the 24th news cycle that john referred to as facilitated in part by the internet. when the original book "prodigal press" was written the internet was nearly gleaned in al gore's eye at that time but since then the internet is driving what happens in the news cycle. we felt like it was due for an update and start working on this book about three years ago. it was just published in september. we have been delighted by the reception of the book so far and what i'm going to do today is to share with you some of the ideas that are in this book. i want to talk a little bit about world news crew just to

give you an idea of who we are even though john did a great job of setting me up on that score and also i want to be really clear that my purpose today is not to bash the mainstream media. i do not in any way shape or form consider the mainstream media or what some people call the legacy media as the enemy. i do believe however that we are and the midst of a pathological media culture and some of the ideas that i'm going to share with you today hope will allow us to identify some of those pathologies and then ultimately perhaps even to find the way out of that pathologies and provide hope for the future as we can see here. first a few words if you will allow me a personal privilege about world news crew. we are the largest christian news urbanization and world magazine which has four and a thousand readers 26 times year

and end a robust presence on the internet for 600,000 visitors a month to our web site over 2 million page views. beginning two years ago we started a radio program called the world and everything in it. it's a two hour we can program and a 30 minute daily program. you will discover it's not anything like what is on christian radio and sounds more like "national public radio" that it does anything you would normally hear on christian radio. the two cohosts have been doing an excellent job with that starting the first of the year with a new 30 minute interview program but i will host and once again not patterned after christian radio but think charlie rose and terry gross and you have a little bit more about an idea in what we are trying to create with their radio presence. we have a world on campus web

site targeted to young people in the whole range of age-specific publications widely used in the christian school and the homeschool community. i would like to begin by sharing what for many of you would be obvious and that is that mass media is dominant in our culture today and it hasn't found impact on the way we think. the average in person will spend 54,000 hours with some form of mass media before they reach their 17th birthday. even if you go to church every day or every sunday, 52 weeks a year for your entire growing up time you will spend less than a thousand hours in church. that doesn't necessarily mean that has less or more of an impact than the other.

it's a matter, it's time you spend with them. some of the time liesman with mass media is passive and i think the numbers really sorted put into sharp relief at least the amount of time we spend with these various influences on the way we think. i think it will be a little bit disingenuous to claim that massive amount of time has no impact on us whatsoever. in fact senator joseph lieberman who many of you know was no doctrinaire conservative. he was a independent senator who said this. more than three decades of research has firmly established the electronic media have a powerful influence on the attitudes values and behavior of america's children. this influence has grown only larger as the amount of time young people spend consuming media has grown greater. i don't think any of us would argue with that and that's one of the ideas we have begun to explore in "prodigal press" how

the content of the media shape the way we think and we also look at how the media themselves shape the way we think but let's take a look at content first. i would like to begin offering my presentations about the content in the news media and how much it has changed over the years by saying i want to share the story of the great christian newspaper. the newspaper is "the new york times." if you read "the new york times" today you don't think of it as a christian newspaper when in fact founded by a bible believing presbyterian christian in the 1850s. in the 18701 of the star investigative reporters named augusta st. clair went uncovered in the abortion facilities in new york. some of you may have heard of lila rose or james o'keefe who is on undercover with video cameras and to plant parenthood and other facilities in posted

these on the internet and that has been touted as an innovativinnovativ e use of social media and modern technologies to do investigative reporting but in fact i was being done by "the new york times" in the 1870. at times passionatpassionat ely opposed abortion in its editorial papers and news coverage calling it in from murder and said said the practices rank and smells to heaven. one abortionist exposed by "the new york times" and it up spending seven years in prison as a result of those stories. "the new york times" was not alone. between 1825 in 1845 is barbara lasky documented in the original version of the book subset of over 100 citizens had explicitly christian newspapers including the boston recorder edited by a man named nathanienathanie l willis one of the most interesting and lively publications of its era.

during that same period new york city alone boasted 52 magazines and newspapers that called themselves explicitly christian but of course we know the new york times is christian no more. the "times" of today editorializes in favor of same-sex marriage and abortion ideas and most evangelical christians find a point. times columnist aaron has said the tea party republicans have waged jihad on the american people. whether you agree or disagree i think you would have to agree calling tea party republicans jihad this reflects a certain tone deafness when it comes to theological distinctive. we begin to see that religious coverage and the use of

religious language and newspapers in anything that resembles a knowing usage has dramatically deteriorated not just in "the new york times" but another publications as well so much so that jill abramson who became the first female editor at the "times" said this. in my house the times substituted for religion. it was the absolute truth. again we see how far "the new york times" has come within a 150 or period and i think it's fair to say that is what happened at the "times" is indicative of what has happened in other publications. to highlight all of the reasons for the reasons that would cause us to be here for today and besides i'm here to talk about the book and we have documented much but i would simply say there has been a lot cultural technological and political changes that have taken place over those 150 years.

there wasn't a switch that went on our off that cause the mainstream media to go from a fundamentally religious worldview to one that is fundamentally ill religious or at least not religious today. it's been a wide variety of events and changes in our culture that have occurred during that period of time. some specific events we talk about in detail in "prodigal press" are the rights of transcendentalism. most of us remember from her high school english courses may be we have tried to forget over the years that you might remember ralph waldo emerson and nathanael hawthorne and other transcendentalists writers. what we might forget about those folks whose they were also men of letters in the public square as well. they were not ivory tower theorists. they were riding in the newspapers and magazines have their day. the progressive era in the late 19th century of tradition what someone called a golden age of

journalism but it's an era from which we remember names like cornelius greely greely who said go west young man and then coming forward into the 20th century men like william randolph hurst whose hurst newspaper change and magazine empire which is around today and the subject of the movie citizen kane which has been one of the great movies of all time but it also painted william randolph hurst board john foster kaine in that movie? as a man who worked -- was dislocated from a sense of purpose and meaning in his life so much so that at the end of the movie he died alone and said we begin to see that as we marched through the 20th century from the trial of 1925

covered by the leading journalist of the day h.l. mencken and it wasn't just coverage of the trial but it was a worldview as well and h.l. mencken made that abundantly clear in his papers. as the christian worldview verses the material scientific worldview that was really in the doc and not john stokes the teacher who is teaching darwinism at the time. moving forward even further the whittaker chambers alger hiss trial that took place in 1950. if you read whittaker chambers autobiography witness you know the trial was not just a trial about whittaker chambers and communism but it was really a trial of worldviews. it planted the atheistic worldview of communism verses the theistic worldview that whittaker chambers had come to over the course of his life and

also by the way what was then a relatively inconsequential small bat water newspaper on the map which of course is the "washington post" which cover that trial extensively and had its coverage around the country and because it was also a trial of new deal ideas it really established the "washington post" as a leading liberal progressive this newspaper of the late 20th century. all of these factors and more go into creating the media that we have today so much so that by 1986 robin and linda lichter at husband and wife team along with stanley hoffmann were able to write a book called the media elite in which they found after extensive surveying journalists were well to the left of the general public on a wide range of ideas and not just on the culture war ideas that we think about today like abortion and homosexuality but also ideas

such as affirmative action and energy policy as well. fast-forward another 15 or so years and become to jim kuyper's study. jim kuyper is a study -- professor at virginia tech and he did a survey of 116 newspapers and found media tend to operate within a fairly narrow wage in other words not only are they liberal but their range of contacts and range of views that they represent in their stories tends to be within the family as well print another thing jim kuyper said that was interesting is they attend -- tended to highlight the more radical liberal voices. i think that is one of the reasons why whenever folks like that pass in florida who burn the koran or the pastor from fred phelps of westboro baptist church will protest at the

funeral set servicemen. those stories get picked up as they are large and they are shrill but they are not representative of the overwhelming majority of conservative or christian people in this country. but because most liberal journalists don't have any sense of rolodex of conservative and evangelical context they just tend to gravitate to the words they hear the most about so it creates a flawed in a skewed vision of the number of people with liberal and christian views but also the range of those views and the reasonableness of those views as well. study by the american enterprise institute found the results that were consistent with the surveys that i just mentioned. between 10 and 15% fewer positive stories occurred in the media when there was a republican in the white house and so what we end up when we

take all of this together is a vision of the mainstream media that is creating a narrative that ends up being biased with both liberal and anti-christian ideas. this is important because being in control of that public narrative sometimes called the metanarrative by theorists really does matter. in fact i saw an example graphically of how an agenda to a story can make a difference. let me before a show you those pictures just mention this. this is one of the reasons this is important is because robert webb said the most pressing issue of our time is who narrates the world? who narrates the world and how they narrated matters in the way public policy decisions get made. now that photograph i will share with you. a great storytelling and a putt

can elicit a powerful reaction but who holds the camera? in this case it really does matter. small changes can make a big difference. i think we see this every day at the nation media that these changes or differences are subtle but they really do make a powerful difference in the ultimate narrative that gets told to the american people. so content matters and what is in the media can shape the way we think. i've like to shift gears a little bit and spend the next couple minutes also talking about the media themselves, the technology that is used and how that has changed and how those changes also affect the way we think and the way we process ideas. so the question i would post to you is the one on the screen. has moderate media and technology and culture eroded our ability to think especially to think deeply about complex

issues and ideas which are the very basis of the christian and conservative world view. maybe you have thought deeply about these questions and the answer to that question is indeed yes. one of them is neal postman who wrote a powerful book that a big influence on my life and we quote extensively in "prodigal press" called amusing ourselves. what he says his own media have limited abilities and and there are certain things that they are unable to do. his famous metaphor was smoke signals where he said smoke signals can communicate to you for example that i exist and communicate where i am and that i have a desire to communicate with you but it doesn't communicate much more than that. you don't know much about the philosophy, my theology my loves, my hates, my desires and

my fears. smoke signals just do not have the capacity to communicate those ideas. postman goes on to say that all media have certain limitations and it's important for us to understand what a particular medium can indicate but also what the limitations of that medium are. the other thing postman said was that all media especially new technology, the benefits, the positive aspects of the technology tend to show up first in the negative aspects tend to show up later. i have come to call that the happy hour effect. if you walk via bar at 5:00 in the afternoon the sign on the bar doesn't say come in and we will take all of your money and cause you to make bad decisions later in the evening that you will regret for the rest of your life. if that was a sign on the door nobody would go in the bar so the sign on the bar instead says

what? it says happy hour. it wants to communicate the positive benefits first and the negative benefits tend to show up later. that's true of any new technology. we don't embrace the new technology like a laptop computer or an iphone or any other of the wonderful technologies we have embrace because of the negative consequences that might show up in our lives as a result. we know for example now many people die every year, literally thousands will die this year because of texting while driving on their cell phones. if we were told that was the primary consequence of owning a cell phone that we would die at the wheels of our car we would never embrace that technology. we embrace new technologies because it offers benefits varied and not saying they aren't real benefits. neal postman says we should evaluate technology based not on

just the benefits but on what he calls the net cost or the net than a fifth of technology. a great example of that showed up in the news a couple of years ago and i've come to call up the story of facebook and it gives you an idea of what net effect looks like. a woman whose house was robbed posted a security camera video on her facebook profile and because of that video the burger was identified and arrested. if this is all you know about that story you would say this is a fantastic use of technology. it was a fantastic use of a video camera and facebook in the engine and in general but if you know the rest of the story you might come to different conclusion. it turns out this robber was a facebook friend of the victim and he learned that the woman would be out for the evening because of her updates on her facebook profile. the rest of the story communicates the effect of

facebook on this woman's life was not positive but the first part of the story might suggest. another great anchor is marshall mcluhan who wrote a book called understanding the media. he's probably best known for his idea of the medium is the message. he communicated that idea using a metaphor that sometimes called a mcluhan's lightbulb and it says imagine walk into a dark room and it's completely pitch black and you don't know what's in the room. what would your behavior be? mcluhan says your behavior would be guarded, that you might have fear the way you walked around the room and the way you can indicated to who might be in the room would be a certain way. if the light suddenly came on in that room and you could see what was in that room for behavior would change. you would see what was in the room and a belligerent mike this with all the happy faces here, friends of mine are not enemies

of mine, my behavior would completely change. my attitude would completely change. my posture would completely change. mcluhan asked the question what changed about the room? to the contents about the room change? it was the medium by which we experience the room that change. that is one of the reasons why marshall mcluhan said the media is the message that media compelled behavior whether we want that behavior to be indicative of who we are or not. i sometimes when i'm talking to young people use the example of the "lord of the rings" a contrast of the book in the movie. for those of you who might be board of the rings geeks, aragorn has a lot of names. he is son of aragorn for example which gives you an idea of his lineage and his heritage and background.

he is a strider and is also a ranger which is an office in the ranger is someone who is a protector. as j.r. tolkien writes the book these names unfold and we begin to interact with the text on the page and build a picture in our mind of aragorn son of the future king but if you have seen the movie which by the way really like and i think the movies are wonderful in many ways but the vision of who aragorn is and the other characters in lord of the ring are direct good in whatever picture i might have of airborne in my own mind tends to get swamped and overwhelmed by the picture the movie producer wants me to have of aragorn which looks a lot like -- to me. media in other words has the power to manipulate and confuse

us. it has the ability, producers and the media whether journalist or movie reducers or record producers can pose their view on us rather than allowing us to actively collaborate and participate with the world to come up with what our view of what the world looks like. what can we do about it and i will close with this and let you guys ask me some questions about the book and about some of the ideas. one of the things we can do is we should stand for and with what has sometimes been called the good, the true and beautiful and stand for and with those who produce the good ,-com,-com ma the true and beautiful. at world magazine the think a powerful tool for doing that is what we call biblical storytelling. biblical storytelling is the process of using scripture as our standard of truth and using

a biblical norm which is storytelling to make that truth, life. so for example it would not be enough to say that abortion is bad if you for example believe abortion is bad but it would be more powerful and more effective of women, children and families and communities that orson has impacted until the consequences show and not just tell the consequences of abortion or whatever it is you're trying to show the consequences. i also want to be clear that we don't think technology is bad. clearly my presence here today is an indication that it's not not -- we are streaming this presentation live on the internet and many viewers we pray will watch this on c-span. all technology is not bad. in fact we don't think technology is bad at all.

we should use all the technological tools that the province is made available to us that we should as neal postman said be aware of their abilities and limitations. we must be discerning consumers so we are not manipulated by the abilities and the limitations of those technologies. i'm going to hold this closing story until the q&a and if you'll indulge me a couple of minutes at the end of the presentation to close with this. i would like to pause now and see if there are any questions that you might have and john do you have some ground rules? >> the simple ground rules if you'll wait for the microphone and if you do not mind at least identify yourself as a courtesy to the speaker and i'm going to take the opportunity to ask you the first question. notice you keep talking about journalisjournalis m and of course i think about marvin olesky and the journalism school. journalists used to be like the

diary writing down what they observe today. then they crossed the line of i feel bad. then they crossed the line of maybe we should feel bad. then we have gotten to the point where even before the story is released particularly in washington the talking points, the pr campaign is begins to weaken tell you what you are going to read before you read what you're going to read. is there any mechanism for getting around that? >> that's a great question and that to me as is part of this pathological media culture we are in. is there a way to get around the? that pandora's box has been opened and i think the cat is out of the bag. i don't think we can go back to a pre-24/7 news cycle which is a part of the reason this exists and if i could just back up i think often it's not malicious intent on the part of people

that create this environment. sometimes it is malicious intent that i think often it's a function of the fact that now instead of a couple of networks we have 10 or 12 news networks. instead of 30 minutes with walter cronkite at 6:30 in the evening we have 24 hours a day seven days a week three and in 65 days a week these cable networks have to fill. it becomes a real tyrant this 24/7 news cycle. there is not enough -- i'm not going to say there's not enough news because there's plenty of news in the world that there's not enough reporting capabilities so they fill it with punditry. i think that is a big part of it. i think the ultimate solution to that though is in the hands of the consumer. we have got to stop that kind of behavior.

we have got to reward with both our readership and our financial resources those organizations that are actually putting reporters on the granted doing real porting and not just resorting to punditry in the studio. usually by the way the studios are in places like washington and new york and los angeles. they are not in places like where i live charlotte, north carolina. >> jennifer marshall here at heritage. the world is explicit about its world view with which it reports and seeks to eliminate the -- illuminates a new story or editorial. can you comment on other media, how much disclosurdisclosur e of worldview do you think goes on? do you see differences between print and broadcast an on line

in that regard withheld dominating they are both with their own worldview and the worldview in the coverage? >> you're absolutely right. other media claim to be fair and balanced or objective or whatevr language they want to use. we have an entire chapter in "prodigal press" that we have revised this version because things have changed so much in that area you are talking about in the last few years where in 1988 the media were very subjective. there was a very clear bias in the media but it was for the most part they disguised bias. we call that disguised by subjectivity in the book. now we have moved into an era where is completely undisguised. i will use "msnbc" is as an example. some of you -- rather the barack obama campaign

used the slogan for word as part of its campaign branding if you will. you might remember about the same time "msnbc" went through a rebranding process any remember do you know what slogan it now uses on that network? does anyone know? not forward but lean forward. i'm not saying there's an explicit complicity between the obama campaign and "msnbc" but i am simply saying it reflects the commonality of worldview so there are -- we now live in an environment where most of the news networks are much more explicitly either conservative or liberal in their point of view. i would also say even those that want cop to the plea of being

liberal because of some of the things we just talked about, the lack of sources that they actually have on the right and the ability and willingness to paint conservatives stereotypically are in a caricatured. even those that are at least pretending to some level of balance usually end up skewing heavily on the liberal side. this goes back 40 years but i can't resist telling this anecdote. pauling kale was the legendary film reviewer for "the new yorker" magazine and when richard nixon was reelected president in 1972 with one of the greatest landslides at that time pauline kale reportedlreportedl y said nixon? i don't know anybody who voted for nixon. she was probably telling the truth. she probably didn't know anyone even though the vast majority did. bad again is sort of an attic to

that indicates what a bubble most people in the mainstream media, journalists and mainstream media live in and don't know what's going on outside. that's only gotten worse over the years. yes, sir. >> dave rice retired journalist and educator. when i started in journalism in 1970s there were pages, the front page was supposed to be news disguised in objectivity and part of what you pointed out is this land where today people have a hard time distinguishing between editorial punditry and news. it's all thrown together whether it's on the internet. what role if any d.c. education play in separating that and apply it to your own christian belief. you have somebody might save

christian bias but you're coming from a worldview on everything that you do and believe and so what is the role of education today in your mind of letting people know the differences between this is what should pass as news and this is opinion and this is something else? >> i think the role of education is huge. unfortunately i don't think that it's likely that the mainstream educational situations of this country are going to be able to rise to that challenge. for example there are almost no journalism schools in christian colleges in america. the only graduate program in journalism at a christian college that i know of is at regent university and so if you want to teach journalism at the college level you have to have a graduate degree in journalism.

it's usually in journalism. it's unlikely that someone coming up in a system that is going to be educated in a mostly liberal mostly secular higher education system in this country is suddenly a lightbulb is going to go off and are going to have a worldview that's any different than the world in which they have been indoctrinated. education should play a huge role but from the early stage we put them in public universities are journalists in particular and outgoing to public institutions that are secular that don't have a christian worldview so it's unlikely that those institutions are going to change that pattern.

>> i'm a citizen journalist with watchdog. certainly there are rivals. could you talk about "fox news" versus cnn and contrast that to christian broadcast network? thank you very much. >> "fox news" not christian news orientation i will say that and what the christian broadcast network is doing and not terribly familiar with it. i think it's a step in the right direction. the christian broadcast network "fox news" is not nearly enough to combat the overwhelmingly secular and liberal worldview that we see on virtually every

other news network that's out there. the resources of both of those organizations combined would amount to probably a small fraction of the newsgathering capabilities that you find at say a place like nbc. without making any specific judgments or criticism about the christian broadcasting network or fox i will simply say whatever they are doing that is good is inadequate for the news of the day. yes, sir. >> dave russell service direction or for campus outreach these radical voices being highlighted despite the couple families being more of a baptist than the ku klux klan is a christian ministry they are always making the news. can you talk more about why their voices are highlighted so much? >> i think it's a combination of

ideology and practicality. the ideology is simply that i don't think most folks in the mainstream media have the theological training and tools and temperament and background to be able to tell the difference between fred phelps and westboro baptist church in rick warren at saddleback church. i think for the most part they don't get the difference. they don't understand what the differences are for the most part. they are just again it's not maybe animosity but a complete lack of understanding and the ability to discern the subtle differences. and again if i'm a science reporter for "national public radio" it's inconceivable that i would get hired for the job without having some sort of a science background. yet journalists every day cover

stories not the religion report is what i'm talking about all reporters cover issues every day that have religious moral or ethical component to them and they don't have any training in these areas. i think part of it is that they just don't have the antenna to discern the news and i think another part is the practicality if these guys are putting out press releases, if they are videotaping what they are doing and they have videotape available, if they are making it easy for the media to cover them especially digital media television and electronic media is staging demonstrations and holding up signs that say god hates on them does become compelling visuals that the mainstream media too often can't resist. you see that the local level where you turn on virtually any local television news network nbc that old saying if it bleeds

it leads. they cover a lot of car wrecks in fires because they make compelling visuals and their are a lot of flashing lights and yellow police tape that looks good on television. the other side of it too there often is some animosity. the idea that fred phelps is represented that mainstream evangelical christianity plays into many people's narratives of what evangelical christianity is all about even though it's not completely true. it's what they want to believe. it's their bias and prejudice so they will continue to cover folks like fred phelps or if the ambassador in florida nor reasonable evangelical voices who thought deeply about some of the issues that they're covering. >> is a footnote how much journalism and the media.

when i was growing up i thought of it as partly public service as they did as their overall broadcasting nowadays it's worse to profit line and if it's no profit line of we don't do the news. we need to do the gotcha lines. >> one not clear john that is changed a whole lot and if you look at william randolph hurst for example they became one of the wealthiest on the planet long before the news -- modern-day sarah. i do think it allows me to segue into another adjusting point. within the secular arena you have organizations assess the center for american integrity and the public -- corp. for public broadcasting.

organizations like npr that receives funding from the corporation for public broadcasting and propublica which is an investigative news organization. these are nonprofit organizations that are privately funded unfortunately from my point of view cpi and propublica team -- seemed to be left-leaning and that is where most of their funding comes from. we don't really have a viable conservative alternative to those types of organizations. i do think that could be the wave of the future. we will see more nonprofit journalism and journalism that's going to be funded by organizations especially investigative journalism which doesn't always return and provide an economic return right away. it looks like you had a question. any other questions?

>> den dean sinclair from alexandria virginia. earlier on in your talk today you talked about the fact that journalists are very much liberal in their political leanings may be 80% or more. is there something in the system that just draws liberal people to that kind of profession? is there something in the hiring mechanism? was going on there that makes is so overwhelmingly liberal? >> that's a really good question and i think it goes back in part to the education system that we talked about. most journalists are being trained in the liberal secular academies of this country so that's like we going to be what they produce. we have a lot of the statistics in "prodigal press" but gallup has been doing a survey about church attendance in america and that church attendance while it moves up and down and has trailed off a little bit in

recent years has stayed around 40% when gallup asked the question have you attended a religious service in the last seven days which is a specific day for a question. close to 40% of americans answered yes to that question. when journalists are asked the same question a variety of surveys have been done, the numbers usually less than 10%. you could argue is that right or is that wrong or was it good or is it bad that i would argue that it's different, it's way different than the religious orientation of the yield behaviors of journalists looks really different from the mainstream. in some ways it becomes either a virtuous cycles for a downward spiral depending on your orientation. of all of your friends are liberal, if all of your friends are secular in their worldview and orientation and you get positive reinforcement on that,

that's just going to create a continuing cycle. it's going to be hard for you to justify rationalized looking outside your world view because you are getting all kinds of affirmation both professionally and personally with the community in which you are operating. any other questions? do you mind if i close with my story? some, be what i've said my lead you to believe that i'm a pessimist and the truth of the matter is that i'm not. i think there's a lot of hope for the future and part of that hope springs from my understanding of history and that is that god always works for a remnant. there is a continuous cycle throughout history of decline and recovery. one story that i find encouraging which i would like to share with the in closing is the story of the battle of britain which probably many of you know. the battle of britain began in august 1940 when the germans

lufafa started great written. they started bombing great written in part because hitler wanted to invade britain and new new -- day after day they were real air force went against the lufafa and we now know with the hindsight of history with what hitler's plans were from his directive 16 and i'm going to just get down to the last paragraph. the english air force must have been beaten down to such an extent morally that it could no longer muster any power of attack worth mentioning against the german cross but what we know is the english air force was not beaten down, that despite tremendous destruction there were a air force exhibited tremendous determination by the way of love that picture because do you see the dog running after the airplane?

that humanizes that picture of debt. we also know against overwhelming odds the royal air force did not exactly prevailed against the lufafa that they were able to battle the lufafa to stalemate in the battle of britain which ended up ending in october of 1940. the leadership made the difference. winston churchill was one of the most dramatic figures in 20th century history said this you may recall about the battle of britain and specifically the raf fighters who went up day after day tracy said never before in the annals of valor has so much been owed by so many to so few. when i started studying this battle more closely when i read a biography of churchill a discovered something that for some reason i didn't know before and that was that the raf at that time only had 2000 pilots.

it was only 2000 pilots that went up every day against the full mind of the german lufafa. when i found out the number gave me a lot of encouragement. i believe that journalism is the air war of our time so while it is tempting to become discouraged in the face of some of the statistics i might've shared with you there's a lot of them and so few of us i continue to believe that while we may give you a number with god's help it wouldn't be enough so thank you very much for your attention today. thank you john and the heritage foundation for hosting me. i look forward to having lunch with some of you and hanging out for the next hour. thank you. [applause] >> yes we mentioned we do have copies of the 25th anniversary edition of "prodigal press". there are more books in the lobby. thank you for joining us in for

an excellent presentation and you for your attendance. we will see you hopefully again in the future, very soon from now. thank you.

hersh gets the story. he was back to washington, he writes in five installments, eventually raise two books not only on the massacre but a cover-up by the government trying to cover-up the massacre and he becomes international hero. the story makes worldwide headlines. all across the world everyone knows the my lai massacre and everyone knows seymour hersh. i was 19 years old at this point

in time. i was a sophomore in college. i remember my lai but don't think i connected with it very much. my chasing of sy hersh did not begin until 1979. in 1974 i graduated from graduate school, got a master's degree, and came back to reporting and was more interested in pursuing the world of journalism. in 1974, a big year, richard nixon many people believe he was toppled by two reporters on the washington post, bob woodward, robert redford, all the president's men, separate them, bob woodward was very cooperative when making this book and i went to talk to him, and doesn't look like robert redford at all.

bob was helpful, cooperative in making this book. where was i? since 1974, and covers of generation, and journalism is a progressive place, have wonderful things happen. when i went into journalism, the person i begin to look at, is at the 11. he was a different journalists, then woodward and bernstein. and the rock star of american journalism and investigative reporting, and adjourn -- a journalist who worked for the new york times told me he came to a journalism conference, and in the 1970s, the keynote

speaker, was seymour hersh. everyone did to be like seymour hersh so he had this legendary status, i began to took in interest on seymour hersh. in december of 1974, some people think the story of a decade. and it resonates today. hersh found out the american central intelligence agency, was actually opening the mail of american citizens and tapping their phones. only the fbi was supposed to do that. in europe and the rest of the world, and he finds out about the story. i couldn't get a piece of paper, to actually confirmed it. and have a lot of sources

including possibly and apparently the director of the central intelligence agency, and writes the story in december of 1974, causes the huge outcry, and three congressional investigations, and everyone simply says didn't happen, didn't happen. should have won the pulitzer prize, the pillage injury said no, didn't have it right. and he not only had it right but underestimated dossiers. thousands and thousands of dossiers, their argument then was never found out about terrorists. and tried to find out about communists, and i clearly remember that story and in 1975,

less important but a terrific story. the soviet union had a submarine that was in the pacific ocean. for reasons that and not clear, the sub sank to the bottom of the pacific ocean, hundreds of sailors, russian soviet sailors were killed. its that at the bottom of the notion. the soviet technology was not good enough to know where it was. they couldn't find it but technology was good enough, they knew where it was and hatched this plot is that we would send a huge trawlers called the globe are explorer and it would go out where the submarine was. build acute stroller with a special hold that would pick up the submarine, all add up and we would have a great cold war coup, we would have the

missiles, and it cost $300 million. we got and start to pick it up, the submarine breaks in half, drops to the bottom of the ocean, it has to come back, it is a failure, they are toying with doing it again. hersh says enough is enough, he writes the great globe are explorer story. a little show and tell here. this story has been sitting around in my folder for 40 years, and soviet sub loss in 1968, failed to raise a missile. i am beginning to chase the great muckrakers sy hersh. in 1975 hersh was becoming so

famous for rolling stone magazine's decides to do, and inside is seymour hersh. the toughest reporter in america. interviewed by joe westinghouse, a hollywood screen writer. at two part interview with seymour hersh, toughest reporter in america. this has been sitting in my files for many years. the photos, famous american photographer and the cover of the book is a photograph taken in that point in time, when she was working, not as well-known of course, and she was set to take pictures of sy hersh. one of the photos is sy hersh carrying a typewriter on the

stairs with one of his children and his wife, as you see what i described, trying to get hersh and his family to talk, he was upset when he would be using this photograph. i told him --

came out was over. i think in some ways it begins to capture hirsch's personality. i first met seymour hersh in the fall of 1985 when he was 48 years old. invited him to speak at my university, small college 70 miles from new york city near the hudson river where i taught journalism. my office was located in remote part of the 287 acre campus. and he arrived 15 minutes before showtime. this was a tough place to find. and could find my office. it was a long time ago. it had been 16 years ago since he had tracked down the

notorious william kelly. and we all wary, he is out there all alone. his book on kissinger was bringing protests from former secretary of state minions. one minor protests in the plot line. it was ultimately resolve. instead he wanted to talk about the cia, richard nixon and henry kissinger. the reported did not want to talk about reporting, only what he uncovered in the process of reporting. like all the great journalists his passion was reserved for the issues. form and function were of little interest. wakulla its president hosted a dinner at her home. the president invited vice president dean and local officials, this kid from chicago, the son of immigrant parents, law school dropout, former chicago crime reporter was a celebrity. he called themselves a celebrity

in a triumphant interview. a political science professor who was also a well-known personality on a network of national public radio stations that he ran from state capitol in albany. hersh had a washington d.c. neighbor, hersh liked the man. they proceeded to argue about him over dinner. i explained he was a considerably influential pandit. hersh seldom minces words or pools punches. blusters and intimidates, leaving enemies everywhere he goes. presidents to generals to secretaries of state, part of the style and success. evening lecture went better. nearly 750 people packed the college's largest lecture hall. hersh had notes in cards, he spoke without them. willingly and fashionably. assailing the moralities of the nixon years, vietnam, watergate,

to many people hersh was a hero and they applauded frequently. hersh earned his fee. when evening talk was over and he answered questions and received a standing ovation i escorted him to his car. he was staying in a dingy hotel courtesy of a college outside the village before heading homes and next day. i missed my family he said as he left campus referring to his wife elizabeth, three children in the nation's capital. i did not speak to sy hersh for 20 years as he produce five more books, all controversial, a few documentary films and dozens of articles for the new yorker magazine. i kept buying sy hersh. he was constantly in the headlines. anyone interested in journalism and investigative journalism and

muckraking journalism couldn't miss sy hersh. in 1986 he made headlines in the new york times. worked at the time 72-79, left to right e-book on henry kissinger but did some free-lance stuff and free-lance work for the new york times. in 1986, remember the name manuel noriega? he was the president of panama. sometimes called the panamanian thug, three presidential administrations actually had him on their payroll and he was supporting american policy but also running drugs, running guns, killing his opponents, yet he was america's allied. hersh find out about this and write about in a page-1 story in the new york times. panama strongman said to trade in drugs on illicit money,

seymour hersh. i know i am beginning to zero in and say i got to do something about this guy because the top of the things says hersh weil because i was beginning to stop the file with all sorts of stuff on seymour hersh. somebody has got to do this guy's biography at some point in time. in the year 2004, i wrote a biography of a not forgotten but very famous american journalist charles edward russell. russell was up bit like seymour hersh, very angry about conditions, had story after story. the most prolific american investigative journalists, held as a muckraking journalist. i do his biography and i am trying to figure out what comes next and of course what begins to come to mind to me was sy hersh. charles russell was dead.

i was only able to find one person who knew charles edward russell. when you write a biography about someone who's that in some ways it is easier. you don't have to worry about offending them. don't have to worry about making contact with them. don't have to worry about where they are. on the other hand it is very frustrating. many times you run into situations a huge just don't know what happened and you would love to pick up the phone and say mr. russell, in 1906 when you wrote that article and they threatened, what happened? you don't have the luxury, you stick with autobiographical accounts, stuck with his memoirs, letters, stuck with the written record. the record of someone who is alive, wonderful possibilities and real disadvantages. the wonderful possibility is you can talk to the person and if the person talks to you, you can get him to turn over letters, get him to tell you what happened, get the back story,

the inside story. you have the possibility of his world opening up to you. on the other hand you run the risk of being accused of writing an authorized biography. i knew that seymour hersh would never admire anyone who wanted to write anything that was authorized. he has never written anything authorized in his life. people's stuff all over the place that never asks permission. investigative reporters don't ask permission. i knew i could never win hersh's respected by had to ask permission but i knew i had to try to talk to him and see if i could get him to talk. a couple years ago walter isaacson rose a very good, very big biography on the apple computer guru steve jobs and he sought out steve jobs for a number of interviews and he was terribly attacked because they said this is an authorized book. how we trusted? what if you have to criticize the person you are writing about

and the person authorized and are cooperating? do you need their permission? does this water down the book? i was caught between wanting to hersh, but did not want to suggest this would be an authorized biography. i decided i had to call hersh and let him know what i intended to do. i interviewed hundreds of people for this book and i knew once i called the first person they would immediately called sy hersh and they would know i was writing the book and wanted him to know about the book for me and not someone else. so i got to contact sy hersh. when you call him he snarls at you. got a couple minutes and, he hangs up on you. i need to explain what i wanted to do and i hope he remembered me from our short time together many years before. i wrote him a registered letter. some of you don't even know what registered letter is in the age of the internet.

here is this registered letters that goes to him. i get a copy with his signature saying he received it. i wrote him a registered letter and waited ten days, he traveled a lot. at that point he was writing stories, in the middle east a lot, let me write a registered letter and call him. i went ten days, two weeks and then i called sy hersh. i was intimidated. i said robert miraldi, state univ. of new york. i wrote you a letter. he says i got a letter, it was 102 degree weather, didn't come to my office, had to walk to the post office, i was sweating bullets. great beginning. then i explained to him i would like to write your biography. an incredible body of work, we all know what you have done, i would like to do your biography blitz silence and then he says i am not dead. i said ok, away we go. i explained myself again. i recovered quickly, we all know, the whole world knows you are not dead and then he told me

what he really thought about the possibility of someone writing his biography. very sy hersh. he says until those son of a bitches are out of the white house and get rid of george bush and cheney there is no way i have time to sit down and talk about myself. his words. i'm not going to masturbate myself in public. he says i hate when people ask me what i think. my opinion means nothing. it is my fax, my stories, my scoops. documentary film makers have wanted to do my story. i have never cooperated, i won't never cooperate. i will not do it. he said i just wrote a big article in the new yorker, i spent the last week, his words, pimping the article, going all over the country giving interviews. i got to get back to work. i am not going to sit down and talk to you for a long periods of time. he wished me luck. it was a standoff. i didn't know where it would be but i always hope that some point he might decide it was

time to sit down and talk, that he did give me his time. that time never came. i am still waiting. we developed a kind of an interesting relationship overtime. first off when i needed to get information especially when i was working on his early life, his early years growing up, his early years at the associated press worked for the associated press in chicago and new york for four years, worked at a legendary place called the city news bureau in chicago. it was tough to find as much information as i needed in those early years and i called sy, he was useful, helpful, and 2 two a four question and said you had enough, good bye and he would hang up. this went on for quite a while but it was helpful. it was useful and then we began to e-mail over time, five minutes, ten minutes, an hour, two hour, i know there's a huge

fbi, cia, filed on seymour hersh. the way the law is written now until he is dead i cannot requests it. only he can get his file so i called and i wrote and said why don't you ask for your file? not interested, don't give a sh shit. i was trying to track his parents, mother and father, lithuanian immigrants who came to america in the port of boston and went to chicago and trying to track the family and trace them and didn't have his mother's made a name. i couldn't call and say what is your mother's made name? i said -- i wrote and said what is your mother's made a name? his answer was it is on the public record. you find it, kid. not going to get too far on that one. when he wrote his book on henry

kissinger, it was a vicious attack on henry kissinger, major american public figure. henry kissinger only once responded to the book, on ted koppel he said a pack of slimy lies. only time he ever commented, talked at what the problems were. when i went to the public archives and saw papers, a 20 page memo from henry kissinger detail link every single complaint and problem he had with the hersh book. there it was in this archive. only time i ever saw it was a specific response to sy in this cried out for sy to respond to the responses so i wrote to sy and said do you want to see it? do you want to comment on it? his answer was yesterday's news. didn't get an answer. i didn't need it. that is the way it went in our

conversations, short, short, little responses, sometimes he would direct me you should talk to this person, that person, sometimes he was helpful and i knew more at times about his work from 30 years ago, not a surprise, he is 72, 74 years old. and 30 or 40 years ago, sometimes do more than he did. at one point in time, i heard a tape and he told fascinating story. he had a housekeeper and the housekeeper was taking care of his house and his children. the telephone call comes to his house, a deep for unaccented voice and the person tells the housekeeper exactly where three children were at that moment and tell her exactly where sy's three children were at the

moment. it is clearly a threat to his family and security. he is very secretive about his family. he said this in the public talk with executive reporters. so i called sy and set i want to get more detail on this. the fbi investigates, every morning, six months, he would start his wife's car not knowing what would happen. so i asked, security stuff, never would discuss that. have a tape, talk about it, you're kidding me. i said that? me and my big mouth. so at times i was finding stuff that he didn't even quite remember. in 1968 sy crosser for short time on to the dockside. eugene from minnesota in 1967

decided to take on the sitting president lyndon johnson, and mccarthy, press secretary and seymour hersh was out of work and became his press secretary. didn't go very well by the way. he finally quit in the wisconsin primary. he wanted mccarty to go into the black neighborhood in milwaukee. mccarthy said it is not my style, i won't do it and hersh quit because he didn't think he was strong enough on race related issues. when he quit it ended up on page one of the new york times but i didn't know how to recreate this tumultuous 3 months period, a fascinating period and hersh has been accused of three things, uses too many anonymous sources, not a progressive, and he is not reliable. he is not reliable because he works for eugene mccarthy.

we all know what his politics are. this is an important chapter. didn't know how i would recreated. the university of minnesota, after the mccarthy campaign ended this is all history and they went out and interviewed anyone who worked for eugene mccarthy and it was a two hour of history interview with seymour hersh about what took place. i can't resist telling, hersh working for eugene mccarthy and needing money to do some mailing to promote the campaign. it is hersh, big money fat cats and paul newman the actor, the supporter of eugene mccarthy. and they start to argue and yell. base start to have a big fistfight. paul newman has to jump up and tackle one of the men tackle him to the ground and hersh is on

top of and paul newman is separating him. i tell him about this archive, i gave an interview, i have a big mouth. i was beginning to find, and many years in journalism. the biggest dance was access to his family. hersh for an -- sy history to older sisters, twins and the twin brother alan. as everyone said to me if you really want to look like sy hersh you got to get to his twin brother allen who had never given interviews with i call allen in northern california. my wife and i, a couple interviews on the project. my brother was thrilled to hear from me, set of two dates, then

sy intervened and began to growl and his biggest growl was who gives a damn about what i was like when i wore short pants in chicago? beyond that, nothing about my work. it is a book about my work, why should you talk to my brother? is a silly question. i don't think sy really believe that the budget by one to understand what motivated this guy, indefatigable investigative reporter, it would be great to know about the childhood, the parents. and clearly the person who would do that is his brother allen. and would never be able to interview his brother, and he has a twin sister who lives in northern new jersey, he very much wanted to talk to me, talk about the parents, sy intervened and that interview never happens. i wrote a letter to his wife all flow i was quite clear that i

would never be able to talk to his wife. he had told me early on that is not going to happen but it would have been wonderful to talk to his wife. imagining the wonderful things i would like to ask her so elizabeth, married to the same woman for many years, very beautiful and devoted family man. and a social worker, met her in chicago. she decided to go to medical school, working in washington, moved the family to new york, to the new york times. what was it like in 1969, after the massacre story, and soldiers would call you consistently at 3:00 in the morning and threaten to cut off your husband's private part. what was that like? was it like to live with this guy who got up at 5:00 in the morning, the on the phone by

6:00 with the united states senators, this wonderful memoir from john stennis, a powerful democratic united states senator, and he said sy hersh would call me at 6:00 in the morning. i would be in my pajamas and we would talk for an hour before would go to work. what was it like? this guy who would start his day at 6:00 in the morning talking to united states senators and 11:00 at night still be in the newsroom on the washington bureau of the washington times surrounded by folders, obscure government documents with the phone still quote in his neck trying to convince people to talk to him? what was it like to live with this obsessive guy? the other thing i would like to ask speaking of threats, this interesting time in new york, he comes to new york for two years, 1978-1979, the tail end of 7 years in the new york times, actually this week to major projects when he comes to the new york times. one is on gulf and western which