to sell it here, we do want to sell it here, but whatever they do that, we are trying to get consumers to at least know what the total price is. and technology exists today to do that. we need to get the data released and freed. that will then allow technology to move forward. >> you get the last word. let's not get too into the weeds about cost on every mile on the consolation versus an a320.

>> i'm imagining some international. port transportation. i run all of our legislative affairs, and we're a global trade association. we have about 240 members, all of which are airlines. there are a lot of different things that we do as a trade association but one of the big things we do and have done for many decades is standard-setting. so the conversation about distribution is actually a lot more fascinating once you get past that word distribution. it doesn't sound a fascinating. today, we've seen a major shift in the way airfare is a tribute, the the way you shop for airline products. 40 years ago in the regulation, you went from the cost-plus model, and basically went into the same sort of thing without the guarantee of supply. so for years it was competition on fares and schedules. i don't know if anyone has watched the olympics over the last 40 years but that didn't really work so well.

lots of airlines went in and out of bankruptcy, and that model had to change. and so that was where we got unbundling, this concept that getting on an airplane as a product and then there are other products that airlines can create and sell. and now the mayors of that, you see today a for a release a statement this week that in the first half of this year that u.s. carriers having made $6 billion for all $6 billion back in customers expense and if you fly a lot like me from one month to the next, you are seeing major, major changes in the offering on board, in a cabin environment and experience. this is all because of a need to compete on more than just destinations, on more than just a there's. because as sharon said, it's been a race to the bottom in fares but if you look at over the last four years, i think, the best you i think the margin was 3%. it's as close to perfectly competitive market as i think

you might find in the economy today. so what is nbc? the easiest way that i talk about this is, and it's no surprise, and as andrew said and as was said, shopping for airfare in the world of unbundling is complicated if not virtually maddening. you go to an airline website and you see lots of different information about the aircraft, the onboard environment, all of the various amenities, the other products, prices and things like that. but you have to go to airline website. if you go to an orbitz, travelocity, kayak, one of those and you enter search, it's great. you get feedback of schedules and fares, orders communism lowest to highest price. but travelers today what other things. they need other things. you can't build an offer this as i need a check to back, i need wi-fi, i need all of this other stuff. how can i compare when i can't

see that information here? and we agree. i mean, it's frustrating. it's difficult. as rob said it's going to need different websites trying to find information that you ought to be able to get in one place. so, why? it's not a lack of desire to sell these products through all of these sales channels. in order to sell a product you have to be able to market the product. it's a technological issue. for 40 years we have used the data transmission standard which was created 40 years ago when the rescheduled and fares and not a lot else. being that old it is incapable of transmitting and communicating the kind of information and products detail that now exists. and so in order to push that content out to the intra- channel, to the online travel agents, to her traditional brick-and-mortar travel agent, you have to have a new technological solution. that's called xml from which

basically runs the world. your iphone, your blackberry, your android device but it markup language spent yes. it runs everything, and it is dynamic. it is robust. it is open-source. it's really the way of the future in communication. we have seen this start to permeate the aftermarket. we are behind. it's only in our market where we can't picture on a website revolutionary. considering what we've been doing for four years, it really does. and what you get in the scenario we've seen time and time again and the reason we set standards is everyone is sort of doing their own thing. each airline kind of has a different format for xml. by format i mean basic how the data is presented is it month day year or day month year. all of that medical information you don't think about but that's part of the communication. you have to be able to understand that in order to make a request, make an offer.

and what have you. with proprietary solutions you're still going to get xml. you're still going to get this move to more product offering throughout all the sales channels, but it will happen more slowly. nbc, i basically like into a travel converter. i'm sure everyone has one. when you travel you carry this big clunky thing that's got a bunch of pins and wants taking out of it, and have to figure out which is the right one, where you're going. if you're going to africa you need a completely different set compared to the eu or asia. and we need a great if you could just take one plug, and plug it in anywhere in the world? that is basically what nbc. it's not a business model but it's not a pricing model. it's not some new revolutionary way to create a market. it is in effect a standard way to plug-in to one another. so that if i'm a developer and i could talk to one airline, i could talk to all airlines which

means that i could distribute all airlines content and all of our content because i'm not using xml. that is at its face the purpose of nbc. it's about content. about allowing airlines to market all of these different products is great and are trying to differentiate themselves with the consumers. consumers being able to actually compare transparent prices, which today you cannot do. spent there's a couple of different issues tied in with the. i think we can agree it would be nice where we can pay -- it seems as i don't have to day. you're advocating things like airlines are making moves towards that direction. book an economy plus seats are travelocity? >> yeah. a very quick point on xml and i think i'm going to move to what i think the debate is really about. xml is a computer linkage but it's a very good computer language. many of our members use xml a

lot and the use of tee mccabe with the airlines, members of the opposition sitting at this table. iata that asserted itself of his best prepared to use xml and the results were that the members, the information providers who are members of our coalition are better prepared right now to use xml and their members. the airline said they're not ready to use as much as we are. it's a red herring in this debate. the resolution, what iata propose was not a long resolution about why xml is great and why we should be able to use xml but that's only kind of, that argument is only emerged after the initial filing when the initial filing and profited one of 400 or positions of up to 400 organizations to file their own mostly complaints with the duty about what they were filing. what if i was a totally and radically different approach to weight that you shop for your plane ticket as a consumer. in today's market come you go to the website, you're anonymous, you search for the flight you

want any presents there's to you. then you select the fear and you tell them who they are sickened by that ticket. the airlines want to flip it over and this is the core of it and that chat and verse because this -- >> we don't have time for that today. >> what it says is not identify yourself first but if you don't identify yourself you're not going to get the same level of fares and the same transparency of which you can travel as if you do tell us who you are. they want to know who you are because when you know who someone is, and airline parlance you can personalize their package. from a layman see what that means is you can find all sorts of stuff to get in a way that makes it hard to watch your after paying for each piece of that trip. so rather than just saying a fly from point a to point it will cost $300 you might get an offer from airline says we'll give you priority boarding and lounge access and exit row seats for $600. he might be able to uncheck some

of those, you might not come depends on how the system is configured. whether you can compare any or all of those. from the consumer perspective it takes what's a confusing system and does do bad things but it makes it completely impossible for the consumer to tell what's apples to apples comparison for me to fly from point a to point b. and i can put in the things i have with that trip. secondly, in addition to the transparency of that flight, it's difficult to tell what the actual price of the cost is going to be. it means that the airlines are charging a different price for each person who does that search potentially. the personalization of that fair means that if they think you are a price sensitive charge -- >> so here's an interesting case. because as we were talking about this e-mail before, there's been

no improvement anonymous purchase ticket since you can board a people express lane and making him pay for your ticket in cash on board. certainly if you're shopping at an airline website right now, presumably your login, you want to see the impact page want to know what you get if you haven't have elite status. so is that a proxy for what you are worrying about will happen or is that already hear? >> i had a baby leslie and my mother-in-law is flying over north carolina, which i have feelings about the -- >> good luck, man. >> and if you're watching, i love you, ruby. but when i did search for the airfare, d.c. discharge, presented a there's in an aggregate search into but i chose the plight i chose the flight i wanted to i got to the registration screen and told i couldn't reserve any of the seats on a plane without paying

an additional day for the seat. now they know what you. i don't know whether they charge extra for those seats because they forget who i am and they know i travel a lot for business and suddenly got my information and said hey, this is a guy who might be willing to pay more so we will charge them to get the seat. or whether this is something that they do for everybody. but because the pricing isn't transparent, because what the airlines are proposing is they will do away with all the prices being out there so everyone can see what every flight costs and personalize it for each traveler, there's no way for me to know. and my suspicion and fear and the fear of a lot of other organizations who represent travelers is that if we move to this model the airlines will have a strong financial incentive, whether to approve airline seats and make their businesses better or not, they have a strong financial incentive to charge consumers more as an individual based on what they think they're willing to pay. >> sharon, that sure about that.

>> [inaudible] >> look at where things are today. there is an incredibly competitive marketplace out there right now. and i do want to address something charlie said. i have a chart for you all on the table outside that actually shows that in real terms airfares have decreased, even including ancillary services. and it puts it in relatively comparison to movie tickets and other things that an increase in real terms. so the facts are the facts. airfares have decreased, and flying is an incredible bargain. but we do have programs right now that are called frequent flyer programs, and yes, just like when i could pull out my keychain and should, i shop at safeway, and i've signed up for the safeway bargains. they send a personalized coupons because they know i only drink almond milk. it's really no different in

terms of loyalty programs that airlines have today. i'm really baffled by all of the hullabaloo around ndc. first of all, i think communism is a resolution. it's a long way off. i am much more focused on what we can do today to sell more tickets. i do think that nbc poses all of these issues, potentially. and again i think that we have an incredibly competitive market place right now. if you want to shop anonymously now, you can. or if you want to be like me with safeway, i give them my information and i tell them i liked and my dislikes and they get personalized coupons. it's a choice that consumers can make. >> so there are a couple of things on the ndc aspect. first, the personal information

side. been reading the resolution, you do authenticate today. you've been doing and anonymous search and that's what we're talking about. you at least have identified if you're an adult, child, our senior. the fares are different. you can't get a quote without knowing at least are you an adult or a child. corporate traveler. corporate travelers how to identify themselves to get corporate travel discounts what your personalized, different prices for specific passengers. so this exists today. what doesn't exist today and what is fully capable today is requiring this kind of scenario where, while i can't search until i login, they have to know what young. i mean, it's almost kind of tinfoil hat thinking. and airline could do this on their website. and orbitz or travelocity could do this if they wanted to come

and they don't. in d.c. doesn't enable any capability or collecting or using personal information in order to try to fleece customers with higher prices. the interesting part about in d.c. and the talk about transparency and comparability in competition is it's really the answer that a lot of people have been calling for. they want to be able to see side-by-side these offers. if i'm an airline today using what we call the filing system, so airlines submit schedules and fares of two different companies, aggregators like -- bungalows together and make them searchable in the indirect channel for agents and online travel agents. the only people that is transparent to our airlines and gdss. the reliance on whatever information is presented. a perfect example of this is that one company, sabre, was able to buy up their system against american airlines for

pursuing an xml solution to the tune of i think it was annualized $500 million in revenue on its website alone. in a photo transparencies and how would you accomplish this? if passengers, consumers could see all of the prices and its fully transparent, you shouldn't be able to have this kind of market power. so the argument that somehow today the system is transparent, i just don't understand. it really just is an xml standard. it really is just that simple. the strawman of personal information, requirement and airlines using that information against passengers. if you're using xml, this is a live conversation. this is not filings that she's been at the the end of the day on friday. this is, i sent a request, the airline has to send me their best offer. whether they know me or not. there's no inherent requirement to identify yourself, but if they send me a bad offer, i'm

now looking at all of their competitors, inclusive of all of these different products, because xml allows you to submit that information, and if that's a bad price i'm going to go with someone else. so you're going to lose business. now, look at it from a different perspective. when you go to one of those sites today, most people are going to look at at the lowest fare, and a lot of people go to the website because they want all of the information. now, that lowest fare, say there are two carriers and say they are a little bit different in price, if you're the higher but your bag fee is lower, said a passenger wants wi-fi and you offer wi-fi for free or for a lower price, or what have you. chances are in today's environment you are going to lose that passenger because they can't see that information and they can't build a full offer and see the whole price but using xml, if you're using ndc,

or not, xml alone doesn't. now you have that all side-by-side. if you're that carrier with a higher fare, now maybe he becomes a lower fare because that traveler has not been able to indicate the other products that they want. so from an airline's perspective there's a ton of benefits. from the consumer's perspective there's a ton of benefits. this is all happening, whether or not ndc is used or not. s. anderson, xml is being used. the airlines are using xml on their own sites. they are signing deals with third parties like gdss, and other companies. so with or without ndc this is the future of air travel, which i think everyone agrees is what's needed, more transparent, more ability to compare. ndc as an open standards. we have a working group of a ton of different sectors of the economy, the industry including ota, gds is can anyone you can think of. and at the end of the day it's

voluntary, like all of our -- all of our other standards. the tags on backpacks that were bad for maybe a year or so. we wrote a standard on fat. you know. it's not up to us. were not a revelatory body. we don't have the kind of power to require the markets to use this. it is our responsibly to try to help the airline industry standardize what is being done to make it cheaper to do them to make it easier to do, and to increase competition in this regard in the distribution space. >> the are two different ways to personalize under the system. one is to personalize the price, which you worry about. and the worries that i've seen i guess isn't that instead of being able to know that there are this many seats left and there's this much more, you would have more experience.

the other way is the examples you land where you're going to give this passenger a free chek to back him a beating that they don't have an elite status because they almost do. charlie, let's hear from you. what do you -- what do your members worry about? d. have objections personalization by service to or isn't personalization by service or price? >> .net. >> i think they are a scam. [laughter] however, the airlines have sold us on it, and as they're looking at that going to try to look at radiating them, i think maybe frequent flyer miles are going to be just a even more than bitcoins but that's another discussion. let me circle back to what we've got for consumers. i just want to go back to my same thing. we've got people here talking about who's going to control

data. who's going to tell us what our tickets cost? anywhere the airlines sell their tickets they should tell us how much the tickets going to cost and we should be able to figure it out. the airlines, through this ndc program, it's another way that they can hold the data closely themselves and not share it with gds. not share it with google. not share it with the online travel agencies. and when they don't share it, we can't find out everywhere we go to catch airfares, how much the total cost to travel is going to be. this system of xml and comparison-shopping already exists. that technology is already there. i'm on a committee. i was appointed a committee by the secretary of transportation, the advisory committee for aviation consumer protections. it's part of the faa

reauthorization bill which passed a couple of years ago. and as one of our meetings, we had airline representatives show us how this system works. then we have sabre, which is one of the big gds programs, come up and show us how the system works. you, today, if you have data can say, i'm traveling with my wife and two kids. we're going to have for carry-ons, two checked bags, and we would all like to sit together. how much will cost us to fly from orlando to chicago? and then you will be able to see a cross airlines how much that cost, based upon what you asked. it already exists. and i agree, what iata is proposing is beautiful but we don't need them but it's already going on. it can happen right now as long as the data is released. >> i agree, charlie. it is already going on. that's what united and delta have signed agreements with

travel port to sell their premium seating. so it's just, i mean, the marketplace is working. maybe not as quickly as you all would like it, but it is working. we are selling ancillary is through gdss but we want to speak you are using plural. >> we want the ability to be able to negotiate with gdss so if jetblue will have -- they want to be able to have a picture of fat on a gds. they want to be able to differentiate their product so they need to be able in that negotiators with gds to tell the gds, this is how we want our product displayed. so ancillaries are being sold through gdss. they will continue to be. so i'm just not sure what the problem is spent one quick observation but you mentioned chicago. and all these examples we shouldn't ignore that i there's one airline that doesn't have a lot of ancillary fees, southwest.

is that going to change in any of these scenarios of? >> south was often have to make its own decisions on how wants to serve in the future just as it has today. i would say one thing. a lot of these issues are competent, particularly if you're not deep in the weeds. one easy way for me to shorten them is to look at motivation. who are you serving as an entity in this debate, and because of that what are you trying to accomplish? so if you're looking of the two players in this, the two largest players involved, you have the airlines working from one set of priorities and get i think travel agents and agencies working from a different one. at the end of the day a travel agency does not care. they are going to have returned this is a online travel agency and off-line travel agency can even corporate travel department. their priority is making sure the air travelers get where they're going and the most efficient possible manner at the lowest cost to build what are

terrified about this ndc approach. as you've heard, both of the airline representatives have talked about how they plan to use the money that you getting from the profits got to make the travel process better. that's great, but that is a different motivation to win your motivation is to make sure you're maximizing the amount of revenues are bringing in for whatever purpose, that is not the same motivation and it's not in line assistance with what a traveler needs. it does maximizing the amount of money you get and ensuring that you get the lowest and best fare are two completely different priorities. so at the end of the day we think it's solvable. we think it's solvable by by focusing on the fundamental principles of choice in competition and transparency. as a travel into shopper if you can see everything that's out there, then you can make an informed decision about what you want to buy and you can make a decision about, is it worth me paying this is the? isn't worth me doing this? the airlines have claimed it will provide transparency and

the market is providing it as we speak. if you search for a travel recently like i did yesterday, there's the option to check to see i have two bags or want to sit with my kids or -- it doesn't exist in today's system. it could exist limit almost overnight if the airlines opened up their existing fee structure and fare structure to the same systems that use today. we can all work together on how to use new techno do to improve that system and unleash this next wave of innovation that we have seen in the past. >> let's be honest. andrew represents for-profit companies as well, so i think in terms of motivation, there's nothing wrong with a fro profit motivation to i think your members are for-profit. then secondly, i'll say again, we want to sell our products. so it doesn't behoove us to hide optional services. we want people to buy those

optional services. the other thing is the department of transportation has a rulemaking to which they say airlines can engage in unfair and deceptive practices. and so if they are being hidden or if there is a deceptive practice, there's something that's already in place that enables customers to complain and to change that. so i think back to the beginning of the conversation what we're really talking about here is certain players who own a great deal of the marketplace but don't want to give that up, airlines have other motives. we want to be able to ensure that when we distribute our products, we can do it in a way that is not the same we have done in the past, but enables more transparency, more innovation, pictures and displaying that product the way we want to. we think that's good for the consumer. >> i mean, on the economic piece, i mean, it's kind of an interesting point. of course, a business'

motivation is to increase and maximize revenue and their for-profit. you can't do that and act in an anticompetitive way and lets you have the market power to do that, which airlines do not. this is a hyper competitive industry around the world. there are a thousand airlines in the world -- >> there are only three alliances left in the u.s. >> but alliances are still competitive. you're talking about lower fares versus higher revenue. and they are not different. you cannot offer higher fares in this marketplace and get away with it. that's the reason the fares have gone way down. it's the reason why airlines have not once covered the cost of capital, ever, even in their best year. they only got halfway there. this isn't an industry that is reaping billions upon billions of dollars in profit. and, of course, a big element of

this is reducing cost. to talk about how much time it is taking. you can't just turn the stuff on. these are commercial agreements. you could understand trepidation of some it may not message and want to jump into commercial agreements with companies who, in their own words, tried to take another company down by hiking prices and by hiding this. i don't think this is all that complicated. and at the end of the day, whether or not we do an xml standard, this stuff will happen going forward. we think the xml standard makes it fast and easy. we think that opens up innovation to a lot of people. the 12 year old in his basement could start writing applications that can do stuff like this. the opportunity there is pretty astounding, but i just, i don't see that side of it.

>> let me get the consumer injury. i have to chuckle when the theyy that a 12 year old in his basement and start writing these applications. i've been pushing the airlines to put an application together so that they can track back, and they haven't been able to do that yet. >> .net. >> as a whole different -- paper tags have numbers on them that you could scan to put them in. explain how difficult it is, and i agree with them. it is difficult. and part of that leads me to where i started this whole thing. the data on pricing, on all the ancillary fees, if it was released into the distribution network, then people whose job it is the right software, to come up with wonderful systems of how to help consumers have a

better interface such as google, expedia, and other people that come you, work in the background. a lot of you guys haven't even heard about, they would then have the data to work with to create some great new products for us. and that would almost be a whole rush of new entrepreneurial software systems. so we are missing that by having the airlines with old data. how many here work for republicans? one? there's got to be more of you out there. anyway, one of the things when you look at the national airline policy. right now we have a national airline policy that is kind of and anti-industry. they withhold this data, therefore, the corporate travel managers can't tell you how much their budgets are going to be.

the refunds, when you have to get your fees refunded, if you just a regular old travel, you have a hassle doing that. everything comes through with the general said it. if it was distributed as marketed fees, everything would be marked. and he said, okay, like $25, you know whether it was for a sandwich, whether it's for the internet, whether it's for your first bag to check. that could come along. competition would be held for consumers, because we would then know what the prices are. and so what we have right now is you've got a system where, unfortunately, you've got to economic giants fighting each other for control of data. and the consumers are losing. and the rest of the economy is losing, because you can't say the money that it could if it had the data to work with. and so from a consumers point of view, i've just been working assiduously to try to get the

data released. and i don't know what's going to be in the next nprm. sharon is exactly right. there is a law that can't be misleading and deceptive pricing. we've been working with the department of transportation. everything is kind of stuck at omb right now. but it should be out sometime in the next month or two. >> just kind of factual point. how often does the ftc brought action against airlines for not dealing straight with customers? in like the last five years. >> they do it all the time but as a matter fact, on the whole they have probably more findings over the last year than they have, you know, in a long time. >> i think relative to the number of people who are better traveling, it's fairly small but i think the fact that there are laws in place, there are rules in place, and there is enforcement taking place.

so the system is working. >> i'm not sure if anyone bought a plane ticket -- i think that the system is broken. i think that the airlines, may think this is is working because they figured out this new way to unbundle all the services and charge for separate pieces. which is absolutely is here to stay, it is a business decision that is not going back. ..

if there were it would be much easier for consumers to make informed decisions what they should buy. >> consumer rule number two which is the law of the land today requires complete, 100% transparency. >> of fares. >> if you don't get on -- >> no of optional services. of optional services. so you can't be charged something that you weren't aware that you were being charged for. >> at a given part of the process. >> that is the law today. requires airlines to have within one click all of our ancillary and optional services transparent. what these guys want is to settle a commercial battle through a rule making and so i think that in terms of the consumer, again, i will go back to what i said. we want to sell our product

which is why we're transparent and what the debate today is more about is who gets the money for distributing the product more widely and all we're trying to do is make sure we've got a more open architecture to distribute our product and that we try to bring prices down for the consumer. >> right. and just one comment on, sharon is absolutely right. consumer rule two that requires all the ancillary fees be very clearly establish established however it allows you to do it in ranges. if you go to their ancillary fee page, see reservation, zero to $90 thank you. that is very helpful to us. it says, baggage, baggage fees, zero to some number. because the zero is for an elite person who doesn't have to pay and the other numbers are for the common travelers. but we don't know on a ticket

specific basis how much those ancillary fees are going to be and that is what the consumers have been trying to have happen and right now i believe that the new npr, i hope, that it comes out requiring that at least baggage fees and seat reservation fees are revealed. we don't know that yet and so every, all of us at this table are kind of waiting on pins and needles for the -- >> one challenge to that solution of course is that if we put out, or if somebody advertises that there's a $35 bag fee but you have the delta platinum card, then that is unfair and deceptive because you wouldn't be required to pay that bag fee. and that's the problem with that approach. a one-size-fits-all approach isn't reflective of today's marketplace. >> at this point we have to wrap. i want to make one suggestion people developing online travel

search sites, let me add to the preferences i have this elite status or i have this card and you can show what fees actually apply to me. i don't see anyone doing that. the idea is freeport taking. thank you. i have a choice of lunchtime panels. thank you for choosing this one. [applause] >> the statehouse dome is one of the most iconic and recognizable symbols of the maryland statehouse the lesser known fact it is actually not the first dome to cover this building. when the building is completed in 1779 it is topped by a small undersized cupola. it was decried for architectural

problems. it leaks because of a hurricane in the 1770s. by 1780s it was decried built contrary to all laws of architecture. after congress is in annapolis they bin construction on a new dome on the statehouse. they have dismantle the original cupola. it takes them 12 years to complete it. it was completed in about 1797. it is the largest all-wooden dome in the united states. built entirely without structural nails. held together with mortar joints and iron strapping. a truly architectural masterpiece. in the 19th century during the war of 1812 the statehouse dome is used as a lookout. it is the tallest point in time and commands a view of the river and the chesapeake bay. have tremendous documentation of william barney, son of maryland's naval hero, joshua

barney, going up the state dome to use what he called his excellent glass to see troop movements up the bay. >> more about the maryland statehouse as they look at history and literary live of annapolis. saturday noon eastern at c-span2 and sunday at 5:00 on c-span3. >> the science doesn't actually tell us what to do. it tells us what we think is going to happen and then we have to make choices about that and because one of the implications of simon's line of argument is that the earth is always changing. we, the societies can change and adapt in many ways and of course we don't know that is necessarily the case with the climate problem. there may be something we can adapt to but if you take that idea that societies can adapt it leaves us with the question of, well even if we can adapt is

this the kind of world to live in with extreme heat, droughts, sea level rise. so many things that we care about are endangered by the changes happening and we do have a choice about this. >> can human ingenuity save the planet or is the catastrophe all but certain? paul sabin, on the b.e.t. part of booktv this weekend on c-span2 and booktv's book club is back with mark leibovich's, this town. in america's guilded capitol. read the book and see what other viewers are saying on our facebook page and on twitter. >> taking you live to the newseum here in washington, d.c. for a discussion this morning on how the public views the polling industry. speakers include, joel dennison, who worked for the firm that president obama's campaign as well as republican pollster bill

macintyre and pew research center's alan murray will be there. it is hosted by the can't tar consulting firm. you're watching live coverage here on c-span2. [inaudible conversations] >> ladies and gentlemen, please take your seats. the program will begin in just a couple of minutes.

>> and as you just heard this live event will get underway in just a couple minutes. a couple of other live happenings on the c-span networks today include that c-span2 will be live with the senate foreign relations committee later this morning. they're going to discuss authorization for use of military force in syria. it will be chaired by senator robert menendez of new jersey. that starts at 11:30 a.m. eastern here on c-span2. the house foreign affairs committee is going to mark up a resolution for authorization of use of military force in syria at noon. witnesses will include secretary of state john kerry, defense secretary chuck hagel, and general martin dempsey, the joint chiefs of staff. this will be live at noon eastern on our companion network c-span. just to let you know president

obama is in stockholm, sweden for the day. that is before moving on to the g20 summit in moscow. he will meet with the swedish prime minister, and nordic leaders from finland, iceland and norway. we'll take you back to the newseum in anticipation of this live event. [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] >> l we're still waiting for this live event to take place at the newseum in washington.

so i will let you know again today some other happenings on the c-span networks. c-span2 is going to be live with the senate foreign relations committee later this morning. they are going to discuss authorization for use of military force in syria. it is chaired by senator robert menendez of new jersey. it will start at 11:30 a.m. eastern right here on c-span2. and the house foreign affairs committee will mark up a resolution for authorization of use of military force in syria. that takes place at noon eastern. witnesses include secretary of state john kerry, chuck hagel, the secretary of defense, as well as general martin dempsey the joint chiefs of staff. that's live noon eastern on our companion network c-span. we'll go back to the room here live at the newseum. it is supposed to be a discussion on how the public views the polling industry. speakers include joel bent ton and republican pollster bill

micinturf. pew research center alan murray. it is hosted by kantar consulting firm and you're watching c-span 2. [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] >> ladies and gentlemen, please welcome ken goldstein of kantar. [applause] >> that was sort of dramatic. good morning. i have, sort of spent a lifetime introducing myself, usually, you know, good morning i'm professor goldstein. this is polly sci 104 good to have overachievers here in the front row. never actually been announced like that. at the risk of her killing me,

which she may, i want to recognize elizabeth wilner before she, before we get started and give her -- [applause] this event from soup-to-nuts, the project, even the big k that you see out there is really completely due to elizabeth and we have an amazing group of people here in the audience. we're going to have an amazing group of panelists up here and as all of you have learned, when elizabeth asks you to do something the correct answer is yes and, and, i think the fact that all of you are here speaks to both what i think will be a very interesting program and great respect you all have for elizabeth. and she is going to kill me because i'm going off topic here for a couple seconds.

so, welcome and again as i was walking over here on what's the washington, d.c. version of a crisp fall morning as crisp as you get, you know, spent my life speaking in early crisp fall mornings to young college students about many of these issues. usually it had like a m for michigan or a w for wisconsin or now a usf for the university of san francisco. i never spoken in front after big k, like we have a big k here. let me tell awe little bit about kantar. unlike michigan or wisconsin, kantar doesn't have a football team that have their big letter behind although maybe i'm being american-centric here. do we have a soccer team or a football team? we may actually own one there. but we do not own an american football team. i think i'm on very solid ground saying that yet. wpp may in fact be acquiring an american football team as we

speak. but kantar is one of those big companies that you have never heard of. it is actually one of the world's largest research data insight companies in washington, d.c. we are probably best known, modestly, for a little firm you might have heard of which is kantar media tell agains cmag which tracks political advertising and also through a new member of the kantar family, the benison strategy group who just came aboard a couple, a couple weeks ago. so basically everyone in this is a geek and i say that, i say that lovingly, who is involved and interested in in survey research. one of the interesting things about survey research and public opinion is really from the dawn of people thinking about public opinion in the united states,

unlike many areas where there's a real division between academics, journalists, foundations, commercial companies there really has been a fairly open door or thin door between people going from big research organizations to academia, to political pollsters and i think while many in politics would say they never learned anything from political scientists or geeks i think that is clearly not the case when it comes to polling. there is a lot of communication going on between the different, the different worlds and organizations like aid for the american association of public opinion research really a organization with people from all different worlds and that is pretty unique in an academic organization. so obviously the topic of what's going to be growing going on with public opinion research is one that has been discussed widely over the last couple of

years and also discussed widely in the aftermath of the 2012 election. all of us in this room take the measurement of public opinion seriously and the way that worked, and we have sort of come up with the term, the past public opinion, akin to the path to purchase. for those working in the commercial world, people often talk about that path to purchase which sort of is the funnel ending in someone actually buying the product and when we've talked about public opinion, the path to public opinion, it usually was a geek, whether that geek is from a foundation, whether that geek is an academic speak, whether that geek is a media geek has been the gatekeeper of what the public thinks. the public is supposed to sit there we survey them. they tell the pollster what they think and then we report those findings. again there's been lots of

discussion about the future of public opinion and kantar thought, well, ironically there's been all this discussion about the future of public opinion and what's going to happen about polls and no one actually asked people about that. so kantar did what geeks do, what survey researchers do and did a poll on polling and we're going to have a terrific group of people, people joining us here to discuss the poll and i just wanted to start by outlining a couple of points that i thought were interesting and then, getting out of the way here and, having a very interesting, interesting discussion with the combination of media, political and foundation pollsters. so, if i push this button a slide will appear? oh. okay. let me just briefly give you an

overview and i teach and i don't have my mic and i will stay here and sit down. one of the major findings was that most americans think polls are biased. so by a very large majority going across every single cross tab you can look at americans believe that polls in general are biased, yeah. i'll grab that actually. cool, great, thank you very much that said, there is some variance on the level of trust they place in different sorts of polls. so media polls and candidate polls fair less well than academic polls and foundation polls. now obviously americans are distrustful of a wide variety of institutions in the united states including the ones on

either end of this street and widely distrustful of the news media. that is pervading people's opinions of polls as well. now, not only with my professor hat on and i see folks here like, doug or charles franklin who run academic polls. they can be very proud sitting here in the front row when i say people hold academic polls, give academic polls much more credibility. one interesting discussion point which i would love to talk about and folks to think about, there are now more partnerships going on between the news media and academic polls or between organizations like pew and the news media. what's going to happen is the halo effect of universities going to postively shine on the news media, or, is the news media going to intech all the

universities with the same sort of levels of distrust which we see in other institutions? i think that is going to be something very interesting to look at and again we haven't necessarily done polls that track people's attitudes towards those, towards those sorts of things. let me say one more thing about this as well. as organizations, actually i will get to that in a second. no one is more aware of this, of this than the people in this room. yet again another cell phone conversation and what's going on in terms of cell phones and survey research. everyone in this room is familiar with the fact that more than nine out of 10 americans have cell phones. four out of 10 americans are cell phone-only. somewhere in between that number are people who mostly use cell phones or mostly use land lines. all sorts of interesting

methodological and waiting discussions about how one deals with that. we asked a question about, would you rather do an interview on a land line or a cell phone? perhaps not surprisingly a strong majority would rather do a survey on a land line, which isn't great news but it would be interesting to think about what those trend are going to be. this survey says nothing about whether that is getting better or worse. we all know that there's more and more cell phones every year but, you know, would love to hear from folks like alan or doug who are out there doing tremendous numbers of surveys whether the response rates are getting relatively better or relatively worse with cell phones. because i think it's at least a plausible hypothesis as cell phones are not that thing you only use for an emergency or that special expensive toy that has cell phones become more normalized, perhaps, and perhaps

i'm glass half-full here, perhaps, people will be more likely to do interviews on cell phones as cell phones become their primary, their primary way of, their primary telephone, what is the word i'm looking for? tool. okay. as we talked about before the source matters. academic institutions are viewed much more postively than other, than other organizations that do survey research. we asked a question about willingness to participate which willing to participate in a survey by a foundation, willingness to participate in a survey by a political group, willingness to participate in a survey by an academic institution. people are more willing to participate in surveys by academic institutions. academic institutions typically will put that they are from an

academic institution in their intro script. i would love to hear from some people who are doing surveys what other people put in their intro script and especially what the media are now putting in their introductory script. i remember my first job was cbs news election and survey unit and the inthrow script was, good evening. we're call frock the "cbs evening news." with dan rather and "the new york times." now that came from a time when it was the "cbs evening news." with walter cronkite. that thought was it would increase response rates if uncle walter was calling and wanting your opinion. i remember thinking at the time, "cbs evening news." with dan rather and "new york times" and maybe add fidel castro and get lower republican response rates. i don't know of any systemically research that's been done on what happens on the intro scripts. i may be wrong about that but for the media i think that's

especially interesting. you say, hey, this is cool. your attitudes are then going to be in the news media, or, what we've shown previously, how people are so distrustful of the news media, does that make them even less likely to participate? of course political pollsters are not calling up hey i'm calling from the romney campaign, i'm calling from the obama campaign, who are you going to vote for? there's a more vague language in the introductory script. social media. and let me sort of give you a both a positive spin and a negative spin hire. so, people still don't see social media as a good source of information on the attitudes of the public. and quite frankly it is pretty clear they don't understand what sorts of tools are being used to give people added, to give people's attitudes from social

media. we looked at a number, we looked at another question which asked what people think is the primary role of social media and would they be willing to do a survey on social media and what do they think the role of social media is. i think it is pretty clear if you ask somebody if you want to do a survey of social media. i will be minding my own business on espn dot-com and someone will bug me and ask me to do a survey. the fact that people said though that social media is not for politics, i actually think, if we can figure out how to sample it, that might be some good news. why is that? well because people who are trying to take a random sample are looking for ways to reach people where those people are not predisposed to come in in a certain way. if people are involved in social media for reasons that are not politics then it's not like just surveying the people who are

watching the debate or just surveying the people who watch cnn or fox all the time and likely have pretty well-developed, pretty well-developed attitudes and predispositions. let me just make, let me just make one last point and before i introduce amy walter and turn it over, turn it over to the panel. this is, this is a first attempt what i hope something that kantar will keep doing and keep a conversation going with many of the people who are going to be on this panel and many of you in the audience but it's very difficult to do because basically we're studying who's doing public opinion polls and the way we did that was with people who answer to public opinion poll. the people we didn't talk to may be the most important people here and folks at pew have done very interesting work on this where they have, they have done

their regular three-day poll and then harassed these four people for 20 different calls to see how different that is and compared it to other groups trying to get some sense of the dog that's not barking, the people, that they are not talking to but this research is going to be out there. i hope people will take a look at it and sort of put a marker down that as we try and have what can be very interesting and technical conversations about survey research that perhaps we can get some guidance also by actually talking to people, people about it. those are just a couple of things that i thought were interesting and i'm sure we will discuss lots of other things both coming up in the audience and from our group of panelists who is going to come up. so without further adieu, i don't get like the deep voice introducing you like me. ladies and gentlemen, amy

walter. like to introduce amy walter. amy walter is editor of the "cook political report." i have known amy for many, many years. it was some disasterous election night which i can't even remember which one it was. many, many of you know amy in these sorts of things. you know, the words preeminent political analysis or analyst are often thrown around but it is actually true with amy. she's a former political director of "abc news." she is the former editor of "hotline" and overall good egg, a good friend, very smart about politics. so press the button and now you talk. >> thank you, ken. i can't do the deep voice quite as well. thank you very much, ken. great job and, thank you again to kantar for convening this. i think we'll have a great discussion for the next hour here.

i can't wait to get the questions too from our very austere august group of people. >> austere? >> yes. i don't know if that is true but we'll find out soon enough, won't we? of people in our audience and i do want stress as before i bring our panel up, the points that ken made before about, you know, we spent a lot of time in this town talk about methodological issues in polling certainly in the wake of the 2012 campaign n this panel we want to take a step forward. spend talil less time what went wrong in 2012. spend a lot more time looking forward to what polling can be about in 2014, 16 and beyond. and thinking about the issues that ken brought up about the way that the public perceives polling but trying to also get to some answers for how public opinion survives given all of the issues brought up by ken today.

so, i'm very pleased to bring up the four people who i think are some of the smartest people in the world on these issues and they can come on up now and i will introduce them. give them a cheer as they come up. [applause] >> with a deep voice. >> i can't get it. a lot of facial hair represented on our panel which is good. always important. let me go down our panel here before we begin. joel benitson sitting next to me of the penistson. known as obama pollster and political journalists in this room and do polling. anybody who has done public polling gotten a call from joel

usually how terrible your poll was or what was wrong, what was wrong with your polling. mark blumenthal sitting next to joel is senior editor polling editor of "huffington post" and founder of pollster.com. for those not on it you should be book marking however that works these days in the fancy social media world making sure you're on getting that information. they do analysis. they do aggregating. another, also good egg and a great cyclist which is very important. alan murray, sitting right next to him, president of pew research. you also may remember him from his days being a journalist. oh, right? >> years. >> years ago at "the wall street journal." and at the very end wearing a baseball tie because you are surveying all the parks in america, is that correct? >> yes. i just finished a tour with my son of three or four stadiums. >> you have to hit the speak

button. we'll get to that in a second. if you don't know him he is partner at public opinion strategies. he is also one of the pollsters for the nbc "wall street journal" poll. that is the group in front of us. these guys have a lost experience, a lot of insight, a lost opinions about how this goes. so i just want to start out with, this is a question to the entire panel. anybody can jump in. just remember to push that little speak button so the red light is on but i want to go to a big point to start with and it goes to the issue that ken started with is the issue of trust. the fact that three out of four people that were surveyed said they just don't trust the polls they're seeing. it seems to me that is really the issue we should start with, that is how do we get both as practitioners and people that cover the practitioners people to actually trust the data we're putting out there? whoever wants to start.

joel. >> well, thanks to kantar, new home for bsg. thanks to ken and amy. amy also neglected to say that, you know, she's worked with "cook political report", which is, was recognized by nate silver in his book as one of the best forecasting entities in washington with a track record that is verifiable. look, i think on this question of why people don't trust polls, i think first of all, people also don't trust the media and you have a plethora of media polls that are taking over the conversation a lot. so that is going to be correlated to one another but one of the interesting pieces of data in the survey by kantar that struck me is about half the people believe that there is a common set of standard being used by media outlets on conducting and reporting on

polls. and i think, and i'm also a former journalist. spent about 10 or 12 years covering politics. there isn't a common set of standard on reporting and conducting polls and maybe the media ought to rethink that so they can communicate that and people would then know that there's a common set of standards that everybody is living up to as opposed to every poll being reported on willy-nilly as if they're all equal in quality. as if they're all tracking each other, and make sense when you follow from cnn's poll to abc's poll. they aren't all the same right now. and that is not to suggest any one or the other of those has more quality but nobody knows if they're of the same quality and so the public may be right in having some, i want to say healthy doubt about whether they're all trustworthy or not because they're being inundated with them. there is no one telling them there's a common standard so

that might be one thing to consider going forward. >> part of me wants to sort of question the premise in the sense i mean i think for consumers of polling, people who pay for it, the people who seek it out, who write about it, yeah, we have, an issue with trust and with sort of proving that the model that has worked for the last 30 years can serve us in the future which is what we're all here to talk about but i don't think we needed to survey or attempt to survey 230 million americans to get at that. what would be nice, and i don't have a clue how to do it, how to convince typical americans when the phone rings or message in their email or whatever asking them to do a survey that's a trustworthy request and something worthy of their time and not just another telemarketing hassle. >> ken raised the point, alan, maybe it is the partnering with either academic institutions or non-profits that could be the trick. so is this the answer then? >> well look, there is an

element of people don't trust anybody or anything or any institution. so you sort of have to, and i'm not sure how much that really has to do with non-response rates but we can talk about that but i did want to say, amy and ken, first of all i was delighted to see that the pew research center was at the top of the list among pollsters that are not trusted, it was the least not trusted of the group which ace great thing. if your poll is biased and at least biased in the right direction. >> there we go. >> appreciate that. so look i, and i should also say i'm the layman on this panel. the others have much more polling expertise. people in the audience, this is the must be what it must be like to go to an apor convention to sit here with this group. most of what i do know about polling comes from mcinture and hart which must cast a cloud over it. i think one of the reasons why people made the comments they

made about independent foundations because of the lack of other associations. you know, i don't believe that campaign pollsters try to get the answer wrong but because you're affiliated with a campaign that does cast a cloud over it in people's eyes. people have strong feelings about the media these days and i think the fact that we don't advocate policies, we don't take positions that we are not partisan, has helped us at least maintain some degree of credibility in people's eyes? >> do you have any -- >> i don't think it is something that is going to get fixed. the, you know, i know it is frustrating. we have the ap editor here that does polling. we have a lot of news outlets that have standards, are very careful about what they report but you can't, and so, for example, i think the other thing is we talk about the 2012 polling but, you know, when you look at the last eight media polls that were released, one

poll, gallup, you look at actual interviews, they had obama up three. they weighted data plus one for romney. actual interviews were obama plus 3. everyone else had obama by a margin of one to three or four points. out of eight polls, if you took aggregate, aggregate of eight polls released had obama up by one or two points. overall, i think that it was a pretty good, pretty good result that said that, that type of polling, and by the way, same for the folks in the room who do the, who do polls only on the internet, their results were very accurate. so if you look took internet pollsters on top of that, hey, last poll said obama would win by one or two points on average and that's, so the point i'm making that despite the comement about the train wreck of 2012

polling, the last, all the last set of public polls were in a pretty close election i think directionally pretty good but there's no way that story is going to be discussed. there's no way we're going to improve people's response rates. there is no way we'll get around how much they have turned off from participating in this process. and what it is doing is simply making our job incredibly expensive and more and more expensive and because it is more and more expensive there is always this relationship because, say what you will and say what people say in the polls, what gets covered is the horse race and every media outlet there is enormous pressure given that price to, to compromise a lot of stuff to make up survey quality for price. and that means that you can not referee the volume of polling information that will be released. >> amy, if i can jump in quickly. we have to acknowledge a lot of

this doesn't have anything to do with people's attitudes towards polls or pollsters or political polls. it is just the way people live their lives. people don't have 20 minute telephone conversations anymore. my kids don't have any telephone conversations. i don't have, the only 20 minute conversations i have with my mother. i thought maybe we should bring her into the pew research center to do phone calls because guilt is powerful motivating enforcement it is changes change in society. response rates have been going steadily down. it will not turn around. >> that brings up the other point which is given all that, all of that, and mark, i know you written a lot about this, but why are we still using phones? it is not, we had the whole debate about cell phones, how many cell phones we should use, what is the right percentage. if that data is correct and people that use cell phones don't want to talk on the phone for 20 minutes either. i don't know response rates

necessarily go up, they're now in single digits, how much longer is this a viable model to call people on phones to get their opinion? is this what we're doing in 2016? are we going to do it in 2020? >> interesting when i thought about the one thing i want to say here given the topic, the future is upon us. we've been having the same conversation for a long time and i remember distinctly a conversation i had 25 years ago in the office at senior analysts at firm i was apprenticing that wenttae long the lines, look at our response rate, we were probably calculating it wrong 50, or 60, or 70%. what happens if it is only 20? we won't be able to be in business. i had the folks at can't tar or pns who kindly shared the disposition report for this survey which is something you tend not to see about news media surveys anywhere with the exception of one or two and i went into the calculation of the apor response rate for anyone in the room knows how to do that

little bit like filling out 1040 with instructions and attendant weird incentives to interpret things a little differently. i came up with an apor response rate ever three. >> oh. >> now, that's not shocking! one. things we learned over the last 30 years that isn't the death knell for surveys because, even though there's this great risk of what we call non-response bias, people we can't reach or talk to being very different from the ones we talk to, if we correct the biases that are there and they're massive, the people we talk to are, the people that you are able to contact and interview by phone, which is the quick answer to your question still the best way to try to reach out and grab people. >> okay. >> they're older, whiter, they have more money. they tend to be more urban than the population as a whole. when you try to correct those things with very complicated weighting, most of the time for

the things we can check and scott, pew research center has done this work, things are very accurate but we're in this different world. last little thing and i will stop my monologue. it's the way we get, we take the biased sample and make it representative that i think is where the juice is in what we do now. and we need to pay more attention to how that's done publicly. look at those things more carefully. >> yeah, go ahead. >> i was just going to ask of a question that ask at our shop all the time too. i mean do you really think you can weight the data to adjust for response rates that are at 3%? you know, do you know what the right, i mean that's, they're biases there no one in this room fully understands. >> right. that's absolutely right and that's what i mean by the future is here today. some far off issue. if that question is valid,for a

probability sample on a telephone, the haifa lieutenant tin word is high probability or panels or start with non-representative pool and try to make it something representative. we're now, go back to bill's observation. 15, 20, different organizations did polls using a wide variety of different methodologies while they were low on president obama's margin, they were not wildly off. they were within the ballpark, which is kind of miraculous. i know, joel's head is going to explode. so i will let him do his thing. i'm not saying they were perfect, we're still in an era where we can do reasonably well. >> couple of things, alan, actually i agree with if you start out with a hypothesis and very good model, whether your response rates are 3% or 5% and

you adhere to the model you can get accurate results. people are practitioners do so regularly. bill said no pollster is not trying to get the data wrong. we're not trying to cook the numbers. we're trying to win something. we're trying to win a race. we're trying to get to 50% plus one on election day. that being said i disagree with bill and these factors may be related, they may not be but i think the polling was wildly inaccurate in the last election. i don't think looking at the last stay is a credible way to say, oh, eight out of the last nine polls had obama plus one. there was extraordinary volatility. there were periods of nine days where we had seven polls, different polls all being reported on, ranging from romney being up three to obama being up five. and only thing we know about all those polls they can't all be right. and the point of polling is to either be right or to be able to inform the electorate of meaningful issues that you're

polling on and we've been, you know, consumed by the horse race. media outlets are going to polling and you truly want to infor your reporting staff about how people feel about issues and create an enlightened coverage of the race, then use your polling for that. don't lead the nightly news every night with a new poll shows romney ahead by four in florida when yesterday you reported some other organization as poll showing obama was ahead in florida. if you want to build credibility, treat polling and your data with the kind of going forward i think with the care that professional pollsters, practitioners and some of the, you know the people on this stage typically do and i think for those who conduct polling with media outlets, push them harder. hold them to the higher standards that all the folks on this stage do when it comes to reporting on data. you got to be very careful with it. otherwise you do create an environment of mistrust. >> bill? >> well, of course the kantar poll said people, this is the

thing. people's self-descriptions are also not the most accurate because in this poll they kind of underreport the impact of the horse race in a way we know, that i don't think anyone in this room would necessarily believe. you know, the other part, the other problem with what we do is, like internet panels or now the mobile panels our firm is starting to work with, pollsters, if you do what i do for the living and other half of my work is not nbc/"wall street journal", there are not enough sizes in the internet panels or mobile panels to do cd or state leg work. the political pollsters will be the last, last, last people on the phone. when the whole world has changed, just given the geographies we work we'll be the last folks on the phone which is why the phone stuff becomes important. from a political standpoint as we, would you tell a client,

look, we're really struggling because again no campaign is paying, no campaign is paying for what nbc/"wall street journal" pays for what we can do with the money to try to get stuff right. campaigns are always, no campaign has no kind of budget to do what nbc, pew, some of these larger other organizations are doing. so what you tell a campaign, something my first job in politics, lines go up it's good, lines go down it's bad. what you are almost in the world now saying is, to a campaign had to cut a lot of the methodological stuff that costs a fortune, we can at least try to make sure poll to poll the methodologies is rigorously the same, the weighting is the same, so at least directionally you can tell what direction the campaign is going in. but this panel is probably correctly devoted to, you know, the non-campaign world because the non-campaign world simply

can not right now afford to keep up. the other thing i would just say our firm this year has spent a fairly, a lot of money where, because of nbc/"wall street journal", we had 15,000 interviews from 2012. we have 5000 cell phone-only respondents the way we do the screen. so we have a pretty good profile of cell phone-only respondents who they are demographically and their attitudes. then we went out and did a very large cell phone-only panel on internet and did a very large cell phone-only on mobile. right now the mobile panels are not, they're so exciting with wh what you can do but they're not going to be the answer because you have nobody over 40 on the mobile panel right now. but the internet panel, as cell phone-only, was interesting. as you compare the phone. they're interesting because they're much better educated than phone response. a lot less latino.

on most attitudes they were the same except for gay marriage and abortion. where the internet and the mobile cell phone-only response were much, much more liberal than the phone folks. and so this notion that there's going to be a world where you can combine methodologies, where you can combine, phone, internet or mobile, maybe that world will come but as i look at this data in 2013, i don't think that you can simply take phone land line and somehow combine it with a different methodology and create one unified survey. we're doing tons on the internet. we're doing tons, starting to do substantial stuff in mobile but i do see them as not, i see them as different products with different objectives. i don't see how today from the work we've done in 2013 they ought to be blunted into one survey response. >> yeah. let me just jump in on what bill's talking about. we did an experiment at my firm.

we don't, we've only polled once for a media outlet in the l.a. mayors race this past year. our polling was accurate by the way. we were actually the only poll in los angeles that had that race right with garcetti winning by eight. the point is we did a test in one of the swing states this past year to test ivr, internet and traditional phone panel the way we would normally do it in a race. we didn't try to mix methodologies. we wanted to analyze each one the truth is, with a sound model of what the electorate in that state would look like, those three different methodologies produced similar results. did it take more weighting with ivr and internet than it does with a traditional phone poll? it does. if you're weighing your demographics to a model and you know what your actual model should be you can get them pretty close. i believe bill's right, we won't see multimode surveys in the

near future but i think in a very short amount of time we'll be migrating to internet polls, whether they're cell phone-only or not, i've often, i've been on panels with bill and bill and i do a lot of work together as well. i don't think cell phone-only is determinant of political attitudes. i think other characteristics are shaping those attitudes but i think we will be moving within all of our lifetimes and sooner rather than later to seeing internet polling in political campaigns. whether the response rates will be any better, whether the weighting will get any better because we might have more data at our disposal in this world of big data i don't know but we will get there sooner rather than later. >> ken, and then i want to do one more question. do you want to weigh in on this? >> yeah, sure. hello? no, a couple of things, commenting on some things people on the panel have said. so people tell us that they don't trust the media. now, you know as folks have said

in the aggregate the polls have gotten it, have gotten it right. in fact thinking in 2008, 2010, 2012, of primaries in 2008, the primaries in 2012, all the races i can only think of one where the polls got it wrong which was obama-clinton in new hampshire in 2008. so in the face of what the public actually knows, all these polls are doing pretty well. ironically what they don't know i think speaks to what joel was saying, this, you know, the whipsaw of one poll saying plus four and then minus three and when you looked at many of the polls in 2012, again if you sort of look at the end they basically, they basically get it right but, and many of you were doing this are actually doing this not only looking at them but doing the polls and i think this is a function of the heavyweighting that's going in. some of internals on these polls

were moving in wildly implausible ways. independents moving 30 or 40 percentage points in one week, or one poll moving, you know, four, five, six, 10, percentage points in a week. i think it goes to bill's point we may not be getting the exact answer right but at least pollsters who are doing a good job for their clients are getting them the correct trend. now, how does one communicate that as a member of a press to the lay audience? i think that is challenging. but what isn't challenging, and i would imagine i'm pretty much speaking to the, speaking to the converted here, and won't names of certain sites but certain very well-known, credible, institutions will really cover any poll and i don't think's

doing the industry any favors, not even getting to how you communicate what are implausible changes in the, in the internals of the polls. >> well that's what i wanted to go to next, speaking of reporting on any poll. so we're going to throw this one into the mix which is, the robo poll. ubiquitousness of the ivr, you know, people call you and you touch a number and to respond. . .

>> let me throw on one thing to that very quickly. the distinction for someone like mark was made the decision to take every single poll, others should take every single poll and might wait it and then others who are reporting on the pole. i think there's some distinction there as well. >> we have done all of the above. and continue to do all of the above, whether it's known or n not. i don't have a yes or no to that. from 2004-2000 it when you look at world will pull is done in the last month of the election, they were as accurate or inaccurate as other polls done in that period. so if you are concerned about measuring the horse race at the

end, the empirical evidence that we had at that point was that they were as accurate or as inaccurate as anything else. that does not mean for me that they are appropriate to measure other things. now, since 2008 we've had this explosion of cell phone, cell phone on households and that is been a major problem since rubble polls that are essentially prohibited by law. and so they've got a much rockier time and it is to bennett, now, there were a couple high profile surveys that were rowboat like gallup was far too kind around it, but for others, i'm forgetting some of the names of the smaller ones, that were dead on. again, it gets it what they were doing, what the data collected after they collected it. i think you just focus on whether there's an interview involved in the call or not is in some ways, i wanted to come back and, forgive me for doing a little longer than 30 seconds, this question about standards.

jolt raised it. it's in the survey. there is this challenge to us all. which is essentially you don't have standards. you are just supporting everything. quarrel with the hours insured. the trick here is that which standard? and there are, you know, apologies to doug schwartz. then you ask the race is upon us in a grace -- great case study. for what it's worth there are no robo-polls of there. they have largely stayed away. probably a wise choice in new york. well, there's one standard that i've learned from po2 over the years, that says that a good poll is one that involves a random digitized sample which these days means to them, one for cell phones and one for landline. that involves live interviewers, it starts by calling all adults. pulls out of likely voters based on how they describe themselves

and reports and. there's another standard that i got an earful when i called around to talk to all of the campaign pollsters involve new york, one of them is sitting to my left, that says that's crazy, don't, that's insane, you can't do a survey. you have to be using a list. and in the last couple of days, i've been told and we will report in the newsletter that you get at pollster.com, sign up. that there are complaints about the quinnipiac survey which interviewed over we can. how can you do that? how can you give up credence and report on that stuff? which standard? as somebody who's had feet in both camps, i'm, i think there's merit in both arguments. as an industry will have a checklist that says these polls are good, these are crap, pay attention to these, don't pay attention to those. the ones, depend on who's doing the checklist, some of the ones that could produce results that are all over the place and some that are bad can get useful

information that is as accurate as the ones in the first place. >> am i allowed to change the topic speak with you can do whatever you want. >> joel made a quick reference to big data. i have a suspicion that 20 years from now, or 25 years from now, we will look back on this conversation and it will seem very quaint. like a discussion of the social, you know, the social cost of the disappearance of the pony express. i mean, data about people's attitudes and people's behaviors is exploding. and the campaigns knows this. they're using it. we just quite haven't figured out how to extract the sense out of it, but we will. that's one of the things we will be working on at the pew research center, one of the first things i did as president earlier this year was to go to our finder and say, we've got a big problem and we need some money to do some research to figure out where we go from your. >> will we look back at this

whole idea of actually directly asking people a question as quaint? >> i suspect, the former census director said what we're likely to see in the future is a melding together. so survey data, other sources of data. i understand bill skepticism about the ability to do that, but my guess is the only my guess is an army will have to get how to do it and do it in a reliable way, and we will. there's more data out there than there's ever been before. we just haven't learned how to extract the sense of the. >> isn't more about learning how to do or is it cost prohibitive? >> i don't think it -- it's not that there's more data. techniques for analyzing that data are exploding as well. i don't think it's a question of cost but i think it's just a question of figuring out how to develop reliable standards for making sense of the. we spent a fair amount of time. we do content analysis of twitter stream, and, obviously, what you did is not the same

thing as public opinion. it tends to be much more negative than public opinion. tends to be more liberal but not always, not consistently on some things. we've seen its more conservative than public opinion. and, obviously, it is also a limited sample of the population. but people will figure out how to extract the sense out of. adam sharpe runs the twitter officer runs around with these charge showing if you do a three-month moving average you could have predicted the election. on a sharply that, but the point is there's a whole lot of data out there. there's a lot of data out there and more data than there's ever been and we ought not wring our hands too much because i think 10 or 20 years down the road will have better ways of figure out what people are thinking and doing and how they're behaving. >> we've got a lot of smart people in this room who, i'm sure very smart questions to ask. now, there is a roving microphone. is that to? we have too. if you could just raise your

hand and some will bring you a microphone. jennifer, right over there. right behind you. >> jennifer from "the associated press." my question on distrust is about sort of an element that wasn't discussed, and don't you think that part of the reason why people distrust polls might be thethere constantly told to distrust the polls? you know, we live as pew research center polls have shown in a very polarized partisan world. and people place more trust in their partisan sort of campaigns, the people who agree with them, then they didn't sort of general news media. and polling has become sort of a campaign weapon. and what impact do you think that has had on people's impression of pulling? >> i'll just jump in and say yes. i agree with them a thing as either bill or alan or others on the panel who said americans distrust the media, americans

distrust the institution, politicians, and i think when asked the sample about polls, it should be seen as part of all of that stuff that they associate with politics. i ha had a sort of perverse reaction to the result that three quarters of the survey said they distrust the polls, which i just want to try to do in 15 seconds. we had this kind of a response which is typical. no disservice -- this is not an unusual response river something done by not a news media entity or something like the pew research center or university. and so you have this dilemma that is just one of these cases where the thing we're doing a survey about is something that might be of more interest to certain kinds of people. so if the results from the survey had been wow on these people were able to india love polls, we want to throw it out, right? and the fact that were able to get on the phone people who said they distrust polls, 50%, half

of them think polling companies, talking to a polling company representative are bad. says that we can get people on the phone for reasons that are not mrs. related to topic at hand, which is in a weird sort of way positive spirit can i add something else to that? idea that people say to distrust the polls but i can do having spent the last eight years of my life running a newspaper website, they read them. you know, so they make distrust them that the reason, the question was asked why do news or physician report every poll that comes along? it's because that to get a response. people like the region. it's like miley cyrus twerking. it attracts attention. i just want to say one thing in bills defense though about the reading of your poll. the way can you make some comments, ken, about distrust the media polls. the way i read your poll, "the wall street journal" and nbc news poll came out very, very high on the list and i think

bill, i'm showing my bias is your comp bill deserve a little credit for that. it was, what -- >> i don't think that's charitable in time but that has nothing to do with the pole itself. [inaudible] commentary about the credibility of the two news organizations. but thanks, charitable. >> i think to the question -- >> can hold for a second? that's an important distinction here because the question was about bias, and when people are consume more and more of their news from cable television, where two of the big three channels have what any unbiased person would say have a tilt one way or the other, the public isn't wrong. there is a bias in the media that they are consuming, which by the way is also not different house tour could. americans have always tended to consume media that aligned more with their point of view, the notion of a neutral press as much as i believe in it as a journalist is not how consumers

perceive it. so the question of bias, and i think that's to your point about the respected news organizations, bill, is correct. and the public is correct. they do think there's a bias so consequently what is produced by them whether the news show by chris matthews or bill o'reilly or impose going have some bias in it. >> i think you add to your question. yes. obviously, in september of 2012 we had this ridiculous website to what they thought was the standards were going to be. and you hearing a daily barrage in the conservatives talk radio and other, you know, the other kind of conservative outlets saying these balls have all lied, they are not right, they can't be right. look at 2008. it's ridiculous. i mean you know 2000 lifetime ago and we've had a major recession. so if you know, if there is a steady stream telling people stuff is, of course you going to

believe it. it was a ludicrous effort and wrong, but, but the point, i guess i don't get worked up by this stuff because my point is, i can't stop that. there's institutional versus -- i don't have enough power to stop. they're not going to start. they just have to work, you have to kind of live -- if you're a campaign poster, which is a, i can change that. work and live around it. these are not problems that will be solved or addressed by anything, anyone in this room or anyone bashing anyone will be able to fix. these are powerful market institutional forces that will continue. >> just to address jennifer, right? your question. i think there may be, you know, a dynamic of people saying you can't trust these polls coming from pollsters from time to time. i try to resist those debates as much as i can come and certainly

everybody knows that for the last three weeks of the obama campaign, a campaign that our polls never showed us having a margin of less than three points. i've spent a lot of time talking about polls that were showing romney winning the campaign, which wasn't the case. that being said, more time than i care to, i don't particularly like engaging in those discussions. i'll to you that the american electorate is not volatile. it typically don't bounce around. and so if polls are being reported on and the volatility is being reported, and this trust is going to be, a self-fulfilling prophecy. people who should be less trust levels of the people who report on them. bring to that profession the same kind of critical eye that i was taught to as a journalist all the time. you know, don't just accept the poll number you get and say, and particularly if it's not from your news organization, until this is the latest bold. report on it with the same credibility in this trust you with everything else, question

your sources rigorously, and you will contain some of it as well as we can on the polling site. >> anyone? >> hey, guys. david, cook political report. in following congressional races on the last two or three cycles i have found some universal this from both sides of the aisle on likely voter screens. and it seemed like in 2010, both parties when they pulled congressional races, they couldn't screen height enough. and 2012 they couldn't, they screamed too tightly, if anything, the electorate in 2010 was way more republican than posters on both sides expected. the electorate in 2012 with way more democratic. what's the future of screening for likely voters? and do you trust voters to tell the truth about whether they're going to come out to the polls or not?

>> i've done, i've done a lot of work about a paper after the 2012 campaign. and again, i think this is, again, joel has corrected me in a previous panel, so let me talk about republican pollsters in general, which is i think that, and i helped write the question. after 1990 to i wrote a question about interest, because i think in our culture there's like did you go to religious services? well, yes. are you're likely to vote? welcome this. i think there's a social such this is you know you're supposed to vote. i changed the question to interest because i felt that in our country does not the same sanctions that you have to be interested. and so there is a tendency in the republican world to put an enormous emphasis in self-described interest. i think that model has failed, because we don't have waited votes. you don't have get more of a vote because you're jumping up and down compared if you're dragged to the poll.

and those models were built in 1992, and for what will we can never to put in the presidential race. we did not facebook. we didn't have the volume of waste people could be reached, or anywhere near the amount of voter contact. and so, nbc "wall street journal" contacts self description of how much contact you factor in 2004, considered a huge campaign, bush was considered the gold center of voter contact come in swing states like florida, 10 people said they been contacted. in 2012 at nbc "wall street journal" we were at 75, 80% personal contact. that's an extraordinary number. and this is why the pew screens, the revised nbc "wall street journal" screen are not just base it is a big also based on self-described votes. so that there's multiple ways you can access their likely voter model. and then get in terms of just an observation from trying to do my

work better, one of the things i went back and looked at was nonvoters to see in the nbc "wall street journal" what more can we learn about nonvoters. and in the nonvoters, what i said, the perception nonvoters are not very engage. i asked this question, how many nonvoters out of my pool were very positive for one candidate, very negative for the other, and then said they were deathly going to vote for candidate? out of all my interviews only 1% of the interviews were made up of those people. but obama was winning them .8-point to pick it would have tilted my poll from minus one to obama to minus two. what i said is, looking back, if somebody is cranked up enough that they are very positive to one company negative and death of voting, whatever they're doing on the screens, they ought to be looked at. so we are, in virginia, we are

testing a lot of different questions as well. yonder just interest, beyond just previous votes come to look at and do a lot more to assess personal contact. and so all of that's going on. we are also doing a lot of stuff with civics lesson which is a google like what we're doing thousands of interviews. we're using a lot more panels, doing a large range of stuff. but now we get to the other thing that happens in campaigns, which in about 15 or 20 stage of information on a voter file, so you know who votes. the other thing that we did in our firm in 2012 was to take the swing states, take thousands of interviews and bingo match been back to see you actually voted. which, you know, is not something we've done enough. that experiment says that the self subscribed interest killed is not functioning, lease in terms of your getting in a landlocked.

while all that's going on get the second issue, which is in any campaign you go to the state and city people, give me the voter file of people who actually voted. and when you look at the voter file of the actually voted, what you find is it doesn't match the exit polls. it's much older, whiter, less ethnic. and my fight inside the party has been yet, because those are the folks that can match, that it means that there are thousands of voters you can't manage. guess what? they are poor, younger and ethnic and nonwhite. it doesn't mean the voter file is not wrong. it just means the voter file in the match. this piece you -- dispute between exit polls look like end states verse what the voter files look like has been a source of why on these likely voter models your hearing pollsters say, jumping up and down saying, i know these are like him in new york city, these people i know are going to vote, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. and my point has been that i

think the pollsters in the case are missing that there's a lot of other folks who could vote who don't get matched on a voter file because we can't, we can't take them out because we don't have a phone number. and so, and that in my my, lastly, that's why the exit polls put a real critical function big because in 2010, you can look at the '09 exit polls in new jersey and virginia and say, wow, and less things really changed we're going to see a very different a lecture. and in my mind that's why virginia this year is so critical. because you have do not permit candidates with an amazing sum of money with a lot of money being spent quietly behind the scenes to affect turnout. and it will be a living laboratory with not for the candidates, how much you can expect -- affect turnout which both parties are trying to do. and that's what i think it's a very powerful signal for 2014. >> just a really quick word.

i think first of all midterm elections have a life of their own and they're very different animals from presidential elections, and you're going to fall for trapdoor if you're not very careful going around. and i think a lot of democrats did tighten up their screen in 2010. keep in mind also that making general assumptions like oh, the midterm election will always be older or more republican. just remember in 2006 we had a tilt the other way. and in 2010, you know, we had a massive republican landslide, that the decline from presidential and midterm years is always going to be about the same. but it's not always going to be the same people who show up or who don't. and so you have to treat every election as its own, create a model based on your historical knowledge that make the cut of adjustments bill is talking about using multiple questions, not the same screening questions always use. make sure you're looking at your polling data, tapping into

something's and revise your screen as if you think you've got to mode model wrong and tesm and safety of a better way to get an accurate electric. >> we have time for two more questions. can we go back to this part, back here? right in the back. >> my name is cliff young. i have a comment and questions linked to the comment. i just want to echo mark's point. i think the future is here. and just a comment, we have lots of r&d. we don't exactly know what the big dig award will look like so we're making multiple bets. we are investing a lot in non-probability approaches, indeed panels in some way are dead. they are non-workable, and in our view long-term might not be around. lots in mobile as well.

in addition, working with non--- [inaudible] linkage analysis, lots of r&d into linkage analysis, lots of r&d into shrinkage estimate. combining multiple data streams combining them together into singlasingle estimates. we don't know what is going to look like. and so my question is, this is what we are confronting is, do we as professionals have the right profile, the right training, to confront this new challenge? and i would like to have comments from the panel on that, please. >> well, it's clearly, you know, we are in an age where there is, i mean, i'll say frankly, the training i had as an apprentice isn't sufficient for the kind of analysis, and skills that you need now. you know, which was very specific with telephone sample and the way we put it out. that's just clear.

if you look at the sort of challenges quote unquote big data which is really just data. we have a lot of it. that race for me, there's a comment before, or a question about do we need the into fear. do we need, i think amy asked a, i think there are two things that we have gained from the survey interview that we are not about to lose, that we just can't lose. one of them is the notion of representation. we have all this data, but without the ability to draw conclusions about what the whole population is that you're interested in, that data is not useful. i don't know of any of the online panel efforts come or any surveys that would be of much use if we didn't have the bulletproof population estimates that we get from census. if you don't know what the american committee survey is, and you're in this business, shame on you. you should, and you should be resisting with every bone in

your body attempts to dismantle it. because without it we don't have the tools we need to turn, to try to turn non-representative that into representative the other thing is, conversation. there's really no, i don't think a substitute for being able to ask people questions and have an answer. they are limited to that. clearly, not the best way to figure out who is going to vote. it's clear i think that it's not the best way to figure out what people watch of what they actually do. but it's invaluable for attitudes come and we need ways to do that, that also it's back to the first by which is representation. we need to be able to do that in ways that represent the population. >> to be direct. no, i do think the current training is adequate to what has to happen and change the research field. our firm has tried to commercialize social media and have used to the reason you're no one windows but is we've been unsuccessful. and here's the point i try to

make. i can forget how to make money doing it. it doesn't exist yet. but so, but look out we are a large enough for him, you have terrific resources. pew has terrific results that were not quite in that race because we have to make a living, you know, we have to make a profit, but i think you will see our firm will probably be either hiring, retaining or subcontracting. because of think the world is changing, and i don't think my partners and i are expert at what we do, have the right academic or other background to do it, and we have to go externalized how to get additional think it to figure out what's coming. >> claudia, did you want -- >> [inaudible] >> kenya wait for the mic for one second? >> i'm very loud. >> i'm sure. >> super concerned about this issue of can we get stand and can we convey deciduous?

they have a journalist education committee. some people -- we do these dog and pony shows are different with the journalist, and i do those a lot. last week i did one for a bunch of journalism professors and was the first time it really struck me how my presentation as to how do you identify a good poll had become so complex, and there's a place where people would ask me things about robo-polls what i couldn'could and give one partyr what about this guy at stanford and he's incredible, he does internet poll, why can't a report on internet polls? i didn't have the answer to and also, for the first time, instead of a grateful audience with my danish, i got all this pushback of, can you understand? these young journalism students, how much time don't have to report on this? do users expect them to go to and try to figure out all the stuff about the survey? and these two lines intersect in a way that it's problematic for improving the coverage. >> i tried to make, i do try to make it very simple.

let me address joel's volatility which i should but i was also, i am in an awkward position. my partners are doing wrong the bottom also media polls are so sure because joel told me about his concerns about the poll. but again, joel was maybe nicer to me than he might have been to other journalistic he was charming and shuttle as always. >> a really? >> but my point to joel in a nice way was, joel, look, i could be wrong. let me start amateurish ago i could be wrong. i'm doing the best i can. it's tough. but, joel, here's my point about come we are doing the same thing every single poll and our numbers are changing a point or two. ..

>> poll to poll to poll there's enormous stability in the data. and you can correctly, and you should, push them and critique whether they're doing it right, but the data's stable. there are other very well known national polls that have been incredibly all over the map, and those, to me, are worrisome. if you're getting that much variation in a world where the world's this locked down, it means you are doing something poll to poll to poll that is not replicating data, and that is an