republicans not seeking reelection. >> the defense department deputy chief information officer outlined steps that the dod is taking the three of spectrum in ways that the perot government and private industry can form partnerships to increase innovation of protecting national security. here's a portion of what he had to say today. >> we are going to have to do more in the future. we understand that we are going to have to do it right which required technology and regular policy. we're working hard to make that happen. technological innovation is the key to that particular piece every culture change with everybody. all federal agencies as well as industry. we have to understand that from our perspective, from an apartment of the fans' perspective this is harder, more problematic, and when you are focused on ten different things all over the world things are happening every single day from the department of defense perspective, and you are worried about the next threat to our nation was sometimes does not have the same priority, but it

does matter from a lot of perspectives and makes us more capable if we do it right which is the key. i think escaped one up there. a partnership and collaboration. we are not doing this without partnership. there is person back there that talks to me more about the public-private partnerships. that is a we are doing right now with some of the folks. i think that is the key to a lot of our future. proactive versus reactive. i cannot even jump on that. proactive has to occur on both sides versus reactive. there is a global context. i am not sure everyone understands. i would argue that some parts of industry and not fully understand the impacts of that particular piece. but i think it gives the market. that is an important part. road map with midterm and far term. we made a conscious choice that dynamic sharing in this last spectrum change was not available to us from both a technological side as well as the regulatory side.

in the next change i think that it will be which is a critical point here. governance, oversight and accountability as to be a team effort and we have to get rid of old as everybody stating their position and staking a line in the sand about it. we have to stretch all of our thought processes, and it is good for all of us. cooperative testing. the last part is the cooperative testing. let me see if i can say is directly. the national advanced spectrum and communication test network. one of the things we learn that of a recent issue that we had on this particular spectrum is have we to something. someone from industries in this particular thing. other folks. how about we have a clearing house of test beds that we can actually work through that we can actually have an environment where we have the test environment available to us, we can do about pay-per-view where they can come through and validate all the particular requirements that they have. all the capabilities of the we control these things out and we

can all agree at the end game that -- they are the results. that was the final piece. i'm going to throw one slide up there at the end that i have. "open this up. the call to action. this revolution in an evolutionary way. i would like to change that to spectrum evolution in revolutionary way because i think it is a revolutionary waited think about it versus the way we're going. that is the perspective. that will be later this week. that is part one. all that is is a visionary peace. will we are looking at now is the implementation. the electromagnetic spectrum, innovative process team, of department of defense speak. makes this and to implement the election. so there is vision and then there is and lamentable action which will be done with all of our services to all departments within the department of defense

to try to say, how do we be proactive versus reactive in the future. that is the key, we are trying to do. i can give you example after example. that is all. >> and again, that even from earlier today. panelists touched on the upcoming spectrum option proposed by tom wheeler to 2015. you can see the entire event online at c-span video library, c-span.org. coming up in prime time tonight on the c-span network c-span will have interviews with two senators, republican bob corker and democrat in the clothes a chart here on c-span2 we have book tv prime-time while congress is on break. in a look at careers in washington. and on c-span three american history tv prime time looking at the clinton impeachment. that is all tonight beginning at 8:00 eastern on the c-span networks. >> the title is down to the crossroads, civil-rights, black power, and the march against

fear. this is as civil-rights march that begins in memphis and the beginning of june of 1966 and ends three weeks later in jackson. you can make an argument that the civil-rights movement transforms. it approaches its crossroads. the call for black power first heard. sophie carmichael unveils the slogan. and immediately generates controversy. it immediately generates a great swelling of enthusiasm among many local black people, and in a lot of ways it ignites a new direction in black politics. now, those changes might have happened over the course of time anyway, but what the meredith march did was to dramatize this mission because it brought together several legislators and regular people, white and black, across the country and put them into this laboratory a black politics as it moves through mississippi treating all of these really dramatic moment that highlighted some of the key divisions and some of the key tensions but also some of the key strengths that have log

animate -- long animated the civil-rights movement. >> elected the civil-rights movement saturday at 12 eastern. mar. second more about black power and the civil-rights movement. your calls, comments, e-mails, and tweets live from noon to 3:00 p.m. eastern. c-span. and on the book club is still have time to comment on bonnie morris. read a woman's history for beginners and then go to c-span.org to enter the chat room. >> new york times foreign affairs columnist thomas friedman talk about national security and freedom of the press at the national press club here in washington. the three-time pulitzer prize lead dust and everything from the concept of freedom in a democratic society to what it means that a free press. he is interviewed by former cbs and nbc news reporter. this event is part of the series which is hosted by george weston university and harvard university along with many

others. this is about an hour and 20 minutes. >> funded by a grant from the epics -- ethics and excellence in journalism foundation. ♪ ♪ >> from the national press club in washington d.c. [applause] >> hello and welcome to the national press club and to another edition of that caliber port. and tonight a conversation with new york times columnist thomas

friedman about freedom. over the last 20 years i've had the pleasure, indeed the privilege of speaking with some of the best journalists in the country. some had even won a pulitzer prize, which is the highest compliment in the newspaper world. now and accept our guest tonight has ever won three pulitzer prizes, too for his reporting from the middle east and one for his commentary. john friedman joined the times in 1981, bureau chief in beirut and in jerusalem, he has been the paper's chief diplomatic correspondent and the paper's chief white house correspondent. in 1995 he became a columnist, foreign affairs columnist for the paper. he does that twice a week. and somehow he still finds time to write six best-selling books, rose six television

documentaries, numerous and seminars, conferences, and to be with us here tonight. thank you. thank you very much. [applause] our subject tonight is freedom, a big word. and i would like to start, tom, by asking what is your definition of freedom. >> well, first of all, marvin, it is great to be with you. you and your brother, you know, always great for me. people i admired as a young journalist. it is a treat to be with you here today. tell in my said hello. you know, let me -- i am not a philosopher. i am a journalist. let me give you an answer to your question in the context of journalism. and if you started this story this evening by asking me, what was the greatest story you ever covered? i just turned 60. at the times now for 30, you

know, 33 years. what was -- what was the one that really, you say, was the most amazing? and i would tell you, it was terrier square, being in terrier square for the original revolution that overthrew president mubarak. and when i came home and people ask me about it, you say that this was the most amazing story ever covered. why? and i say, because it was the most apolitical political event i've ever covered. >> meaning? >> and they say meeting. and at some level it was about this very deep, human emotion of i am somebody. and if you ask me, what is freedom? freedom is the ability, desire,

aspiration to live in a context where i can realize my full potential as a human being, man or woman. and i believe that what tahrir square was about that it's very rude was that a very -- in some ways a political aspiration young people living in a world where they can see how everybody else was living to also want to live in a context where they could realize their full potential. yes, it had to do with mubarak and it had to do with corruption and it had to do with the context that had been built where they could not realize their full potential, where they live in every game, but i have always thought that freedom is not just about the freedom to write anything, say anything, to, you know, travel. it is all of those things, to be sure, but there is something deeply personal about it, to live in a situation where i can be the fullest person. >> and do you feel, tom, that people all over the world share

this same sentiment? >> it is a very interesting question. i have thought about it a lot since the arab spring. and one of my teachers, business philosopher, you know, like to use the formula freedom from and freedom to based upon as a a berlin's positive and negative freedom. you know, what -- would so much of the arab spring initially about freedom from. people wanted their freedom from various autocratic regimes. but what often installed it in the next stage was freedom from is great, but there is also freedom to. what do you want to be free to do. and for that you have to build the context which enables people to be free. and it turns out some people wanted to be free to be more islamist. some people wanted to be free to be more sectarian. some people wanted to be free in

the democratic sense to be equal citizens with equal rights and responsibilities. >> but that is more like choice. if you are free to have a choice >> right. >> you can go one way or the other, but what i am asking you is something bigger than that. i am asking you whether they're is a concept that we call freedom that is due us as human beings, or is this something that we simply acquire because we live in the united states where that idea of freedom is built into us from public-school on? i am trying to get from you a sense of the majesty of freedom, not choice. >> well, i do believe that -- because i do believe everyone wants to live in a context that enables, and powers, as buyers them to realize their full potential. i do believe the aspirations for

freedom, to live in a context where i can do all of those things is universal. >> and yet as you were saying before some people in the middle east even today would have a quarrel about that in this sense that in the united states we grow up believing it is the u.s. the people in egypt and yemen to not grow up with that same idea. so it may be that we are imposing upon them something that we assume is natural but may not be natural to them at all and therefore is not universal. >> you can also fall into the opposite track, to think that somehow we have got it and it is unique to s. it is an aspiration that other people necessarily want. you know, i am only speaking from my own experience. once we lifted the lid in that part of the world it turned out

that people wanted to be free to do a lot of different things, maybe it was to put on avail and maybe it was still live more within their own sex. so it is going to be different for different people, but, you know, i have found it in my own travels and experience there it is -- it remains a very powerful , deep, and brought in motion. >> i don't think there is any doubt about that at all. in an american context we know that the first amendment to the u.s. constitution lays out a certain set of principles of freedom. congress cannot do anything to abridge our freedom of religion, speech, press, the right to peaceably assemble, to petition our government for redress of grievances. they are laid out, and they are large concepts. they are the underpinning relief for the society.

they have been described as god-given. i am wondering if you share that . >> gosh, i have never thought about, you know, whether they are god-given. when i think of our own society, i'm going to give you a journalistic response to your question. [laughter] >> that is a duck. >> no. it is -- because i am not a philosopher. i always, whenever people tell me china is stealing our secrets to my answer always is, look, i don't encourage an industrial theft or, you know, cyber theft, but tell me when they steal the bill of rights. tell me when they steal the constitution. tell me when they steal the words of the lincoln and jefferson and washington memorials.

you know, then they will have stolen something. all the things that are worth stealing in this country are hiding in plain sight. because as long as we have got those we can always come up with another secret, another industrial advance, another innovation and breakthrough. and so those are the things that i think are of great value. and we sometimes -- i time myself -- find myself bristling when i hear our own lawmakers trashing our institutions. what would people in russia today give for one day of the sec? what would people in china today give for one day of the justice department's human rights division? you know, we take this country around like it is a football some time. it is not a football. it is of faberge egg. and it is one that a lot of people around the world, you

know, would appreciate in terms of these bureaucrats. washington d.c. these institutions are precisely what enables our freedom to do all of these things. >> how do you think that we got those? and this takes me to origen once again. how do you think that it happened that this country has the first amendment that it does? does it have anything to do, for example, with the fact that there is written into the first commandment in the bible the idea that god brought the fourth out of egypt, the house of bondage, that there is something they're having to do with an almighty force liberating people from bondage. you were talking before about from to. >> well, the early settlers in many ways were reenacting their own version of the exodus story.

leaving what they thought was that tyranny a monarch tyranny. >> in terms of origin you're not going to go with me down any particular path. >> i'm going to stay away from that path. >> is it really possible in this country and in others to separate church and state? >> you know, that reminds me, that question, marvin, of is it possible to be an objective a journalist? i'm not dodging your question. whenever i am asked that i always answer. >> you have been asked. >> i have gotten that question before. >> i will go to the next one then. >> and the answer to me is always that objectivity is not a thing. it is a tension. it is a tension between

understanding and disinterest. i cannot possibly write an objective story about you on less than some level i really try to understand you almost see the world through your eyes. at the same time i cannot write an objective and fair story of our policy the world through your eyes. sometimes in your emily's reporter yet to think about these things a lot. though little too much to send trusted. judge me, but it is attention. and in a country like ours, people escaping religious freedom, but also inspired by their own religious and that, there is always going to be a tension between church and state you hear it at the state of the union when the president says god bless america. as long as it is attention, i have got no problem with the.

>> sense 9/11 there has been a lot of tension certainly in this country and other parts of the world. to you feel as both a journalist and a citizen of this country that since nine -- 9/11 you have lost any of your freedoms? >> gosh, i don't feel that. but i do feel that -- and what i wrote about 9/11 at the time was i do believe it was maybe the most dangerous challenge to our open society in this sense. what this generation of terrorists were doing were taking objects from our daily life, the backpack, the car, the

airplane, and turning them into weapons. when you take the objects from daily life, literally human beings at the end and turning them into weapons, what you do is you erode the very thing that keeps an open society open, and that is just. we trusted that everyone came in this room tonight and was not wrapped in a suicide vestar carrying a bomb in their shoe or in their purse in the pan. trust is the very lifeblood of an open society. and what is so dangerous about this generation of terrorism is that what it tries to do is attack that very thing so that we close our sell off. we search everybody. i went to a lecture this morning at john hopkins on tunisia it is a lecture. and i had to show my driver's

license there are those kinds of things that i find them still of the level of annoyance. >> you have written that if there were another 9/11 you would be fearful that that would be the end of the open society. >> what i deeply worry about is another attack on the scale of 9/11. many americans would say do whatever you need to do. to whenever you need to do. i think our response to 9/11 in many ways has been remarkably restrained. i mean, let's remember, you know, it was that after 9/11 we elected an african american who was middle name was hussein whose grand father was a muslim who defeated a woman to run against a mormon.

[laughter] who does that? that was an amazing thing. no, we have learned since then that we still have a lot of work to do. when you see some of the racial antipathy that has been bubbling and overtly directed the president, but in many ways the fact that we did -- that was the greatest repudiation of the terrorist. >> and get the tools that they use remain such a threat that you can imagine to our society as we know it where there is another major attack. >> before i came over year was reading the news. is an amazing, perverse, bizarre story. a suicide bomber trainee blew himself and 22 other trainees of

he was -- blew up 22 other attorneys. it was not a joke. you know, there were things that we have seen in the middle east and the last 56 years that that kind of thing, you have to take it seriously. >> absolutely. >> let's talk a little bit about modern technology of which i am not an expert. >> then you really have the wrong guy. >> and number of people of my point of view. modern technology to you is a good thing, aspiring thing, uplifting thing or is it simply too heavy to lift. what is your sense of it?

what is it doing at this point in our national lives to the issue of privacy? which i would like to get your gut feeling about. >> i don't know where to dive in exactly. >> to the privacy. >> you know, i was reading -- i've read the israeli newspaper every day. i am also a golfer. and i know a couple of months ago i'm by golf clubs on line. there was an ad for golf clubs in the middle of the front page. how does that get there? >> you put it there. >> how did that get, you know, from gulf smith, you know, through some cookies on to my front page? and so i find that a little creepy. >> they knew you were a golfer. >> this somehow goldsmith sold my data to some zero can dollars

sold it. so i golfs mess for an ad for golf swing -- i don't remember if it was gulfs mature not, comes up on the front page. i'm reading the beirut daily. as a column about crazy a couple of months ago. it is a sharing economy site for women's apparel. and i wrote a column about it. suddenly the next day to my call -- i pull a political and there is an ad. and it is just -- >> what does this all mean in terms of you are getting -- giving an illustration of how they have moved into your privacy. >> yak. >> okay. >> what is it now -- [inaudible conversations] >> it could have been anything. >> what is it now about modern technology that would allow something like twitter to get my information right to find out where you are on any given time of the day?

are there no limits in the longer? because i have a feeling that a certain generation of the american people have no problem with yielding privacy. in fact, they are quite happy about telling everything about themselves. why is that and what is the danger, if any exists at all. >> i don't have a facebook page. and the times tweets my column, i am really not -- i try to limit my -- i would be overwhelmed little bit. i cannot deal with people, you know, wanting to a friend me or whatever, every hour. i can read my column or answer the mail. it is one of the other. cannot be both. it is said by many people privacy is over. get used to it. you know, i was, you know, having breakfast up in new york

with a middle east diplomatic friend of mine from the arabic world. and, we were at a hotel. a couple of days later e mail me and said, what is this? and it was a blogger post from, you know, i would say and anti arab side that said, you know, tom friedman getting his instructions from a middle east diplomat. and that is like somebody was there with the cellphone, took a picture. added not know what was going on. you are -- and you just have to go with it. i don't know how to fight it. so you just have to go with it. >> is there a danger that at a certain point if you lose x amount of your privacy, whether willingly or not, you are also yielding aspects of your freedom ? >> oh, there is no question about it. it is on the mind all the time. you know. you start to edit yourself.

i am doing that right now in the sense that, you know, i know if i slipped up now there is no such thing as local anymore. when we did this seven years ago or 20 years ago, you know, if i makes up something, if i make a mistake to make a fool of myself or say something angry, whenever, it would -- maybe somebody would tell somebody. there is no such thing as local anymore. you are in a search engine. it is just, you have to live with it. i do not particularly like it, but is as upsides. you can learn -- i mean, you are in contact with more people all the time. i have given up on privacy in that sense. >> edward snowden. >> well -- >> you have written that from your point of view would like to come back to the united states, stand trial, and let's see what

happens. he would be given a fair trial. does that mean that you consider that he has committed some kind of crime? >> you know, i have not really delve into that issue. what you just referred to is about as much as i have written. and there's a reason for that. i find every week i read another set of revelations. and i read another set of arguments, both pro and con, that make me one week feel one way about him and frankly one week feel another. >> like this idea of a trader or whistle-blower. >> exactly. >> and that have gone back and forth myself on that. >> clearly, you know, he has -- what he has exposed to me in the mega sense is the fact that technology has gone way head of, you know, i think, some of the legal protections and even society's understanding of what it can do on one side. i think what he has exposed, there has been no specific case

of abuse unless you, you know, account listening to angela marcos sulfone in terms of someone at the nsa saying, i want to know, you know, what my ex-girlfriend is doing. we have had now several investigations that have also shown us that. i think it is a very vital case that was inevitably going to happen. i think it is healthy that it has happened, that we are having this discussion. i also believe that we do need protection from these rising threats and i find myself really torn. what i said in that one column is i also trust the fairness of the american people. i do believe that if snowdon came back and got a trial where he could properly make his case and it was not done in secret and could actually said -- present his evidence, i just trust the judgment of the american people. i don't know how it would come

out, but that trial could be a huge teaching moment and one that would trigger a healthy debate in reform. >> i want to ask you a question about the relationship of journalism as you have practiced it, i and many others. if a journalist comes upon a big story he did not know it was there. he discovers it. and he writes a big story about it. that is terrific. that is what it is all about, but supposing you come upon a story in the sense that you know someone who has a lot of secrets like snowden with the nsa. and you participate with that source in the way in which that information is going to be given to the public, which a number of reporters and the snow and case actually did. are those reporters, not the others, are those composite in what may be a crime?

>> i am going to give you a very unsatisfactory answer. i'm not going to put a hypothetical man. >> but that is not hypothetical. >> i realize that. and my answer is to my will answer from my own reporting in my own judgments, but i am not going to sit in judgment on others, especially in this case were my own newspaper was involved. >> okay. i want to take a minute now to identify ourselves or our radio and television audiences. this is the marvin kalb report. i'm marvin kalb, and i am here talking with new york times columnist tom friedman. >> jerry frustratingly. [laughter] >> only on certain issues. only on certain issues. but now, you have been at this along time. thirty-three years. >> for starters. >> and upi before that. if you had to do all over again, would you still do it as a journalist? >> oh, god, this is the most fun

you can have legally that i know of. you know, growing up by only wanted to be david halberstam. i mean, really, he was my idol. i got to meet him and get to know him a little bit. and i have had the -- this has been the most amazing run. i have never had a bad day. i have never gotten up in the morning and said, you know, i just don't want to do this anymore. it has been a an amazing privilege to do this for the new york times. the people i have met along the way, the experiences i have had, some tragic, some obviously very uplifting, i would not have traded a moment for it. i just wish that i could be 30 again. >> that is marvelous. that is wonderful. i hear that you were or still are, perhaps, a very good golfer >> i do play golf. i am on the staff of golf digest

. >> did you ever consider being a golfer as our number one goal? >> when i was i wanted to be a professional golfer. it was one of mike -- growing up, it was a great experience of life. you know, i always, you know, tell people the story. back then there was an amazing time when you think about it before sports was so professionalized. in the u.s. open back then you could not bring a professional caddie like the candidate. amateurs and pros. as to what they did was to a caddies. they took caddy's from four or five from each club and brought them to hazeltine. they had a big ball in the center of the room. all of the names of the 179 players in the tournament, and you stick your hand in a bowl and you could have picked jack nicklaus, you could have picked

arnold palmer. and i picked chichi rodriguez, this great porter rekindle for. he was in second place after the first day, made the cut. we went off for days. about 20 years later some family friends of ours were down in at robo beach, pr, his own course. they ran into him in the pro shop and said, gigi, do you remember who caddy for yet the u.s. open at hazeltine? and without missing a beat he said tommy. and as family friends will do, they said, do you know he is more famous than you are today? [laughter] and chichi, without missing a beat said not in puerto rico. [laughter] >> you have done every other bit of journalism. have you ever considered at this point in your career shifting over and being a sports columnist? >> i have. i am literally on the staff of golf digest. i have written -- because they were owned by the new york times. for a while.

i write for them. pretty regularly. and i have thought about -- i always wanted to write a golf book. after i wrote from beirut to jerusalem my publisher came to me and said what you want to write for your next book? and i said, you know, i really want to write a book on gulf. he said, the persian gulf? [laughter] and i said, no. i want to ride a golf book. so -- >> now you have been a columnist for almost 20 years. what are the changes that you have felt an experienced over the last 20 years being a columnist? is it the same now as it was 20 years ago? >> you know, nothing has changed in the craft, marvin, of how you write a column. you have to get an idea, reported out.

i've tried a very reported column. i believe the best columnists are reporters. a couple of things. your reach goes through the web with 20 million, you know, unique visitors. that is huge compared to the one-and-a-half million on sunday for the new york times. there is your opinion and three, 400 more or less of readers. everyone is in a two-way conversation. >> it is just too exhausting. i have mixed feelings about the comments. people can be discouraging and

sometimes you find one or two just amazing jim's. >> for a news story. >> are things i just said, just so smart. you know what i mean? so that is -- that is a big difference. and you know when you think about it i -- so i inherited james ruston's office, the office that he used -- his last office in the washington bureau in new york times when i became a columnist. what a great thrill and honor to inherit his office, this great editor and columnist. i often tell people, when mr. rustin was doing his column -- i'm sure he came in and said, i wonder what my seven competitors are going to write today. he knew them all personally. i knew them all. i do the same thing. i come into the same -- its bills sapphire's office now, by

coming to the same office and say, wonder woman 70 million competitors ago in iraq. i really feel like i have 70 million competitors. >> but that does not change how you approach a responsibility for what it is the you're actually writing. >> no. but it does -- you know, what i -- i did a book with michael mandelbaum. i have a chapter in the book called averages over, and it is about this. in time with technology. so much software. they can be above average, but averages over for everybody, including me. an example i give is, i have 70 million competitors. hopefully i was never writing average columns, but i'm just saying, you know, i go to china, have been going once a year for the last 20, 22 years. you know, when i probably first started i had one goal in mind. that was to write something that

my mother in law in chicago would not know about china, something that she -- and it happens my mother-in-law and chicago had never been to china. so the truth is i could go to china, i could -- hopefully i never did, but, hey, i'm in china. i could really bright an average column. today in new york times we have new york times taught common chinese i have a different goal. that is to tell people in chiang do something they don't know about china. >> picked up and distributed in china. >> right now we are shut down. we reported that the mother was worth two and a half billion dollars. right now you cannot get it in china unless you can get through the great fire wall. if you go to us that new york times website you will notice at

the top one says international. that is the old international "herald" tribune. when says new york times dot com in the next one is in chinese letters. it is our chinese edition. that is a thrill for me, to have my column twice a week in chinese. and i am so frustrated that we are shut out of there. but there are a lot of chinese speakers outside of china and their chinese. keenly aware that when i am writing about china now i am being read not just by my mother in law in chicago, but by chinese. and i think that does raise your game. again, i hope by -- >> it takes me back to a question that you sort of talked earlier on the -- on the new technology and the effect that has. the new york times benefit from the wikileaks story. the new york times decided that it would send a team of

reporters to another newspaper in england where the intermission already was so it was no act of journalistic genius to go over there and pick up that information and then put it into the times. so what does that mean about the times benefiting from wikileaks? is that a good thing? is the time still be proud of the fact that it made that decision? i would like to know your judgment. [inaudible conversations] >> joe was not there at the time. he was seated here. i did ask him. he made an effort to answer, which is more than you're doing. [laughter] you see where -- i am trying to understand. you have given us -- >> the reason i and dodging the question, and i am dodging it -- [inaudible conversations] >> it is a hugely complicated question, and i am not dealing

with the of raw material, the legal bit. have not been deeply involved in and do not want to freelance on it. >> okay. then i will put it this way. tomorrow morning you're sitting in your office and you get a call from the guardian in london . the guardian says hey, tom, you are one of the greatest columnist's ever and we want to bring u.n. and something. we have just received from ben laden's mother in law who does not live in chicago, she live somewhere else in the middle east. then she has his personal plans for taking over the world. this is what he was going to do. we want to bring you in on that. you have to come over here and take a look at it and then run with it. would you do that? >> i would definitely go over there and take a look at it. whether i would run with it would depend upon the veracity

of it committed would depend upon what the real content was. the journalist in you would definitely do that. >> let's move along. [laughter] the new york times. i love to pick it up in the morning. ten years from now will i have that privilege? >> i don't know. really don't know. one of the themes of my column in the last seven, a useful is really what i call -- we are in a commercial scale moment right now. that is, i believe that we are in a moment that is akin -- akin to the gutenberg invention of the printing press on the way that the information is generated turned into knowledge and transformed and the products and services has undergone a massive transformation. i tell people, you know, some one was alive. someone said to some priest, now, this -- i don't have to use

this. whenever it is, we need to stamp these things out. holy mackerel. i believe we are at a similar moment, and i call it the move from connected to hyper connected, and it happened in the last decade or more. it was completely disguised by the sub prime crisis in post 9/11. we are living it. we are living all of the innovations that it is throwing out kamal of the incredibly rapid change, but no one is really describing it. you know, my sound bite on this, you may have heard me say it. i sat down to write that used to be us in 2011 with michael mandelbaum. the first denied it was go back and get the first edition of the world is flat to remind myself when i said. and i started that book in 2004. i open it up to the index. i looked under a, b, c, d, f,

facebook was not end. so when i was running around the world the last time we talked and saying, the world is flat, we are all connected, facebook did not exist. twitter was still a sound. the cloud was still on the sky. ford she was a parking place. linkedin was a prison. applications are what you sent to college. big data was a rap star, and skype was the type of. so all of that happened after i wrote the world is flat. so what does that tell you? it tells you something really big just happened in the plumbing of the world. we went from connected to hyper connected, and it is changing every job, workplace -- >> how is it changing journalism is that a good thing? what would you say?

>> so we now have -- the new york times, we have the most e-mail list. using been updated to track e-mails, facebook, tweeted, blog and on the one hand in the new york times journalist who does not look at the list is lying to you. a mile molest. but it also is very -- that can be dangerous because i write about foreign affairs. and there are times when i should write about, you know, foreign affairs issues that may make -- may not make the list. you can tell that there are certain issues that just don't make the list. you write a political, sizzling piece about, you know, governor christie or whenever and it goes to the top of the list. but if you write about the problem of water in chad your not going to make the list. as a journalist, as a columnist

for the you start saying, i'm just not going to write about this whole set of issues because they're not going to be most tweeted, most viewed. >> what do you do? >> i write about them to spike that. some days it does not go up the list, but there is a perverse -- look, the new york times is going to have more of a left. the new york times online will have more of a young and left just by the nature of it. if you were to write a pro george w. bush column it is not going to make the list. it is not even going to get near, but if you write -- in the way you would pro obama. >> dan rather sitting here a couple of years ago said that in his judgments what rules in the newsroom these days is fear. fear. he was talking about the consequences of 9/11 and the way

in which journalism covers these events. you have introduced, because of my question, introduced an element having to do with the new way of which journalism has to be mindful of the new technology. >> right. >> does the new technology, in your view, pervert or force you into places that you would not want to be dealing with stories that you would not want to deal with? simply in order to get the ratings boost? >> i think it is an important question to be asking. i cannot give you a specific example right now, but what i can tell you is that if you sit where i sit it is just incredibly noisy now. you know what i mean? and, you know, i find more and more i am shrinking my aperture. i am -- i have to filter out a

lot of stuff. there is lot of stuff. you're constantly being written about basically. if you take too much of that then, it is paralyzing. i start to right for you which is dangerous. and so i really think that is one of the challenges. and i think this applies to young, old. when my daughter was in college she called me one day there was an issue on campus. why don't you read job about a news campus. everyone will blogger about me. really stuck it in my mind to now be a column he always needed epic skin, but it all comes at you. and so you really have to keep your balance, i find. >> and you are saying this is a

columnist, but if you can imagine yourself being a very important politician, responsible for making decisions affecting all this, the question that -- >> the feedback loop is so fast. and it just -- and so immediate. people tracking twitter. that is why i stay away from that step because i do not want to get knocked off of my game. >> but that hasted of fact, if you are a politician, the way in which you think about voters getting votes, saying certain things to attract certain constituencies. have you in your coverage -- i am putting you as a journalist. hard for you to doctor, have you met up president since you have been doing this who was a great man? >> you know, that -- you know, i

think that all of the presidents that i have covered have had moments of greatness and a lot of moments of not greatness, but i have a lot of affection -- this may come as a surprise, for george bush the elder, the father who i covered as a reporter. i was a diplomatic correspondent for the times of the time. and the reason i have such great respect for him has to do with the very specific achievement that i think he forged that he was an drolen that so affected everyone that he has never quite got greta for. he get the end of the cold war. the unification of germany. and he brought the soviet union

for a soft landing. other than one incident. >> he did that or gorbachev. >> that whole generation, i think, was amazing. he, margaret thatcher, but he was there and had it not gone well he would have gotten the blame. and i think that his role in bats, the decisions that he made were really -- helped pave the way for the world that came afterwards. >> are you optimistic -- maybe that is not quite the right word are you positive in your feeling that the current generation of political leaders in this country can cope with the dimension of challenge now facing political leaders? >> it is money. i was just in israel thinking about that issue. but i began to wonder -- of very important question. first of all, no noisy it is a

few ready column for the new york times. i cannot imagine how noisy it is . someone tracking twitter and facebook, the morning news, a cable-tv. i also think that the complexity of the problems you have to deal with, you think of you and your brother wrote an amazing biography of henry kissinger. let's think about henry kissinger 1973-'74. he comes to the middle east to force the first real peace agreements. in egypt initiates with one egyptian pharaoh. in syria in initiates' with one overwhelmingly powerful syrian dictator, and in israel negotiates with an israeli prime

minister who is majority was so big no one have ever done of the party. let's flash forward now. you are john kerry. in syria who do you negotiate with? anyone in answers the phone that comes off the wall basically. in israel you have a minority majority. i mean, netanyahu is certainly in power, but it is a really complicated set of coalition partners. he never knows. some rabbi can come in and say that there is the ministry of interior and. he will end his political life. how power to egypt. the generals. enormous sympathy. >> you mentioned your most famous book which is called that used to be yes.

here i want to ask you about whether i am right in my belief of the many years that you are a very optimistic and deeply patriotic person when it comes to this country? and yet in this book the title as well as parts of it are profoundly pessimistic. you seem to be suggesting that we are added to pinpoint will be up the creek without a paddle. >> what happened to your optimism? >> maybe let's start with where you came from and where it might have gone. so i grew up in minnesota in the 50's and 60's at a time and a place where politics -- the year i graduated high school the governor -- then governor of minnesota was on the cover of time magazine holding up will wall light under the headline

minnesota, the state that works. i grew up. my senators were called mondale, mccarty, and heartbeat. i grew up in this place where myself, the cohen brothers, and we all grew up in the same suburb at roughly the same time. our congressmen were liberal republicans. the companies in minnesota thought it was their obligation to build. they invented a corporate social responsibility. it was not a diverse place of all. one african american in my high-school. i don't want to suggest -- the snapshot of america, but i grew up in a place where politics seemed to work and solve problems at a certain time. that really forms -- that was a really formative thing. ..

i hear it you who you are. one of the things that worries me is they take a column about this one, so i was tired by upi, spent two years in beirut for them and then hired in the business section. there was a reporter in the business section at that time.

his name is nathaniel nash. mcdaniel is a wonderful, looks like a choir boy. he was a born-again christian and a two-year cut the holy land. so we'd have lunch at talking about israel. when i went up to beirut for the times, the gaelic descent are going to for your safety. potato, and really appreciate that. two years later, after i got out of beirut alive, two and half years later, here's one of the first people i called. it was -- it that you were my good luck charm. nathaniel nash was on ron ratzinger played the same into him in bosnia and he died in that crash. in my mind because he was such -- he was summoned atop a difference between skepticism and cynicism in a 39. >> we've got about a minute left. i want to know whether to doubt

you are optimistic that america now. >> deep down i feel it is that the most important national foreign policy issue in the world is the health and vitality of this country. if we go dark as a country -- if we are pessimistic, if we can't be all we can be in emulate values were restarted freedom, opportunity, pluralism and mirror them for the world, marvin communicates outcrop in a different america. they will go up in a fundamentally different world. that is why invest so much of my time writing about america because i do believe it is the most amazing country in the world in the world will be a very different place if we cannot be all we need to be. >> tom, i am really sorry my time as that. at the continued at team, but we have ran out of time. i want to thank our audience

personality to her audience when the nation and world by way of the internet and web sonoita and most important are guest and "new york times" columnist, tom friedman for sharing his thoughts, insights. i am very grateful. [applause] [inaudible] >> -- good night and good luck. [applause] >> thank you all very much. we all have about 15 or 20 minutes and that is to say you can ask tom questions. but i would like to do is suggest that you, current weather or two people with microphones and your voice will be heard if you were, it appeared to the microphone. please identify yourself. let us know what you're

associated with the university, whatever i please ask a question and not make a speech. >> i'm a retired navy captain and thank you for the great work you do and mr. kalb commit thank you for putting this out tonight. i've got a book from paul brinkley. i've actually a two-part question. one is how would you rate the trust that your? i wish you rate the trust factor of america in the world right now? since we are in the press club, hottest international press that to the american press and what is your assessment of that? >> it is a very fair question. it is hard for me to generalize how the whole world -- how much a trust us or not. if you're in saudi arabia right now and your fear is who up your ram, you don't trust us very much. this comment you know, if you're

in japan and you're worried about china, maybe you trust us to let. so i think he would be really hard to generalize. but i think i kind of know what is behind your question. i'm talents, you know, the trust level i think is going down, not a earbuds for the the air was pointing. i'm sorry, the second question was? [inaudible] >> yeah, a gang, it really depends. it depends about the country, newspaper, tv outlet, radio, whatever. i'd be really into generalize. as international press here. you should ask them. >> thank you for that question. yes please. >> hi, john michelson, green

connections. >> painted. john michelson. you mentioned in your book and not is an energy security and independence is critical for the future of this country being its potential and the freedom to and the freedom from. and then we have stories like the clean tech crash from 60 minutes and we have other journalists and that is sometimes covering a sometimes not. >> please ask a question. >> what is your assessment of the coverage? what are we missing and can you give us your take on this component of the issue? >> i haven't looked at all the coverage and i'm not going to -- i don't want make a grand sweep on the coverage per se. i think it is usually an import an issue and i think, you know, 60 minutes did a story about the decline of clean tech in the next week google bought mass, an

amazing clean tech company for over $3 billion. people really have to be careful on generalizing about some of these things. i spent a lot of time covering climate water energy issues. it's usually important. it is also from a journalistic point of view really interesting. you've given me a chance to make up for that i just completed a documentary was showtime called years of living dangerously. it is an eight part series that begins on april 13. i did the one on climate and environmental stressors and europe spring, showing how underlying the arab uprising were a lot of climate water and environmental stresses. they contributed to it. the deforestation in indonesia coming up, our culture is negative forest fires, matt damon on the wider issues. we hope it is going to be

something that helps rekindle interest in debate on this. coming over, and i mentioned somebody at her dinner. some 60 degrees in sochi today. in the winter olympics. that is why i always use the term -- i never use the term global warning. i tried not to because that sounds so, so cuddly. global warming sounds like golf in february actually to me. i much prefer hunter lovins turned global we are doing. u.k. two feet of snow in new york and 60 degrees in sochi and u.k. the wesco butter, hot or hotter, tri-state dryer in d.c. was going on in california. that is actually what climate scientists predict is how climate change will unfold. >> i'm going to ask you to give

answers that are little more brief because we've got so many people. yes, please. >> thank you very much. brian bender with "the boston globe" washington bureau. since we are talking about freedom, i'd be interested in your take on nice. a lot of freedom post-9/11 was couched in terms of spreading and much of that or of that or at least a good part of that was by military force. i am curious to take on just kind of the lessons learned of the post-9/11 approach to spreading freedom. what do we do b-bravo? where we now in which we do to maybe prove that trust, which obviously is down? >> a short answer to that time an important question. so many things but wrong in iraq and afghanistan, hard to know where to start. you know, the first was

obviously one of the things i think mostly wrong in iraq under which you understand now talking to someone who really wanted that were believed to him the opportunity and necessity of trying to build an island in that part of the road is that it if you look at the year experience, which succeeded in which did not. i'll just give you this part of it. there is one common denominator junichi has in yemen has. that is the principle of novick dear, no think wish, that somehow everybody has to be included. and many think about what we did in iraq, which is not only decapitate saddam, then wipe out the industry and jobs of a whole class of people. then we fired the whole army. so they came in and created a little bit to vanquish which is exactly the wrong principle of

white-haired springs that are failing now it's really because of that because sunnis in iraq think they can have it all without alibis. shiites or sunnis in iraq, the have it all without the other. that was the biggest mistake of all. >> thank you. yes, please. joe, ncr, or white house foreign policy of razor. highlights to ask you about the current israeli-palestinian discussions that are going on and do you feel optimistic that they will be a final resolution to this debate that's been going on for decades? >> so i am more optimistic than i've been in ohio and that means i think the chances are 50/50. so that is a document and really constitutes today.

i'm the one hand, when i was just there last week, i just don't see how this current leadership on both sides can make a huge compression to have to make in order for us to be forged in on the other hand, i don't see how they don't do it. because what is really at day care to put it into context of middle east diplomacy, i truly believe there has to be some point in the company said this week too many times, but i believe the mission will tell us whether the solution is still possible. john kerry, i believe is the last train and the next train is the one coming out. >> thanks, tom. yes, please. >> hi, amelia should there and i'm working up working. i wanted to sort of circle back

to this freedom and specifically freedom of the press. i did my graduate work in europe and ireland specifically and i found the new coverage was actually fairly different, the international coverage than what we get here. i my peers about it can be set your prices prices so censored. and so, my question would be to put any stock in that snap judgment or do you think it is more of an audience issue for just what we care about? >> go straight to avoid gross generalizations, but i certainly heard that. i went to graduate school in england. i know what it's like to look at america from the outside in. all i can tell you is i served in beirut with a lot of european correspondents and we covered those stories very differently and i don't think there's

anything -- i really disagree sometimes with some take they might have. you know, you pick up a typical european press on israel, for instance. it is just the baseline starts at a much higher level of hostility. not just skepticism frankly. and so, they might say you're censored, even america. we might say you start out with the body. but i'd like to do, like to read papers to mull over the world and i'd like to see everybody's good, but i can't pass judgment on who is censored and he was just coming at it totally straight. >> thinks. yes, please. >> hi, many of us that john and currently tv america. my question is about reconciling freedom as an ideology and redundant part is because when

you look at freedom on an international scale, it is very different from what is written in the first amendment. someone would've intervened in the onset of the one attack. -- and killings of innocent people in iraq, yemen, somalia. how do you as a journalist reconcile the? >> e-mail, one of the problems you always have the next job is people and when you are a journalist is low, that didn't happen all over the world all the time. because that games are

happening, it doesn't always tell you what you should do. so for instance come you might say we should have intervened in one. a lot of people felt that at the time. i like what we thought he learned from some our interventions already like in iraq and afghanistan but maybe we don't know what we are doing an intervention pc through day one. you stop people from doing that eggs. i think what we've learned -- sort of what i've learned from the whole middle east experience, we can stop people from doing that things, but in fact, we really can make them -- in fact, maybe we can never make them duke it thanks. once you get done stopping people do bad things, we stopped what we thought would be a massacre in benghazi. but then we didn't go when we couldn't make people do good things and they then started fighting amongst themselves.

all i can tell you is my takeaways the last 10 years is a lot more humility about these things and if you will be ends, the means might be a long-term presence and that can lead to that. so that's my answer. >> thanks. yes, please. >> medical mix. i did a graduate degree at gw international affairs. he mentioned your high regard for president bush in his work at international. bush the elder. >> secretary kissinger's work in the middle east. looking at bush the elder, does that have regarding respect also extend to secretary of state jim baker? >> a coverage in baker. as a diplomatic correspondent of

very high regard for the shabby state of secretary of state. >> thank you very much. yes, please. >> hi, necklace sorensen, undergraduates eusebio and a great admirer of your column in writing and job report. i was here for one session when ted koppel was a guest about the changing state of news. i read "the new york times" a lot. i'm reading al jazeera and bbc more to avoid news written by cynics and people watching readership than that group alone. how do you feel about businesses like fox names quite >> just one question. >> you now, all i can tell you as people often ask me, what tv? circuit up in the morning can read the near times first. but i believe it should read "the wall street journal" "financial times."

i get up early. but i also -- i really enjoyed real clear politics because it gives me a wide range -- international opinion. i've kind of a one-stop shop of some al jazeera, some daily star, since people. i am a news junkie and i have an opinion news junkie. skylab reading opinion and i love reading other people's opinion in a wide range of opinions. and i try to every once in a while -- i don't have time and i'm not going to do it as a habit because you have to do a lot of preparation, but al jazeera asked me last year to be in their head-to-head debate show, which is found with the really tough challenging

debater. the issue of debate was is america force for good in the world? i took the affirmative and al jazeera at the oxford debating site. i also think it's really important when you sit where i sit to get people a shot at you every once in a while. something like bush and cheney never did. and so again, not something i will do all the time, but from time to time he should do that. >> we have time for two questions. go ahead, please. >> james tyson, burkey. you mentioned early on a quote not a member the exact one, but it was something along the lines of those who get their freedom to preserve the security deserve neither.

[inaudible] >> okay, anyhow. i like to get your take on that because my feeling is freedom is something we've given up and i am wondering whether you believe that there's any way, and if there is, what way people might be convinced to give up their security and preserve values. >> thank you here it is important question and all i can do is go back to what i said. my overwhelming reaction to the whole snowed in affairs two things. this was inevitable and we have this discussion because if you see where to ologies going now, it is sleepy and i had so much faster than human beings can adapt and adjust. at the same time to me like to be aware. i got back to bite my seeing golf swing had, that people are

voluntarily giving up or in my case, not voluntarily giving up freedom in information being used and crammed at me. i think we have to have a very big discussion about this. >> last question, please. >> into the discussion. though clifford with the world affairs council in america. he mentioned your concern if america goes dark. i would like you to assess the american education system at how good it does the job of keeping the lights on, creating globally minded citizens, what would be the prescriptions to do a better job. >> that's not a question. applicable now counterpoint. you know, i do read about this occasionally if you go by the international exams and whatnot, we have work to do. i am not an educator.

american power cockney in economics and industry and jobs in education. i kind of backed into it. i would just say that i think we have a lot of work to do. no question about it. the single most important issue in my view is parenting, their parents to instill a love of learning in their kids and hold them to high expectation and everything else. teacher had reform, technology as far as i'm concerned. one thing first of all. these are great questions. i dodged as many as i could. but there's this issue of pessimism and optimism and i'll leave you with this story. they run it regularly.

eight, nine years ago i was in israel having dinner with the editor and i said to him, why do run my column? he said tom come you are the only optimist we have. i was getting up to go to the dinner table and he was at my side and said i know why you are not to miss. i said why? he said it's because you're short. i said sure? you could always see that part of the glass is half-full. the truth is i am not so sure, but i am still not to miss. [laughter] [applause] >> thank you all very, very much for coming. thank you are a match. [applause] >> thanks for joining us, ladies and gentlemen. please drive carefully going home. one more program to go before a season is over. stay tuned and we will be back shortly.

[inaudible conversations] >> the part of the congressional budget office says boostingpartl budget office says boosting the minimum wage as president obama and democrats are proposing increasing the than 16.5 million people by 2016. it also cut employment by roughly 500,000 workers. the report by the cbi was released in the senate prepares to debate a democratic proposal to gradually boost today $7.25 per hour minimum wage to $10.10 an hour by 2016. president obama said today that his administration will issue standards for delivery tax by march 2016. he called it a win-win drink, sedate the maryland distribution center for the safeway grocery store chain. here is part of what he had to say. >> today, we are taking the next step. heavy duty trucks account for

just 4% of all vehicles on the highway. i know what you're driving sometimes it feels like it's more. but they are 4% of all vehicles. they're responsible for about 20% of carbon pollution in the transportation sector. so trucks like these are responsible for about 20% other on road fuel consumption and because they haul about 70% of all domestic freight, 70% of the stuff we used everything from flat screen tvs to diapers to produce, to you name it, every mile we gain in fuel efficiency is for thousands of dollars of savings every year. so that is why we are investing in research, to get more fuel economy gains. thanks to our partnership,

between industry and my administration, the truck behind me was able to achieve a 75% improvement in fuel economy over the last year. 75%. that's why it's called a super truck. impressive. i mean, these are -- first of all, they are really big. [laughter] big you can see how they've redesigned the truck in order for us to save fuel economy. improving gas mileage for these trucks are going to drive down our oil imports even further in that reduces carbon pollution even more, cuts down on businesses fuel costs, which should pay off in lower prices for consumers. so it's not just a win-win.

it is a win-win when. >> fuel efficiency rose to be in addition to standards already in place from the 2014th to 22 model years. you can see all president obama's remarks in c-span's video library at c-span.org. in primetime tonight, c-span will have interviews are two senators. tennessee republican bob worker in minnesota democrat amy klobuchar. >> at the creation museum, we are all make willing to admit placed on the viable, but we place difference on the police and what can we observe. we think people to think critically and write in the

right terms about science. it is a creationist that should be educating the kids out there because we are teaching them the right way to think. you know, we admit origins is based upon a viable, but i'm challenging evolutionist to admit the belief aspects and be up front about the difference here. >> i encourage you to explain to us why we should accept your word for it, that natural law changed just 4000 years ago, completely. there is no record of it. there are pure notes that are older than that. there are human populations that are far older than not with traditions that go back further than that. it is just not reasonable to me that everything changed for a thousand years ago. but everything i mean species, the circus of the earth, the stars in the sky and the relationship of all the other living things owners to humans.

it is just not reasonable to me that everything changed like that. >> now, jane little, british writer and broadcaster, she went to university to study religion and politics on the u.s. mimicking the first affairs correspondent for the bbc world service. in january she gave the keynote address in university of colorado conference of media and religion. from boulder, this is an hour and 15 minutes. >> thank you, stuart. not sure how that followed that very nice introduction. but it is a real pleasure in reprint which to be with you tonight. i am grateful to professor stuart and appeal at provost for inviting me to come here to

share some of my experiences in covering religion and the ways in which i've seen the beat change, rise, fall, evolve over the last two decades of my career which has been largely focused on religion as a correspondent, editor and presenter. both on staff at half staff in both sides of the atlantic. i'm very interested in hearing respect is on the coverage of religion from other parts of the world. in some ways i feel i've come full circle because stewart hoover helped launch me on my path of the doubt he actually knows that. this alternate undergraduate dissertation on televangelist and that i read his book on the subject, mass media religion, i read it on a beach at you see santa barbara as i recall, which certainly accentuates its many positive qualities. his book deep in my interest in religion, and the media

interactions. while it didn't exactly inspire me to follow the footsteps of pat robertson, i didn't someways create a different version of electronic evangelists when i set up the post of religious affairs correspondent to the bbc world service. it took some zeal for the subject i'm useful addition of possibly a dose of faith because fellow journalist student and amateur astrologist who insisted on doing my birth chart told me that as an extreme sagittarian, i was destined to become a preacher, teacher or journalist. i guess i combined all three. i've always had a fascinating for the role religion plays in public life, particularly in america where it is so rich and paradoxical that the nation with the soul of a church where religion and politics of such intimate that fellows and separation of church and state remain sacrosanct. i nurtured a city that his postgraduate finances on the

then powerful religious right and continue to do so as a reporter. for me it is a continuing being a religion reporter was like in a statement, learning something new every day, expanding my horizons. only there were no exams. i got to travel widely in the pay was better, marginally. in the early 1990s with its undergraduate at cambridge in one if any two people at my college the left-leaning king's college regina decided the unfashionable religious studies i was often asked, usually at parties by slightly inebriated students, why i would choose such a subject. was it looking puzzled at the hot young student wearing because i wanted to become a nun? church of england priest wasn't quite an option back then for women, though it was about to become one. a few years later, sitting at the table in the bar of the bbc world service christmas party, only weeks after i'd begun this new trial beat of religion reporter, i was asked by

slightly drunk coley, why are you interested in religion? is it because your religious yourself? i would get that many times over the years. incidentally, political correspondent doesn't get asked how they vote and it's not deemed to affect the reporting that the bbc, which is always priced its reputation for impartiality and where the reporter never answers him or herself into a news story unless an extraordinary circumstance. i mention these encounters because it gives you a flavor of the bewilderment and even suspicion in a secular 1990s britain as to why anyone would interested in religion if it wasn't vocational and/or devotional reasons that they didn't have an agenda. after that, i would always strongly denied that they have any vested religious interest in the subject. and then i'd embark on a passionate explanation as to why religion nattered in the world in a real and vital way and how

we couldn't understand culture, society and much of global politics without first turning with what motivated most of the people on the planet, which was research for meaning, the most deeply held leaf and practices. i suppose i didn't become a nun or priest come in the studio is my secular pulpit in the coley to run the audience that there was my congregation to win a case of colleague, they were not an easy convert to the value of reporting religion in the news. quite the opposite in fact. in 97, returned to london from studying and reporting in the united states is working freelance for the bbc as a general news reporter and producer. a couple of editors, farsighted editors at the bbc world service asked me to trial a new role as religion. they had little backing, and it was a risky proposition and there were few resources thrown my way. i was given a death come a quick tour of the studios and four

weeks to see if i could find some interesting news to justify the post. to put it in context, there was a religion department at the bbc, which produce well-regarded tv and radio programs on religion in the domestic audience. there is also a sister religion department at the bbc world service, which was well staffed with producers have been several several programs of the peers that you might remember them focus on faith reporting religion, heart and soul. there is no correspondent to cover religion as part of mainstream news, which was at the heart of what the world service did and does. in other words, it was a subject fenced off and clearly marked religion in many news journalist that should remain so. something the bbc had to wear to fulfill requirements of its charter, but not to be the superior object is new space. at that point, many of my colleagues considered religion

coverage of something close to the parish news, churchy, not to be taken too seriously and in some cases not at all. one or two producers were so anti-god as they thought that i knew would be virtually pointless trying to get a piece on the program. at the short of the pope is dead, which -- [laughter] -- which is the one religion story the bbc dedicated vast resources to for many years and that before pope john paul ii did provide us with bad news by which time the powers could no longer afford the extortion rent on their fabulous life you point above st. peter's square, cnn got the best buy. is that several memorable weeks that the latter. further aside, if not for given broadcasting, so i'm relishing the foot of potential. that is handled in a similar way to the recent death and funeral of nelson mandela could both he and john paul tyree figures

whose passing sparked much reverential resurrection underlies them in these cases as well as road deaths, births, weddings closer to home in the bbc relishes his role as the nation's into some extent, the gloves broadcaster, and he hasn't been affectionately called at home, interpreter and purveyor of meaning to the masses. anyway, back to my earlier point about ingrained hostility towards religion within the news environment. religion was held to different standard. i had to prove i didn't have an agenda. i have to work extra hard to show why the story was relevant and meanwhile an op-ed editor could reveal personal bias against a news story in ways that probably wouldn't have happened within our peace and certainly would have done so with one of politics. i don't mean to make my colleague sounds. they definitely were not. but many were older -underscore than 60s britain had fully and raised the secularization hypothesis.

religion was backward anti-progress and society is to develop and operate you to would relegate the leaf to the midsection of the back of the bookstore or in our case the bottom of the news around that. in those weeks i was off and stopped the corridor by one cardigan wearing hack with the same joke, how is god today? [laughter] the joke soon wear thin. at the other spectrum there were one or two in the meeting who took a subject very seriously and be. i was almost seen as an adjunct theologian. i'll never forget 19:00 a.m. meeting, packed with those who ran the newsroom and services, mostly middle-aged men in those days were exchanging views on how to cover the death just announced to the cambodian dictator, pol pot. one man, very decent journalist turns to me and suggested i

write a dispatch. that was a one minute news piece on the problem of evil. [laughter] all eyes are trained on me come at the new girl on the block and i took a very deep breath and replied that i thought we might need a four-part documentary slot for that. it was a milestone of sorts. many never saw the man suggestion is at least mildly absurd and a test of my news judgment, which i guess i passed. from then on i felt it's got a bit easier, but not less tech that because i was on this mission to prove that religion is as interesting and relevant to politics but in fact it often overlapped with an often undergirded political events and had four weeks to prove it. i also had no idea what was expected of me, so, so i come in at 5:00 a.m. to record features and churn out after four new stiff wretches again with both subjects. i reported everything from books rising in thailand to sectarian

tensions in kosovo teaches at astronomers gazing at the observatory near rome to a mormon temple going up and surely were 30 points, which i travel to break out the views of the locals. i got one old man wearing a cloth cap who gazed up at the gleaming new structure and proclaimed, it is a bloody eyesore. that was my first and remains my favorite. eventually, as the last day of my trial. don, that same pack came out to him and his corridor and i braced myself for the anticipated, how is god today? instead, he said it's quite interesting religion, isn't it quite surprised i concurred and i said it that you just been reporting on the archbishop of canterbury sermon. [laughter] my first convert was quite a bit tree to say and also gave pause

for thought. clearly, many did think of my beat as religious news rather than religion in the news, the interplay of public events, which was a more nuanced around the edge of the fact. i would say the topics i covered over those 10 years when i was religion correspondent and later as editor and presenter with rates down into two basic categories. the obvious religion story, the pope is dead, the bishop is elected in the category to story, how and where religion might fit into political and various parts of the world. clearly there are overlaps between the two, not least in the story of gene robinson's election as the first openly gay bishop, which sent shockwaves on anglican communion, aided and abetted by the media treat the new digital media speeding up the new cement the finder

reactions. the aftereffects of the election are still being felt, not least in other denominations with the gay issue has also been fought over internally, mirroring what is happening within wider society. just this week, we have seen the u.s. supreme court placed a hold on the gay marriages in utah. let me say that again. gay marriages in utah. if you told me as i watch steve robinson's consecration as bishop of new hampshire 10 years ago for 10 years later conservative mormon utah decided to allowed seven nightmares, i would've been rendered speechless. so dramatic as a cultural shift hereabouts or in the last decade. more than a dozen countries now have gay marriage and it is about to be lot in london and wales. journalists like everyone is scrambling to keep up with the rapid flow of events. so there is no bold line between the two types of story.

religion and i., religion plays a part here. it is a general rule, i found the category two-story to be the more interesting on the one where i could add value and that was where the bbc world service came into its own because it takes those longer formats with more airtime to allow the thought of space required to explain issues of identity sectarianism, religion or theology might or might not play a part in the story today. got to make many documentaries on anti-semitism in europe on the dalai lama and exiled tibetans on revolution and reform within islam, u.n. and elsewhere. that is in the year 2000 countless others that give me room to explore, asked the question and suggest one or two tentative answers. my thesis by the need to reform its runtime you ran was a couple of weeks later miserably undermined when many newspaper editors come a couple of whom i

interviewed were jailed. even in terms of the news bolton's advocate the second slot on the story, when they give some context to the news piece about it. the domestic news bulletin that the bbc don't have that sort of luxury. or do they ever hear, but the world service i joined did end it was rewarding, enriching and challenging few years. i should mention here the newsroom manager dave call me a and tell me to come back again after the first four weeks and another and another. remained in short term contract, now practically the only contracts out there, sprinting constantly are one story to the next in a bid to prove my and the beats were. i was amazed eventually in the spring of 2001 and promptly collapsed with exhaustion related illness. that september, i belied at home watching the news event that would dwarf all about

syntactically underlined the value of having a religion specialist on staff. some news outlets such as "the associated press" already had one. many others soon added them. so islam said they trusted up into the western news agenda in the tragic events of september the 11th had the unintended consequence of creating a religion reported jobs, at least for a while. the early weren't so my way the holocene days the religion correspondent same program. the widespread attempt to understand islam as a security threat, and ideology, religion, one which turned out to be far more complicated was given much air and print time. a lot of the coverage is very negative of islam, particularly the tabloid press, encouraged by politicians who painted sometimes still paint islam is the boogie man. but there is also a genuine asset to grapple with the phenomenon the western media had not that much time on.

that story was swiftly joined by the scandal of the sexual abuse of children by roman catholic clergy, one that was broken in the united states by a team of reporters at "the boston globe" with the expertise and resources to ask is the abuse and coverups in the boston archdiocese. the coverage of the criminal prosecutions prompted other big guns to come forward and to wider pattern of abuse and cover-up became clear. the scandal rapidly spread to other nations, notably to catholic europe for the governments of countries such as ireland produced damning report and systematic coverups within the hierarchy. that story more than any other i can think of shows the power of an informed and well resourced media. they challenged religious authority and a profound way, poetically offending the reverential attitudes towards priests. for some changes in the way the church to business, yet not

enough for many catholics who voted with their feet and the pews. the response of the hierarchy to disgrace boston's cardinal law, i should say disgracing the secular sphere because far from being a fraud or quietly demoted for his part in the cover-up, he was given a grace appointed to the basilica of the jury in rome. the coverage was so critical of the roman catholic leadership, which continued to obfuscate to a lesser or greater degree that few of us could ever imagine a reversal of its fortunes. more on that later. in the meantime, pope benedict was as cardinal ratzinger had been, cardinal ratzinger had been a doctrinal watchdog for a quarter-century. he was not the man to open the doors to throw them up and comer revealing church ready to embrace transparency or to accommodate modernity.

instead, his controversial new such as this be a reason birdbaths that so many muslims in his reinstatement of the holocaust denying a ship for more chipset so many jews, appc and church fundamentally out of touch with the modern world. the media is run by sick or late, that elite was casually smug. a backward religions weaselly affirmed. at the time of benedict to assume 2005 edited newsrooms was starting to lose interest in the religion beat. one american reporter discovered religion for many years reflected that the secular media is largely focused on religion in the public, especially the political sphere, not on religion as religion has lived and practiced within communities. in other words, more focused on high-tech two-story. the problem with that approach was the fortunes of the god beat

depend on the ups and downs of the relationship between religion and daily politics. like me, he was consumed for a while to explain islam, reporting on gay bishops and hot issues of the culture wars, evangelicals during the bush years, catholic abuse crisis and at some point interest editors interest waned. he believed in the case of islam it was because another dreaded 9/11 type event didn't happen. and also because islam turned out to be complicated. editors went off of it because the categories of secular western discourse didn't fit left right conservative, et cetera and because the resources needed to try to understand them were not there. he and i both had editors request for? coverage, for instance, the shia sunni split within islam. surely a subject of ever greater importance now given the rapid and confusing developments

within islam in the middle east. in his case, the budgets are no longer there to do justice to the story, which involves travel and time and in my case i'm no longer there. i left the religion a world service in 2006 to work as the washington correspondent. i left it in safe hands. as for the handover was a good reporter who also usually with a theology graduate. he had the expertise and a great reporting, not least on the former archbishop of canterbury's comments that sharia should have a place in modern written or of course in the british tabloid press. christopher decided to leave journalism to pursue a vocation as a church of england priest. it was a lot of journalism, but should be again for the church, which needs more priests who understand how the news media works. the bbc faced with another round of budget cuts used his exit as a chance to quietly closed the

post. there is now no religion reporter at the bbc world service for the largest audiences are in africa from a continent rot in his care deeply about religion and where it retains an obvious role in shaping identity. there is no religion department at all. that takes repeating. no religion department at all. even in the rather hostile settlers claim at face when i joined, it was a subject worth covering, even if many believe to blog in its own silo. i think for a publicly funded body to inform, educate and entertain the sorry state of affairs. there's one remaining program and that his heart and soul not made out of the world service. the producer makes it is coming out of manchester and he does a great job on a tiny budget. pierced by opportunity for shameless plug. hereby interview this month with joshua dubois, president obama's

spiritual adviser. he's written each day for five years at heart and soul for the service tells me about the secular president and his deep personal faith. elsewhere the professional religion has also greatly shot. for instance, the "dallas morning news" which once had three religion reporters, to editors and a complete religion section no longer has any of those. to a large extent, religion reporters have risen and fallen in ways that hear those news outlets they work for. as advertising revenues have shrunk, so it newsrooms of the religion beat is one of the first to go in the case of the bbc, working on tighter funding from the taxpayer. clearly i don't think the religion beat should be the first to go, but such is the hard reality. there are still religion reporters at "the new york times," "washington post," times

of london and they do a great job of ever smaller budgets. bbc robert taggart is a good job in reporting on religion for domestic tv and audiences. hessian nonpoint sakamoto there's no religion reporter at the news observer in raleigh, north carolina, a job he did very well by the way, there's still part-time religion reporters also where split vapors between beats. better than nothing. now the managing editor of religion news service that's an interesting religion stories each day funded by donations and grants from institutions to care about religion coverage. the lilly endowment is born meanwhile the luce foundation gave a generous grant to wgbh boston public radio program the world, which allowed me to set the religion editor position that oversaw the creation of more in-depth religion coverage. also find a good series of foreign-policy that follows islam in a changing middle east.

roth recently reflect to the obituaries for al qaeda in the wake of beard sprang for premature to say the least. his sobering first line, the lester was a good one for al qaeda and for jihads is an more broadly. so there's still good coverage in the media, but the landscape has changed beyond recognition since i started at the bbc. a few religion specialists left cover the global picture and include accomplishments such as bruce clark in the economist, tom hennigan operators, the excellent base for a blog commercially where they exist is thanks to much needed help from foundation. i think there's a great need for informed coverage of religion and events that touch on them and i lament the professional passing of so many former colleagues, but it's too early to come the death now completely in a few pockets of resurrection not reset the vatican "boston globe," but just this week

announced its hard vatican watch and announced -- it is reflect the new major shift in the west from religious affiliation to a more individual quest for meaning and direct experience. it is also clearly shaping and forming that shift in there are many in this audience who are more qualified than i am to talk about the way in which the media by redefining religious tradition community, meaning and practice. what i would say is this democratization of media as reflected in the online social media world of blogging and tweaking is having a bacon largely positive impact on the ways in which spiritual experiences being covered. i say spiritual experience because there is a more immediate engagement in the fluid form of expression the traditional media has had trouble keeping up with.

i'm talking of religion outside the box because if the traditional media was slow to see importance of religion within the public political sphere, religion is part of the so-called heart news story, it's even slower to grasp the subtle revolution in the secular west romania dropped religious belonging of childhood do not believe in something other. that's hard to quantify. the forum on religion in public life does a good job in america. i give you one snapshot of the changing britain is captured in a new podcast series. i was asked to present a program in october of things unseen, a podcast produced an ex-bbc staffer for an independent company and founded the charity. if focused on attracting an audience interested in faith, spirituality, the idea that there may be more to leave than meets the eye. the lunch program recorded in the cathedral on london's south

bank with a panel discussion is on research commissioned in a spiritual beliefs of modern britain. the survey found culprit in my be a nation the former archbishop of canterbury's words not mine and it is far from a nation of atheists. spiritual beliefs have found across the board, not just those who follow one of the established its good report found were than half the british police spiritual force is can influence human thoughts or actions with the world around them and more than one third of the nonreligious disbelief. one in six of those polled or someone they knew had experienced a miracle. many believe in angels and younger people are anything more likely to hold such beliefs than older ones. in other words, looking at the subject of spirituality through the lens of established faith no longer reflects what's going on, at least in britain in the u.s.

here in the u.s., websites such as the "huffington post" are reflecting and informing this development. there's a blurring of the line between analysis and commentary. more personal and how-to columns there and elsewhere on the web, people interested less in dogma handed down enforced by religious leaders and more an individual practice. click one link on the power of intention were mindful living inside your inbox deluge snippets of wisdom from all sorts of online gurus. there is out there in the new media age a perfect union of consumerism and spirituality presiding as the high priest, someone i have great admiration for, oprah winfrey. for those who haven't read it, i recommend opera, gospel of an icon, which beautifully captures a new form of religion taking shape in a new cultural space.

.. amanda hancock, the editor a bbc radio thought sunday program, and religious newsmagazine for domestic british audience which had appeared coverage of global religion suggests that atheism a disproportionate coverage these days. a reflection, she